There have been many occasions in my life where a band has completely caught me off guard with their talent.  It could be based on an array of factors like an amazing album; good songwriting; creativity and innovation; a great stage presence and live show; a genuine passion for what they do; overcoming adversity; or a number of other factors.  That being said, it’s rare to see a band that has the complete package with all of those amazing qualities, and that’s what caught my eyes and ears when I started getting into this progressive rock band hailing from San Antonio called Nothing More.
 

A few days ago, I sat down with singer/drummer Jonny Hawkins, guitarist Mark Vollelunga, bassist Dan Oliver, and touring drummer Devin Travieso in their tour van after their show at the Boiler Room in Denton, Texas.  They filled me in on some amazing stories and experiences including their formation; a laundry list of previous leadsingers; their latest album, The Few Not Fleeting; Jonny playing drums with Dredg; and a tour van that runs on grease. 

Come join me as tygriffin.net takes:

 

Ty: I’ll start out by asking about the beginnings of the band.  What’s the story behind the formation of Nothing More?

Jonny:  I met Mark at a summer camp and asked him if he wanted to be in a band and he said, No.  [Laughing] Then a few months later, he called and decided that he wanted to do it.  That led to us starting Nothing More and this was when we were in 8th or 9th grade.  

Mark:  Yeah, me and Jonny have been playing together for about 10 years now.  Actually, Jonny and Dan have played together for a long time in a youth band together.  It’s funny because Dan hated our music when we were first starting out.  We didn’t have any “groove”.  [Laughing] It took us living together and becoming friends, then finally we agreed that our music could be improved with some “groove”. 

Ty:  [Laughing] It obviously worked out well.  Dan, tell me about how you became a "groove" bassist? 

Dan: Well I come from a family of musicians and I hated taking piano lessons. So I guess when I started hitting puberty at like 15… I think something about starting to like girls maybe was a gateway into liking music. [Laughing] I was more of a Motocross guy, but luckily the tide changed!

Ty: Very cool.  You guys have gone through multiple singers before Jonny took over the vocals.  What was the problem with all the previous singers?  

Jonny:  It was different in every situation.  We had three other singers on albums before me, but in the totality of the name Nothing More.  Hmm... [Laughing] How many how have we had, Mark?

 

Mark:  Well, in all, we’ve had about 8 singers with me and Dan.  So everyone of us was a singer in the band until Jonny finally decided he was going to be the singer.  Which is funny, because a long time ago, Jonny had this idea that he wanted to be a singer but he didn’t even try to do it.  [Laughing] We could have skipped all of this, and that would have been a lot easier!

Ty: With the transition of Jonny from drums to vocals, how did Devin come into the mix of Nothing More?  
 

Jonny: We used to do these big home town shows and we used to bring guest artists on stage to jam with us.  I mean at one point we had a trumpet player, a saxophone player, the entire Ronald Reagan High School Drum line,  friend of ours named Drake, who was good at rapping at the time when our music was more partyband-espue, that led to us crossing paths with a band that Devin was playing in.
 

Devin:  This was back when I was in high school and I actually played guitar.  Nothing More is actually the first band that I've played drums in.  I've always played guitar even though drums are my primary strength.  Long story summarized, I went to one of there shows and the power went out.  I asked Jonny if he wanted to do a drum off to kind of entertain people while they fixed the power.  Jonny kinda laughed because he didn't know that I played drums at this point.  So we did that and that's what basically led to us doing the "drumline" like solos.  It was about a year process before I was actually, officially playing for Nothing More. 

 

Mark:  After Jonny took over on vocals, we were thinking that we needed to find a touring drummer because he can't sing and do drums at the time.  We actually tried do a show like that in LA.  [Laughing]  It wasn't a very good experience unfortunately, so immediately we went to Devin.

Jonny:  Yeah, basically after we did that drum-off, I was like,"Wow, this guy really is good at drums!"  That led to us inviting him to another dueling drum solo where he brought another drumset on stage.

 

Ty:  Well, the drum solos are definitely one of the many awesome aspects of your live show.  I was completely blown away by the performance tonight, and I can’t wait to see you guys live again.  What’s one of  the coolest experiences you’ve had playing live? 

Mark:  Well, we actually weren’t playing, but we were at a Dredg show at Sanctuary in San Antonio back in 2005 and the singer (Gavin Hayes) came out into the crowd and then the drummer (Dino Campanella) came out into the crowd too.  They rest of the guys asked for a drummer out of the crowd to volunteer and so our whole band was there screaming Jonny! 

Jonny:  I was very timid about it because I worried about whether I was going to mess it up.  So I was basically pushed up there and I played their song “Of the Room”  with them.  It was a very surreal experience.

