NIIICE. "INTERNET FRIENDS" REVIEW AND INTERVIEW
To watch or listen to the entire conversation, go to the Melodic Noise Patreon.
Album art for internet friends niiice.
niiice. are honest, self-doubt and scalding self-awareness sold in a family-sized pack. The self-described weed/party-emo band is merely a 3 piece, but when their tight-knit riffs and a big ol’ helping of vox/guitarist, Roddie Gadeberg’s, acrobat sing/shout hit, it’s clear there’s room for anyone to join in. Across their new album, internet friends, and really, the entirety of their musical output and online presence, it is evident they feel that - to quote another stoner-media icon - “existence is pain,” and boy howdy is there space enough on the pain-bus to Painsville for everyone.
Anxiety begets anxiety; it is vicious and cyclical, and generally exponentially true. Malaise is not just a self-fulfilling prophecy, it is a stasis that looks to hold throughout the 20s, in terms of both calendar years and personal age. All three members of niiice. have only barely entered adulthood, yet they’ve already run into dozens of insurmountable walls and pitfalls. On lead single, “shlonkey kong,” the band sounds aged past their years. Their bodies, relationships, ambition, and personal self-worth are all rapidly deteriorating around them.
Halfway between his sing and his scream, Roddie leads the band into an outro-freak-out that is sure to be howled from every pit this band plays - whenever that happens again. Although “Everybody’s scary when I’m high” is undoubtedly true for both Roddie and much of the band’s fan-base, I would suspect that everybody’s scary when the infrequent sober spell hits, too. Does the gas heighten his fears? More than likely. Is it also the greatest single security blanket available against these fears? Almost certainly.
Not all of internet friends is about pointing out the band’s deficiencies over rowdy-ass mosh-makers. About one-half of “trademarked” is classic midwest emo sparkle lofted up by bassist Abe Anderson’s buttery tone, and the other half is classic midwest emo sparkle all crunched up. “interlude” toys with ambience and provides a much needed respite after only two songs of getting audibly and emotionally beat the ef up. On the bridge for “ruff n tuff,” niiice. momentarily drops their musical intricacies and instead employ only a simple ascension/descension up and down the guitar neck - a “riff” that cosplays as anthemic without even attempting to billow past the floorboards above the basement shows it’s suited for.
Although at first this passage doesn’t seem like much - it isn’t technically impressive or complicated, and there’s an absence of lyrics - there is a strength and clarity that shines brighter with each repeating play. Coupling this with a little percussive flair from Sage Livergood, drummer, and one of the album’s few instances of definitive personal direction makes it my favorite section of the record. When asked about the song, Roddie told us that it’s about friendships that were once held dear, but are now incompatible. “It’s easier to be like ‘I know this is how old friends of mine feel about things,’ but I don’t really want to ruin my idea of that relationship in my head,” he reflects, “so its like I just won’t involve them in my life and involve them with what’s going on, which is sad, but it’s easier than feeling like you’re not friends with that person anymore.”
This level of contentment is not felt much elsewhere on internet friends, but it is indicative of the potential for personal growth that makes the band so relatable. They recognize their shortcomings, and these faults get in the way of a ton of things, but they don’t get in the way of having fun, and they don’t always get in the way of growing up and succeeding, either. Just almost all the damn time.
Internet friends could just as well have been called something as fitting and obvious as lifestyles of the poor and aimless. Underneath all of the concert ready gang hollers about “Joints not burning right” (from “the lituation”), though, the main point at the heart of this album is the importance and the complexity of adult relationships in the modern age. Roddie told us that “It’s really hard to organically make friends as an adult,” and frankly, on top of all the other messed up shit life throws, that may be one of the most troubling realities facing so many people nowadays. If the lyrics, “I feel uncomfortable at home / and I feel incomplete alone,” from “sugar smacks” resonate with you as Sage taps out a somber soldiers march, then maybe niiice. is the band for you. Go share it with your friends, both in person and online.
Singer/guitarist/principle songwriter, Roddie Gadeberg sat down with Melodic Noise to discuss the band and the album, but we ended up talking about quite a bit more. For the full 50 minute interview, go to our Patreon to see it all. Roddie thinks, “There were some things I got to talk about that I haven’t really got to talk about before, so that was cool.” If he thinks it was worth his time, I can guarantee it’ll be worth yours! Here’re a few snippets from our conversation below:
niiice.:
Sage Livergood (He/Him) - Drums
Roddie Gadeberg - (He/Him) - Guitar/Vocals
Abe Anderson - (He/Him) - Bass
(Melodic Noise) I read (a previous interview), and on it, there was a part where you gave Abe some props for getting straight As in classes last semester. I thought that was really cool, cuz even just reading it, you seemed really excited for him.
