INTERVIEW: Nikki Misery – New Years Day

NEW YEARS DAY might not quite yet be a name on everyone’s lips, but with a bombastic new album in Unbreakable about to see the light of day, two new band members itching to show their mettle and a massive tour in the UK come November, it’s only a matter of time before that changes drastically. Prior to the release of their new album, we caught up with guitarist Nikki Misery recently to chat about the band’s current state, the record about to thrust them to new heights and, er, smiling goths…

Nikki, thank you very much for joining me this evening. To start off, you’ve got two new band members – how are they settling in?

Nikki: So far so good! They’re still pretty new and fresh and getting used to each other, but so far the vibe is awesome. Anytime that you have people who want to be here, want to work and are hungry, that’s all we want. The minute you lose that passion then, you know, fuck off! [laughs]

Yeah, that makes sense! Including the debut album, Ash [Costello, lead singer] is the only constant member of NEW YEARS DAY to have featured on every record. How frustrating is it for you guys that you still haven’t recorded an album with the same lineup as the one before it?

Nikki: I couldn’t give any less of a fuck, if I’m honest, I don’t care if it’s the same lineup or not! Usually it’s me and Ash that do everything anyway, so whoever comes in doesn’t stop the running train or change the dynamic whatsoever.

Well, if it works for you then fair’s fair! Am I right in thinking that you’ve switched from lead guitar to rhythm on this album?

Nikki: It’s funny, really – the thing is I’ve never really been a lead guitar player, I usually do the rhythm; I do play some lead, but overall it’s rhythm. An album or two after I joined the band I started to write more lead guitar and ‘shreddy’ stuff, so we got someone in who could actually shred and that was when we got Jeremy [Valentyne, former rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist] in so we locked in on that. Me growing up, I was as much the party at practice so I didn’t sit too much with a guitar when I was younger to shred but I handle myself the way I can!

Makes sense! What have the new members [guitarist Austin Ingerman and drummer James Renshaw] brought to the table in terms of writing and recording Unbreakable?

Nikki: They weren’t really involved at all, if I’m honest. We’ve been developing this album pretty much since Malevolence and a couple of times we thought ‘Scratch this, this isn’t where we are right now’ and it just doesn’t seem right to have someone who doesn’t know to start putting input in.

That’s understandable – so you and Ash wrote the bulk of the material with Frankie [Sil, bassist] chipping in here and there as well?

Nikki: Absolutely, especially with this last one Frankie’s been more involved, but really it’s mainly Ash and us trying to sound out her vision and on this album we also had two producers in Scott Stevens and Mitch Marlow who have done countless #1’s and having them pull stuff out of us was great. You can only play your stuff for so long in your style that sometimes you need someone to go ‘Well why not try this? Here’s this style’, just to get you out of your box. Having two producers can sound like too many cooks in the kitchen, but for some reason it works wonderfully and I couldn’t be more proud of the result.

So was there a reason for not working with Erik Ron again?

Nikki: Not really, we just went our separate but with our new team we’ve had new doors open or us as a band, so it’s been really beneficial.

Well, onto Unbreakable itself – I know that Ash said in a previous interview that the album would move away from the negativity and the self-pity of previous albums and focus on empowerment. Do you feel you’ve achieved that?

Nikki: Yeah, absolutely. As a band you always want your newest album to be your strongest and I think we’ve done that. With Malevolence everybody in the writing process was emotionally damaged and physically hurt for a number of reasons – the relationships we were in, the music business at the time, our team. Everything bad that could have happened to us did at the time of Malevolence, so the album comes from such an era of internal anguish and pain. Since then we’ve had these years of working on Unbreakable and we’ve been constantly building ourselves up. The core of this band, Ash, Frankie and I, we’ve never been stronger or tighter as people and we feel really awesome with these new cats in the band, Austin in particular has really come into his own, and you can tell we’re not in such a dark place with these new songs. It’s definitely more empowering, we’re having a lot more fun. When you hear Break My Body, for example, you’d never hear something like that on any other NEW YEARS DAY album and we’re definitely in a better spot.

I’d agree – the one song that really connected with me was Skeletons – for one, the chorus has been stuck in my head for ages! The more I listened to it and the more I engaged with the lyrics, however, there was so much more that made me realise you were spinning it into a positive light, saying that even though we do have skeletons in our closet, it’s all in the past and we’re moving forward from it. As you said, that wouldn’t appear on an album prior to this.

Nikki: Not at all, you hear it in the songs and choruses. It’s funny because now that the album’s complete, I hear the empowerment and positivity more. It’s also crazy coming from a band like this given how we used to be. When you look at how the band looked then you can tell we were in dark areas; we looked like prom dates that had just been beat up!

I mean, to be fair that adds to the goth rock aesthetic but I guess there’s nothing wrong with a smiley goth! I look forward to seeing promo shots of you all with massive, beaming smiles and the photographer saying ‘No, you should be sullen and moody!’

