Nik Nocturnal: “I was kicked off the Honours programme but didn’t care, I just wanted to cover songs”

Love it or hate it, but over the past couple of years, the landscape has shifted for the music industry. With gigs and touring off-limits, bands, artists and content creators turned to the internet to get their work out there. While it now seems like everyone is a content creator these days, some have managed to turn it into a full-time career rather than just releasing videos recorded in their kitchen ranting about how the new Limp Bizkit album sucks.

One of the success stories of the internet revolution has been Nik Nocturnal, a man who has gone from releasing covers to recording reaction videos on a whole raft of subjects to working with some of the biggest names in modern metal. That’s before we’ve even started on one of his numerous musical project Termina.

Recently, we spoke to Nik about his life, his gateway into heavy music and, of course, his thoughts on the state of the music industry and how the pandemic forced a change in mindset for the entire industry.

Thanks for your time, Nik; like I said earlier, I’d like to do a deep dive into your story, starting with the early days…

Nik Nocturnal: “I came at the end of MySpace and used some of the earlier stuff like MSN and probably had a few YouTube channels as well. I like messing with everything, but I really got into MySpace.”

What about music? What was your gateway into heavy music?

“I was with my cousin all the time, and he would just have heavier music when we were younger. I started off with bands like Alexisonfire, As I Lay Dying, Underoath and stuff like that. That was technically my intro, but I always thought, ‘oh, what’s this scary demon screaming music stuff?’”

A familiar story. What was the song or band that gave you that holy fuck lightbulb moment?

“I think it had to have been probably As I Lay Dying’s ‘Through Struggle’ – that was kind of my first intro to metalcore. I mean, technically, it was Avenged Sevenfold’s Unholy Confessions, but I was like, ‘wow, what is this? It’s horrifying, but I love it.’”

V13 Cover Story 006 – Nik Nocturnal – Sep 26, 2022

Fast forward and by now, you’ve probably worked with most of the bands that inspired you to take up this career…

“Yeah, I mean, there’s been a good amount. I mean, that’s the thing. It will take too much time to reflect on what has happened because I’m always in go-go-go mode, working on what I have to plan next to keep things going. That being said, a lot of the guests I’ve had on Twitch have been incredible. I’ve never thought I’d ever talk to any of these people.

“It’s cool to talk with some of the people that I grew up listening to and just fans of their bands. That’s just been awesome in general. It’s been a very crazy journey, whether it’s like videos doing well, or meeting musicians and hanging out and talking to them or writing music with cool people. There have been some great moments.”

What took you from being a fan into doing something more serious?

“I just want to release original music, and I was already learning songs. So I thought, why not just do covers to help get the original music out there? That was literally the only vision. I was at school. I was gonna do nothing music related, actually. I went to school to be an accountant.

“This was just like a passion I had on the side, just having fun writing music, and I just did it for myself. Like, I have so many old demos on a USB hard drive. I have 100+ songs on there. They suck, but I have 100 songs on there. Just like, OG stuff I wrote that, like, no-one’s ever really heard.”

Any plans to ever release them?

“Probably, I don’t know. Maybe if I ever reached some crazy fun milestone, or like, some 10-year thing of me doing this, maybe I’ll just release a video where I just play all the demos and talk about stories and stuff like that, you know, some special thing. Back then, I wrote music just for myself, then I released some of it on SoundCloud and having like one person comment, a real person, it blew my fucking mind.

“I was just very excited and decided to start putting it on YouTube and go from there doing covers and stuff. There really was no vision. I just like writing music. The stuff at the beginning, it was horrifying, but it changed me. I realized that I kind of needed to take it seriously and that there needs to be a plan. The YouTube channel at that point was doing okay, and I was in University at the time, halfway through, and I basically noticed that I was in class writing on my fucking accounting papers and not really caring. There was one big moment where I went to my Guidance counsellor because they take you in if you’re not doing well.

“I was doing okay, but my accounting marks weren’t good, and I specialized in accounting because I was supposed to be an accountant. They were asking why I was doing this stuff if I was really bad at it, and all I knew is that, while I was in there, Architects released a new song, ‘Doomsday,’ and I wanted to go home and cover it. As soon as I went home, I realized I got kicked out of the honours part of the programme, but I didn’t really care; I just wanted to cover songs. That was kind of a big moment for me.”

Over the last couple of years it has been a brutal time for the music industry but, for many bands and also someone like yourself who produces digital content, it’s also been a very exciting time with new opportunities opening up…

“Yeah pandemics are never fun but in terms of the internet, for a content creator, it’s exciting because there’s a lot of bands now coming to it. There’s a lot of the music industry accepting the content creation world because that’s the only place they can go to help promote their bands. There was a lot of innovation happening which is really exciting not just in the content creator space but in the musical space as well and the internet culture space. There was a big boom because that’s where everyone was because they can’t go outside.

“It’s been exciting seeing these things happen and I hope that more of those things happen. Not more pandemics obviously but more innovation and there’s more internet culture.Things that happen that help push that world so that the regular world can coexist with the internet culture world and the music industry can coexist with the content creator space. I feel like I’m starting to see that, especially now, because there has been nowhere else to go. I’m starting to see that integration a lot more and I hope to see it even more.”

“There was one big moment when I went to a meeting with my Guidance Counselor and while I was there Architects released a new song ‘Doomsday’ and I realised I had got kicked out the Honours programme but didn’t care, I just wanted to cover songs…”

Artwork for ‘Burnout’ by NIK NXK

Back in the early days of the internet, there seemed to be an apprehension from the music industry. Do you think that the mentality has changed especially over the past two years and people now see it as a priority?

“Just in general, the fact that labels are accepting that YouTubers are important. Like, I think it’s cool that even things like TikTok or these social platforms are really important and the creators on them are important too. For the industry to work with them that’s huge. I don’t know if that would have happened for another five years if it wasn’t for the pandemic.

“The music industry was forced to go to these places because there was nowhere else. I genuinely don’t know if that would have happened for a lot longer. That was a big change. It was a huge change and it was very accepting. It was cool to see that integration and I hope that integration keeps building.”

In terms of that, you could see the bands that were willing to try approaching things differently over the last two years. In your opinion, who are the bands pushing the boundaries of music in 2022?

“It depends as there are so many bands and different genres but in terms of the community I’m focussed on Spiritbox has been doing an awesome job. Lorna Shore doing the deathcore thing and pushing that. Darko US has been awesome as have Brand of Sacrifice. I know there are a lot of deathcore bands there but I feel that deathcore currently is a bit more crazy and, in this state of evolution, it’s really cool to see what the deathcore scene is doing. They’ve been going wild and becoming more integrated with internet culture.

“There are just a lot of the bands doing cool stuff in that scene, the metalcore scene and even the tech/death bands like Archspire. Then there is the non-metal stuff like Polyphia in math rock because that boundary of heavy music just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s so many bands it could just go off anywhere. You just don’t know what’s coming next. I love that you can listen to a song that seems like it’s a pop song then there’s a deathcore breakdown.”

Music is clearly something you’re very passionate about but your single “Industry” was quite scathing about the industry. What triggered the inspiration behind that song?

“Just coming from an outsider’s point of view and the perspective of being a content creator for all those years, then coming into the music industry and having bands and friends I know telling me how the standards that have been set for what seems like the last like 40 plus years haven’t adapted or evolved with modern age and modern culture or how the internet works and how important that is.

“I started to question how the fuck these things are normalized and how the music industry works and how bands can make literally no money. I know and understand why that stuff happens and I understand the use of labels and are great for something bands that literally need them because they can’t even afford to get a song mixed. Some bands just want to do music and they realize that this is a business and you have to do everything – finance it, market it, get it out there, distribute it.

“In the modern age, again, coming from that content creator space where it’s like, well, yeah, that’s you. That’s normal. You’re a YouTuber; you’ve got to figure everything out. You got to do your thumbnail. I got to know how to edit my videos, you got to know how to get out there. There’s no YouTube networks that kind of act as intermediate like labels do in that sense. That being said, I work with a lot of good labels and incredibly amazing A&R People that I love working with.

“It’s the big labels and that very old school mentality where the people that actually get here with these mentalities are the bands, they’re the ones who suffer because of an unwillingness to move on from the old school mentalities. The music industry is fucked up and as I got more into it and started hearing a lot of stories about how it works and how things are covered up that was what I wanted to get out of the song. I’m not a lyricist so I try my best to write from a general sense instead of being about anything specific. Like I said though, I work with a bunch of labels and, in terms of working with their bands they have a great relationship with them. It’s not aimed at those forward-thinking labels, it was much more at this old-school, dinosaur culture and how they fake reality without having a natural connection or understanding of how the content creator space works just to get an audience.”

Do you think the pandemic forced that element of the industry to rethink the way it works?

“Oh, yeah. 100%. Before they didn’t have to. Your band goes on tour, it promotes a new album, you get your money, it is as simple as that. Now, they have to think about reaction channels as a part of the marketing campaign. I never thought I’d say that. Now they send press releases to reactors and that was not not even close to a thing before so even seeing things like that is a huge step up in the integration sense. But yeah, that bigger picture and seeing the change is really important and I’m happy about that.

“My frustration with all the old school mentality that will not adapt is that they have a lot of these big, incredible musicians and bands that rely on the set structures and because they won’t adapt, those bands are going to be the ones that have to deal with how it collapses. They’re going to be the ones out of pocket, not being able to pay their bills and that could even happen to the legacy bands. It’s messed up.”

You’re right. I think the pandemic gave the industry a bit of a shake up but only time will tell. In terms of your own music, you’ve got a new Termina single out and you’ve described that as a new era for the project. What’s your vision for that era?

“A new era in the sense of basically finally fulfilling the vision that we had with the first album Dysphoria, which was just me and Andy and a vocalist just going out writing songs, modern metal stuff. We like a variety of things from deathcore to metalcore to post hardcore to tech stuff to tech/proggy stuff. Just throwing it out there and making it a nice cohesive package as best we could. We self-produced, self-mixed, self-mastered, just did the best with what we could. We had a videographer, Patrick, who did our videos, who we’re still working with. For the new era we now have a drummer, Chris Turner from Oceans Ate Alaska, who’s also an incredible guy, just hands down one of the best modern metal drummers that exists. I’m working with someone who actually mixes, Zach Savini, who’s literally mixing all the modern metal bands.

“Basically, I’m forming this team, including Patrick, our videographer, which has this cohesiveness, this unique package. Even just adding Chris as a variable has just changed this whole song and I love that. That’s what I kind of meant by this new era of the band, like this complete package.”

“I know there are a lot of deathcore bands there but I feel that deathcore currently is a bit more crazy and, in this state of evolution, it’s really cool to see what the deathcore scene is doing. They’ve been going wild and becoming more integrated with internet culture.”

How did it work writing together during lockdown or was this something that came together before that?

“Well, I mean, that’s the thing. I’m just fortunate enough that I can work from home. So it was the same mentality of doing YouTube videos, doing Twitch and then writing on the side. It’s not like we have to go out together and write together. We can have Zoom calls, we can have Discord calls, that’s how we write anyway. It’s how we wrote before the pandemic.

“It was basically business as usual. If anything, there were just more people on the internet, so just a bigger audience to reach out with everything we were doing.”

Great stuff, just to finish then, what can we expect from you during the rest of 2022?

“More Termina. We’re working on it trying to get stuff rolled out like more singles, we’re learning all the time. We released the first single, we did the research and development and got the feedback. We’re putting that into the next one. The songs are already basically fully written, but we can go back and update and change and do what we need to do. That’s what I love about this approach of “here’s a song, what do you guys think? Okay, thanks for the feedback.” We’re able to do that, because we’re not on this usual band schedule of having to get the whole album out by a specific date, we’re more here are the songs and then when the album is done here, it’s all part of this longer rollout.

For NIK NXK, I’m just kind of working on that on the side, while there’s downtime with Termina for me. It’s a place where it’s a different creative outlet. More vocal focus for me as I have to write lyrics which is completely different, I’m bad at it but I’m trying to learn. I’ve got to move that on and start getting maybe the singles out, some covers with like, Will Ramos. The covers aren’t original music but it’s a fun thing to do. As well as the covers and the other stuff then there’s just everything like the constant YouTube content, the Twitch streams five days a week, the tech talks now, every couple days, the Instagram posts, the Facebook posts every week. It’s just never ending. There’s just this constant stream of content and original music that’s being put out hopefully, that people enjoy.”

Brilliant, good luck with all of that. Just to wrap up then, like you said, it’s a constant stream of content. What about on a personal level? Given the history you’ve got, what about a Nik Nocturnal book or a movie?

“I’m not a reader. I’m too illiterate for that so I don’t think a book anytime soon. Or movie. For me, it’s just bigger picture things. I really want to get these original projects consistent and flushed out and releasing on a regular basis. Then, from there, just start to think bigger picture, YouTube stuff, videos, expand, see what works and adapt.

“That’s always been my thing. Even the landscape itself just changes every few months so we shall see where I’m at, like, maybe a year from now, it would make sense to only do covers for everything, or maybe a year to do no reactions? I don’t really know. I’m just kind of going with it. Whatever content is still exciting, and fun and invigorating for me, I throw in the mix, and focus on that. I have no idea where it’ll end up so I’m just focusing on things that I’m excited about pushing it out. Enjoying trying to be as creative as I can, and whatever that leads to adapt and go with the flow.”