In Conversation With - Rhett Nicholl
London artist Rhett Nicholl has just released his EP ‘Omerta’, he took a moment to talk to us about his musical childhood, Black Sabbath, and how the EP came together.
Your EP is out now, and it’s called ‘Omerta’, what is the meaning behind the title?
Omerta as a title is about the relationship we have with our sins and wrestling between dualities, as concept it’s associated with not talking to the police and the mafia and all that but it evolved from a cultural code of anti-authoritarianism that was a survival-instinct for subjugated southern Italians and the early Italian-American immigrants like my family. It manifests in a lot of ways like in how we handle trauma, being consumed by things and not speaking on them, it has definitely played a big part in defining my relationships with the outside world and within myself for better or worse.
There is a lot of soul and gospel influences here, what music did you draw on for inspiration when writing this EP?
For the record and in no particular order: Terry Reid, Percy sledge, Lee Moses, Aretha, Janis, Joe Cocker, Lauryn Hill, Amy, too many people to even get into. Soul and Gospel have permeated everything in music since so it’s hard to really pin down and I’m not really a Gospel head I just grew up in the church. Like any artist I steal little bits from everything that touches me whether its the phrasing, the attitude or whatever.
There is quite a musical tale to your family and childhood, with your parents meeting in quite a unique way, can you explain that a little more to us?
My parents met in the music industry working as artist managers for bands like The Ramones, Debbie Harry, Big Audio Dynamite and Black Grape, my mum used to work at SIRE records which was the shit and then followed her career over here. They were doing that until I was 6 or 7 so I was a little kid around all these really culturally significant people, which is probably why I hold artists to such high standards, myself included. Hopefully some of that rubbed off because that career choice has had It’s flip side for sure. Im lucky I’ve got to see both sides and Im glad I wasn’t just an industry kid, that’s a hard gig.
Was your family home constantly filled with music? What are your earliest musical memories?
Yeah constantly, I think for all the shadiness in the music industry at large, it’s worth saying that the people around the artist are often the biggest fans of music and I definitely inherited my love for it from my parents. Things weren’t easy growing up but seeing the way my parents took solace in music, how it would transport them and just how much it meant to them really shaped the role that it plays in my life. The really positive memories of my childhood are when my mum would be in the kitchen singing along to Sam Cooke or literally all of the old girl-group and Motown stuff; or my dad playing Little Feat and Gram Parsons songs on the guitar. My earliest memories are probably from a Ramones soundcheck and my old man cursing out Dee Dee for swearing while 2 year old me was in the stands, which sounds great and everything but it was really those times at home that stuck with me.
You live in London, where are your go to places for music kicks?
I don’t really go out like that anymore, Im also so detached from what’s going on musically right now, I don’t want to be that guy but I am and pretty much nothing speaks to me outside of maybe 3 or 4 artists, Im going to sound like a broken record with this soon but as fans we’re desperate for timeless music. Theres loads of good music and more of an emphasis on sound but whether this is going to translate to music that you’re going to listen to in 30 years, Im not convinced. That’s not to put down what people are doing but I can’t help but think where’s our Aretha or our Janis or more importantly how will those singers -who are most definitely out there- navigate the industry as it is today to be that calibre of artist, in a way that’s healthy and doesn’t cause history to repeat itself.
Aside from being that guy I’m also too much in my own process to really care, I was fortunate enough to be out there for a lot of cool stuff that’s happened musically in this city and at this point in my life Im happy to get my kicks in the studio or in my room.
Your firsts steps into the musical world was in a metal band that covered Black Sabbath, what were your top Sabbath songs to play? Then how did you transfer from Black Sabbath to where you are now?
I’d love to say I was totally immersed in that music and that we were playing deep Sabbath cuts but really it was just the obvious stuff, Paranoid, War Pigs and stuff like that. I don’t think its always immediately apparent because it sits amongst such musical virtuosity but Ozzy Osbourne is an incredible vocalist, the kids I was playing with were all prodigious musicians and I wasn’t, so learning to sing these songs and having to impress those guys from the jump was a real trial by fire. One of the guys I used to play who’s a top mastering engineer now and one of the most naturally talented musicians I’ve ever met by the name of Caspar Jones was playing drums in one of these bands, I remember getting into the rehearsal studios for the first time and practicing some lines and the look on his face was priceless, he got excited like “Okay we’ve actually got someone who can sing this stuff”. I rode the wave off that compliment all the way to the present day. Im still not the best musician, I’m still trying to impress those guys, I listen to Sabbath and sing War Pigs once a week at least, I don’t think much has changed since then I just started to figure out how to parlay my strengths into the role of a singer and song writer.
Between 2012 and 2017, there was a period where you made no music, what was the reason for this break? Also what made you return to it
I was still making music sporadically during this time, it was my only lifeline in a really fucked up time in my life where I wasn’t well enough mentally or physically to put in what it deserved. I was a ghost watching myself play out a bad movie, getting better was always about being about being well enough to do what I felt was my purpose, it was never a choice to return to it.
You are a huge fan of Graffiti art, do you have any select favorites from that creative world?
That’s one way of putting it, first I’d have to say one of the best to ever do it was my friend who unfortunately isn’t here anymore Jan ‘Aset’ Francis ATG. I looked up to him through the grapevine of graffiti from the age of 13, then to meet him later on and call him my mate was a real privilege. That guy applied the same militant, take-over strategy to graffiti as he did to everything in his life, he changed the course of London culture beyond graffiti and that’s something I’ve tried to take from him, whenever Im feeling unmotivated or whatever I think “What would Jan say?”, the answer that is universally to “Pull your socks up bruvs and make shit happen”. With all the cuts and everything there isn’t as much money to clean the trains so things are running on the LU in traffic more than they have in years, as far as right now Id have to say Bas, Enta and Store for doing full-colour pieces with style on trains and Cosa for being the all out king of London for almost 2 decades. Graffiti was my access point to meeting a lot of the most important people in my life, what I’m doing now as an artist is inextricably linked to the relationships I built through graffiti. As anyone who’s had any real involvement with it will tell you it’s a love/hate thing sometimes but I really cherish growing up in that world, even a moderately active writer gets to experience things that most people in a city never will.