RECORD PRODUCER, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Going back to about 1981 or 82, I saw the b-lovers at Channing Murray and they are awesome. I loved the way they sounded, such a cool sound/ They finished their set with a cover of I Wanna Destroy You and that was mind blowing. It was like, this band is totally up my alley, man — like total worship. This is what it’s all about. This is what a local band should be right here. The band brought out great things for Nick, being with his buddies on stage with some volume. I met him via the Pop Shop, the record store co-owned by Paul Rock and Fred Anderson. Not too long after that we all became friends and I helped them do sound, roadied, doing demos and stuff like that.
Later in ‘83 I did the recording they sent to Mitch Easter. They demo’d, god knows how many songs, and Mitch had a voice in picking them out. We were having a discussion about songwriting and Nick talked about how lyrics really really mattered. We used to have these long discussions, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and just listen to music. I remember he was explaining this to me, and it stuck with me always, about the importance of lyrics. Around that time he started writing songs that were no fluff—stuff that was very well thought out and from a deeper place. And this would have been right around the time just before they went to record with Mitch and the name change happened from b-lovers to Turning Curious.
Nick was into digging deeper. That was something I learned from him about music—to dig deeper into a piece of music and necessarily be impressed by the frosting on the cake. Songs that are done well have multiple layers, and you can peel them like an onion. That was a valuable lesson from Nick. I had so much respect for him and I always thought it would be cool if I could write something that Nick thought was cool.
He was obviously so gifted, a complete natural. I don’t think Nick even thought he was that great of a singer but if you were recording him, you could get ALL SORTS of great stuff from his voice. He could sing really well. A great voice isn’t about octaves, it’s someone who has the ability to convert emotion and can express themselves with uniqueness. Nick qualified on all counts.
I never thought of Nick as someone who was down that much but that’s probably because he hid it very well. I thought of him as the thinker, a quiet thinker, because he was often in his own quiet world. There were so many amazing things going on at that time, it’s like “Oh, so incredibly awesome special stuff just happens in life!” And perhaps later on, with some reflection, you realize you might have actually been around something that doesn’t happen every day and is actually incredibly special. That’s how I feel about that time period — just super grateful that I happened to have been in Champaign-Urbana at that time. I was fortunate to have been around people like Nick, Paul Rock, Fred Anderson, and Steve Scariano in terms of musical influence, how to find music, and how to listen to it. Those guys set me on the right path. I am forever grateful that Nick was a part of my life.