Talking Passions: Mount Nakara

This week Talking Passions features the incredibly talented Mount Nakara. Originally from Bath, but now spreading their roots-infused electronic dub sound across Bristol and beyond, the six piece band comprised of Zach Nolan, Nino D’Angelo, Matt Edwards, Jake Edwards, Stacey Doherty and Nick Martin are looking forward to a very busy festival season this year and are in the last stages of finishing their latest EP. Though very busy in the studio Zach and Nino found time to squeeze in a cup of tea and a chat about their passion for music.

Adam Chisman (TP): “As young boys, what did you want to be when you grew up and how did you get to where you are now?”

Nino D’Angelo (N): “Well I wanted to be a mechanic, which has got nothing to do with being a musician, really,until I was about sixteen. Then I actually did that at college for a bit, and did some work experience, and realized that wasn’t really for me. There was a good music college on the Ilse of Wight, Platform one. I managed to get in there, had a last minute place, and started taking up instruments again, something I did when I was younger. And then got with quite a good band that were doing well on the Ilse of Wight, started playing gigs, found my way to university and met these guys and carried on for the love of it.”

Zach Nolan (Z): “I don’t think I ever had a goal for my life in terms of what I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be a doctor or a vet, that sort of thing, until I found music. I think when you’re younger you don’t think, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ You just enjoy doing it, so you just focus on doing that thing. But I think it made sense to get into music. I was surrounded by it a lot when I was younger. My mum was a mature student at uni in Dartington studying music when I was beginning secondary school. She was in the same class as Yes Sir Boss, and friends with Shelanagig; it was that same sort of crew. So I was like a little cheeky eleven year old skateboarding around with those lot, and surrounded by all of that, and so I guess it made sense at that point to get into it.”

TP: “Awesome. And did you guys meet at university?”

Z: “Yeah, so we were all… no actually, not all of us. There’s a core of the band still remaining who all met in Bath at uni. And then, yeah, it’s gradually changed from there. Members have left and other people have joined… as happens with a band.”

TP: “Cool. Well there are six of you in the band there must be a lot of ideas floating about when it comes to making music. Can you describe your creative process when in the studio together?”

Z: “Basically we approach it as live production. Obviously it’s writing songs, but that’s not the initial starting point. We start it from a production point of view, so writing instrumental dubs and rhythms. The stuff that Nino writes will be, in his mind, stuff which is more electronic and maybe made for playing out as a DJ set, and then I get my hands on it and it almost starts to become a bit more of a song because I have more of a song-writing background. Matt, who’s the keys player and also guitarist, is really good at coming up with little riffs, so he’ll throw in that kind of stuff. But generally it all starts on the computer, on Logic, electronic, and then it becomes an organic thing later down the line.”

N: “Yeah, I will literally open Logic with no idea what I’m doing. I’ll just make some sounds, some nice key sounds, and then put something together loosely, riffs or a bass line, and then try and structure it in some sort of way. Then I’ll give it to Zach to arrange, and then he can fit his vocals around that.”

TP: “So then the vocals finish it off?”

Z: “So it’s a funny one, because I think all of the creative process happens outside of the rehearsal. The song is thrown around between us so we are all involved in it, but it is a finished product before we even play it together, a finished thing that’s sent out to everyone. Everyone learns their parts, they get to rehearsal and then we play it.”

N: “Then we’ll figure out little problems that won’t necessarily work live, but do work as an electronic thing. The drums need to change because it doesn’t fit with the vocals, or there’s too much going on at one time, so we’ll strip it back.”

Z: “And people obviously add their flavours to it as well.”

TP: “That’s an interesting way of working and I like it. Your sound is strongly influenced by Dub and Reggae too, and living and performing in Bristol with it’s African-Caribbean population must have had an effect on that. Can you tell me a bit about the influence Bristol has had on your sound?”

N: “Yeah, I mean before we came to Bristol we were in Bath, and we were an upbeat Ska band – quite a fun Ska band. Going to St Pauls Carnival for the first time and seeing Massai Warriors with a big sound system set up, we were just drawn into that and we were probably there for about eight hours that year. We didn’t really explore anything else, we found that and were like, ‘Yeah, this is bass heaven!’”

Z: “I think we left for about twenty minutes and were like, ‘Yeah, let’s just go back.’”

N: “That sort of influenced us to, if we can, do DJ sets, so we’ll put the whole night on. We’ll play roots stuff beforehand, and then play steppas and heavier stuff after, so do a whole dub-themed night.”

TP: “Yeah, take them into your own little world.”

Z: “I think basically Bristol gave us bass and Bath was a bit treble-y. So when we were in Bath it was a bit upbeat and Ska-y. We weren’t thinking about the lower frequencies, we were just thinking about getting people jumping around for the fun of it. It was kind of as shallow as that in a way, like, ‘Yeah, let’s get people dancing ‘cos it’s fun! Whack some brass on and it’ll be a laugh.’ And then we moved here and we had our first season of festivals as and going into Chai wallah stage and watching Mungos and Koda, another live Dubstep band, and going, ‘This sounds meaty and bassy, we want some of that!’ Then we moved to Bristol after that summer, and then like Nino said, going to see Massai Warriors, Teachings in Dub, all of the bass music that’s around, we were like, let’s slow down, let’s put some bass under us.”

TP. “Nice. So you recently changed your name from Komodo to Mount Nakara. I was just wondering what the motivation behind the name change was, and has it changed your sound?”

