Heyrocco is currently on tour with the Garden and So Pitted for the Big Shot Jack Pot Tour which began on October 8th. Before hitting the road the boys Nathan Jake Merli (who for the purposes of this article asked to be referred to as J.), Tanner Cooper and Christopher Cool were hanging out in Nebraska where J. was nice (or bored) enough to talk to me about music, McDonalds and “hippy advice.”
In a perfect world this interview would have been shared with you via an audio clip — J’s southern accent makes everything sound impressively sincere and charming, but it would also mean being subjected to a) my own shrill voice b) the shoddy sound of a phone interview. Bottom line is that the Heyrocco dudes are the people you want at your house party. You’re also going to want to be at their show, the proof of which is below.
So you guys are in Nebraska right now?
Yeah fortunately we’re in Omaha. The first show of the tour is Sunday in Reno. Right now we’re just traveling. Well we’re going sky diving then we’re going rocky mountain climbing then I’m going 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu that’s what we’re going to do over the next two days.
That sound’s exciting
Sounds fun right? Then we’re going over to old Reno blowing in the wind.
And this is the first time you’re touring with the Garden?
It is, we’ve never met so tomorrow we’ll start our friendship!
Are there any cities you’re looking forward to playing in?
Seattle’s probably the number one place I’ve always wanted to go to and I’ve never been there. We’re going to Portland too, I’m gonna get a tattoo. Portland should be fun, good fun for the whole family. We’ve also got to go to Texas for a few days which always kind of scares me.
Why does Texas scare you?
Well last time I went there they put me behind bars. So Texas is kind of scary when you’re you know — a free loving, drug taking… nah I’m just kidding about all that.
Yeah Texas is not very high on my travel list
Nobody’s high there [laughs]. I like Austin, we’re also going to Dallas and I was born there so that’ll be kind of cool, playing where I was just a little wee youngin’.
This tour schedule seems crazy it’s just like back to back shows, every night a different city.
Yeah I like that, we finally got a guy booking shows for us. When we started out, most people probably think it was magic fairy dust sprinkled across cities if we played a show there, but really it just took a lot of time staring at screens sending a bunch of fake ass emails about how popular your band is to go play a Monday night in Salt Lake City. So I’m glad we’re playing like that. I wish we were playing every day. These few days out in Reno are kind of killing me. We live for the stage, I like thinking that we just live for performing and being on stage and just getting to have a good time. We’re just big rigging truckers when we’re not playing gigs.
What is the approach to your live performances?
Sometimes we write down a setlist and we follow that. But that’s just a little organized, and a little predictable. These days we might turn a 3 minute song into a 5 minute song or a 9 minute song even. All the best music that I actually listen to for more than a few months at a time is spontaneous, so that’s what we’re going for. And lately we play a lot earlier. The band is a lot more focused at 7 or 8 than when we’re playing in someone’s living room at 1 am.
From what i’ve seen it seems like you guys have a pretty big
ego!
[laughs] fanbase, in Europe. Have you seen a real difference between European and American audiences?
Well sometimes no one’s at your show and sometimes hundreds of people may come. It depends on where we’re actually playing. When we’re in Europe attendance isn’t as important to me as just the style that we bring. We’re rednecks from South Carolina and that makes us appealing for some reason. It’s just something different, it’s something they’re not use to hearing every day. When we play a show there we already feel like we have this special trick up our sleeves. That’s a big part of it and people feed off of that. It’s like these guys are maybe the greatest band in the world even though there’s not that many people at the show.
I mean, in Europe kids love to go to concerts. Its so strange! I mean people go to concerts here too but it’s usually this weird niche group of radio station kids from college. But there it’s just recreational. It’s not like you saw Bassnectar one time and that was your concert experience your whole life. That would be unheard of there, you’d almost be an unexperienced person if that was the only live music you’d ever witnessed.
Do you have any really wild tour stories?
Oh sure! Let me just pick one out of the hat. How about this time that I went to McDonalds and I asked them for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit and they gave me a McMuffin. I’m like what the fuck I asked for a biscuit baby! And she says do you know where you are? I say no, and she says you’re in Clemson prison and this is all that we give you. Then I said wait a minute how did I get here? Then they told me that I tried to steal this kids guitar or something… so I kind of traced back to that. I don’t know I guess I really did try to. That was a wild time in Clemson, South Carolina.
So your latest thing was Waiting On Cool
Yeah that was just a few tracks that we recorded with a couple of guys here and there. One cat in Nashville one cat back in Charleston where we live and it’s all these songs you can really sing along to so we thought we’d put them on this little hip hop EP and the follow up is underway.
Do you have a timeline for that?
I don’t know, usually what happens is we hit the road and I just bring an extra guitar. We usually just make songs as we goand we’ve got a session booked to record at the end of this run in Echo Park so who knows we might be there for like a day, we might be there for a fortnight. We’ll probably just record all the tunes we got, put them all on a disc, ship it and go from there. Who knows, maybe we’ll end up in Omaha playing theatre [laughs].
Waiting On Cool was kind of a departure from your first LP. Is the next album going to be a continuation in the shift away from that sound?
