Nightly, a pop band with honest lyrics and heart-wrenching melodies has recently been opening up for Michigan rapper NF as he tours the country. I had the privilege of being able to speak with the two members of Nightly, Jonathan Capeci and Joey Beretta. Their most recent EP, “Honest,” is an endeavor in becoming vulnerable and truthful with fans.
The Knockturnal: What vibe were you guys trying to accomplish with Honest?
Jon: The way that I’ve been describing to people is that Honest is in a way, like Chapter 1… and the next one will be like, just the aftermath. I think setting the scene and trying to give some context about the relationship I was in, and like specific memories that were important to me and things like that. You get to the point when you know have to let that person go. We had written a bunch of songs and we just kinda picked the four that were kind of the most…unique I guess of those and told a story.
The Knockturnal: That’s really interesting to me that you say “letting go of a person,” because when I heard “XO” I was like okay… this is like super – trying to get detached almost. And I wonder if when you translate that over to music, do you have that same idea of like needing to let go of like certain styles or certain sounds?
Joey: I think that honestly, we are always on this journey of discovering how we want to communicate things. Obviously, there are threads in this new EP that make sense in the whole of our music, but there are definitely new things in it as well. But I think, it’s always hard as an artist because you always think your newest stuff is your best stuff. To answer your question there is always moving forward in it as well.
Jon: And I think it’s nice too, as you were saying, letting go of some sounds, it’s kind of cool to make something within restrictions because it gives it a certain characteristic. Whereas, if you just have a million colors to paint with versus if you just have like 10 or 20. That way everything feels of a certain palette versus being so all over the place.
The Knockturnal: How would you say that Nightly is different that your previous musical endeavors, or is it all continuous?
Jon: Yeah, continuous, like in terms of just learning from past things, I think this is just a more distilled version of everything we’ve done before.
Joey: It’s like an honest view of ours, that we had to do a lot of things that weren’t real to us before we got to this point when we are like: we’re just going to make real stuff that like, means something to us, and hopefully people can connect with that. And I think that took many years of us maturing as people and artists to get to that point.
The Knockturnal: So how did you guys first start making music?
Jon: We always loved music, we did grow up doing music in church and stuff like that so that was definitely encouraged. But making music outside of that, it was just sort of something that us and all of our friends did. All of our friends in South Jersey and Philly, which is where we’re originally from, instead of sports, it was just a thing that we did, like be in bands. We would literally throw shows at random places like bowling alleys. I remember we did one at an antique store or something *both laugh while remembering* We would just do it once a month. Us, our friend’s bands, our other friend’s bands. It was just a hobby, you know what I mean? It’s like how some people skateboard, we just played music.
Joey: Then we realized shortly thereafter that we weren’t really good at anything else, so we were just going to keep doing that *chuckles*.
The Knockturnal: So would you say that the South Jersey/Philly culture influenced your music at all?
Jon: Yeah, totally. I would think so, it’s really creative, you know? Nashville is very professional, everyone there is like some of the best musicians in the country. But Philly and Jersey, they’ll just do the weirdest, kind of wacky stuff. And sometimes that makes really good stuff, you know? Because it’s almost like if you know too much, in terms of music theory, you can kind of restrict yourself. Literally, kids in Jersey would just like make weird music that didn’t make sense to anybody
Joey: Like singing exclusively through a telephone and weird stuff like that. Literally, we had a friend who did that. He had a microphone he made out of a telephone, and then he did a whole set through that.
Jon: Which like to the mass public is not very appealing, but just that kind of creative culture is just something that…
Joey: It was a smaller market and you’re not afraid to try things because it was literally us and our friends and we were doing it for like 75 people.
So we talked about this idea of honesty and being open, and while this does bring a veil down between you and your fans, that kind of honesty has a certain vulnerability to it, does that scare you guys?
