Nap Eyes Want to Be More Than the Sum of Their Influences

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This article originally appeared on Noisey Canada.

Nigel Chapman has a dry throat and he can’t stop coughing. It is nagging enough that most musicians would generally ask if the phone call can be rescheduled, but he powers through a 30-minute conversation the way he would if he was on a stage singing Nap Eyes songs in his loose baritone. Anyway, it’s something he’ll need to get used to, now that his band has become the subject of adoration for the music press and a growing fan base. Along with his bandmates–Josh Salter and Seamus Dalton, who also play in Monomyth, and the newly minted fourth member, Brad Loughead, also of Each Other – Chapman has had to take time out of his day job as a biochemist at Dalhousie University to hit the road to promote a brand new Nap Eyes album called Thought Rock Fish Scale, a collection of unflappable, jangling, classic indie rock songs that may have set a record for the number of comparisons one band has ever received – from the Velvet Underground and the Modern Lovers to Pavement and the Clean, the list is almost endless.

Thought Rock Fish Scale was originally set to drop a good year ago, after the band finished it up back in the spring 2014. But thanks to a debut album that wouldn’t quit in Whine of the Mystic, Nap Eyes were able to build some needed buzz that has set the stage for album number two to turn the business of rock and roll into a full-time gig for the four-piece. Noisey was able to grab a few minutes with Chapman over the phone and discuss the importance of living in Halifax, keeping the noise down out of respect for the neighbours and his dream to cover Green Day’s Dookie in its entirety.

Noisey: The rest of the band is in Montreal. What keeps you in Halifax?
Nigel Chapman: Good question. My family is still here, which helps me feel at home. I’m also working part time in a lab at Dalhousie University, where was I studying before. So having a really flexible job where my supervisor has been really gracious and supportive of us pursuing our music has really helped a lot to have a small and steady income but also go on tour. I also live here with my partner, and it’s inexpensive. Really there is no special reason to move. The only thing is the drive is so long! It’s like a 12-hour drive to Montreal. It’s not impossible, but any time we want to start a tour or go play a show it has to start with that drive.

Halifax has a pretty significant history when it comes to Canadian music. How much is that history an influence on Nap Eyes?
It’s a good place to grow up, and to play music here has been a great experience. The culture here for making music is very positive, very supportive and inclusive. I think in a lot of ways it’s unpretentious yet insular, but deeply supportive. All of your friends can be in bands, so you can also be in a band that is very democratic and supportive. There is also a legacy of great music here that never expected to succeed in any industry way, so you don’t have much posturing. There are so many great bands that I loved since I was young. For me, especially Dog Day are a significant influence, as well as the Burdocks. And also Celtic music, the bagpipes and fiddle, this beautiful folk music, they all contribute to Nova Scotia being a great place to learn and play music.

As a kid did you listen to a lot of the bands that put Halifax on the map in the ’90s?
For sure. Sloan was a huge influence on all of us, but especially Josh. I can read things on a scale of what can make me tear up, and definitely “The Lines You Amend” or “Coax Me” are just so beautiful. So there is a lot of influence there. As far as other bands, I’m not as well versed as I could be. But I do listen to Joel Plaskett though, and Thrush Hermit, but we were really influenced growing up around Charles Austin, who played in Super Friendz. He’s such an incredibly good person and a great teacher to be around and look up to.

Thought Rock Fish Scale was originally supposed to come out a year or so ago. What happened there?
Right, so we recorded it in May 2014, and basically we sat on the record for about nine months, not knowing what to do with it. So we talked to Steve Lambke from You’ve Changed Records, who was very encouraging about it. Because the first record was passed on to Paradise of Bachelors through Tamara Lindeman of the Weather Station, the idea came up of reissuing Whine of the Mystic and just giving it a longer press campaign so the band could exist and sit in people’s minds by the time the next record came out. It took a while, but it seems to have been worth it as far as getting people to hear the music. I have to bow down in gratitude to everyone who knows what they’re doing and have been so supportive of us, especially Steve at You’ve Changed, and Chris [Smith] and Brendan [Greaves] at Paradise of Bachelors. They’ve all be incredibly helpful to us, and we’ve been very lucky.

With the album done so long ago was there any hesitation on the band’s part to reissue Whine of the Mystic?
In a way, it was a little of, “Oh, really? It’s going to take that long before the new record comes out?” But I think that was the only question. From a strategic and practical perspective, we had no doubt that the people that knew what they were doing were right. I really wished when Whine of the Mystic had come out the first time that it had reached more ears, so it was also a great opportunity for people to hear it on a wider scale. The slowness of the time was a bit weird though because you artistically you want to move forward and have people hear it while you still relate to the songs. But there has been enough down time to work towards other things.

