Back in November, Bad Nerves were back in Switzerland for a couple shows in the Swiss-german part, in Aarau and Winterthur. The great Ultra Q from California were touring with them, and a lot of audience members came for both bands.
That night in Aarau however, it was snowing a lot. Road traffic was frozen in place, and I was late for our interview before the show because of delayed trains. It made the show somehow unforgettable. The band was very understanding. I met with Bobby and Jon backstage for a quick chat about their Twitch channel and their new record Still Nervous.
Many thanks to management and Bad Nerves as always for their time and for letting me take pictures over the years!
I wanted to talk about your Twitch channel, Bobby. You already wrote the fans regularly through a newsletter before that, and now, you are also streaming live on Twitch from time to time.
Bobby: Yeah, to have something to do while we are touring (laughs). It’s nice to share new music we’ve found, bands that we’ve played with. And just to talk with fans of the band – the thing is, you don’t really get to actually connect with things like Instagram and other social media, whereas when you are on live stream, you can talk directly to people. It’s a little more engaging. It’s quite fun. My biggest inspiration for doing it is the radio. When I was younger, I always liked the idea of playing music and doing the radio thing. This just seemed like a good way of combining the two.
Are the fans on Twitch a little younger?
Bobby: It’s half-half.
Jon: I have noticed a lot of older people didn’t know what Twitch was, but they joined up on Twitch just because Bobby was doing a Twitch stream.
Bobby: It’s funny, because people message me saying 'I’ve never used this platforms before, I’m only on here because of the band.' It’s a fun medium. I like the idea of trying to embrace different things, because my instinct was never to do live streams. I just wanted to be in a band. Ultimately, because you are communicating with fans and it’s more engaging, it’s more fun. I am glad I started it.
Jon and Sam after their second Swiss show in Winterthur, through my Olympus Trip 35.
Could we talk about Still Nervous? I was wondering about the story was behind the cover photo, because I find it legendary. It reminds me of old school rock albums.
Bobby: That’s what we wanted to do, like The Damned or The Stooges.
Jon: Yeah, all the classic albums had the band on the front. We did a photoshoot with Ryan Jay in New York, and we got a bunch of photos back. He absolutely crushed it. And there was that one photo we saw, and we were like ‘you know what. That one looks like an album cover.’ There was a little bit of resistance towards it coming from outside sources, people saying we need to put a fucking goat on it or something.
Bobby: They said it was not modern.
Jon: And we said, ‘you know what? Fuck off, we like this, and it’s so rare we all agree on something. This is perfect’.
Bobby: I can’t think of any current band – putting the band on the front doesn’t really happen that much anymore. I am quite glad we did that, because it’s a throwback to the records we really love.
Jon: It was the whole point of it. We wanted it to feel like a classic album. Hopefully it will be.
Jon during the show in Aarau.
I also wanted to talk about the song You’ve Got The Nerve, because I feel like it could be your theme song! Like for the band the Monkees for example.
Bobby: That song has taken a life of its own! I think people appreciate the message in it, which is basically ‘you’ve got the nerve to do what you want to do’. It resonates with a lot of people, because that’s what we’re doing. We’re just saying ‘fuck you’ to everything else.
Jon: It’s my mom’s favorite song!
Bobby: Really? Bless her (laughs). There is a line in it which says ‘you better pack your job and fast, unless you’re never gonna grow’, which I found so true in my life. There was a time where I was working in a place and I quit when I was quite comfortable, I didn’t need to. It was terrifying, but my life took a whole other direction for the better when I did that.
When I saw you guys touring in that huge bus with Nothing but Thieves back in Zurich, I wanted to cry. I remembered your gig at the small pub The Old Blue Last in London -
Bobby: God, that was years ago! Isn’t that when we first met?
I think so!
Jon: Yes. I remember.
Bobby: I hate playing that place (laughs).
The sound wasn’t really good, wasn’t it?
Jon: And the load-in was horrible.
Bobby: It’s just too small.
Jon: Downstairs, there’s just a collection of office workers that just wanna get pissed.
This is my final question: while we are doing this interview before your show, the city of Aarau is currently covered in snow. Are you guys more of a ski, sledge or snowboard people?
Bobby: I am actually more of a sledger. I went skiing once, and I’ve never been snowboarding. Outside of my family home is a hill. We would always sledge down it, and it was fucking awesome.
Jon: I used to snowboard every year. I skated as well, but I broke my foot and fractured my ankle. After that, I got a bit weirded out strapping my feet into boards. And it’s also very expensive to do it a lot.
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