For those who may not have heard of you guys or your music before, share a bit about yourselves and how you got into music!
Hey I’m Kyle and I play drums in The Dirty Nil. I saw a kid I went to school with playing the drums at a 5th grade talent show and thought “Hey, I can do that!”. Eventually, my parents let me get drums and here we are today.
Favorite song of yours to perform live and why?
I really enjoy playing 'Smoking is Magic' live. Nothing feels better than when we're locked in and the rhythms of that song really gets the crowd moving. We usually play it later on so it really kicks things up again for the second half of our set.
Your new album, Fuck Art, comes out on January 1st, 2021. What was your favorite part of creating this album? How has your music-making process progressed since you released your last album in 2018?
For 'Fuck Art', we pushed ourselves to explore some new territory and see what we can really do musically. It felt really good to just remind ourselves that we can do whatever we want and to have fun with it. I don’t think we’ve changed how we create music all that much from how we always have... it’s just us getting in a room and helping Luke’s ideas take shape. Best songs win.
Is there any advice anyone’s ever given you that really stuck with you? What would you tell aspiring musicians trying to break into the music industry?
Atom Willard gave me tons of good advice when we were touring with Against Me! in 2017. The best bit for me was his reminder that there are a million ways to play the drums, but you’ve gotta find what way works best for you. So it was a reminder to explore things for yourself and find your way of playing.
I always tell bands if they want to make a real go at it then try and get out of your own town and play shows. Get on the road and play as many shows as you can, because you learn a lot that way and you become a better musician also.
In 2015, you got to play Warped Tour! What was that experience like?
Warped Tour was a lot of fun at times and a slog at others. It really is a lot of hard work and our band was kind of an outlier compared to most of the other bands that were playing the festival that year. I will always appreciate the friends I made on that tour but if it were still around today I most likely wouldn’t do it again.
Who/what have been your latest sources of inspiration when writing and creating music?
I’ve been really into bands like METZ and Idles lately. Those are bands I spend a lot of time playing along to when I’m practicing. Really depends on the mood I’m in or how a song hits me but those two bands lately for sure.
Other than your upcoming album, do you have any other upcoming projects (music videos, livestream shows, etc) that you can tell us about?
We’ve got our 'Dancing 2 Thrash' livestream “tour” happening Oct. 13th - Nov. 5th. We're going to be playing 14 shows from venues across North America... and each one is going to be unique, you can tune into any show you want! Grab those tickets, we promise it'll be loud and weird!
What do you hope to achieve with creating music/anything in particular that you want people to take away from listening to your music?
Music is a great escape for me or a way to reinforce a way I’m feeling. When it comes to the Nil I want people to be able to forget about their problems just for a minute, and hopefully it can put a smile on their faces as they sing/dance along. It's okay if you cry, too.
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