Yesterday I texted Nicky, fully a shot in the dark, just asking if he thought the guys in Haywire would even be open to what I do. No expectations, just sending it out and letting it sit. Then suddenly I’m in a group chat, no buildup, just dropped in with Austin, and immediately he’s like, let’s do it.
Met Austin up the street from the venue, some office building with an all you can eat buffet, bar glowing too clean for the night we were about to have. He told me to grab food first, we’d talk after. So I did, plate in hand, pacing a little, waiting to feel normal. Later we ended up on the roof, I was nervous, talking too fast, trying to land somewhere real, so I brought up Boston, how I’ve circled back to it a few times, how it never quite sticks. Then I told him the story, the one I don’t usually tell, about Lower Allston, about the home invasion, about killing a man. It came out flat, like something already processed. And for the first time in a long time, there was no shift, no judgment, no tightening in the air. He just took it for what it was, basically saying it was the cards I was dealt and that was it.
We drifted from there into talking about interviews, how they don’t really make sense for them, how the whole structure feels off. I got what he meant. They’re not trying to create distance. They’re a band that collapses it. He’ll jump into the crowd with you, let you crawl on stage, shove him, and he’ll throw you right back into it. No barrier, no script. If you want to know something, you just ask. He’ll answer. There’s no performance to it, no filtering. Just direct, honest, almost disarming in how simple it is. And in an industry that’s usually layered in strategy and half-truths, that kind of openness feels rare, something you notice immediately and don’t forget.
