Interview with John Jarvis from NEST

Written by Tom Wilson | Sense Music Media

The musical resume of John Jarvis certainly needs no padding. Over the last decade, he’s hit the thick strings for grinders Pig Destroyer, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Fulgora, Kolten Wong City and All Will Fall, as well as Scour, the black metal project of Philip H. Anselmo, frontman for 90s powerhouse Pantera (and roughly four billion other bands). Now, Jarvis has breathed life into a different beast.

Chromesthesia is a type of synesthesia where people see sounds as colours. I imagine they would hear a band like Nest and see shades of grey, like scratched concrete. The vocals sound like they were recorded backwards, then played forwards … in a wind tunnel. The bass is so massive it seems to distort space and time. Thick, grimy chords lumber back and forth like a giant with an inner-ear infection. It’s claustrophobic, hostile and nasty, and every word of this paragraph should be taken as a ringing endorsement.

The Interview

Talking to him in his home in Belleville, Illinois, I mention to John that:

The lead single Can’t Pretend sounds like what would happen if Page Hamilton from HELMET was possessed by the devil and locked in a padded cell.

“You know, it’s funny that you mention Helmet, because that’s exactly what I was thinking when I was writing it. I was like, “I’ve got to take the cool parts of Helmet and try to make it heavier.” [They’re] one of my favourite bands. Helmet are just geniuses in my opinion.”

First releasing music as COVID was sweeping the globe, NEST is a three-piece featuring Jarvis on guitar, Jenna Rillo on bass, and Lehman Stevens behind the kit. What brought the band together?

“In the beginning of NEST, there was a friend of mine in St. Louis who wanted to write some new stuff. He was in a band called Eli Stone, which was a big deal in St. Louis back in the late 90s. It was a nu metal band. He wanted to get together and jam. We got a couple of songs, and he said, “Well, why don’t you write some stuff?” I went and wrote the entire Nest record, basically. By that point, that’s when the Coronavirus started. It came to a point where he didn’t have time for it anymore, and I just said, “Well, maybe I’ll just take these songs I’ve been writing and start my own band, and go from there.” That’s pretty much how it started.”

What kind of influences shaped it?

“Well, we mentioned HELMET, but also a band called Hum, from the 90s, was a big influence. They just surprise-dropped a record last week, which is really great. Everyone should check that out. They’re a band from Illinios that got big in the late 90s … I just wanted to do something that didn’t have blast-beats, and didn’t sound like any of the other bands I was in, of course. That seems kind of boring and repetitive, if you’re just going to be in the same band over and over, and write the same album over and over. I made sure not to have any blast beats, but still, at the same time, try to make people headbang, you know?”

Over the last few months, Jarvis has shared video of the trio conjuring walls of noise from the basement of Utopia Studios in St. Louis, Missouri – the same venue he used to jam in twenty years ago as part of All Will Fall. Getting together with Stevens and Rillo a few times a week has played a big part in keeping him sane. John is acutely aware that not everyone is so lucky.

“It really takes your mind off things. I [have] a lot of bands, friends of mine, messaging me, saying, “Man, I wish my band could jam!” I feel bad for all the people who can’t do it, you know? We’re lucky that we’re all in the same spot, and there’s no one around, so you don’t have to worry about social distancing. We rent out our own little room. It’s really nice.”

What was the last gig he went to?

“The last show that I went to was in early March, and it was [Kansas technical death metal band] Origin. I remember thinking at the time, “Am I risking my life going to this thing?” At the time, no one really knew what was going on. But it’s like, I can’t give up [going to shows], that’s how I get entertained. Everyone’s got their own thing, but going to concerts is how I stay sane. Performing is even better. The last show I played … I sang with Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals at the last Slayer tour, so that was November. When you don’t get onstage for six months, you start to get an itch for it. I don’t want to say it’s like a drug, but it kind of is.”

Jarvis goes on to tell me that he was invited out on stage to do backing vocals for PANTERA classic Walk, and it sends me down a rabbit hole of groove metal nostalgia. The Texan metal titans were the band that got this writer into heavy metal, and one of my favourite shows last year was PHIL & THE ILLEGALS absolutely crushing The Back Room in Brisbane. I mention that I’m gunning for an interview with him, but I probably have a snowball’s chance in hell.

“He told me when I first met him … “The media is really not your friend.” … That goes back to the end of PANTERA. The media is what was stirring up that inner-band fighting, from what I could tell … I’m not against the media, but I’ve learned that they’re really not my friend.”

As a writer, it is hard to hear that and not insist that “I’m not like the rest.” It is all well and good for Sense Music Media to say that we don’t indulge in gossip, we don’t stir the pot, and we don’t talk shit, but it’s also very clear that trust is earned. We just aren’t there yet. Still, Jarvis is full of praise for Phil.

“The beauty is, he’s singing those songs better now than he was at the end of Pantera’s reign … Towards the end, he was so fucked up, he was slurring … I told him to his face, “Man, you’re singing these songs better! I’m not just saying that to kiss your ass. I was there, and you weren’t that good!” Now, he’s healthy, he hasn’t been drinking for years, and he’s actually out there singing it.”

In the age of Cancel Culture, redemption is a tricky concept. I mention that I’m two-and-a-half years sober, and still working on fixing the damage caused while being a drunken arsehole. Jarvis agrees.

“I haven’t drank for a couple of years myself, and I feel better than ever. It’s a good, healthy decision, no doubt about it … Getting drunk was always fun. I admit, I do miss going out and getting wasted and having a good time, but I do not miss those hangovers.”

How did he first come to work with Phil?

“I was in a band called FULGORA– we’re still a band, technically … Me and my buddy started this band, and we ended up getting my cousin on drums, Adam Jarvis. I sent the demo to Housecore [Records, Phil’s record label], and the drummer from the band HAARP apparently listened to the band and checked us out, and went to Phil, “You’ve gotta hear this band.” Then Phil heard it and sent us a message on Facebook of all places … I was playing a show with my SEPULTURA tribute band [Clenched Fist], and we were driving to the show, and my guitar player calls and says, “Is it really him? Is it really Phil Anselmo?””

Jarvis checked his messages, and saw one that appeared to be from Phil. He was immediately sceptical.

“This can’t be Phil Anselmo. It’s just some random guy. Phil doesn’t even have a Facebook … This could be anybody.” I didn’t think it was really him that messaged us. It said something like, “If you’re the band that wrote this song, I want to get a hold of you as soon as possible.”

As it turns out, it was the man himself, and Jarvis notes that their first phone conversation mostly revolved around football. Phil ended up signing Fulgora, and the friendship bloomed from there. The band ended up recording at Phil’s studio in New Orleans. All this from the simple gesture of sending a demo into Housecore, a label that Jarvis ended up working for, running their social media. This relationship expanded into Scour, a black metal project featuring Phil on vocals, Adam Jarvis on drums, and Mark Kloeppel and Derek Engemann on guitars. They have put out two EPs with a third on the way, and their sound is formidable – frostbitten riffs scything under the rumble of blast beats and Anselmo’s guttural roaring. It is abrasive, serrated metal. I ask about EP number three.

“It’s all done. It’s mixed and mastered, the artwork is turned in, the masters are all turned in. Now, at this point, we just sit back and wait for a release date. Hopefully it’s this year. Who knows, though? We’ve done our part. I can tell you, personally, it’s my favourite of the three. It’s nice that we had the idea, which was to make three EPs of six tracks each, so it’s “666”.” I can tell he’s smiling. “Evil and darkness, you know?”

Download

NEST’s self-titled debut album is out now on Bandcamp

Social Media

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NEST on Spotify