June 26, 2012
Gone for Good is not just another New London band, they
represent New London's spirit. They've endured lost and heartache but have
never given up, instead they've continued to grow smarter and stronger through
the years and their music has reflected that.
In 2006, Nicholas Johns (guitar and vocals), Ryan Perkins
(Bass and back-up vocals), and Josh Lecce (drums), formed Gone for Good, a high
energy, edgy, garage pop-rock trio, that soon became a favorite on the local
music scene and beyond.
Then, tragedy struck, and the spirited and fun-loving Lecce
passed away and Johns and Perkins decided to take a break from the band. A year
later, joined by their good friend and skilled drummer Gene Miller, Gone for
Good returned to the scene and have been steadily impressing fans with their
eclectic rock sound and entertaining live shows.
This Friday, June 29
th, at The Oasis Pub, the
band is having a record release show for their highly anticipated second
full-length album,
Marvelous Liar, which will be available digitally on their
bandcamp page
. Sadly, this
show will also mark the band's last performance, as Perkins is set to move out
west and Miller and Johns are pursuing other ventures. Practice space roommates
and long time friends,
Bedroom Rehab Corporation and
Recur Occurrence share the stage
with Gone for Good one last time, creating a powerful farewell line-up that no
one will forget.
Recently, frontman Nick Johns took time to answer a few
questions for WailingCity.com.
WC: Nick, so, tell
me your story. When did you know you wanted to be a musician?
NJ: I have
several stories, but the first real time I knew that I loved music and wanted
to play was when I was a kid. I had just gotten a Dire Straits tape and my mom
made me go clean my room and she came in and I was rocking out to "Money for
nothing". I mean, like, swinging from my coat hangers at 5 years old. After
that, my mom bought me an acoustic guitar and she says I used to jump off the
top bunk of my bed and I would slam my acoustic guitars into pieces. I would just
smash all my guitars.
WC: Why did she
keep buying you guitars??
NJ: I don’t know.
I couldn't even play. I didn't start playing guitar until was 13 or 14 and
broke my wrist and I couldn't play basketball anymore. I would sit around and
play "Just What I Needed" by The Cars and, of course, Nirvana back in the day.
The birthday I received my first electric guitar was also the day after Kurt
Cobain killed himself, so that was a big deal.
WC: Definitely.
What other music did you listen to growing up?
NJ: I used to
love the hell out of Huey Lewis and the News. I was a really big Beatles fan as
a kid. I had
Sgt. Pepper’s when I was around 7 and I listened to it over
and over and I couldn't get over how amazing it was. I listened to
Are You
Experienced? By Jimi Hendrix. I have just always loved music. No matter how
shitty my day is, or my life is, just like Jim Morrison said, "Music is your
only friend". Music really is my friend. It's very comforting and I can always
come back to it, no matter what I feel like or what's going on in my life. Jim
Morrison knew what he was talking about and he's definitely one of my heroes.
I'm devoted to The Doors.
WC: Your band, Gone
for Good, has been steadily rockin’ the music scene since 2006, tell me how you
guys got together all those years ago.
NJ: Ryan
(Perkins) and I used to be in a 3-piece almost grungy-punk band together called
Ebb with our buddy Matt. Then Ryan moved to the Virgin Islands so we stopped
playing. While he was gone, I had been working on a bunch of songs that were a
lot different from what we had been doing. I listened to a lot of Queens of the
Stone Age and was obsessed with Josh Homme. And old Weezer influenced me
heavily,
Pinkerton and especially
The Blue Album. When Ryan
returned, I had him check out the new songs, which were swingy-er, like "Dinner
Date". We decided to start playing again and started looking for a drummer.
Originally, I had wanted to find Gene Miller and ask him to
play in the band because I knew him in high school and he was always the
premier drummer at NFA. He was awesome. But it didn't work out. Then this guy
said he had Josh Lecce's phone number and we should give him a call. I called
Josh and we met up after hours at a store he was teaching drum lessons at. I
brought my amp and Ryan brought his bass and I had written the song "Happy" and
we were playing and things started clicking. Josh was really nervous to be in
another band because he had just been in a band that had broken up but we were
into it and we totally wanted to play. After a few months, we had enough songs
to play out and we started playing shows in Norwich but the music scene out
there was dead and no one wanted to hear rock music at the time.