I look at all those tracks as just figuring out how to write songs. So maybe it sounded like this feel or this time period or from this scene. But I don’t really think about it like that anymore. We just sort of make a song and the song kind of just makes itself. The sound will probably share similar tones and instrumentation but it’s just figuring out how to sing, that’s all I’ve ever done. But before I was talk-singing, this next one is you know holding out a note a little longer, giving the people what they really want — giving them that home run singalong. These next songs will all go together because they’ll have more emotion, more melody, maybe less conviction actually [laughs]. I’m not too worried, people talk about it so much and overthink it but it’ll be alright. I just want it to sound free, I want it to sound like people who are truly free from any kind of fears or their past or anything like that. I think that’s what our discography is lacking.
Do you personally feel completely free from those things?
Yeah I really do, I feel like a new man these days. I don’t know what it is maybe it took a certain amount of time on the road and maybe it took a certain person but I just feel more comfortable in my skin than I ever have. Whatever I’m going to turn out now it’s just gonna be the chapters or wisdom that I’ve read or that was shared on my time on this Earth. There’s some real hippy guidance for you.
Are there any cultural references that are, or have become important to you?
There are two parts to this answer. The first being just the music side of things — simply the notes. That aspect should always be developing. People should always be practicing even if you think you’re the best or if you have a gig every night. It comes back to the improvisation of the show. If you just play the same songs front to back you’re not really practicing you’re just going through the motions. We create a palate in the music that allows us to progress. I hear a new fill in there, or I hear a new lick, I like to surprise. We’ve got eyes to play something fresh so that’s just from listening and diving into the right music. We clearly listened to a lot of 90’s rock for a long time which is great and all but there’s more than that. And that’s how you hear a scale you’re not familiar with.
The second part and from a business side of things the Beatles are just the best band in the world in most people’s opinion. They made so many records and that’s what we want to do.
Have you noticed specific relationships between certain drugs and certain aspects of the creative process? Like I don’t know maybe Adderall is great for writing or something…
Over these last shows it’s become more clear that drugs are not really the answer. When it comes to the music we make, you know whatever we smoke a lot of pot. We sometimes do other drugs but that’s not really the key to success by any means. It’s also not going to help you make a certain song you know? For example I’ve taken LSD and tried to make a song and it doesn’t really happen, it just really doesn’t.
What you do discover is that total carefree accepting-the-world-for-what-it-is vibe instead of just complaining or writing comments on society. And that helps you get that song that you think drugs will get you.
You bring up Adderall and it’s kind of shitty. Kids take it everywhere every day to focus in school which is almost just cheating, I don’t know it’s kind of shitty. You don’t get any homegrown affect from it. You don’t develop any sense of a work ethic or focus or anything like that. I’ve played tons of shows on it and in your mind you’re amazing and you get off stage and the people whose opinions you value are like no that was shit man. So instead you have a beer you have a meal you go on stage you get the guitar, you face the audience, you face your fears and you just do your thing.
I find that’s the most helpful thing for me because it’s hard, it really is because once you do those drugs they exist in your brain and you can think I’m not going to be any good without it, I won’t be myself. But being yourself is truly being yourself and not altering your mind in any sort of way. That’s my outlook on it right now on this day in October.
Did you guys ever tour when you were underage in the States?
Oh yeah that’s when it all started. It was fine it really made us realize the difference between the north and south. In Alabama they would give us beer and say we don’t care — here do whatever you want to do. Up north there were times we were being escorted out of the venue for just trying to sell a fucking t-shirt after the gig. But not being 21 you had to be outside after you played whether it was hail, snow or whatnot. It was cool we just had to act more mature to not really get messed with. It was good for us as people and that’s been different now for a year or two. We’re just really growing up these days but yeah those were good times.
Catch them when they roll through town on October 23rd at The Studio at Webster Hall or at one of their other shows across the country which you can peep below.
Oct 9 Holland Project – Reno, NV
Oct 11 Analog Cafe – Portland,OR
Oct 12 Timbre Room – Seattle, WA
Oct 15 Larimer Lounge – Denver, CO
Oct 16 Lookout Lounge – Omaha, NE
Oct 18 The Garage – Burnsville, MN
Oct 19 Chop Shop – Chicago, IL
Oct 20 The Pike Room – Pontiac, MI
Oct 21 The Smiling Moose – Pittsburgh, PA
Oct 22 Goldilocks Gallery – Philadelphia, PA
Oct 23 Studio at Webster Hall – New York, NY
Oct 24 The Canal club – Richmond, VA
Oct 25 New Brookland Tavern – Columbia, SC
Oct 26 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
Oct 28 Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX
Oct 29 Sidewinder – Austin, TX
Oct 30 Walter’s – Houston, TX
Oct 31 Three Links – Dallas, TX
Nov 2 The Rebel Lounge – Phoenix, AZ
Nov 3 Che Cafe – La Jolla, CA
Nov 4 Velvet Jones – Santa Barbara, CA<
Waiting On Cool is available for streaming on Apple Music, and Spotify. Keep up with their shenanigans on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Story and Interview by Tamim Alnuweiri. Follow her @tamimalnuweiri.