Nick Cage “Intruder” Music Video Premiere

Alright, so this music video / band is one of the coolest things to ever show up in the NJAP inbox. This band, Nick Cage, (yes, named after the actor) hail from Queens, New York and consists of members from the previous bands: Mems Ouster Nash, Off White, and Super FM. They’re ripping up a classic meat and potatoes hardcore punk style that’s heavily influenced by veteran acts such as Discharge, Negative Approach, Youth of Today, and really any Youth Crew or 80’s NYHC acts. I’m absolutely hyped to spread their message today as it’s one that strikes close to home for me.

As someone who’s trying to grow this “brand” and expand the blogspot and podcast I have this constant mental anguish from the never ending convo in my head that goes something like this: “Reels man, all those influencer clowns are doing those reels with the cheesy captions and that shit spreads like cancer online, it works. Ya gotta do it eventually, c’mon, it’ll grow the audience and that’ll help the bands you promote and work with get more attention.. You fuckin cheeseball, do that corny shit; it’s not selling out, right? You’re already on TikTok so stop fronting.” So ya gotta understand that when I watched this music video I grinned ear-to-fucking-ear maniacally, like the Grinch. I even let out a goofy cackle like an evil villain and shouted “YESS! YESSS! FUCKIN’ GET EM!”.

I know my reluctance to follow the influencer trends will likely hinder the progress of this brand in the long run, and it’s really tough for bands to find promotion for a good price, it’s even harder to find a way to get some coverage without selling your soul to trendy influencer bullshit just to appease the algorithm gods. I could write a Bible long rant about this shit, but much like this song and video does, I’m just gonna get to the point: Nick Cage have a stupid ass band name that made me laugh, this video gave me a hearty chuckle and this song goes dummy. I asked their voclaist Nolan a few questions and said I’d happily premiere the music video, so here it is..

YOU KNOW I GOTTA ASK, FIRST OFF, WHAT’S WITH THE NAME?

“We're named after the actor.  We liked that it felt low effort to just be the dude's name.  After the fact, I woulda named the band Renée Zellweger or something because every single person is like ‘haha what's your favorite movie?’ ....Of which the answer is Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans by Werner Herzog.”

WHAT’S YOUR WRITING PROCESS USUALLY CONSIST OF?

“We come up with a lot organically during practice. Most times when one of us comes in with a riff, we play with it, discard most of it, and come back with some sort of mutant version of the original idea. That's a lot of what came up with Intruder.”

“I THINK THAT COMPARED TO OUR LAST LP LOST CAUSE, WE’VE TIGHTENED UP OUR SOUND. WHEN WE FIRST RELEASED THAT (AND I’M STILL PROUD OF IT) I WAS PERSONALLY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW I WANTED TO SOUND AND PRESENT MYSELF AS A VOCALIST AND WE WERE TRYING TO LOCK INTO A SOUND. I STILL THINK THAT WE’RE EVOLVING, BUT I FEEL NOW THAT WE’RE CLOSER TO WHAT WE WANT TO SOUND LIKE.”

- NOLAN @NICKCAGERAW

HOW DO YOU RECORD?

“Our recording engineer, Adam Amran, is a frequent performer / client of Jones Bar in Ridgewood Queens, of which our lead guitarist, Sean, is the proprietor. He offered to record us in his apartment, a big lofty space right next to the train. The drums were kinda in an awkward spot so we had to position a mirror so that we could see Louis playing and keep in time! We blasted the 6 song EP out in about four hours.”

WHAT’S THE MIXING AND MASTERING PROCESS?

“Mixed in Brooklyn, at Adam's loft, and Mastered by our bassist Zack at (redacted), a fancy post sound facility in Manhattan that we kinda snuck in to do it.”

ANY LABELS INVOLVED IN THIS UPCOMING RELEASE?

“No labels yet, we just wanted to pump out a 7" by ourselves. Release date: TBD, but currently aiming for December, 2024.”

ANYTHING YOU WANNA SAY ABOUT THIS WORK OF ART?

“I suppose I just want to talk more about the music video. I really hate all these influencer fucking people and how much it just creeps into your social media timelines no matter what you do. The algorithm just puts these morons in front of you and most of it is just thinly disguised advertising. I had this idea kicking around about someone trying to make another one of these things and just something terrible happens to them.”

(fuckin’ brilliant by the way)

“Originally the idea was a lot more, uh, gory but then we thought that might be too over the top. We shot it in an afternoon and then I edited it in CapCut a day later. I wanted to do as much as I could to make it seem diagetic, so we shot it 9x16 on an iPhone and then edited it using the software that all the influencers use, including the AI speech to text translator. I think that way it makes the whole thing feel all the more weird and dangerous feeling. We're pretty stoked on it.”

SO WHAT’S NEXT FOR NICK CAGE?

“For 2025, we're really interested in opening up and touring more into the tristate. We've played quite a lot in the city but I feel like now we're in a place to open ourselves to the world. Plus we have cars now!”

This video instantly captured my attention (pun intended) and I’ll be a fan for life now. Fuck goofy influencer trends, fuck the internet personalities who sell lies to the people, and a big shoutout to the ads I keep seeing that tell musicians they can grow their audience by paying for plays on streaming apps, promote your music however you want to but shilling out cash to get fake plays gotta be the lamest shit ever.

Long live Nick Cage.

Follow them on Bandcamp : Nick Cage

Writer : @just_reidz

Editor : @garevthistle

11/07/24