Z: “To be honest the name change wasn’t something we wanted to do straight away, it came about because of Commodo the Grime producer. That was kind of our ignorance really, we chose a name before we had moved to Bristol and before we were part of the scene. So we moved here, and then we quickly discovered there was another Commodo who spells it differently, so we didn’t find him when we were searching for the name.”

N: “We sort of thought it would be alright at first but then it wasn’t.”

Z: “Yeah, it was the moment we saw Commodo up on the Tokyo Dub festival poster, right next to the Channel One Sound System and we were like, right, let’s just change it, it’s gonna get in the way. We don’t wanna step on his feet you know.”

TP: “Well I think everyone’s responded really well to it. Where did the new name come from?”

Z: “Choosing a name is a nightmare, and it took us a while to agree on something in the end. I think we were discussing the idea of calling ourselves a mountain and Jake, our drummer loves mountains. One of his main hobbies is climbing mountains, so he was like, ‘Yes, I’m well up for naming ourselves after a mountain, that would be wicked, let’s do it, I love mountains!’ But we didn’t want to name ourselves after an actual mountain that exists for the same stupid search engine optimization nonsense, so we decided to just make our own one up, and we were going through nice words that we liked the sound of and we were just like, ‘Right, let’s just invent a mountain and name ourselves after it.’ Why not? It’s funny as well, because of what you asked in terms of changing our sound. We didn’t intend to, but when we got the logo designed, it was way more visual than the Komodo logo which was just a font. It was like this big bear with mountains underneath it. It was a good friend of mine V (Vivien Martineau) who designed it, and as soon as she gave it to us it did actually influence us. You kind of imagine it on stage and imagine it on an EP cover or whatever and go, ‘Yeah, we need the music to reflect this powerful image.’ And so you sit down writing a song with that in the back of your head. It needs to stand up to this powerful logo.”

TP: “Well I think it’s worked because you guys are billed to play a busy festival season this year, everywhere from Devon and Cornwall to London and even Croatia! Can you tell me about one of your all time favorite festival performances?”

N: “One that stands out for me was Anima Circus at Croissant Neuf. I don’t know how but we played after Seth Lakeman, so we still had a lot of his audience there I think, and it was a packed big stage quite early on in us gigging together. It was our first tour, and it was a step above anything that we’d done that summer in terms of size and the way we got treated.”

Z: “Yeah, people actually carrying your equipment for you.”

N: “‘Oi, that’s my trumpet?! Oh wait he’s carrying it to stage…’ I thought he was nickin’ it. That was a nice surprise and a nice highlight for us.”

TP: “Amazing. What’s the Bristol crowd like when you play here for your home crowd?”

Z: “It’s the best crowd. For definite, it’s the best crowd. We obviously love playing everywhere else, but I think Bristol just loves Roots Music, it’s just something in it’s blood. I don’t know why.”

N: “Yeah, we can play London sometimes and they don’t quite get us, I don’t think there’s as big a scene.”

Z: “London we have to be a bit careful where we book, be a bit more picky, but I think Bristol just goes for it.”

TP: “Awesome. Well finally boys, I know you’re busy working on some new music, so what do you have in store for us in 2016?”

Z: “We’re literally a few days away from finishing tracking our new EP, which is going really well. I’m really excited about it. We’ve got four tracks, and then we’ve got an orchestrated overture version of one of our songs which is going in there as well, and we’re gonna have a few remixes which I’m not gonna say anything about yet because they’re still being confirmed, but some super exciting stuff on that front as well.”

N: “It’s a mini album really.”

Z: “Yeah, it started out as an EP but we’re adding lots of bits to it to bulk it out and give people more to listen to.”

TP: “And any exciting gigs coming up?”

N: “Yeah, Small World Spring Gathering in Kent, which will be a nice little opener to our season. We did Subsonic last weekend, a nice little one in Wales. A good atmosphere – it’s worth going to.”

Z: “It was really good actually, really enjoyed it. Anyone reading check out Subsonic Festival for next year. Then we’ve got an exciting season ahead of us. We’ve got Boomtown, which is always amazing, and we’re playing Wonderfields as well which is another new festival but has an amazing lineup. You’ve got The Skints, The Correspondents and some wicked acts playing, so really excited to be playing alongside them. Then we’re off to Europe for the first time. We’ve only ever gigged in the UK, so it’s really exciting for us to step outside of it, and we’re gonna be playing Italy at a festival in the Alps which sounds pretty special, and then on to Croatia to play Soundwave. We’re trying to get some gigs en route as well.”

N: “Also, the day after we get back we’re straight to Boomtown.”

Z: “Yeah, it’ll be a crazy few weeks.”

TP: “Your poor livers!”

Here’s a feature on Bristol24/7 called Talking Passions. It’s a Bristol-based interview series that hopes to inspire your creative side by interviewing passionate individuals in Bristol’s arts and music scenes. The driving force behind the series is a belief that within each of us is a creative soul with untold capabilities. It’s not always easy to follow your dreams and try to make it work, and it should be celebrated!

Started by local journalist Adam Chisman, and with links to various Collectives in the city including Liquifyah, The Coconut Collective, as well as Irish online magazine Ceol Caint, Talking Passions comes in two weekly parts, with brand new written interviews on talkingpassions.com and Bristol24/7 and audio interviews on BCFM’s The Bristol Music Show and Soundcloud. 

If you’d like to get in touch with Mount Nakara you can find them on Facebook, Instagram or Youtube.

Words: Adam Chisman (Talking Passions)

Pictures: Mount Nakara.

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