Interview: Direct Hit!
Direct Hit! is the best band to come out of Wisconsin since The Beatles. They recently released their fourth EP (#4) and it’s so awesome that we felt compelled to act DH! mastermind Nick Woods some probing questions in an attempt to get to the bottom of this Direct Hit! phenomenon. Read on to discover what gets the band pumped, where their ideas come from, and how the band would (probably) fare in a pull-up contest against the Assault.it crew.
Assault.it: What gets you pumped? Where do you find inspiration in your daily life?
Nick Woods: That’s a pretty heavy question. If you mean “daily life” as in, “what I do at work most days, and what I do after work when I get back to my apartment,” I’m usually pretty “inspired” by my live-in girlfriend and my paycheck. If you mean what inspires me to make music, that pretty much came from listening to too much Metallica in middle school, too much Green Day in high school, and not enough of either now that I’m in my 20s.
A lot of your songs revolve around stories. Do you think about a larger narrative (or “mythology,” as the nerds call it) for the band when you’re writing? It seems like there are characters in your songs, rather than straight-ahead autobiographical stuff -- will those characters ever reappear at a later time? (I know this seems like a ludicrously dorky question. But I’m weird.)
Nah, dude. When I write songs, I aim for memorable tunes and coherent lyrics. That’s pretty much it. Coming up with an entire alternate universe populated by an ordered system of shit I’ve made up in my head is way beyond my attention span -- I’ll leave that to better writers than me. But I’d be lying if I said those kinds of concepts don’t inspire my writing. I’m a huge fan of comic books. And I like movies a lot. So I tend to write lyrics inspired by stuff that I see drawn on a page or projected on a screen, not the boring nonsense that makes up most of my life. I don’t extend those stories beyond the two or three minutes of a tune though, because I don’t have that motivation or interest, or that kind of time on my hands.
How do you write songs? What’s the process like? Do you need anything special to write, like a case of beer? Or does it just flow naturally?
It’s a different process from song to song, but total boredom is involved almost all the time. All of the songs on DH#1 and DH#2, along with “Hide The Body” and “They Came For Me” on DH#3 were written while I was on breaks, working at a call center in Madison, Wis. It was super tedious, brain-numbing work, so to keep myself busy I’d read comics or horror novels between customers, and eventually, I got tired of reading and started writing songs instead. You only got 2 or 3 minutes between each phone call at that job, on average, but during those small gaps I’d re-write a line in a notebook, or figure out a new one, or sing everything over to myself to make sure I wouldn’t lose the melody. That kind of constriction didn’t lend itself real well to writing super-complicated stuff, because if I’d think something up that wasn’t instantly catchy or memorable, I’d forget what I’d come up with by the time the asshole on the other end of the phone was done talking after 20 minutes.
My process isn’t much different now. I still value how memorable a song is over all of it’s other qualities. I usually only write when I’m super bored -- if Kate (my girlfriend) goes out shopping or something, for instance, and I think I’ll be able to entertain myself with a Destroyed In Seconds marathon for three hours, she’ll usually come home and I’ll have a verse written. The only difference is that I write off the clock now, so I’ll spend more time focusing on a line to make sure it makes sense. My earlier lyrics repeat themselves a lot just because I was lazy and didn’t want to think of another verse while I was at work.
Having a lineup that’s shifting sucks. I’ve spent more time teaching parts to new members than we have perfecting the material we’ve got. So I’m pretty pumped that everyone in the band has been hanging out long enough now to know how to play their instruments, learn their parts, free up enough time to maintain both, and not be a dick -- simultaneously. You’d be amazed how fucking hard it is to find people who can juggle all of that. But I don’t think it’s really affected how we write songs. Robbie obviously plays differently than our previous bassist, Jackson, and that’s changed the sound some. But everyone in the band knows what parts will sound right, and there’s only so much you can do with four chords in two minutes anyway when you don’t have an unlimited amount of time to write crazy shit together for 12 hours straight in the same room, 7 days a week. It’s hard to lock even the simplest parts in together when your members are constantly changing, though, so I’m glad things are more stable now.
As far as our overall sound evolving -- I don’t worry about it too much. I think it all goes back to boredom. I write different-sounding songs when I’m bored of the old ones. But thus far, I’ve written over twenty songs with Direct Hit, and the vast majority are made up of Gb, Ab, Bb, and Db power chords, played in different orders, with different rhythms, and different vocal parts. I think we’ve done a pretty good job making a lot out of a little, and I don’t think we’ve exhausted the possibilities yet.
What’s the hardest part of being in Direct Hit?
There’s honestly not a lot that can be construed as difficult with Direct Hit. And if something becomes difficult, we usually find a way to either kill it, or avoid it. I wanted this band to be 100% fun from the very beginning. So if something isn’t fun, we usually don’t do it. We won’t play a show unless we think there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll be able to party. We don’t sit and practice 4 bars of a song for hours at a time. That’s the kind of stuff that turns playing in a band into a job, and I’ve already got one of those. I don’t need another. It’s obviously work getting a tight band together, but I think there’s a line between ‘tight’ and ‘perfect’ that I’m not all that psyched about crossing. Not because I think a perfect band doesn’t sound good. It’s just cause sometimes I’d rather go get wasted at my apartment and watch Terminator than practice.
