The Spoken Nerd Origin Story
Part 2 of our Spoken Nerd interview
We recently talked with hip-hop artist Spoken Nerd about his album Magical Powers, released in late 2023. Today we’re diving into some broader questions, like the rapper’s musical background and inspirations. Thanks again to Spoken Nerd for taking the time to chat!
This article originally appeared in Midnight Donuts #2. Want to read the most recent edition of Midnight Donuts? You can do so here!
Midnight Donuts: How did you first start making music?
Spoken Nerd: I always loved music. When I was younger I always wanted to be a writer. That was my thing. I wanted to write science fiction / horror novels, mysteries. I wanted to write books, because I loved books—and I still love books, you know, fiction specifically.
When I got into high school, being a music lover, the first day of school I made this friend: his name was Shawn and he was wearing a Mötley Crüe t-shirt. ([Laughs] This probably tells you how old I am.) And I remember the shirt had a pentagram on it, and I was just like, “oh, he listens to metal music like me! I listen to metal! I love Guns N' Roses and Def Leppard!” [Laughs] Which those aren't even metal.
Anyway, me and this guy became best friends. He turned me on to Metallica, and then he even listened to death metal, like Slayer and stuff. We were in middle school and he said, “hey, we're going to start a band and it's going to be called Sorcerer! And you're going to be the bass player, because you look like a bass player.” It was like, “alright!” I was like, “are we going to grow our hair out?” And he goes, “no, of course not.” I was like, “well, we have to if we're in a metal band!” And he said, “no, the band Helmet doesn't have long hair.” So I was like, “okay,” and listened to some Helmet because of that.
Anyway, we did grow our hair out. When I told my dad I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to play the bass, within a week or so I had a bass and an amp. He went to a pawn shop, and he was like, “I love that you want to play music!” He got someone to give me bass lessons and I just went for it. We started this band and never really went anywhere. We played the high school talent show and had a pretty good time.
Later high school years and going into college I got really into playing funk and stuff. We started several different funk bands and kind of like psychedelic rock and stuff. At one point I started into hip-hop because of Rage Against the Machine and the Wu-Tang Clan and stuff like that. This is all around ’98, ‘99. I was like, “I want to start a rap group!” I met this kid from Manchester, Tennessee, and he rapped. He was a little older than me, and he started driving down to my hometown. He would stay with us for like a week, and we would work on music. I played the bass and kind of kept the band at bay and kept everything good on that end, and he was the rapper, and when he would do the choruses I would say the chorus with him.
This dude eventually quit. He was like, “ah, you guys are a bunch of losers.” So, then I had to get another rapper, which was my friend from high school. He was a little closer to my level of rapping at that point—he could do a verse, you know, but he needed more support. So, I became the guy that played the bass and rapped.
Eventually what you find out, as soon as you start starting bands when you're that age, is that everybody quits eventually. So, you're constantly having to replace people. We would have people quit the band and then we would just kind of move on from there.
We didn't know how hip-hop was made, but we knew it had something to do with records. We had turntables, we had rap singles, and we discovered instrumentals on the other side of the rap singles. So, we'd be sitting over here with like a Redman single on 12” and the other side would have the instrumental and we would write a rap song to that instrumental. That's kind of how the hip-hop thing started.
Midnight Donuts: That's so fun! That's so fun to know that you got started rapping while also playing bass at the same time
Spoken Nerd: Yeah, probably the best instrument to play and rap at the same time!
Midnight Donuts: Describe your ideal sandwich.
Spoken Nerd: I have a sandwich I make maybe once a year, because if I ate it more than once a year it might kill me. I take a chuck roast, which is a big block of meat you cook in a crock pot—typically that's the way I cook them. I'll cook it all day, and what I like to do is wait till it's almost going to fall apart—this is the roast that falls apart that you see in beef stews and stuff. I get it before it falls apart but when it's still really tender, and I take a bread knife and I do thin slices off of it. Then, I put it on a hoagie roll. I have that, I do tomato jam, I do maybe a little mayo, and melted provolone. … I do caramelized onions and then put mashed potatoes on the side. That—I think that's the jam.
Midnight Donuts: That sounds really good!
Spoken Nerd: Yeah, don't make any plans if you eat one!
