Flaxen light soon gave way to navy night, mostly starless in its competition with Nashville’s metropolitan glow. It was Musician’s Corner 2023, and my friend Sadie, en route from the crowd at the base of the open-air stage, had a mousy-haired stranger in a rugby polo in tow. Upon approach, the newcomer asked that I name my ideal concert, starlet past or present. “Only one answer allowed. Who would it be?” 

“This is Nico. We just met.” Sadie chimed in.

That evening, I told Nico Zaca that I would, in a heartbeat, see Elliott Smith live. Since then, he has remained an acquaintance who every so often posts a DIY post-hardcore album or priceless stream-of-consciousness video. I managed to get ahold of him recently, a month after his latest single. 

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Phie Mihm (PM): I was expecting the Millennial Walrus look. 

Zaca joins the call clean-shaven, despite earlier sharing a photo of his “Millenial Walrus” ‘stache — his words, not mine.

Nico Zaca (NZ): Dude, it looked so shit that I had to cut it off. It looked like a French pencil mustache.

We both chuckle about his lack of facial hair, proceeding to small talk as a means to fill in the gap that had accumulated since last summer. His former guitar teaching position had concluded in recent months, and he had since left Nashville for his beloved hometown: Washington, DC.

PM: Nico, tell me why Nashville, and what happened after?

NZ: I thought about Nashville for a long time; I heard it was a great singer-songwriter town and… it was amazing. I loved my time in Nashville, and I learned a lot. It made me a better songwriter because of the open mic and stripped-down nature of Nashville.

Initially a Brown University student, Zaca began experiencing “mental health flare-ups” while there, so he took a gap semester, eventually transferring to Belmont University. He had thought “I’m going to take one more semester off, work on music and figure out where I want to be.” For a time, Belmont was the place he wanted to be. Despite this, he realized that bipolar disorder and his misgivings about a university music education system had colored his academic experience, making it difficult to find happiness.

NZ: I dropped out of Brown to pursue a songwriting degree — but what the fuck is a songwriting degree going to do for you? Everyone says it’s the connections you make at school, and though I’m grateful for everyone I’ve met, it’s a little piece of paper, it’s not going to do shit for you. I wish people were more honest about that, becasue I know people who I went to high school with who then graduated from music schools, and now we’re all kind of in the exact same place. Who knows — maybe they’ll get farther than me down the road, but it’s still a music degree.

We trail off into fragmented tangents. We speak at length on the nuance of said music ‘degrees,’ the secrets to ‘making it’ in the industry, and college entertainment scenes. We crack jokes ad nauseam about Kill Rockstar by-chance signees, the ‘stop becoming DJs, we need plumbers’ tweet, and the influx of EDM/house artists with “no trade school just Serato.”

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PM: You grew up in DC, right? What is it like being back? 

NZ: Yeah, born and raised. I love DC so much, it’s really near and dear to my heart. But I feel — from when I started going to college to now — the city has changed a lot. 

PM: It’s a fast-moving city.

NZ: I’ve been thinking about it more and more, and I realized part of the reason I want to stay in DC is that I feel strongly about making DC part of my ‘MO,’ my mission statement. It’s, in my opinion, one of the coolest places in the country, and it doesn’t get enough credit for its cultural output. I think a big part of that is there isn’t the infrastructure for support, whereas New York, LA, Nashville — it’s self-sustaining industries there. But, musicians in the DMV have to basically leave to reach their full potential in terms of music.

This is not to say that DC lacks the potential for an arts community. Even when underfunded, the city has maintained space for its gritty, creative underdogs. As Zaca cites, DC has witnessed hardcore and punk bands of the nineties like Fugazi, Bad Brains, and Rites of Spring rise to stardom from within its city limits. Zaca says that the main issue today is that local government is fueling “condominium high rises and gentrification,” rather than funding and uplifting artists toward new heights. The “Washingtonian” strength of the metropolitan area’s artists in the face of adversity remains promising.