(Roddie Gadeberg) Yeah! His like last 2 years, his last 2 semesters - 1 semester we like did a whole week long tour in the middle of it, and he still got straight As. I love that guy, he’s so cool. Everything he does is bad- And it’s not like he got straight As cuz he’s a nerd, cuz he’s not a nerd. He’s fuckin’ cool and it’s dope!
(MN) Does being in a band make it harder, inherently, to develop and maintain relationships with others outside your group/others outside of your band-sphere?
(RG) I think in some ways, it’s made it harder just because since we’ve started touring more and more, and then since like quarantine, you can’t go hang out with people anyways, but it’s made it kind of harder to maintain local relationships cuz it’s like when you’re home, you’re usually broke as shit from touring. So it’s kind of like just staying home, working, and trying to grind and make money for the next tour.
(MN) What I think (Roddie’s voice) does so well is expertly shift between singing and screaming at a moment’s notice in a very organic way that doesn’t seem jarring or clunky and really fits your songs. So I wanted to ask you just a bit about singing. When did you first start “screaming” with singing?
(RG) Screaming? I’ve been yellin’ ever since I was a baby. But I think like... so I grew up, my mom is an incredible singer. Like I used to grow up watching her sing at weddings and stuff, and I think that was kinda like my first time experiencing live music - was watching my mom sing. It was always like “Damn! That really fucking cool! I wanna sing like my mom.” But I don’t sing as good as my mom. She - my mom’ll swear up and down that I’m better than she is, but that’s cap. That’s some bullshit. She’s used to sing like Whitney Houston and Celine Dion and shit, and she’ll like talk to me and be like “Wow!” - Nah. She doesn’t really sing anymore, which is kind of a bummer, and I wish she would sing more, her voice is beautiful. But that was my first… my first experience in live music. And kinda like her listening to country music and RnB and singing those songs for weddings and stuff was like…
Usually when people ask “What made you want to do music?” I’ll be like “Green Day,” because that’s what made me want to play this type of music, but it really was just watching my mom sing and wanting to be a country singer when I was a kid. Then I think when I heard Green Day, I kinda just like moved down that rabbit hole you find. Eventually you get deeper down the punk rabbit hole and you find like hardcore and shit. Bands like that definitely were like “Damn, screaming can be really cool.”
(MN) Maybe in another day, niiice. could double as wedding-band-core.
(RG) I’VE BEEN TRYING TO DO THAT SHIT FOR YEARS!
(MN) Do it!
(RG) This emo shit? There is noooo money to be made! I wanna make money! Let’s get in the wedding band circuit, I’m talking bar bands, like that’s where the money’s at…
I like met a guy at a guitar store one time who told me about the wedding band he was in, and he was saying like how much money they got paid, and he was showing me his gigantic pedalboard, and I was like “man, maybe… maybe I’m doing the wrong thing.” I’m tellin him about his two week tour I was about to go on, and he’s like “You gettin paid?” It’s like “hopefully.”
(MN) The question is, do you want to be creatively bankrupt, or just actually bankrupt?
(RG) I think I could get over being creatively bankrupt if I had enough bank, ya know? If I had enough money in the bank to forget about being creative, I can cook. I can just cook, that’ll be my creativeness, I just want the money.
(MN) Who the fuck leaked the niiice. album?
(RG) That bit is my favorite bit. We’ve had it planned for like a year.
(MN) That’s brilliant.
(RG) I think it was really funny that, like, some people got angry about it - or not necessarily angry, but were like, “it’s dumb.” Yeah. It is dumb. Like it’s really funny that we’re a band called niiice. with three “i”s who like market ourselves as a weed band. We do all this dumb shit on the internet all the time, and then people are surprised when it’s dumb. And it’s like, that’s the whole thing. That’s it. You got it.
To watch or listen to the entire conversation, go to the Melodic Noise Patreon.
You can check out more niiice. on Bandcamp.
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Interview and Review by: Eric Martin, Writer @eamartin95
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner @PlaylistTC
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