This week’s guests are Carl Nichols and Johanna Rosa, a duo who makes beautiful music together as Nickel&Rose. Since the folk project formed roughly three years ago, the pair has played all around Europe, toured around the continental United States, and shared the stage with The SteelDrivers among others. Before Nichols and Rose found each other and started Nickel&Rose, they played in a ton of other bands that touch on almost as many different musical genres.
During a rare span of time between tours, they came to Milwaukee Record headquarters tell My First Band host Tyler Maas how they met and how the project came to be, before discussing their divergent musical paths that led them to where they are today. Over the course of the long, informative, and lighthearted conversation, Nichols talked about trying to recruit bandmates on Craigslist as a Mars Volta-obsessed teen and Rose talked about throwing herself into Milwaukee’s music scene after returning home from Oregon.
Along the way, Maas annoyed the guests with regrettable puns and Rose entirely forgot about another band she currently plays in. You can see Nickel&Rose perform with Amythyst Kiah at Anodyne Coffee’s Walker’s Point Roastery on Thursday, November 21.
My First Band is sponsored by Boulevard Brewing. The show is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever else you get podcasts. Music used in this show comes courtesy of Devils Teeth (“The Junction Street Eight Tigers”), New Boyz Club (“Taxes”), and Nickel&Rose (“Another Man”).