Midnight Donuts: [Laughs] I'll keep that in mind! What are some of your biggest musical influences?
Spoken Nerd: One of my best friends from high school, his dad actually turned me on to a lot of music that I feel like influenced me in ways that that nothing else has. One of those artists is Curtis Mayfield. He’s a huge musical influence on me. I love that he's got a high pitch voice but he's not afraid to sing with it.
Paul Simon is another one. The Graceland album was really influential on me and my development.
There's a band called The Lounge Lizards that I really love. They're a jazz band that has made some of the most cutting-edge, insane jazz music and I would say they're a huge influence on me.
Midnight Donuts: What are some of your biggest non-musical influences?
Spoken Nerd: Film in general I love. I write songs based on films. I'll share a couple that have really inspired me and inspired my music as well. A recent one that I'm blown away by is Beau is Afraid. That movie is my favorite movie that has come out this year. I don't think there's anything out right now that that will compare to it—although Scorsese's new movie may get there, we'll see. I haven't seen it yet, but I can't imagine that it's going to hit me the way Beau is Afraid hit me
There's another movie called Wild at Heart directed by David Lynch. I would say that those two things are huge in what I make and how I approach art. Just looking at how films are constructed and stories are constructed.
Books: Haruki Murakami it's one of my favorite authors. I have a hook that I wrote for a song from the next album that I quoted the book Jane Eyre on, so I’ll throw that out there.
Honestly physical activity in general, and education. As I study it just sparks off my brain more and more, and you know they say that physical exercise is so instrumental for [brain] plasticity. That's why a lot of times you'll find yourself in a place that's very non-creative, or you can't seem to to think right, and you go out and go for a bike ride, go for a walk, go play some hacky sack, go play some basketball, go swimming, and then after that's over suddenly you're just inspired. You're able to write more and just get in that place. I think that's why: it's those brain cells connecting with each other and doing what they need to do.
Midnight Donuts: My friend told me I should ask you [laughs] if the song “I wish those jerks had never killed John F. Kennedy” is meant to implicate the CIA or former president Lyndon B. Johnson.
Spoken Nerd: I don’t know that I’m smart enough to make accusations about who killed him. But what I do think I’m smart enough to say [laughs] is that what the Warren Commission said happened did not happen. I think that that would be my main point. There's different theories on it, and there's a lot of different directions we could go on that. And, once again, I don't have the scholarly knowledge to say what exactly happened. I don't think even in my greatest conspiracy theory heyday did I think Lyndon Johnson was behind that, but I just definitely think that—and I've always thought that—what the Warren Commission put out there that happened was crap. Magic bullet theory was just—there’s no way.
Midnight Donuts: I have a love-hate relationship with that song because it's so catchy. I sometimes randomly have “the CIA and Richard Nixon and the Warren Commission are all good Christians” stuck in my head, which are really weird lyrics to have stuck in my head. [Laughs]
Spoken Nerd: I came up with those lines because I was talking to a lady and something came up about Oliver Stone. I don't know how it came up, but she just started going off about, you know, “...the stuff he says about the Kennedy assassination, we need to trust our government!” I remember just thinking… “no.” [Laughs] Like, you know, we should definitely question this organization.
I'm not sure why I went down a Kennedy assassination rabbit trail, but I did. I just started looking into it and studying it and watching a couple documentaries, and that was what got me out there on that one.
Midnight Donuts: What has been your biggest rock star moment of your career so far, or maybe one of the biggest rock star moments?
Spoken Nerd: There's a lot of moments that are really good, but honestly a lot of it is just when you play a show and people know your words.
A few years ago I went on this tour with my homie Adder (who's featured on the “Lunchtable Blues” song) and I remember one of the shows in California we played there were people in the crowd who were yelling my words back at me. And that felt pretty rad! I noticed it was really specific songs, like some songs they didn't seem to know, and then I figured out that it was the songs that I had videos for.
I think those moments are always the ones that give you the “rock star” feeling.
