For a long time, I carried shame with my addictions — when I watched the Dead City documentary and saw they’re in a house with 50 other junkies… I wasn’t in that world at all. I felt very strange, weird, alone, and weak, because no one else in my circle got down like that.
I try to wear my heart on my sleeve; my f*cking life’s on the screen. I’m always out there. So I try to let people know that I was f*cked up for a long time.
I used to own a record shop in my hometown, Tucson, Arizona. I grew up a fan of hip-hop mostly, but also graffiti; my brother was a writer. I never wrote myself, but he owned a graffiti store, Planet Z, when he got out of prison. He also owned a shop called Rosie’s, which was named after my mom.
No one really made beats in Tucson, so there wasn’t really a rap scene. When he closed them both down, I wanted to do something similar: a hub for the city for graffiti writers and b-boys, but in the style of a record store for hip-hop heads. Music was always my main passion. I had my gear in the corner, and kids could pay $15 an hour if they wanted to rap over an instrumental from the records and leave with a CD.
But graffiti writers would come in to buy markers, streaks, and black books all the time, especially because they knew me from my brother. And not all of them liked rap. They’d sit there and tell me, Put this on, while we’re hanging out, and I’d get turned onto bands. That’s how I fell in love with punk because I didn’t really have anyone else to show me punk.
Tucson was a hub for bringing drugs across the border; that’s all I was surrounded by. My brother’s a three-time drug felon. My uncle and really anyone in the struggle were either actively smuggling people and dope into the United States, or knew someone who did. Arizona isn’t a three-strike state. So I was always surrounded by narco culture.
Coming through hip-hop, being an art form around tales from the streets, I wanted to tell my story of growing up along border culture, but to synth-punk.
My first band was called CRIMEKILLZ — we took Game Boys and made instrumentals out of the sounds we could record. I thought my bandmate’s production was way better than my own beats, so I stuck to being a frontman. I coined the phrase “Narcopunk” to cover our sound and the themes in my writing. That project was my f*cking life for years. We were kind of popping, coming out to Los Angeles for tour. Even got our music in Workaholics.
But we were both just so f*cked up on drugs. Eventually he stepped away, and I was really scared that I had lost my best thing ever. And despite my self-doubt, I was still so in love with performing and creating that I moved to LA and tried my hand at producing myself and putting tracks out on my own.
It was so crazy to me that real musicians and people were digging what I was doing. And when they would come over to see the way I recorded, so many people would be like, Bro, this is so wrong. I was not a good engineer; I didn’t even pan my sounds. Everything was stereo in the center.
Having a bandmate on stage with CRIMEKILLZ was sort of like armor; it made me feel more confident. I had to break out of that, but when people started reaching out to produce me, it became scary as f*ck again. I mean, this new project that I’m dropping on Stones Throw is produced by Dave Sitek. He started TV On The Radio and produced the first Yeah Yeah Yeahs album.
Collaborating can be tough because it forces you to be open and vulnerable. An idea may not work, and you gotta be cool with that. It’s about whatever serves the song and makes the best track. That’s what working with others taught me; it’s bigger than just me being happy with it.
I’ve only been living off the art for four years; I’ve been a working man my whole life. Even on those massive tours with Limp Bizkit — all these names are so f*cking big — I’m the guy hanging out with the stagehands working the pulleys. That feels more like my people. I’m real shy around traditional artists because I never came up around them. I just feel more comfortable around cats like that, man.
I never thought I’d get past Tucson. I mean, I didn’t even think I’d make it this long in LA. My writing’s had to open up more now that I’m playing shows in other countries. I still tell my story because it’s unique, but I have to touch on other subjects, living newer emotions and growing day by day. My scope had to broaden.
Still, at my core, I’m a poet first. I only made beats because no one was around to make them for me; my dream was never to be a producer. I wanted to be a frontman, a vocalist, a writer. And I didn’t want a traditional band either — just me and synthesizers and f*cked up machines. I’m a big cyberpunk futurist head… Neuromancer, The Matrix, I love that aesthetic. When we had the Game Boy band, the vision was two travelers in a post-apocalyptic world moving from bar to bar with small gear, because you wouldn’t be able to tour with six-piece guitar cabinets and drums after the world starts burning down.
To pull that off, I needed Val. We met years ago when she found CRIMEKILLZ by way of MySpace; she was an LA photographer shooting our shows, but a fan first. When I moved out here, we linked back up, and when we started dating, we knew it was a perfect match. Now she’s my tour manager, takes my portraits, helps sell merch… She basically runs most of the business, and I just get to f*ck around and make music.
At the end of the day, we’re just two people who love each other and art and playing and creating. Even at our crib, most of the time we’re just building silly stop-motion Lego movies at home. I couldn’t have done any of this without her. (Though she definitely doesn’t want my input when she’s working… She’ll just look at me like, “What the f*ck? I didn’t ask for advice.” Hahaha.)
That support is everything, especially because I had to crawl out of a very dark place. I get nervous talking about sobriety because some articles have made it sound like this glossy reinvention. The reality is I just got off the shit that f*cked me up: coke, crack, all of that is gone. I smoke weed sometimes, and I’ll sip a beer during shows because my anxiety pushes through the roof. I played a festival in Europe with over 16,000 people earlier this year, and I told myself, You know what? This is the one show I want to try to play totally sober. And I did it. As soon as the gig ended, I ran and got a drink. So yeah, f*ck that. <Hahaha>
But I’m off the heavy sh*t that was destroying my life. In the world I come from, addiction isn’t treated with open arms — it’s a weakness, a fast track to getting X’d out. I didn’t go to meetings; I hit rock bottom. What turned it for me wasn’t running myself into the ground; it was seeing Val cry and sit destroyed when I’d come home after a three-day binge.
Now, people in recovery reach out to me, thanking me, and it trips me out because in my book, I’m just a f*cking f*ck-up. But if talking about it out loud keeps some kid from eating that same poison, then at least the scars are worth something. We’re all connected in the dirt. You never know who’s in the crowd drowning in it. And if my wreckage can help someone else pull through, that’s all you can ask for. That’s how we survive.
-N8NOFACE for Dead Relatives.
