Interview With The Wrecks’ Nick Anderson

I was happy to chat with Nick Anderson from The Wrecks last week, not only because they will be playing at Denver’s Gothic Theatre in June 17, but because I am also a fan of their music. Their sophomore album, Sonder, will be released this Friday and from the sneak peek I heard, it’s going to be another fave for all of us. Nick was very open, honest and charming – talking about his many COVID pastimes and his great love for Denver. Hope you can see them here, or other stops on their 2022 tour.

Photos provided by The Wrecks. Concert photos from 2018 by me.

Interview with The Wrecks’ Nick Anderson

Aimee:
For those not familiar, can you tell me a little bit about the origin of The Wrecks?

Nick:
Yeah, of course. Well, so The Wrecks hail from Southern California, Los Angeles. We started in late 2015. We all met through different bands that we were in over the years, and I had written a few songs and I needed a band, and I knew some of the other guys, and I was like, “Hey, do you want to be in my band?” And they said, “Yeah.” It was pretty simple.

Aimee:
Well, that’s nice.

Nick:
Within a week of being a band together, because I had written a few demos, we got a call about someone who was house sitting at a studio, and we have to kind of sneak into this recording studio and record our first few songs. We put those out, and then “Favorite Liar”, our first single ended up doing really well for us and got us signed to a record deal and started getting us tours and stuff. So then we started touring early 2016 right away.

Aimee:
Love it.

Nick:
And then, yeah, we basically haven’t stopped touring since, and we’ve signed two record deals since then. It’s quite the roller coaster over the last seven years. But it’s been really fun, but now we’re putting out our second album now and it feels surreal, yeah.

Aimee:
Yeah, that was going to be my next question. So your second album comes out this month. How did you came up with the name, “Sonder”?

Nick:
Yeah. It comes out on June 10th. Yes, “Sonder” is a word that I thought it was a real word. Apparently, it’s a word that was made up in 2012. You can find it in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows website. They’re a collective of people who put words to things that don’t have words, experiences, or phenomenon or things like that don’t have words to them. They make them up and “Sonder” was one of them, but I always knew it. Or I thought I always knew, I guess I didn’t. It’s the realization that everyone around you and everyone that you see, strangers specifically, all have lives as expansive and emotionally wide as your own. They all have complexities in their own lives that are just as complex as your own.

And I think it’s a testament to understanding that everyone is as important as you are and that just because your spawn point is maybe the United States, a cushy idea of the United States, does not mean that you are any more important or deserving of the basic necessities of life than anyone anywhere else in the world. And that’s kind of what I like about that word. And sometimes you are around people who you have to, who maybe don’t innately understand that, or feel that, or don’t challenge themselves to. And they just kind of live in their own little bubble, and that was very frustrating. So that is, that’s why I named the album that.

Aimee:
First of all, I love that. And I keyed on that because, one, I have this thing where, when I’m in the passenger seat, I look in windows as we’re driving by, not in like a voyeuristic way but in a “Wow, imagine”, it almost feels like looking out into the universe like… that person’s having their dinner right now, or putting their kid to bed, or deciding to get a divorce. I do that ALL the time.

Nick:
Oh yeah! And on the flipside, the cars driving by, where are they all going?! Each one of these people is me, I’m each one of these people.

Aimee:
Right! And secondly, the name Greeble for my site was actually a nickname my husband made up for our kid when I was pregnant. It was literally just a word he made up. And then now it’s these other things. It actually has these other definitions that we’ve found.

Nick:
Oh wow. That’s great.

Aimee:
So, seems like you pour a lot of emotions into your lyrics, but then you also allow for the listener to kind of make up their own conclusions. Is that on purpose or does it just work out that way… tell me about your songwriting process a little bit.

Nick:
I don’t know, it just starts with just writing honestly I guess, and just writing out a situation I’m thinking about or going through. I hardly or rarely ever exaggerate the story themselves, but sometimes I’ll include maybe an intrusive thought here or there that maybe, even in the moment I don’t necessarily agree with this emotion, but it is one that I felt. For a second there, I felt this anger or this resentment. I don’t carry it, but even when I’m sitting down to write the song, am I feeling this right now? No, but like it did show up. And that is something that I should recognize, whether that be, even if that emotion makes me look petty or makes me look foolish.

Those are real things that I thought, though. That’s kind of just the nature of storytelling and music for me I think, is accidentally stumbling on those, on that emotion or on the emotional lines that are important, that I don’t even realize their importance until I’m on stage and people are singing it back to me.

Aimee:
Wow, that’s interesting.

Nick:
And all of a sudden that lyric is the one everyone yells. I’m like, wow, I never…okay.

Aimee:
Right. The one that means something to everybody else.