You’re getting a lot of great press with this album. Does any of that rub off on you?
Just gratitude and feeling happy about. With a publication like Pitchfork, which is something we’ve all been aware of our adult lives, and liking music so much and wanting to make it, we know how influential it is. We’ve loved and hated it a lot over the years. Of course any music criticism is deeply meaningful and influential because it brings people to your music, which is great. But it also gets things totally wrong and can be a drag. So in another sense, if you love a record and it gets a low rating it doesn’t matter. It’s so subjective and people can get it wrong. Definitely from a concrete, practical perspective we feel so lucky and relieved that this record has received good reviews. And I go through these different moods of self-loathing and egotism, but having friends and family help ground you.

I can’t remember a band that has received more comparisons than Nap Eyes. There are so many! And you guys do it to yourselves! Why do you feel the need to point out similarities between Nap Eyes and its influences?
For many of those bands I am flattered and grateful if there is a comparison. But that is mostly either the label or the press people who find those comparisons. I’m definitely grateful if someone thinks we do justice to the legacy of the Velvet Underground or Pavement, that’s amazing. But I don’t think we could claim it ourselves. This RIYL thing is strange. It helps people get into your music, but we feel a bit nervous about it.

It’s funny, because I’ve read how important Green Day were to you in your formative years, and yet, they are nowhere to be found. I’d like to hear an album of Nap Eyes covering Dookie.
I might be the only one in Nap Eyes who would want to do that, and I really would love to. Green Day remains to be one of my favourite bands. That influence doesn’t come through so much in the sound of the band, but definitely in the songwriting style and the persona of the singer. Those songs to me were deeply, deeply influential in making music, but also the ethos of making music without feeling like you have to be some kind of musical prodigy–like playing the guitar or singing with any technical skills to write good songs.

The lyrics are less concerned with enjoying alcohol this time around than they were on Whine of the Mystic. What changed for you?
Yeah, I guess that image on Whine of the Mystic, like wine as a symbol and alcohol as a force or substance to be reckoned with in life, I was thinking a lot about that when I was writing some of those songs. As a spiritual thing but also a physical intoxicant, as well as its function in my life and how I was using it to not feel so self-conscious. It’s funny to try to avoid feeling self-consciousness because that’s a goal, to be conscious of yourself, but the other kind of self-consciousness, if it’s undirected, it can be really debilitating and make you socially withdrawn. So using alcohol to try and overcome that is definitely an age-old thing and works in a totally moderate way. If you have two drinks at a party you can feel a little relaxed and outgoing. But if you feel you need way more that definitely won’t work because you will lose consciousness and become a fool. So that was something I was thinking of a lot while I was writing those songs. And when I began writing songs for Thought Rock Fish Scale I had worked through some of those demons in my life. So I think it was just different subject matter, which is why it isn’t as present on the next album. I was thinking of different things.

Is there a drink of choice for when you’re at a mixer?
[Laughs] It really depends on the time, but I definitely like to drink beer because it keeps you hydrated and it’s relaxing. Plus it’s filling if you’re hungry, and it will give you some calories. But I also like wine and whisky.

The album was recorded in “crisp daylight.” Is that because you guys aren’t night owls or because that was the available time?
It was definitely more of a daytime album than Whine of the Mystic, in terms of recording. It was just because we were at the cottage where my parents stay and we could wake up with the daylight. There’s no reason to stay up super late, but also because we had neighbours and we didn’t want to make noise well into the night. And that’s also a reason why we played more quietly on this record. But it’s just nice to be up in the daylight, especially when you’re on the shore. So it wasn’t intentional, but natural.

Well, it’s nice to know how considerate you are of the neighbours.
[Laughs] Either you consider them and try to be gracious, or you don’t and you get upset about upsetting people. But thanks for seeing it that way.

The band doesn’t use overdubs. Why is it so important to record live off the floor?
To date we haven’t used overdubs because I really like live recording. It feels natural and everything is connected. The guitars, the drums, the singing are all reacting to each other in a real time sense. And the dynamics make sense because you hear how loud everyone is playing. When we get quiet we have the ability to reach to each other, and the rhythm gets played in a certain way and we feed off of each other. I also really like when you get a decent take and it had a good vibe to it, you just accept it even if it has a few mistakes in it. I like that it helps curb perfectionism a bit.

With all of the technology out there, why record with a four-track?
It’s just simply because we didn’t have much of a choice. If we had the chance to record with a 16 or 24-track we would have, but it was the only tape machine we could find, and it was portable, so we could take it up to Pictou. But why we used it over a digital workstation, where you have way more flexibility and higher resolution, is because I like the feeling of being limited and boxed in. It helps with the perfectionism and lets you move on with simpler decisions. But it will be interesting to see what we do next time. It would be cool to have some higher fidelity equipment, for sure.

Cam Lindsay is a writer based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter.