On the eve of his show at the Belmont on St-Laurent, two incredibly hungover members of our staff took Islands front-man Nick Diamonds out for a beer to talk about his recent album Vapours, his unique fashion sense and his direction for the future.
The new album has received almost universal acclaim in the press, does that give you any sense of validation?
Nick Diamonds: No never, I never feel validated by the press, I guess that gives me the drive to continue and do better.
How do you feel being back in Montreal?
(smiles) Feels weird, lots of strange memories.
You moved to Brooklyn after the release of your first album, how would you say it differs from Montreal.
Well I guess the big difference is that there isn’t a close knit community, in Montreal everyone absolutely seems to know everyone. Brooklyn is more scattered, there isn’t — or should I say I never found — a close knit musical community. I guess there are certain eras of people who know each other, for example the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Liars, the TV On The Radio era are all friends and hang around in the same social circles, but I don’t know, it seems like bands now don’t really mingle much…or maybe I’m just anti-social. But ultimately everywhere is probably the same. I mean I haven’t been here for 3 years I think it’s changed a lot since then.
Can you talk a little about how this record came to be, and what influenced it?
Some of the songs are older, many of the song weren’t written in a linear time frame. A few of the songs even predate the release of the first record, coming up 5 years ago. Some of the songs were written directly for the album. So there wasn’t one cohesive thing going on, these songs were collected for the specific intent of going on this record. You know, there’s a song called “Tender Torture”, that was written in 2005, which was after the first record was recorded but before it came out, and it didn’t seem appropriate to go on the second record. It was kinda laying low, there was no purpose for it (on the second album). It’s same for the next record, I have songs for the next record that predate Vapours” that just didn’t fit, so that goes into consideration. So it’s hard to say that there was one unifying inspiration or feeling.
Many people have commented on the upbeat nature of the record. Were you consciously trying to make a happier more upbeat record than your last album?
Yeah, not happier necessarily. Lyrically it’s probably a lot more depressing than the last record, but it’s a lot less showy about it, a lot less bulky. With Arms Way I think I was consciously really trying to be taken seriously , and I feel with “Vapours” that I really snapped-back and tried to make a really nice sounding record that could appeal to as many people as possible. Instead of being this self-directed thing where it was all inward like Arms Way, Vapours was really trying to digest or to metabolize how I was doing. It was self-referential, but it wasn’t looking inwards so much, I wanted to have the effect of being outward-looking. I wanted it to be about an artist, or someone who’s trying to make their living from music, and trying to reconcile the craft with the commercial side of things.
Speaking of the commercial aspect, I noticed the cape in your promo pictures and absolutely loved it, can you speak about your stage persona and your name “Nick Diamonds”.
The cape was made by this really great fashion designer in New York, I’ve had the name “Nick Diamonds” for a while and I drop it and keep going back to it throughout different stages in my career. The cape is part of that persona, earlier in my career I painted my face all white, I’ve always had something going on. The name Nick Diamonds is kinda a play on words, the Brittish word to “knick” means to steal, and I liked the idea of stealing, not diamonds as in anything of monetary value necessarily but stealing or appropriating some cultural diamonds or things of artistic value.
Are you going to go the David Bowie route and have multiple stage personas throughout your career?
I don’t know really, part of the reason I dress up on stage is that I never really felt comfortable performing. I know it seems like a contradiction because obviously when I dress up in the cape I receive more attention than if I dressed in my normal clothes, but in a way I feel like more protected because the costume takes the emphasis off me and allows me some degree of anonymity. (Laughing) Stage-fright’s a real thing.
Can you talk a bit about your next album or any upcoming projects?
Nick Diamonds: Well right now I’m working with the drummer from Modest Mouse and a New York Producer, were trying to start of movement called “Doom-Wop”, were working on the doo-wop aspect and the producer is working on the doom aspect, but we’ll have to see how that works out. As for the next record I’d really like to make a more melancholy album. I’ve been listening to a lot of what people might consider ‘‘depressing music’’ music that you just listen to alone when you feel down. I’d like to make an album of those types of songs because I love that type of music, that really what I’ve been listening to. There are some songs I was writing while doing the last record which were in that mold, but just didn’t fit the album, so it will give me a chance to explore that style of music and put those songs on the next album.
Read our show review here.
by François Dupraz / photos Jose Enrique Montes Hernandez