WC: You obviously
overcame that. How did you guys eventually break into the music scene?
NJ: It was funny,
at one show in Norwich, I won't say any names, but the booker was a real tool
and he pushed our set back to midnight because he didn't think we were going to
show up. We were upset and the guy started screaming at me and Josh literally
jumped over me to defend me, and I had to pull him away from the guy. That
night, I had a friend suggest we head out to New London and
The Royale Brothers
were playing. It was the coolest thing ever, just the close-knit music scene
and everyone hanging out. And I’ll never forget I went up to talk to Joey
Royale to tell him that he blew my mind, just blew me away. So, I walk up to
him and I’m like "Hi Joey. My name is Nick Johns and I'm in a band and we're
looking to play up here and I just want to tell you that was one of the best
performances." and even before I could finish he's off stage and now I realize it
probably wasn't the best time to go talk to him.
WC: Ha! You’re that
kid.
NJ: Yeah, exactly
but I must have been around 25 at the time. So, I walk over to Sean Murray, I didn't know who he was but
my mom had read his articles in the newspaper and she had told me about him so
I knew to look for him. I had this really shitty demo with me and I gave it to
him. Ryan, Josh and I went back to Norwich and back to the drawing board. We
got money to record an actual EP and put the songs we wanted on it and then we
had our EP,
Drawing Board. We went up to Sean with some real music in
our hands and a couple days later I get a phone call from him asking if we
wanted to play a show and I was, like, “Hell yeah”. I think we opened up for
Recur Occurrence and Sean loved us and thought we were great. Looking back,
Sean is probably extremely disappointed in me because I never listened to
anything he told me to do. I still don’t even though he has some awesome ideas.
He was trying to groom me into a better stage performer but I’m real stubborn.
We started playing more and it felt like all of a sudden
there was this huge wave and the sky was the limit. We had real motivation and
started booking shows in Boston and New Haven and Sean was helping us a lot. He
was boosting our self-esteem but also keeping us in check. I really have to
give him credit because he really took me under his wing for a while.
He hooked us up with Andy Stackpole and we headed into the
studio and recorded
Bright Lights. We had just submitted it into a
mastering company and then Josh passed away. It was going to cost us $600 to get
it mastered but we didn't have any way to raise the money because we couldn't
play any shows. And we didn’t even want to cut the damn thing because of how
many memories we had. So, for an entire year we left it at the mastering
company. Finally, we got money and decided to release it. We called up Gene and
asked if he wanted to play with us for a couple of shows. Then I roped him into
sticking around. It was only supposed to be 1 or 2 shows and the guy has played
with us for 2 and a half years.
WC: Obviously, he
was committed. How was the whole adjusting to a new band member?
NJ: It was good.
We’ve known each other for a long time, like 14 years, and we’ve gone to
concerts together. Josh was a really jazzy drummer. He would improvise whole
songs from scratch sometimes, which is really cool and he kept it interesting.
Gene is the other end of the spectrum, he is very precise and much more
calculated. I know exactly what to expect from Gene every time we play. He’s a
solid, reliable drummer, and Josh was reliable too, but with Gene, I know he
will play the song exactly the same way every single time. We all get along
together. We never argue with each other. We have good chemistry.
WC: You’re about to
release your new album, Marvelous Liar. Tell me about it.
NJ: For our last
record, I was really depressed and that comes out. It just sounds like a darker
album. This one, I’m not so depressed any more. This time it was really about
getting back to writing guitar riffs and bumping drums and that nice walking
bass line. Also, I yelled a lot on the last record so I really made sure this
one is a lot more of me singing. There’s a lot more harmonies and the songs are
more edgy, more in your face. I always try to write really catchy riffs with
really weird lyrics. My lyrics are not as happy as the music feels; it’s all a
bit ironic.
And this record isn’t so real life or personal for me. “Ride
to Nowhere”, that was a really personal song. This time, I wrote
interpretations from other people’s points of views. I have a song called “Last
round in the chamber” and basically it’s about a guy pulling a trigger, and
breaking up with a girl over a long period of time and her never thinking he
would do it.
