Today we’d like to introduce you to The Nukeproofs.
Thanks for sharing your story with us. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
The Nukeproofs are a four-piece Desert Punk band based out of North Hollywood, CA that is comprised of John Murphy (Bass/Vocals), Jake Bonn (Guitar/Vocals), Brodie Higgs (Guitar/Vocals), and Kyle Boe (Drums). The earliest incarnation of The Nukeproofs started with Jake and Kyle jamming in High School. Then eventually moving out to LA to attend Musicians Institute. There they met bassist John Murphy and immediately began playing shows and writing music as a three-piece. After a year of playing shows and releasing their first EP “Heatwave”, there were talks of adding another guitar player but the group didn’t know who could ideally fit the part. After a bit of consideration and already knowing Brodie Higgs as a great friend and great guitar player, it was an easy choice for them to have Brodie be a part of the band. Shortly after Brodie joining, they released their first full-length album entitled “VICES” on October 4th, 2019. With all the pieces falling into place the group set out to play as loud as they can, wherever they can, and to break the mold of normalcy within music and culture. In other words, it’s time to get weird again.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In short, as you’d expect, it hasn’t been a smooth ride. But those experiences have helped us shape who we are today. In the beginning, we didn’t really know what kind of musical direction we wanted to take the band or what kind of image we wanted to project. We just wanted to get out and play but also avoid the pay to play shows. Luckily, we ended up finding a lot of venues/promoters/gigs that weren’t play to play. And after so much time you start to cut your teeth and develop good live performance habits. With finding our sound and the chops to put on a good, high energy live performance, we still struggled with brand identity. We had to hash out the idea of who we really are. We realized that the music we make isn’t a traditional rock/punk sound, it obviously takes influence from that sound but it was about seeing what we can do with that sound to expand it into something bigger, stranger. And trying to convey that to an audience isn’t always easy. That’s when we knew we had to have an image people can latch onto so they know what they’re getting into when at a Nukeproofs show. Thankfully, Brodie stepped in to help match the image to the music and strengthen the direction. We’re still working hard at it but at least now we know the destination.
Please tell us about The Nukeproofs – what should we know?
We believe what set’s us apart from others is the kind of music we play. Bringing new influences to the table and seeing what works. Our influences pull from things like 70’s Psychedelic Rock, Hard Rock/Punk sounds from bands like Queens Of The Stone Age, Baroness, Black Flag, Red Fang, etc. There’s no right or wrong answer on what it means to be “punk” and I think that get’s lost nowadays. We don’t know if Desert Punk is really a thing but we found that the title fits the vibe of our music. It’s loud and in your face but also has a lot of space to it, melody, dynamics, unusual chord changes, etc. We strive to be different, to create something truly unique to us and music listeners out in the world. Along with committing to making strange tunes we also make sure people have a good time at our shows. It’s about the experience, if you aren’t having a good time on stage, then neither is the audience. To put it simply; if you go hard on stage, people will recognize it and they’ll go hard too.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
To name a few:
Sean Kellett- Sean produced our first full-length album VICES and held our Vices Release Party at his studio, where we recorded the album.
James Montes De Oca- Dedicating his time to come out to a bunch of shows to shoot some photos for us, as well as our official VICES Promo shots.
California Emo Collective (Marcus & Lisa)- They run a collective that put’s together local shows and through that we’ve met tons of great bands, played new venues, etc. We’re all growing together and the scene is getting bigger every month so it’s really cool to be apart of something like this.
Lenny J.- He’s a guitar teacher at Musicians Institute that plays in a punk rock cover band called Down The Hatch. When we were first starting out, we didn’t have a lot of venue connections as you’d imagine. But Down The Hatch essentially took us under their wing and we played a bunch of shows with them. They helped us avoid the pay to play places, and helped us make venue connections.
Grant Vance- Director and creator of our first music video for our song “Bad Decisions”. And we’d also like to thank him for being an all-around good dude and a good friend.
Without them, we probably wouldn’t be where we are today, we can’t thank all these people enough for helping us along the way!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thenukeproofs.com/
- Email: contact@thenukeproofs.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_nukeproofs/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenukeproofs/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_nukeproofs
Image Credit:
James Montes De Oca (JPM Media), Kelly Kellett (Kelly Mustapha Photography)
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