Nick Costa has a new album coming out, When the Lights Go Out, on May 30. It’s a very centering album. The music is calming, and the songs are wide looks at how we can choose to take on the world.
Please tell us about yourself and your music.
My name is Nick Costa, and I’m a singer-songwriter who has been active for over 20 years. This new record When the Lights Go Out will be my 6th album as a solo artist, but I’ve released many albums under The Person & The People, and Me As A Pilot over the years as well. My songs live somewhere between the warmth of Willie Nelson, the wit of Randy Newman, and the melancholy charm of Elliott Smith…if they grew up listening to blink-182.
My goal has always been to write songs that feel lived-in — vulnerable, a little weathered, and maybe even a little funny. Music that makes you feel like you’re not alone in whatever you’re going through.
Your new album, When the Lights Go Out, was inspired by a mini stroke. I’m glad it was mini and hope the reverberations are minimal. Can you talk about more about how that led to the album? It seems like the connection to a few songs is strong such as, When Our Luck Turns Around. It is such a sweet sentimental song in message and sound. It’s a reminder that boredom isn’t such a bad thing.
Thank you for the kind thoughts there. It was a pretty turbulent time in my life leading up to the stroke, including bouts of homelessness and catching a really bad case of Covid, so when the stroke happened, it felt like a real low point. When I ended up being relatively okay afterwards, I realized I had a lot of songs that I loved and didn’t want to just sit in my head anymore. A lot of them had dealt with the hard times happening before, on top of the thoughts of losing loved ones, so there was a lot of contemplation about mortality, and the gifts that life offers – even in the rough times.
“When Our Luck Turns Around” is just thinking about simpler times, and longing for those again. I think to be able to have a place to be that’s comfortable, where you can grow old and bored with somebody you love is such a beautiful thing to dream about. There’s a few moments about that kind of longing for normalcy on the album. I think “Holy Smokes” is another one of those from the same time period.
Thunder on the other hand, seems to embrace out less-quiet times. Can you tell me more about that song please?
“Thunder” is a song about self-doubt, when it gets down to it. I think a lot of artists hit a point where they think “I’ve been doing this for a long time…when is it going to pay off?” There’s a line in the demo of the song that said “I lost a lot of hope, but I can’t let go” and I think that perfectly sums up my experience as an artist. The kind of compulsion to create and express myself through art is real, sometimes I think even against my better judgment.
There are a lot of nature allusions in the album (Cherry Blossoms, Poppies, Habanero, Thunder…) was that intentional or was nature prevailing without intention?
That wasn’t intentional! But I do think the album has a very nature-y feel to it. It’s very organic, and honest. A lot of it is live, and most of my parts are 1st or 2nd takes. I was also living in Vancouver, BC at the time, so I was feeling a particular connection to nature, so maybe that trickled through. The demos often had a lot of field recordings spliced in from the rainy PNW days or birds chirping. I always dream about and fantasize about being more embedded with nature, but right now I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, so it’s tough to do.
Please tell us about the upcoming release. Do you have any shows planned? How will you celebrate?
My current health conditions makes playing a bunch of shows a little bit more complicated, but I do have some really great vinyl and CDs pressed up, I’ll be doing a live stream the night of the release, and I hope to release an even more stripped back companion record where it’s just me and acoustic – one take recordings of the tunes as well. I also have been hosting a podcast called The Musician’s Musician, where I’ll be releasing an episode that gives a track-by-track breakdown of the record, which will be fun.
Mostly Minnesota 