Meet Nate Fuller of Backseat Vinyl in Thornton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nate Fuller.

Nate, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I met Keenan my sophomore year at Mountain Range High School. He was a senior at the time, so we had never really ran into each other. But I heard that he played drums and I was looking for someone to help me with some demos at the time. He wasn’t all in at first, but eventually, we started practicing more and more and it all naturally fell into place. We’ve been best buds for about 6 to 7 years now. Through thick and thin, we’ve stuck together. We lost our original bassist about three years ago, which was really hard on us. You never really know what’s going to happen, especially when you’re all just a bunch of stupid kids, but people grow and sometimes they grow in a different direction.

It took us a long time to get over that and feel confident with our music after that. But we kept going and that’s where our real bond as a team started. We got older, we got away from trying to sound like the artists we like, and we started diving deep into creating something new that defined us. I guess you could call it indie punk. We road it out as a two-piece for quite a while and then we met Clara, our current bassist, about two years ago. We actually met her when we sold her a ticket to our upcoming show with The Happy Fits in October 2018. Everything clicked. With our first record, “Sad Frenzy” out, we’re currently working on our sophomore album, which is due to drop in a few months. We’ve recorded all of our music at The Spot Studios with Glenn and Rich. We’re lucky to have such a great relationship with those guys.

Has it been a smooth road?
Oh boy, it has been a bumpy road. When we were younger, we were so unrealistic about what to expect. But we’re pretty humble looking back on it since we’ve learned so much. We started touring at the beginning of 2019, and we a lot of monthly tours. Utah in January, New Mexico in February, etc. We got really lucky with breaking even on most of our tours, but towards the end we were really pressing our luck. Touring is amazing, but it is tough to balance with a day job along with rent waiting at the end of the month, ya know? But as friends, we’ve all changed a lot through the years and had some internal issues that we had to get past together, and we did, but those are scary times. I don’t know, everyone always looks at the surface, but God knows what’s happening underneath it all. 2019 was a rough year for us as people. The band was flourishing but everything in our lives was falling apart. It was just a stressful year full of dramatic changes. The recent pandemic certainly hasn’t helped, but we’re all lucky to still be working and to still have each other to count on through this.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
Backseat Vinyl was named after all the garbage in Keenan’s backseat in high school. We’re a three-piece indie punk group consisting of guitar, bass, and drums. We’re mainly known for our successful shows with Vundabar, The Frights, Bass Drum of Death, and The Black Lips. We’re most proud of establishing our sound and presence in Denver. We’re fast, we’re loud, and we cut to the chase in our music. What separates us from others is our blunt music.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Denver has a great music scene that is continuing to grow more and more, which is really exciting to see. But after touring California and Oregon, we’ve just seen so much more weird stuff out there. It’s a crazy scene out there. Colorado is great, but it is a tough scene to dive into from the start. It takes a lot of patience and determination that will not pay back equally. Maybe you have more advantages on the west coast, but who knows. I think more house shows and more playable venues would benefit local artists a lot more. But I think that’s coming in due time.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://backseatvinyl.com/
• Email: backseatvinyl@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/backseatvinyl/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/backseatvinyl/
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/backseatvinyl

Image Credit:
Clara Louise

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