You guys have a super-catchy slogan w/ the “Fuck you! Get pumped!” Where did that come from?
When Direct Hit first started, I used to tell people to get pumped just as an obnoxious slogan to signify what we were all about. We’ve never really written ‘music with a message.’ But you can’t really tell people that, because then they think your group doesn’t have a point. It’s weird that everyone’s band has to be ‘political,’ or ‘emo,’ or ‘DIY,’ or ‘funny,’ or ‘traditional’ or whatever nowadays. And I thought it was weird how novel it had become for a band to just play to entertain other people, instead of making some kind of grandiose statement about how the rest of the world should be leading its collective life. So ‘get pumped’ was just kind of the most obvious message -- that we write music to psych people up, or to excite a crowd. We aren’t trying to inspire thought, but we’re definitely trying to inspire a feeling. Kid Rock tries to do the same thing though, and his music blows, so maybe it’s not the best mission statement. I guess we’ll find out.
We added the ‘fuck you’ just because we think it’s funny. Profanity usually makes anything a lot more hilarious, in my book.
Is there any particular reason you chose to release 5 EPs rather than a full length? Is it easier or harder to write songs when you know you’re writing for an EP?
There are a lot of reasons we’ve approached recording that way. I guess it all stems from the fact that I’m a pretty vain guy, and like having good, well-produced copies of the songs I’ve worked on. Problem is that you have to pay if you want to do that kind of thing, and I’m not good at saving money. So it was a lot easier for me, especially in the beginning, to fund those kind of recordings if I did them in little batches, on a more frequent basis. We’ve gone into every session having more than four songs written, but we’ve usually picked the best four, and just rolled with those so I didn’t have to come up with money for twice the time in a studio.
As time went on, I think we stuck with the 4-song formula just because it’s easier to hold people’s attention if you’re putting new stuff out every few months, instead of once every couple of years. Plus, it gave us a chance to try new things in the studio and hone the sound we wanted without pissing off an audience that had invested two years of time into our band, only to get a piece of shit full-length record. Releasing small batches of songs kind of gives you a built in do-over since you have new stuff coming out so often.
By my calculations, you guys are the second craziest thing to ever emerge from Wisconsin (after the practice of dissolving bodies in industrial tubs of acid once the flesh has been removed and stored safely in a refrigerator). Is there something in the WI water that makes you guys nuts? Or do you come by it “the hard way”?
I dunno man. There’s plenty of crazy fucking people that hang out at Lambeau Field in -2 degree weather multiple times a year. I think we’re pretty low on the totem pole in comparison.
What are your ultimate plans for Direct Hit? How far will you pursue this dream of musical superstardom?
We don’t really make plans, to tell you the truth. The way we figure it, if we keep having a ludicrously good time, the people coming to see us play will too. And when you think about it, that’s really the best dumb business strategy any band can have -- Make sure you bring an awesome time with you wherever you go.
I can’t speak for the other members in my band, but I’m not pursuing musical superstardom. If someone wants to pay me a few million bucks for my tunes, and I don’t have to work again for the rest of my life as a result, I welcome those phone calls. That shit doesn’t happen though -- I know from experience. You make a living like that by spending 10 years acting like a bitch backstage at the Warped Tour, kissing some stage manager’s ass just to get moved from the 1:30PM to the 2:00PM time slot on some side stage, so you can play to 150 uncaring teenagers instead of 100. Fuck that. Like I said before, I’ve got a job -- I don’t need another one. I’d rather keep playing music for fun and work at a slightly less cool day job. It’s way more awesome for me to show up at a house with 40 people I know personally who are ready to party and get nuts than it is playing for a thousand strangers, half of whom are there because they want to get laid.
Will you ever re-release the older EPs in the series, or are those forever lost to the sands of time?
We don’t have plans to re-release any of them ourselves, but if someone wants to pay to put ‘em out, I don’t think any of us will raise a stink about it. The full length we eventually release will probably be compiled from all of the best songs on our EPs, so people will have a chance to listen to what we think is the best stuff we’ve written. But if you wanna hear the old material, you’ll probably have to get it either from me, or from people who have copies.
Do you have any advice for young bands just getting started? What do you consider the working musician’s best tools in this day & age, besides good songwriting and hallucinogens?
The best advice? Work on your skills first, and your MySpace page later. People care about the latter a lot less than you might think when the first half is good.
The best tools? Good equipment, Bandcamp.com, Gmail, a cell phone, and a reliable van. You don’t need much more than that.
Do you have any musical recommendations for our readers? Real boner-popping crazy shit that will make us go nuts, please.
Career Suicide‘s album Attempted Suicide hasn’t left the CD player in my car for the last month. Them, and their guitarist’s other band, Fucked Up, are my two favorite punk rock bands at the moment. Fucked Up has a split coming out with NOFX soon, I think, if it hasn’t come out already, that I’m pretty psyched out of my mind about.
If we had done this interview in person, after your show at Slam Castle, Tim planned to challenge the entire band to a pull-up contest. (He installed a pull-up bar in his apartment.) Do you think you would have won? If so, why?
Nope. I’m a fatass. So’s Danny. So’s Mike. Alex has problems with fainting, so she’s out too. Robbie would’ve owned all of you though -- He builds houses in Winter in Wisconsin. You don’t fuck with people like that. At least I don’t.
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