Nick Kizirnis takes the lead with help from big name friends
Nick Kizirnis is letting his voice ring out on the new album, “Every Moment,” which Atom Records is releasing during a listening party at Blind Rage Records in Dayton on Thursday.
The Oakwood-based musician sang on previous projects like his album, “Into the Loud” (2004). He also spent years playing instrumental music. Kate Wakefield of Lung, who handled lead vocals on “The Distance” (2020), inspired him to sing on “Every Moment.”
“I’ve been taking lessons from Kate for a while,” Kizirnis said. “I sing every day and I love it. I came to it late in life. I used to just shout or do the rockabilly thing. I really didn’t know anything about singing. I’ve got more work to do, but everything is more like a challenge than a problem. I can’t wait to do more.”
Songwriting for the album began in late 2020.
“The plan was to keep working on songs after ‘The Distance’ came out that February,” Kizirnis said. “That wasn’t the case. During lockdown I started working on the acoustic songs that became ‘Quiet Signals,’ the record I put out in 2023. At the end of 2020, I broke my leg, and I was laid up. While working on some acoustic stuff a few song ideas popped into my head.
“I wrote a few more and made rough demos,” he continued. “Then, I made proper demos using a click track but I wasn’t planning to use them. Those were to map everything out, but we ended up using those demos for the record.”
“Every Moment” has contributions from big names like Tobin Sprout (Guided By Voices), Paul Livingston (Trashcan Sinatras) and Tod Weidner (Shrug), all recorded virtually between 2020 and 2022. Drummer Jim Macpherson (the Breeders) and bassist Daisy Caplan (Lung) tracked together at Reel Love Recording Company with Patrick Himes, who also mixed the album.
“All the guitars were recorded when Jim and Daisy finally got into Reel Love in the fall of 2022,” Kizirnis said. “They’d worked on the songs separately at home, so they came in and knocked out everything in one day, and they took their time.”
Kizirnis has found a working method that is proving fruitful.
“While we were making ‘Quiet Signals’ and ‘Every Moment,’ I was working on other music,” he said. “I recently recorded an album for another project. There’s another project too. It’s a weird way to work. I’m trying not to be too scattered, but I’ve learned how to be in the mode of always working on music.”