Jon: It definitely does, I mean like, I was afraid to show my mom certain songs. Not necessarily ones that are out but you think about these things and there’s a certain price you pay to being vulnerable like everybody just knows your entire situation. And if it’s about a girl, them hearing it, that aspect of it I wouldn’t say is scary…it’s just sort of uncomfortable. Especially my parents always want me to play them new music, and I’m like… just listen to it on your own *laughs.* But they’re super supportive of me being myself, but it’s almost just like your diary just out there. Not that I have a diary but…
The Knockturnal: Do you think there’s a certain threshold you have to pass before you can feel comfortable?
Joey: I think that was all part of the growing like we would look at all of our favorite bands ever and our favorite albums, and they’re all like brutally honest albums. I think in other projects we did together, we always tried to write for what someone would want to hear, and it wasn’t a sincere experience, you know? And I think when we first wrote that Honest EP, we just really went out and wrote whatever we feel. And that’s what came from it, and we were like: there’s actually something here that we need to really pursue. That was definitely part of the growing process of writing what’s actually real to you, because that’s what resonated with us with our favorite bands. You know exactly what the person is talking about.
The Knockturnal: If you guys could go back and get signed with one of your previous bands, would you?
Jon & Joey: No way.
The Knockturnal: Is making music different at all now that you’re signed?
Jon: No, there’s more people on our team, but we still do the same things that we did before. We just have more resources and more support.
Joey: We’re super fortunate to be part of the teams that we are, we’re still very much behind the creative process, it’s just now we have a lot of people who will help us move it to the right direction.
The Knockturnal: The act that you guys are opening up for, NF, is a hip-hop/rap act. Are there any challenges when you’re opening up for a different genre?
Jon: Yeah, for sure, we’ve been touring for a little over a year. And we’ve done many different spots, and some crowds and fans are more open to it initially, and others you kind of have to work for it. Surprisingly though his fan base has been awesome. You wouldn’t think that necessarily because like, it is rap, and we’re not. But, I think, what they like in him makes them the kind of fan that is open to other types of genres as well. So, it’s been great so far.
The Knockturnal: Do remember your first time singing, or playing guitar?
Joey: When we were like 12 years old we bought matching Fenders, and two weeks later they let me go on stage at church and I didn’t even have my volume on. I don’t even know if I was plugged in, I was so nervous, I just wanted to throw up the entire day.
Jon: I didn’t really like to sing when I was young, my parents put me in choir, and I hated that. So that was probably my first one, I think I was around twelve. But it was with a whole group of people, but I just hated choir music. I thought it was super corny.
The Knockturnal: How big of an influence has the church had on your music, would you guys consider yourselves Christian musicians?
Jon: We have a faith, we hold a personal faith, and we believe in God. But I think for the music that we make it’s honestly weird for me the category of Christian music. And I’m not like judging that because I know that it has its own place, but that thought has always been weird to me. Like, I want to make music for whoever wants to listen, whether you’re atheist, Christian, Hindu, like anything…I would not say that we’re a Christian band. But like we are Christians, personally. As far as the influence it gave us an environment to be in.
Joey: And no judgment. You could be the worst musician in the Church, and be up there, and no one would be like: you sounded terrible today. I think that definitely, we had an outlet right away.
The Knockturnal: So last question, earlier you said that Honest EP is chapter 1. Where do you go from being completely honest – do you get more honest?
Jon: I think we try to dig a little bit deeper, and setting a starting tone. We want to get this out in the open in the beginning that we’re going to be who we are from day one.
Joey: We’ve been fortunate to be able to be touring a lot, experiencing a lot, so I definitely think we have more to say. I’m just excited that we have this opportunity to be where we are.
Nightly is currently out on a sold-out tour with NF. See below for a complete list of remaining tour dates:
Feb 20 Springfield, MO Gillioz Theatre
Feb 21 Oklahoma City, OK Diamond Ballroom
Feb 23 Houston, TX Revention Music Center
Feb 24 Dallas, TX South Side Ballroom
Feb 25 Austin, TX Stubbs
Feb 27 St. Louis, MO The Pageant
March 1 Omaha, NE Sokol Auditorium
March 2 Denver, CO Fillmore Auditorium
March 3 Magna, UT Saltair
Photo Credit: Nolan Knight