Nick:
Yeah. It’s not very formulaic or calculated. It’s just kind of an expressive thing for me and an outlet. It’s always been an outlet, music. And for me to be able to do it for a living is, I feel extremely blessed. But I also recognize that the only reason that it is, is because I’ve always used that as an outlet and I’ve expressed and emoted honestly. I just stick to that with The Wrecks music.

Aimee:
That’s great. You’re in Denver on June 17th. Are you happy to be back on tour after the last couple years of craziness?

Nick:
Yeah. I’ve always kind of needed that balance. COVID kind of took that balance away, which is weird, that balance of being on the road versus being in the studio. But, we love Denver. I mean, we just put out a live version of our song, “Fuck Somebody” that was live in Denver because they gave us a standing ovation, which I didn’t even think was a thing. And our show wasn’t even finished, it was just kind of mid-set. They just didn’t stop cheering for six, seven minutes and we couldn’t believe it. The fact that this caught on camera is unreal. Denver’s always kind of been that thanks to Nerf and Channel 93.3 who played our music so much. He played our first single a ton and he made Denver really familiar of The Wrecks and our shows there have always been so great. We can’t wait to get back to see you guys. We’re excited to play our biggest Denver show yet.

Aimee:
It feels like you’ve got a really strong fan base. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?

Nick:
Yeah. I mean, the thing is, I keep going back to that moment in Denver on stage, when they wouldn’t stop cheering and it was just, most of us just collapsed on stage and just lived in it. And I think that was just built up for so long with COVID and not being able to play. It was one of our first shows back and I think we were all just equally saying, “Look, we’re back.” It was a mutual, “Thank you.” And a mutual “You’re welcome.” It was just this really lovely moment. I wish I could thank each one of those crowd members personally and individually. And I’m hoping a lot of them will be at this next show and I’ll certainly bring it up, which will be great. I mean, just thank you to everyone who’s purchasing tickets and still listening to The Wrecks.

Aimee:
So, did you come out of the pandemic with any new hobbies? That’s my favorite question.

Nick:
Yeah. I picked up crochet.

Aimee:
Really?!

Nick:
I also picked up sewing. I also learned how to fix my garbage disposal, how to hook up the water line to my fridge, I learned how to fix my sink. I, oh, what else did I pick up? I learned a ton of stuff. Oh, I learned how to train my dog. I got a puppy during COVID and I learned how to train him, which is more, when you really get into it, it’s more work than you think. There’s a psychology behind it. All dog owners out there get it. I learned how to set up a guitar, which is really hard.

Aimee:
What do you mean by set up a guitar? Sorry I am not knowledgeable.

Nick:
Setting up a guitar is basically you get your guitar from the factory, or your guitar’s going out of tune a bunch and you can’t figure out why. There’s about eight different things that all work toward each other with tension and with the bridge versus the neck versus the…

Aimee:
And you weren’t doing that before?

Nick:
Well, no, we’d have someone else do it, because it’s subtle. You can, even if a guitar plays totally fine, maybe you want the action to be a little lower, so you want the strings to be closer to the actual fret board. You don’t want them so high because when the strings are high off of the thing you’re pressing on, it hurts your fingers. You have to push them down harder. But if the strings are closer to it, then it’s easier to play. But if they’re too close, they’re going to buzz because they’re going to touch metal parts on the guitar. And if they’re, and sometimes when you adjust that to exactly where you want it, now your bridge, this other piece of the guitar, is lifted and a little bent because you did something wrong. And so you have to find the happy medium between this thing, you want this one to be perfect, but to fix both of them, you have to fix this thing up here. And so, and they all-

Aimee:
Wow. I knew it was complicated, but I-

Nick:
…Yeah, I had no idea. I had no clue. It’s pretty amazing. It’s quite the little task. I can’t remember what else I picked up. I learned how to do something new every single day it seems like. And today I’m programming our light show for the tour because our LD had to drop out because he got a different tour offer. And so I-

Aimee:
Can I make a plea for photographers?

Nick:
Sure.

Aimee:
That red lights are horrible.

Nick:
Red lights are horrible. Got it.

Aimee:
Sorry. Didn’t mean to butt in…

Nick:
No, that’s good information. Anyway, that’s a few things that I picked up during COVID.

Aimee:
That’s a lot of things, actually. So, I know you’re short on time, but is there anything that is coming up or exciting for The Wrecks that you should mention?

Nick:
Sure. We got this record coming out June 10th. We’re hitting the road June 9th and it’s a long one and we’re hopefully hitting the road again in the fall to get to some more cities that we didn’t get to on this tour. So yeah, I mean the ball is not going to slow down anytime soon. The train’s going to keep chugging along.

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