“Thanks for letting me crash your emo party,” Nate Bergman joked onstage with the crowd at Irving Plaza in New York City. It was a line I had heard the singer-songwriter say countless times over the last decade, on countless stages, but with different genres in place. Nate’s music, whether with his old group Lionize or by himself, had never quite fit in with who he was playing with. He always had to work a little harder to win over the crowd. 

On Jan. 26, NJ emo-rock band Thursday returned to Irving Plaza to deliver a night of angsty-nostalgia ridden rock n roll. Opening the show was Nate, who brought his unique blend of country-tinged acoustic rock to the stage early that Wednesday night.

Full disclosure, I’ve been friendly with Nate for roughly a dozen years. Our bands have performed together a few times, I was an intern at The Machine Shop studio while they recorded there, and I even worked on their road crew for a couple of weeks in 2015. Since 2004 Nate has fronted Washington D.C. ‘s Lionize, who at various points in their career have been considered a reggae band, a funk band and at their core, a rock-n-roll band. In early 2020, after a decade and a half of fronting the group, Nate launched his career as a solo artist, showcasing an entirely unseen side of himself. He switched out his Gibson SG that once yielded heavy riffs for a Gibson LG-2 acoustic, using it and his soulful vocal prowess to deliver a combination of blues-laden acoustic rock and roll.

On Wednesday night, his work paid off. Nate made quite an impression on the audience, closing his 4-song set to enthusiastic applause. Nate would make his presence known throughout the rest of the night, appearing onstage with fellow support group Apple Seed Cast, and later as one of the many substitute guitar players for Thursday, who were down a member due to complications from COVID-19.

After the show, I had a chat with Nate to discuss his new solo career.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Johnny: So how has the tour been treating you so far?

Nate: Everything’s been good so far, even in the midst of a pandemic, I think people are really hungry to hear live music. People need it!

Johnny: You’ve been on the road quite a bit over the last 15 years, and I’ve noticed your online presence grow considerably via social media platforms like Patreon and Instagram. Could you speak a little bit to how shutdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic changed the nature of how you work as an independent musician?

Nate: For me, I think that COVID kind of shut being in a band down in terms of working collaboratively with other guys, so I started to work on my own music, and stuff that I wanted to do that I felt I’d be solely responsible for. For a year and a half you couldn’t really meet up with anybody, so I started to think about how I would present songs alone. The thing about being in a band is you represent the whole band, every time you talk, every time you interact with anyone online, you’re part of the band. When I’m Nate Bergman, who I am anyway, it feels very free. The internet, whether through Patreon or Instagram or Twitter or even TikTok has helped me reach a lot of fans, just by someone hearing a 30 second clip of me singing.

Johnny: Tell me more about your experience with Patreon.

Nate: I started when MySpace was a thing and Facebook was pretty active with young people, but what Patreon does is allow you to provide content that people could get on Instagram, but more in depth. With Instagram you’re giving them all your content and they’re making money off you, but with Patreon you can give fans that kind of content directly. It could be only five bucks a month and they get to see all these backstage photos and live recordings. It’s really strange, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok have convinced us as artists to give away our content for free and then they make millions of dollars off the stuff you’re posting, but it really should be the opposite. You should be making the money off your content because it’s yours. So I’m a big fan of Patreon. I think Patreon has helped a lot of artists, especially comedians, connect with their fan base. Imagine you had an artist you loved, and they sat in their home studio and recorded a cover every month, and no one else gets to hear it but you? I think it’s cool!

Johnny: Did you take up any cool hobbies during the pandemic?

Nate: No… I did a lot of DMT.

Johnny: Tell us about your upcoming record, “Metaphysical Change,” did you work on it over lockdown restrictions?
Nate: I recorded a lot of the stuff in a studio very safely, by myself and with another engineer. I sent those tracks out to people who sent back stuff. We went down to Nashville and mixed it, it’s pretty cool.

Johnny: You’re no stranger to experimenting with contrasting musical styles like rock, funk, and reggae in Lionize, which has often landed you on the road with crazy different acts from Lee Scratch Perry to H.R. to CKY to Clutch to Thursday, Sponge etc. Can you tell me a little bit about what prompted your transition into your current acoustic singer/songwriter journey, and what that experience has been like?

Nate: With Lionize we were, I don’t want to say pigeonholed, but we were a heavy rock, reggae-funk band. The new songs for me are not being limited by anything. It’s incredibly liberating. I’m going to sound like me no matter what because it’s my voice. So, if I want to write a country song, I want to write a fucking country song. I don’t want to think like “Oh our fans of this band are going to be like ‘What the fuck are you doing writing a country song?’” I think that sucks. I think about artists I love like Neil Young and especially Paul Simon. He wrote so many different types of music and no one ever whined about Simon writing a country song. Who gives a fuck? It’s Paul Simon! I think about the Rolling Stones record “Sticky Fingers,” it’s like country-soul-blues-rock, they’re all kind of the same thing, so for me, it’s about doing whatever I want when I want to do it. I’m happier now and freer than I’ve ever been artistically.

Johnny: Who are your biggest influences right now? What are you listening to nowadays to keep you inspired?

Nate: Strangely enough I’ve been listening to this synth-wave band called Gunship, and they’re sick! I’ve been listening to a lot of Thursday and they’re truly amazing. I hate that people call them emo because it’s so much deeper than that, they’re like a prog band! A lot of Etta James, obviously a lot of Clutch and a lot of Bob Dylan.

Johnny: What’s next for Nate Bergman, what do you have cooking up?

Nate: Lots of touring this year, and then my record comes out in the spring. I’m going to hit it pretty hard this year.

Johnny: Who’s your favorite member of Monty Python?

Nate: Oh! … John Cleese, I’m a Cleese guy.

Catch Nate Bergman in a city near you, you can find tickets here.