Nikki: [laughs] It’s funny – the last tour we did opening for HALESTORM and IN THIS MOMENT, everyone was having such a good time on stage and my face actually hurt, but I don’t usually smile on stage and it was one of the craziest. People were seeing a different side of the band!

Completely. For you personally, are there any songs on Unbreakable that you really resonate with?

Nikki: Umm, yeah definitely! Nocturnal is one of them, the more I listen to it the more I love it. It’s a throwback to the really fun side of NEW YEARS DAY, the one that got me really excited about this band, and then my favourite song on the album is Done With You and that resonates with me because we’ve always had people like that, you know (sings the lyrics) “When I taste your name/its dirt in my mouth” and when you hear that song and it kicks into the verse, it’s just like punches to the face. I don’t know man, but that song really hits me.

Nice! I know you mentioned about having a lot of fun on the tour with HALESTORM and IN THIS MOMENT – of course, that’s coming to the UK in November and you’re playing sizeable arenas as well – Alexandra Palace in London is 10,000 people…

Nikki: That’s what I heard. I cannot believe that, I’m so excited!

Yeah, they’ve all got a capacity of at least 7,500.

Nikki: Oh my Lord.

Yeah, they’re big rooms! Does that daunt you at all?

Nikki: Not at all man, this is the dream! This is like, and I hate to throw an Avengers analogy in, but this is the Endgame. This is the thing that you dream of when you first pick up a guitar, to play these kinds of venues and shows. And the weird part is that the way I feel about it like I’m going to be halfway through a set, it’s going to be the most amazing show and then I’m gonna be woken up by my mom so I can get ready for school and my entire life was a dream and I’ll be like ‘NOOOOO!’ That’s my own fear onstage with a show like that, that it’s all a dream and I have to go to school! [laughs]

Yeah, when you get to that stage it does seem like that! You’re opening the bill in the UK as you were in the States; I was speaking to another band recently who were explaining how much they love supporting tours because there’s less responsibility – they soundcheck latest, go on stage earliest, then they can relax. Would you side with that or do you really like doing a headline run?

Nikki: I love supporting. I’ve only done one real headliner run and I can’t say that it wasn’t fun, but I get way too excited and I can understand these cats saying that you can go on stage early, play earlier and one of the things I really like about opening or supporting is that, especially with a crowd like HALESTORM and IN THIS MOMENT, most of the fans don’t know who we are and we’re fighting for your attention. When we’re headlining the fans are already there for us so we just put on a good show, but on these we’re fighting to make you a fan and I’ve always like the energy that comes with that because you can love us, you can hate us, but you can be damn sure I’ll make you all remember us!

Yeah, completely! I also noticed that you’ve got a sizeable gap in your tour diary between the tour you’ve got coming up in the States with FALLING IN REVERSE in May and a couple of festival dates in August. Nothing planned for the bulk of the summer in June and July?

Nikki: Yeah, it’s being announced soon enough but we’re doing a headliner in that time, in between what’s already set in stone and that’ll be shows in between other festival dates because we’re being announced for them more and more as days go on but I’ll be honest, I’m so stuck on today thinking about tomorrow that I haven’t got a clue which dates they are, but I know we’re hitting some, although not as many as we wanted to because we know the album’s not out yet but next time around there’ll be plenty of them

Cool! Are there any more shows planned for 2020?

Nikki: Well, let’s just say that we might be back over with you guys in early January 2020, so don’t miss us too much when we come to play in the autumn because we’re gonna be right back there before you know it!

Awesome! More of a fun question this – who’s the toughest audience you’ve played in front of?

Nikki: Umm, the only one we were afraid of was probably HELLYEAH, but they all welcomed us eventually. We’ve never had a crowd that didn’t like us, except for those with technical difficulties where you couldn’t hear us half the time, but in all the opening tours we’ve done I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem…oh, yeah! Yes, it was definitely HELLYEAH. There was one show where we were wearing all the makeup, the leggings and all of that and we went up on stage and I remember as the intro was playing I could hear these people in the audience saying ‘Ugh, look at these faggots on stage’, kinda laughing at us. Through the first song, all of a sudden they’re headbanging with us and screaming for us and then afterwards they’re buying our CDs.

Amazing! So they were hostile beforehand and then you converted every single one of them?

Nikki: Yeah, and to be honest I kinda love that, going in there and earning that respect. Yeah, look at us and talk shit about us – they did it to KISS, to the NEW YORK DOLLS, they probably even did it to David Bowie back in the day and they’re all legends now!

Exactly! Nikki, thank you very much for speaking to me – we look forward to having you over here in the autumn!

Nikki: Thank you very much man, see you later on in the year!

Unbreakable is out now via Century Media Records. NEW YEARS DAY are featured in the latest digital issue of Distorted Sound. Subscribe to our Patreon Page to access it!

Like NEW YEARS DAY on Facebook.