Nick Waterhouse is a fresh-faced throwback to old-time '50s and '60s rock 'n' roll, but his mixture of Motown R&B, surf rock, doo-wop, and suit-pant city blues is very much here and now. The 25-year-old LA-based frontman isn't copying his influences, his sound is armed by them. The Coasters, the Sonics, Buddy Holly, Freddy King, and the Meters—they're all present, but with Waterhouse, there's no false capitalizing on those predecessors; he's raw with the pull of his past-tense stimuli, and he moves it forward. His live band can swell to 12 members onstage and at times may include Ira Raibon of Earth, Wind & Fire or Ty Segall himself on drums. Recently, Waterhouse released a full-length album on Innovative Leisure Records called Time's All Gone. His guitar playing and vocals are svelte and well placed, and live it's more unhinged, bringing his cook to a surprisingly high heat. He's a fast talker and a faster thinker, and he's got a Rolodex of 45s for a brain.
What happened at the taco truck after your show in LA?
I had to punch some bro-guy in the face. We had played at this deco basement venue in Venice Beach called the Townhouse. I walked outside, and there were these dudes pushing my roommate around, who was trying to get a taco. They were pushing him and saying, "What are you doing, faggot?" I dropped my guitar and clocked the guy.
How do you react to criticism?
Very even-headedly [laughs]. I think some people just don't like the blues. So they automatically disqualify you. I think everybody's entitled to their opinion. I know what I make. I think what's cool about music is that what you make becomes something else to someone else. If you don't like it, you should have a good reason. And when people do like it, I still feel dumbfounded. I still haven't come up with a good response to people when they tell me they like my music, besides thank you.
I see hardcore metal fans automatically disqualifying other forms of music a lot. If it's not metal, they don't like it. If you're not screaming enough like a dying hyena, they don't like it. But I kind of like hardcore fans for that reason. You don't scream like a dying hyena, though.
There are parallels between metal and the music that I play. And no one ever acknowledges that. People who are critical of my music, their critique tends to be a quick, superficial aesthetic dismissal where they're like, "This is retro, I'm done." I mean, people don't do that to country records. Or metal. I never hear people saying, "Ugh, this is metal, this is so not unique." I think there's this fallacy in thinking something is derivative, when in reality, all art and music is derivative of something else. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
How did your playing with Ira Raibon from Earth, Wind & Fire come about?
It's one of those insane chance things. I had been recording at Mike McHugh's Distillery Studio [Black Lips, Jon Spencer] and I needed a horn. Mike gave me his number. He just loves to play and wants to play. He's like an angel on my shoulder. He showed up unannounced at my CD release show—I'm playing, and I look to the side of the stage, and there he his, standing in a leather jacket, shirt off, in a beret and a scarf, with his sax ready to play. He's 68. He's amazing.
How are you evolving?
Working on new material and sounds. I feel like the songs are moving somewhere. I'm not retreading anything. It's funny, the people that are saying I'm doing some thing that's been done before, or I'm doing something derivative, I always want to ask them, "Derivative of what? What song does this sound like? Oh, Motown? Really? You're saying I sound like Motown? Play me one Motown song that sounds like that." To me, it's a sum of all my influences and experiences. I think that's what any musician does. I'd like someone to interview me with the questions they were going to ask a band that's respected by Pitchfork, like Unknown Mortal Orchestra, because those questions tend to be really intellectual. The questions I usually get tend to be superficial. I'm just an artist like any other artist.
What initial listening experiences in your life got you motivated musically?
"Baby Please Don't Go" by Them. That was on Van Morrison's greatest hits [album]. Also John Lee Hooker. I had no idea what it was. That was scary-sounding to me. This was in 1990, when the radio was playing Janet Jackson. It blew my mind that there were these two different worlds. I wanted to be part of the one that wasn't Janet Jackson. Other things that influenced me were Ralph Ellison, the author, and Young Jessie, the singer, and the Coasters, and Leiber and Stoller, and just specific records. I like the songs. I care about a song more than anything. It's not even the artists that I'm necessarily interested in. Artists sometimes assume this overarching thematic thing, where there's a milieu to them that I appreciate. What a lot of people in rock culture appreciate in Dylan, besides just his work, is that he has the spirit or whatever that runs through what he does. And I think that's the way people enjoy writers. Like reading John Updike, you know, to some degree, what you're going to get with him, and any great artist with a track record. But that's not to put aside the single songs that can blow your brains out, and you find out there's only one record from that person.
What are some 45s that blow your brains out?
"Chills and Fever" by Ronnie Love. "Saint Dominic's Preview" by Van Morrison is so great. That's a tune that's like everything in one song. "Ain't There Something That Money Can't Buy" by the Young Holt Trio, which is basically like a two-chord vamp recorded live in a club that was the B-side of a single—so amazing.
In the studio, do you listen to those old records and consciously mirror the sounds?
There are times when that happens, but the trick is not to let that overrun things. I feel it's important to have a shorthand to communicate things, but once you set up that shorthand with somebody, you're not really getting that thing anymore. This is my issue with people making retro records. They'll say, "I want that Motown drum sound." But it's like, "Dude, you don't have the fucking Motown room. You don't have the same compressor." That's their way of saying they want a vintage sound. Then they slave away to make this lavish not-quite-Motown song. And then you listen to that tune, maybe it's by Raphael Saadiq or something, and you think, "This is almost Motown, but I'd rather just listen to Motown." For me, I choose my mics. I place my mics. I just do what sounds good. Sometimes, that is me saying, "Hey, let's get that Coasters tone on the sax mic if we can get it." Because maybe I don't want it be so wide-open sounding and get a little bit of the room reverberation. But that's just my way of saying that in a quicker way when I'm trying to communicate what's going on in my head to an engineer, who might not want to deal with all that's going on in my head [laughs]. Also, I go straight in. I don't use any effects. A cable from my guitar to the amp—that, I like.
You play a Martin F-65 electric guitar. Who are some other Martin wielders?
Skip Spence from Moby Grape and the dude from the Music Machine—they had black ones. This one is sunburst that I have; I really like it. I also play an SG that was my first guitar when I was 14. I didn't want to play guitar initially, then really got into it. I modified my SG heavily. So it's kind of like a '56 Les Paul, wiringwise. I rewired it and put new pickups in that are proto P-90s. They're rad, they sound great.
What was first song you ever played on the guitar?
Probably "You Really Got Me." Two chords. After that, it was probably some shitty Weezer or Black Sabbath song.
Talk about your dabbling into Metallica's "Master of Puppets."
I have yet to dabble there. Maybe soon. See, that is part of what made me not want to play guitar. I never want to be a good guitar player. I just learned to play the songs I liked. To be a good guitar player, you had to be a shredder. I didn't want to be a shredder, I didn't want to practice that stuff, I didn't like it, and then I was made to feel bad, and made to feel like I was a bad guitar player because I didn't do stuff like that. I ended up feeling like Billy Childish. I don't really like Billy Childish's music that much, but I like what he says—you don't have to be an expert. And that's part of the charm of all rock 'n' roll, or R&B or whatever: There's no expertise needed, and that makes you an expert in rock 'n' roll. 