For “Marvelous Liar”, I had been watching a lot of
Mad
Men and thought it would be interesting to write about how if a guy sleeps
around it’s accepted but if a woman does it she’s a slut. I wanted to make sure
it would be classy from a woman’s point of view.
This was also the last song Josh and I collaborated on
together. I wrote the music and worked out the rest of the parts, like where
the chorus will be, with him before he passed away.
I figure this is my ‘last bang’ so I produced this record
because, besides Ryan and Gene, I didn’t want anyone else’s ideas or outside
help. I didn’t want “you should do this” or “this would be cool”. But I do have
to give credit to Jason Banta (
Recur Occurrence,
Burnouts From Outer Space) for
all his help. I used a few of his ideas and he did all the mixing and mastering
for the album and it came out great.
I want to listen to it 10 years down the road with my
children and be proud of it. I just have a good feeling about this record. It’s
not so gloomy. There is a tighter drum sound. The guitars are much cleaner.
This record sounds really good. We put our all into this.
WC: Tell me about
the show coming up at The Oasis Pub in New London on June 29th.
NJ: Yeah, our
last show and also our record release. What I’m going to do is have a
combination promo code for bandcamp printed on a card and people can download
the record when they get home. We figured that was the best way to do it
because we’re all realist here and we’re not going to put $1000 into a record
to have them sitting around because with no opportunity to play, how is anyone
going to get them?
WC: Smart. Ok, what has being a part of Gone for Good
meant to you?
NJ: It has been
extremely important to me; it’s given me an identity and a purpose to be
creative. The band represents me and I represent the band. It took me a long time
to come to grips with being a frontman and I was a lousy one.
WC: Ha! I don’t
know about that. So, what does the future hold for Nick Johns?
NJ: Now I have my
adult life coming up. I’m moving into a house with my lady, my fiancé is great,
and she is letting me take one of the rooms and turn it into a recording
studio. I’m recording my own record. I play drums, and bass and dabble in piano
too. I’m going to record a full-length rock record of just myself, much like
Matt Mahaffey of Self.
And another thing I’m going to do is hopefully talk Meghan
Killimade into joining a rockabilly band with me. And possibly ask Corina
Malbaurn if she is down to play some upright bass. That’s one of my ultimate
dreams, an all 50’s rockabilly band. I need to find a piano player who can play
like Jerry Lee Lewis, that’s one of the big things.
WC: I vote Eric
Stevenson from Pocket Vinyl! I’ll give you his email.
NJ: I wonder if
he could play the piano like that? Yeah, that would be so awesome! I don’t know
how feasible it’s all going to be but I gotta keep something going on in my
mind. If I don’t have something coming up I’m going to get really depressed.
I’m not ready for the reality to set in.
WC: So, can we ever
expect a Gone for Good reunion?
NJ: I don’t know.
Ryan is moving to Hawaii and Gene is really busy at work and wants to take a
break from music. Who knows? Maybe with some of my savvy I can convince Gene to
play one more show with me and then maybe we can make that turn into a two-year
stint again?
WC: That would be
awesome! Last question: What’s your advice for those kids at home, smashing
their guitars and listening to Marvelous Liar, to those singers, bands,
musicians just emerging onto the scene?
NJ: Just be true
to your form and don’t let other people sway you into things you don’t want to
do. Stick to your guns and create some art. I’ve always been into the art form
of it. If you can’t draw or paint, go write a song. And remember to have fun and enjoy everything that you do
because it’s a great experience to play with other people. It’s a bonding
experience. Music is a part of life.
WC: Nick, anything
you want to say to everyone reading?
NJ: I have
nothing but admiration for the real backbone of the music scene: the people
going to the shows every night. I’m guilty. I don’t do that. I have a lot of
stuff going on. But some people have so much devotion to the music scene and
it’s very inspiring and nice to see people that committed to creating and
cultivating that culture in town. And I want to thank everyone who has ever
given us a chance or a listen and have enjoyed the music we have played.
Also see Adam Wujtewicz's CD review of Marvelous Liar:
