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Issue 5 Articles

Interview with Nick Hipa - Lead Guitarist of As I Lay Dying

Interview and photo by Katie Whitman

I had the pleasure of interviewing As I Lay Dying’s guitarist, Nick Hipa, before their sold out show on May 31. Nick is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. When I introduced myself, I realized why the girls waiting in line outside (an hour before the doors opened) had referred to him as “the cute one.” All they wanted to know was “Is he single?” Nick never quite answered that one, but expounded on a number of other topics.
Nick Hipa is Hawaiian and was born in Hawaii. He lived here until he was about 10 yrs old. Currently, he lives in San Diego.

How do you go from being a local boy to making it up on that stage?

Well, for me, I moved to Texas when I was younger and… when I started getting older, like late high school/early college, I was playing in all kinds of bands.  Eventually some of my bands started touring and that’s how I came to know and become part of this band.  My old band toured with As I Lay Dying a while back.  It was because I was already over there, in the circle [as opposed to living in Hawaii].  A lot of guys that I know from the islands, like Olivia from the North Shore, those guys did as much as they could here and went as far as they could here.  They ended up moving to the states. That’s really the only place that you can build [a name] for your band.  Hawaii’s a great island and I love Hawaii to death, but the reason I don’t live here right now is because I want to pursue music.  It’s not easy to do here, unless you’re Jack Johnson.

For any band that was wondering how to do it, I would say just start your own scene here.  Be THE band that puts together the shows and takes care of the shows.  You’ll be surprised, if you take all that responsibility putting everything together, then you’ll be that band that kids look to.  As you become that bigger band on the island so when touring bands come, you’ll be on a show with them.  Last time we were here, we played with Push the Pedal from Mililani.  They’re kinda doing the right thing.  I don’t know what they are doing right now, but that’s the way to go.  Keep on building up your fan base, play with national acts and make friends with those dudes.  Learn all you can from them and eventually, I would say you have to move over to the continental U.S.

It’s all up to the kids.  It really only takes one or two people to really throw together a scene, you know.  And it’s gonna take like one or two bands.  That’s what happens in a lot of places that have really good scenes.

Do you have an advice on touring?

When you’re starting out, musically, do as much as you can.  And also, don’t go on tour if you don’t have a solid band – that’s counterproductive.  The purpose of touring is to promote something.  The first time you go out there, it’s to promote your name and your band and the songs you guys do have.  Then, when you finally put an album out, which I think you should do as soon as you can.   You promote that album and that’s how people remember you.  They remember the show and take a CD home and get a shrit or something and it grows from there.  As far as touring goes, I’d say be smart about your shows and don’t just do it to do it.  That’s all I got right now.

How do you get music from this island into the hands of people on the mainland?

You can get your music into anyone’s hands.  You can give it to a national band, you can get discovered on MySpace.  To get it to people that actually matter, like labels, what’s going to matter the most to them is that you are doing something with your band.  It’s great that you have five songs, but are you playing those five songs to everyone you can possibly play to.  A lot of independent labels take that approach – even if the band is amazing, if they don’t tour, [the label] is reluctant to put that album out because independent labels are very limited with what they can do as far as marketing so they rely on the band’s touring to do that for them.  For any band that is very very concered with getting their music in the right hands, I would say that you have to go to the contiguous U.S. and hand [your album] out to as many people as you can and play for as many people as you can.  You have to be worth something to them to sign you.

You guys were sort of recently signed to a bigger independent label (Metal Blade Records)…

For us, we’re still in that indie label mindset.  When the band started with Jordon, they recorded their first album after a month or two of the band’s inception.  They had so many songs and a local San Diego following.  [A really small independent label] saw that this band was doing a lot in their city,… had a collection of songs that were worth putting out…

It seems like your band has risen to fame very quickly compared to some other bands out there…

I don’t know, because I feel like we’ve worked so much.  Even in my other band, we would tour with this band and we’d do shows to five or six kids.  That was a tour for us.  We’d go home and people would ask “How was your tour?”  and we’d be like “Oh, it was fun.”  But we played for a total of 70 kids over a three week time period.  It’s a very slow build for some bands.  For us it was a slow build. 

From there, the first tour was 70 kids, but all those kids told their friends.  Then the next tour was for, you know, 240 kids, and then we started headlining and 200 kids would come to each show.  Then bigger bands would see that we were drawing these kinds of kids and they’d be like “You know what, we need to put them on our tour” because 200 people adds up.  That’s kinda how it grew.  So we started supporting bands and winning over their fans, and headlining and bringing out more people, then eventually getting on a street festival and stuff like that.

Did you tour all over the California area, or all over the country?

The first tours that As I Lay Dying did were short California ones.  Then out to Texas and back.  You kinda do little jumps before you do a month long stretch.

Now you’re doing Belgium, France, and Germany.  How is that?

