Horror Bad-Ass Nick Principe Changes His Tune
If you happen to remember the steely-skulled killer in Laid to Rest, or perhaps you’ve watched this tall, tattooed tough guy kicking some ass in some of the 40+ projects he’s been in over the course of his career, you’re familiar with the name Nick Principe. His already busy schedule will now revert back to a passion that he’s had since way before he ever stepped in front of the camera, and that’s his music. The name of the band is The Last Day, and their music is perfect aggression therapy.
Nick was gracious enough to chat with us for a few minutes to discuss the band’s latest plans, as well as what he’s got coming up film-wise. Read on and enjoy!
DC: All right, Nick, what’s up with the band? Give us the lowdown!
NP: Well, the last time I was in Rhode Island (Nick’s home state), I was jamming with one of the first bands I played out of state with, doing weekend tours and stuff like that. They’re regular guys, 9-to-5’ers, they’ve got wives, kids…shit that I’ll never understand (laughs), and they’re making some pretty quality music, you know? This is so much better than a basement band, and I don’t want to sound like a dictator, but I’ve been down this road before, so I said, “If you want to do this seriously, let me know – I’ve done this before, I’ve made the mistakes, and I know what NOT to do.” So, the guys were all charged up as we hadn’t played shows since we were 19 or so, and here we are on the closer edge of 40. It’s a release for those who are doing the 9-to-5, and might not have the money or time to take a nice vacation, so this is the answer to that. They started off with about 5 songs, and I whittled it down to 2, and then I wrote another 4-5. I then had to head back to California and I thought to myself, “This is kind of tough – I don’t know how this is going to work.” Then I was in that piece of shit movie, The Rocker with Rainn Wilson, and in the movie they couldn’t practice because their parents wouldn’t let them, so they used Skype – and I was like, “Holy fuck, that will totally fucking work!” So they had an iPad set up on the top of their amp, and it was like I was in the room, and while I felt kind of stupid screaming in my room by myself, I’m sure my neighbors are used to hearing weirder sounds than that (laughs). About a month later I flew back and we got some recording time, banged out 4 songs, and by the second week of August, I’m hoping to have the other songs all mixed and ready to go. For the U.S., I’m probably just going to go to band camp, and do the songs like that, while in Europe the CD’s will probably get released as an E.P.
DC: Planning on attaching a tour to coincide with or after the release?
NP: We’ll probably start a tour off overseas, mainly because it’s tough to tour in the U.S – I’m not really into making a profit, as long as you come back with what you left with, and it’s really hard to do that unless you’ve got something like a bio-diesel van – gassing up with the grease-trap stuff from Chinese restaurants – that goes a long way. Plus, I’m just too old to book a tour myself where we’d be the headliner – it’s got to be in support of another band. I can see us doing some shows up and down the East Coast, but I don’t think we’d be able to go to the Midwest, and if there were another thing like RevFest going on over on the West Coast, and I could get some cheap tickets to fly the guys out with out their instruments, that could work. So I’m trying to manage that, plus I’ve got a few more films that I’m working on – nothing really planned for the rest of July, but in August I’m going to New Orleans to film a movie about what happened a few days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Not sure if this is based on a true story, but supposedly after everything went Code Black after the hurricane, one of the riverboat casinos was broken into by 6 people and stole around 10 million dollars.
WRITER’S NOTE: It’s just been announced that The Last Day will be playing at this year’s Rock and Shock on Saturday night, October 14th, with Superjoint, DevilDriver, and more.
DC: Jumping back to the band for a second, I’d heard that you recently had to undergo a name change – what happened?
NP: That hurt. That really, really hurt. I had the name “The Finalist” for a while, and when I came up with the name, it sounded like everything I’d ever wanted – there’s only a small group of people in the world who have their hearts set in the right place, and their taste in music still holds the same, no matter how much the trends change. They still dress the same, and listen to the same bands, no matter if it’s still cool or not, and I felt like they’re the finalists – the last breed of people who are doing this. When I started searching for domain names, it turns out that there was this fucking awful band called “The Finalist” out of Texas, and they’d already broken up in 2010. So I did a bit of researching, and I wanted to keep the name along that same idea – the last something, and it turned out that “The Last Day” was available – I went and bought the domain name, and that was it. Tom Hodge, who did the artwork for movies like Hobo With A Shotgun and WolfCop 1 & 2 – he designed us a sick logo with a shotgun and a cross, but I needed the name change, and within 5 minutes, he made the change and we had our logo. If anyone wants to check out our page, they can head over to facebook.com/Thelastday13/ – there’s one song up on the page now, and I’ll most likely be adding another shortly before we set up the actual band’s website.
DC: Nick, thanks very much for the time – best of luck with the band and the upcoming film!
NP: Thanks, guys – you’re the best!
Categorized:News
