That’s exactly what made guitarist Jesse Fowler and dirty vocalist/bassist Chris Westerlage from Nesting Doll finally make the move up from San Marcos this past June.
“We were 50/50,” clean vocalist/guitarist Jason Harlan says. “Me and Andrew [drummer Clark] lived up here in Dallas and they lived in San Marcos. Every time we would play a show we would rehearse that day, play the show and they would go home the next day.”
Making the eight-hour round trip for every Denton show was no easy feat, but there was a better chance for the band to build an audience in Denton than there was back home. After so many treks back and forth, it only made sense to move closer.
“Half of us already lived here and all of the best shows we played were happening in Denton,” Westerlage says.
“Austin is tough, and we don't know anybody in San Antonio,” Harlan adds. “So, it's like you can play these tiny San Marcos venues as many times as you want, and it’ll be fun forever, but the city next door does not care.”
The band’s been together for a little over a year now, but Fowler, Harlan and Westerlage have known each other since high school. Originally named Bonfire Druids, the band adopted the Nesting Doll moniker based on an earlier lineup.
“One of our old guitarists was 5 [foot] 4,” Fowler says. “When we all stood from tallest to shortest, it reminded us of a Russian nesting doll forming.”
Clark found his way into the group through Harlan.
“I met him through a forum online for finding people to play with and then we were like, ‘This is cool,’” the drummer says. “‘It'd be cooler if it was four people.’”
“And I was like, ‘Dude, I know two more people!’” Harlan adds. “I tried to convince them to move unsuccessfully for six months, and now we're here.”
For the band, things been much more cohesive since moving, from rehearsing to commuting for gigs. Looking back, things seemed to kick off as soon as Fowler and Westerlage pulled the trigger.
“That first weekend was badass,” Harlan says. “We played The Asylum and then we played a Pride Month release show for Kaiju Queers. ... At The Asylum we had a pit the whole time.”
“They kept knocking my mic over,” Westerlage says. “Shit was crazy. People were looking for their shit on the ground. ‘Where's my nose ring? Oh my God! Does anybody see a watch?’”
Their music is a heavy blend of stoner and psych rock. On “Looking Feral,” Westerlage pumps out enveloping basslines and gripping screams while Clark keeps it pushing on drums. On “Graduation” Harlan takes over vocals and lays down a sick guitar solo. A gnarly riff from Fowler opens their grittiest song, “False Kings,” a track that bounces back and forth between Westerlage’s cries and groovy ascending guitar lines with Clark leading the way.
“In the beginning, we were very much a jam band, for sure,” Fowler says. “Just droning out to a specific key and then laying down some parts until finally, we sat down to write and create some riffs and changes.”
Creatively, the band operates exactly like a group of friends from high school would: They butt heads, but everyone gets a say and every idea gets a fair shot. In the end, there are no hard feelings.
“The description that’s been thrown around a lot amongst the four of us is that there’s a blanket and we’re all grabbing a corner and pulling it toward ourselves,” Westerlage says. “So sometimes it's gonna go one way, sometimes it's gonna go the other. It just makes the songwriting process a little more interesting.”
Right now, they’re sitting on a stash of unreleased music, performing only “about a third of what’s written,” according to Clark. Some songs make it to the stage and others are set aside to be further explored and dissected in the future.
“There was a while where me and Andrew were pumping out two or three songs every rehearsal,” Harlan says. “I think that we have like four of them from that entire four-month period that actually survived. … We'll write like a five-to-six-minute thing and then take 30 seconds and that's a new song. We're like, ‘All of this is bad, but something is here.’”
Big City Energy
Nesting Doll's energy on stage is contagious. Harlan and Fowler are live wires, smiling and laughing while performing tricks on stage like plucking each other’s strings or interlocking guitars. Harlan and Westerlage shoot the shit with the crowd between songs to prevent a dead moment. They’re full of ideas to make their performances stand out.“One time as a joke, we put all of our song titles in a hat,” Harlan says. “Then just put it on stage like, ‘This is the setlist.’”
“We shouldn't have played every song in the hat,” Westerlage says.
“We gotta do it at a show where people go,” Harlan continues. “There was no one there. It got to the point where we were picking songs out of the hat.”
Playing dead crowds is the less glamorous but all-too-real part of the grind. Being last usually guarantees the best turnout, but with gigs running late and most people showing up to support one specific group, sometimes it’s the worst spot on the bill.
“There has been that element of you go last and you're like, ‘All right, we're playing to nobody, I guess,’” Harlan says. “[The Asylum] was the one where not only did everyone stay, but they were running around.”
Now that they’re all within spitting distance, Nesting Doll is getting to work. They played several shows around Dallas last month and have more coming up, including spots at Three Links and Rubber Gloves on July 16 and 22, respectively. Their new single, “Snake Song,” drops on Aug. 2.
“It’s just a teaser for what we have in store for our next release with a new EP,” Fowler says. “Chris has been doing an excellent job with production, and the mix sounds massive.”