NZ:  DC’s official music is called Go-go, and it’s kind of a funk subgenre; it’s a heavily Black art form. But, as the city’s getting more gentrified, Go-go has gotten a little criminalized with things like noise complaints. It has been around for a while, but there’s now a confrontation between it and this ‘new DC’  as transplants come in. There’s been music festivals, like Moechella that have come up as a response to that, which is just like in the nineties, when Go-go and Fugazi were making free shows together and creating intersectionality. I find that so inspiring. 

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PM: You have an album that you’ve been working on — what’s the stylistic vein that it is in? 

NZ: It’s called Higher Louder TurboPower. It’s a superhero-themed album.

PM: Awesome.

NZ: I feel better about this crop of songs than anything I’ve ever worked on. It’s a very energetic album… so don’t listen to it if you’re trying to go to sleep (chuckles).

NZ:  I want it to feel empowering, vulnerable, and personal. I’ve always been a big fan of Spider-Man… he’s a really big role model in my life, honestly, because he was just a real kid. He has always resonated with me because he’s not a tough guy,  he’s a nerd with all this pain and that makes all this sacrifice. I’m not saying I’m freaking Spider-Man; of course, I’ve not gone through the shit that Peter Parker has. But, Spider-Man has a softness to him that I’ve always really found admirable.

PM: He’s just a regular dude first before he’s a hero.

NZ: Yeah. I want this album to be heroic and fun, but I also want to have that Spider-Man tone of… not being a piece of shit, you know what I mean? Not Deadpool vibes, not Wolverine vibes, just Spider-Man-like.

PM: I’m guessing the album will have the sense of confidence that was in your single, then?

NZ: Yeah. Even though he’s [Spider-Man] navigating, relationships, family, and money, he believes in himself… Even though he’s a comic book character, I find that really inspiring. 

PM: I’m of the firm belief that some of the best music comes from the stuff that we grew up with. Are comic books generally something significant for you in the music you write?

NZ: Yes.

PM: I think that’s important. I mean, I wouldn’t write the music that I do if not for the movies that I grew up watching. If it hadn’t been for like my middle school emo phase… That all shapes you.

NZ: Yeah, the music you listen to in middle school will change your life forever.

PM: What was the ‘vibe’ for you, then, in middle school?

NZ: I wasn’t hip to the emo bands. It’s probably for the best, I would have been messed up mentally (we both laugh). I was a real fan of what they call “dad-rock” now. The Pacific Northwest indie rock like Nirvana, Built to Spill, Pavement, etc.

PM: I love Built to Spill! And I get it, we’re kind of reversed. I found the emo shit first and then went into the dad-rock, post-grunge era of music. At the same time though, Pierce the Veil will always have a place in my heart. That’s my band.

NZ: Pierce the Veil’s got it! People love to hate on evil bands like Pierce the Veil, but their music fucking slaps.

PM: Even the Spanish guitar influences in their earlier music — they’re not just an emo band. Vic Fuentes brought his everything, and the way he grew up factored into their emo music ‘sound.’

NZ: It’s so true. My mom’s Mexican, and we were having a conversation about this: what Pierce the Veil did for the Latino rock scene in the U.S. It’s so cool…

PM: You have one song out in Spanish, right? Is that something that you will bring into your new album, as well? 

NZ: I don’t think so for this album; this next one has very maximalist production. I have another project on the back burner, it’s acoustic songs and generally more stripped down… it will have some songs in Spanish and some ballads that I wrote. It’s going be a little softer. 

PM: A man with range, that’s what we need.

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The release date for Nico Zaca’s superhero record, Higher Louder TurboPower, has not yet been announced. However, it can be inferred that the anticipated album is on the near horizon, as Zaca has again begun jamming and gigging out with friends around the DC metropolitan area. To begin an immersion in Zaca’s gritty, vulnerable, dad-rock homage music before his next drop, view his recent single’s music video linked below.

Photos courtesy of Nico Zaca.