We’ve gone all over the place.  We’ve been in 12 or 13 countries through Europe and the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia.  It’s cool that we have a fan base growing over there.   It’s fun for us just to go over there and experience these cultures and play a show.  It’s rad.

It must be great doing your dream.

I’m not gonna lie and say that it isn’t hard.  It can be very miserable sometimes.  People don’t understand – I didn’t understand… like Metallica for instance, when Jason Newstead left, it’s like, “Are you kidding me? You guys are enormous.”  How can it be so bad that you’d want to leave such a sweet band?  But you’re around the same people all the time.  Personal differences are going to come up and then traveling takes its toll on you, being away from home.  It can kinda be monotonous if you don’t have the creativity to enjoy yourself wherever you’re at, you know.  It’s being able to accept and enjoy your circumstances no matter what.  I had just as much fun touring in a van with no AC as I do touring in a bus.

Do you interact with your fans a lot?

I always feel weird because, ummm… I love meeting all our fans because our music means a lot to us.  It means a lot that they like our band and I’m just stoked to meet and hang out with them.  But I feel weird because I don’t want to just walk up to a group of kids and say “Hey what’s up?” [like I’m the guy you want to meet].  I don’t want to be like that.  So I never really go out of my way to approach kids or anything because I don’t want to look like a conceited jerk.  If I’m anywhere, and anyone who knows of our band and likes us and wants to have a conversation or just hang out for a bit, I’m always down.  I enjoy things like that and so does everyone else in our band.

We’ve worked so hard for it and it means so much to us that we don’t ever take those people for granted.  Those are the kids that let us enjoy the lives that we are living right now.

What other music are you into?  Are you into island music?

I used to love me some Kalapana.  When I was younger, the Pau Crater Boys and all those bands.  I liked a lot of Hawaiian music.  As far as what’s going on now, I’m not really so keen on.  But you know, there’s just something about Hawaiian music that I really love.

As for music in general, I love everything with a genuine feel.  I’m not genre specific, if it’s sweet, it’s sweet. 

The kind of music that you guys play requires you to be really adept at your instrument, so do you practice all the time?

Oh yeah.  I’ve been playing my guitar for 12 years.  That’s what I’ve lived and breathed since I was in middle school.  We’re never content with our musicianship.  We’re always like, dude, we suck.  Look at bands like… Dragon Force.  But I think that it’s our own drive to constantly get better and constantly challenge ourselves that let’s us be able to keep progressing.  I don’t think for any one of us there will be a time where we say, “You know what, I’m good enough.”… I play my guitar for at least three or four hours a day when I’m at home.  And actually, I play guitar a lot more when I’m at home than when I’m on tour.

Any general advice for the kids in the scene here?

It’s hard for a lot of kids to fathom, but they can create their own scene here.  There’s a band from Australia called Parkway Drive, and they’re from Byron Bay, a city smaller than Haleiwa.  And they’re the biggest heavy band in Australia and they’ve sold 15,000 albums there, which, in Australia, is like halfway to gold.  What those guys did… they really organized the scene.  They formed a band, they put on shows, they brought other bands into town – bands that they loved.  You can make it happen.  It’s all up to the kids, they can do it.  And keep asking questions, like you ask me and then you get my part of it.  Then if you get ten other dudes’ different opinions, then from there… you can go for it your own way.

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The Tip Off

Tool - After six years, Tool returns to Honolulu on Aug 18 & 19th. Tool recently released their sixth album, 10,000 Days. Reserved tickets ($68.50) go on sale Sat., July 8th.

Hoobastank - Hoobastank, Hot Hot Heat,The Fray, Rock Kills Kid at the Waikiki Shell on Saturday, Aug 5th. Advance tickets are $37. Check out Hot Hot Heat’s (pictured below) “Goodnight Goodnight.” I like it.

rRed Elephant - The two owners of rRed Elephant are seasoned recording industry professionals currently building their record label, Elepani Productions. Their amazing stage with top-of-the-line mics, speakers, and lights not only accomodates exceptional live music shows, but doubles as a recording studio. rRedElephant.com.

Tribal Seeds - They’re a great rock influenced reggae band from Cali. They just toured Hawaii in June and will be back to promote their new CD at the end of the year. myspace.com/tribalseeds (pictured below)

Wormwood - DUDE! Coolest underground Hip-Hop show in Hawaii. At Detox every last Saturday of the month. Check out myspace.com/nabahe for more info

Unity Crayons - A non-profit organization that sets up all ages shows. They work hard to provide music for Hawaii’s youth and bring bands of all genres together. UnityCrayons.com.

New Jazz Club in town - look for a new jazz club opening in Chinatown on Nuuanu very soon. I’m not sure of the details, but I stumbled across it during initial construction a month ago.

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Doris Duke Theatre

Sacred Art Tattoo