Midnight Donuts: You mentioned reading and I was going to ask what's the most recent thing that you've read that you've really enjoyed, whether it's a book article graphic novel or whatever
Spoken Nerd: Well, I just picked up a book called A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. It's a book on history from the perspective of immigrants, Native Americans—there's a lot of primary sources in it. That's been a pretty cool read. Not the type of thing I normally read, but I'm trying to learn more about history. Because I used to not like—or I used to think I didn't like history, but it just turned out I didn't like reading about the history of war coming from the point of view of war generals.
The thing I read before that was Stephen King's new book, Holly. I have a book club at my work that we do, and I love our book club. We get together every six weeks or so and just read a book and sit around in beanbag chairs and eat snacks.
Midnight Donuts: You've been in the game for a long time—you mentioned more than 10 albums—what advice would you give to any younger artists that might come across this interview?
Spoken Nerd: The main thing I would say is just remember that you can always create your own path. So much in the music industry that I see these days is a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, but if you're if you're making art, make it to make art. Trends come and go, people come and go, but make it to make art and hopefully you make some connections with people, hopefully you have a great time doing it, and hopefully some people enjoy it.
Midnight Donuts: That's a good word. I guess you already answered this, but I was going to ask you some of your all-time favorite movies. You mentioned Beau is Afraid and Wild at Heart. Any others that you'd like to mention?
Spoken Nerd: I guess I could name off a few. The 1989 Batman is pretty incredible, specifically for its dialogue. It's one of those movies where almost every line is quotable.
I can talk about movies all day—one I really like that people kind of hate on because Ben Affleck directed it, but Town, man. What a great crime movie. I love Town. That's a great movie.
I like a lot of horror movies. I'm kind of a horror buff. There's one called The Stepfather I really love. I like a lot of Italian horror as well: Tenebrae, Deep Red. Those were both Italian horror-Giallo (which is kind of like mystery). Those movies are both great.
Midnight Donuts: I listened to an episode of The Horror Sanctum Podcast that you were on recently and you were talking about the 2022 film Men, which I've not seen. I'm really interested in horror, but I don't watch enough of it because I don't like watching it by myself and I don't have friends who want to watch it with me, but one thing I noticed is that you seem to connect your faith with your experience viewing horror films. Not super explicitly, but there seemed to be a connection there and that's something I've become really interested in over the past few years. Talk about that. Do you think Christians should watch horror movies more or be more open to that?
Spoken Nerd: Well, I think they should at least be open to it. I've got a lot of friends that are Christians who have a problem with horror, and then I've got other ones that love it. … I think it's cool when movies have deeper meanings than what's on the surface. There's like a few horror movies that do that specifically, at least for me—and my interpretations may even be wrong, but when I see them and I find them it's a really cool thing.
Once, when a friend was asking me, “how can you watch this stuff? It's stressful, it's this, and that.” A lot of it, for me, is, with horror movies—at least in the slasher genre and stuff, not as much the psychological genre of horror—it's almost like a game, right? The movie's trying to scare you, and it either does or it doesn't. If it scares you, the movie wins, and if it doesn't, you win. But it's kind of a fun thrill, you know?
I'll watch horror movies all day … but on the other hand, I won't jump off the rocks into the water. I'm not going to ride a horse. I'm not going to … go to haunted houses where they chase you with fake chainsaws and stuff. I don't like those sort of things. But I love horror movies.
Midnight Donuts: Wrapping up, what's up next for Spoken Nerd? Tours, shows, more music, articles, or anything that you're working on.
Spoken Nerd: I'm always writing. I'm always looking for ways to promote the new stuff and always looking to tour. … Probably the next thing you'll see is going to be one more single or so coming out this year, and then there will be some tours next year. … You'll be seeing plenty of art from me in the near future, so just stay tuned.
Midnight Donuts: Where can readers connect with you?
Spoken Nerd: The best places to connect—if you want to talk or something, hit me up on the ‘Gram: that's SpokenNerd. Or feel free to go to my MySpace. If you want to check out music to purchase there's always Bandcamp: that's spokennerd.bandcamp.com. Another big one is, check out my Spotify or iTunes or wherever you listen to music, because my main thing is I just want you to hear it.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, make sure you go back and catch part 1, where we talk about Spoken Nerd’s latest album in detail.
This article originally appeared in Midnight Donuts #2. Want to read the most recent edition of Midnight Donuts? You can do so here!