Ty:  That’s so awesome!  Dredg is one of my biggest influences in music, and "Of the Room"  is one of my favorite songs by them.

Mark:  The funny thing is that the guitarist (Mark Engles) and bassist (Drew Roulette) had never played with another drummer at the time. 

Ty: Wow.  That's crazy!  You guys played the Revelation Generation Festival this summer in New Jersey.  Tell me about that experience.

Mark:  It was really great to get us some national exposure, and there were some great bands there like Emery, Underoath, Flyleaf, The Glorious Unseen, etc..  It was blast!  We hope to do it again next year and maybe play on one of the bigger stages. 

Ty: Sweet!  That would definitely help with the exposure.  I love the underwater photos that Taylor Gahm did for The Few Not Fleeting album artwork.  How did that idea come about? 

 

Jonny:  When we told him about the album being a little bit darker and edgier, he had the idea to use an underwater camera and to have me looking "Ghostly" on the cover.  We're very happy how it came out!

Ty:  I am too!  It definitely fits the attitude of the album.  You guys recently launched TheFewNotFleeting.com.  It’s set up like a storybook that goes through every single aspect and detail of what went into making your album.  What sparked you guys to create this site? 

Mark:  With this album, every song was more personal and we put more work in every aspect than we ever had before.  A lot of times in a 3 or 4 minute song, people don’t see everything behind it.  These were so important to us and we wanted to relate to people.  Basically, well, this is actually a lyric from Thrice, but “every scar is a bridge to someone’s heart.” 

Ty:  That’s a great way to put it.  I've gone through the site, and it definitely showed so much about you guys that I did not know before. The story behind your song, “Gone”' literally brought me to tears, and I couldn’t believe how much you guys are pouring your hearts out on the site.  It’s amazing that you guys would go to this extent to show how much this album means to you.  I wish more bands were like that.
 

 

 

Jonny:  Thanks man!  I feel like we should give a lot of credit to Paco Estrada (former leadsinger of SouthFM) .  He did a lot of the pre-production on our album and he shaped a lot of our songs.  We were actually inspired by a SouthFM album called Swallowing the Pill where he did something very similar by putting a lot of the behind the scenes stories about the album on a website called Swallowingthepill.com.  I remember going to that website and feeling very inspired personally like you’re saying you have been with our stories behind Gone, Fat Kid, and Salem.  We decided to take that a step further by going a little bit more in depth by having all of our perspectives on each song.

Ty:  Well, I’m looking forward to finding the stories behind the rest of the songs as you get them updated.  I guess all I have left to ask is if there any new developments in the world of Nothing More that you would like to announce?  What’s in store for 2010?
 

Mark:  Well, Dan was able to convert our tour van into running on waste vegetable oil and actually be green.  As well it saves us a TON of money because gas is our biggest expense. 

Jonny:  Oh, if anyone out there reading this interview has grease, WE WANT IT!  If you work at a restaurant, we will give you a hug, a CD, a t-shirt, or whatever!

 

Mark:  For 2010, we plan to get ourselves more out there nationally, especially with this grease thing.  We’re more of a regional band and we’re hoping to develop the markets on the east and west coast.  We’ll just see what happens.*   

When I started writing the closer to this article, I realized that somebody had written it for me without even knowing it.  This is a direct quote from an email from Nothing More’s manager, Ron Travieso, and it definitely sums up what this band is all about:

“You know I’ve had the privilege this year of being part of the lives of four young men, not only from a musical stand point, but getting to know them on a deep and personal level. One of the many things that has stood out from these four individual’s is their humbleness and humility. And if I had to pick one experience that exemplifies that, it was during their last stop here in San Antonio, TX.

One of the bands that was on the line up was actually scheduled to play at a earlier time slot, but complained that they felt the need to be on at a later time. The guys in Nothing More gracious hosts that they are agreed to meet this bands demands….granted be careful what you ask for ! Nothing More played to almost 400 people in attendance that night, the band that was handed them a headlining slot ? well I counted about 25 after it was all said and done…

Ty, these are four great guys, I can’t say enough good things about them…and of course I’m a little bias because one of the members is my son. But to see what they have gone through over the course of this year, they definitely have the drive and most importantly the passion to make their mark on the music scene. The words “Believe without question” have been ingrained in my head from the beginning of this year, and will soon be tattooed on my body as a constant reminder…where would we be if we didn’t believe in those things that we are passionate about.”

I would like to thank Jonny Hawkins, Mark Vollelunga, Dan Oliver, and Devin Travieso from Nothing More for taking the time to do this interview and for making the amazing music that they put their hearts and souls into.  I’d also like to thank Ron Travieso for all of his help in setting up this interview and Dan Goldin with Exploding In Sound for all of his help with tygriffin.net. 
 

The Few Not Fleeting is available now on itunes.

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