He’s been described as a Chicano Flannery O’Connor playing chiptune Ministry, the Sleaford Mods of the American Southwest, Suicide for the 21st Century and Ghostmane meets darkwave synthpunk dashed with early Ween’s glue-huffing pop. Lyrically, his sometimes romantic, oftentimes violent storytelling tunes lean toward Narcocorrido, the bloody ballads of Mexican drug cartels. It sounds dark on the surface, but really N8NOFACE’s music is a lot of fun, and as exciting and cathartic as the birth of punk rock and hiphop.
Nate, or N8, NOFACE is animated and all over the map when he speaks. But, he always gets straight to the point, just like his music. His songs often clock in around 1-minute long, typically abruptly ending before even repeating a chorus. The songs are built around a few stark, evocative mantra-like lines about life’s struggles over a simple, hummable hook. That he’s so prolific with these 50-60 second dark pop masterpieces is astonishing. “If you can’t explain it simply you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
“I do scream rap, but after that I might pick up a banjo and do outlaw country,” N8 says, discussing the multiple personalities of his music. “I want to do it all. I am a little bit of everything, why can’t I use every frequency to tell those stories?”
