Faces of Bushwick: Nick Droz

October 2, 2021

To celebrate our longtime partnership with Bushwick Book Club Seattle, we’re speaking with local musicians who have composed and performed songs inspired by the written works of SAL speakers. Learn about these hometown talents and discover their music in our Faces of Bushwick interview series.

In this installment, we talk with singer-songwriter Nick Droz, who is handy with a guitar among many other instruments.

What SAL event did you write a song for? What book inspired your song?

Gregory Orr’s reading of River Inside the River. Orr came to SAL in February 2018.

Where can we find your song online?

What surprised you about the song that emerged from the process?

While writing the song [Outside Eden (Mono A Mono – Fuzzy Nonsense)] I had this very edgy vibe in mind, but during the performance, a couple of the lyrical turns of phrase got laughs from the crowd. It was a really fun and surprising reaction. I didn’t expect that at all, but I was really happy to have people connect to it in such an unexpected way.

What do you love about writing music inspired by literature? Is it different from how you write songs otherwise?

My favorite part about writing songs inspired by literature is getting access to themes, thoughts, imagery, and stories that never would have come to you just sitting around and mining your own experience, subconscious, or imagination. It really opens you up.

What are you reading now? Or, what book have you recently enjoyed that you’d recommend to others?

I’m currently reading 33 1/3: Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Kim Cooper, which is an account of the making of NMH’s album In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, and The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, which follows the lives of the employees of an English language newspaper that operates out of Rome.

The Imperfectionists has been a really engaging read, so I’d recommend that. Or maybe The Closer You Are, which is the biography of Robert Pollard from Guided By Voices.

Do you have a recent project to share—or something new on the horizon?

I’ve been doing a project for the last year and a half called the Secret Singles Club where every so often (monthly at the most) I record and release a new single to a “secret” email list via download link. Some of the singles from 2020 were previously unrecorded songs gathering dust, some were co-writes, some were recording collaborations. It’s all over the place.

The singles are all 100% free, but when a new single comes out, the download link to the previous single breaks, so you’ve gotta download them while they’re current. At the end of the year, I release them all as a collection via Bandcamp for a fee, so if you missed any over the course of the year, you can get them, but for a price. You can sign up for Secret Singles Club for free here. You can also check out last year’s collection of Secret Singles.

I’m trying to get myself set up to start working on a new record soon, so watch out for that!

Thank you, Nick! To learn more about Nick’s work, visit his website.