Since 2004 Nate has fronted Washington D.C. ‘s Lionize, who at various points in their career have been considered a reggae band, a funk band and at their core, a rock-n-roll band. In early 2020, after a decade and a half of fronting the group, Nate launched his career as a solo artist, showcasing an entirely unseen side of himself. He switched out his Gibson SG that once yielded heavy riffs for a Gibson LG-2 acoustic, using it and his soulful vocal prowess to deliver a combination of blues-laden acoustic rock and roll.
About his new album, Metaphysical Change: ” I recorded a lot of the stuff in a studio very safely, by myself and with another engineer. I sent those tracks out to people who sent back stuff. We went down to Nashville and mixed it, it’s pretty cool. With Lionize we were, I don’t want to say pigeonholed, but we were a heavy rock, reggae-funk band. The new songs for me are not being limited by anything. It’s incredibly liberating. I’m going to sound like me no matter what because it’s my voice. So, if I want to write a country song, I want to write a fucking country song. I don’t want to think like “Oh our fans of this band are going to be like ‘What the fuck are you doing writing a country song?’” I think that sucks. I think about artists I love like Neil Young and especially Paul Simon. He wrote so many different types of music and no one ever whined about Simon writing a country song. Who gives a fuck? It’s Paul Simon! I think about the Rolling Stones record “Sticky Fingers,” it’s like country-soul-blues-rock, they’re all kind of the same thing, so for me, it’s about doing whatever I want when I want to do it. I’m happier now and freer than I’ve ever been artistically.”
RF: NewSchoolFreePress
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