Nick Hexum, lead singer and rhythm guitarist for 311, is 40 years old. He’s been a rock star for half his life. He wants to be a rock star for the rest of it.
He’s packing his bags for what seems like the band’s millionth tour — clothes, iPad, portable recording equipment for the bus in case he wants to bust out a few demos, cinnamon-flavored Crest. The band is flying to Alaska for two dates, in Fairbanks and Anchorage, before hitting the road within days of their 20th anniversary.
“We’ve never been up there before,” he says. “But this will complete the 50 states. We will have been to all 50.”
Fifty states in 20 years — it’s hard not to get nostalgic.
On June 10, 1990, the band took the stage for the first time. Their name, The Fish Hippos, was a problem. Hexum had just barely convinced the dudes he’d been jamming with, in their hometown of Omaha, that using that name while opening for legendary post-punk act Fugazi would be bad for business.
In hindsight, that seems like a wise decision — it’s hard to imagine a band called The Fish Hippos celebrating anything, much less 20 years as one of rock’s most innovative acts. Just six years later, under their new name, they were cool enough to be invited to the same party as The Clash’s Joe Strummer, who showed up carrying a boom box with a 311 sticker on it (“That pretty much validated my entire life right there,” Hexum says).
Still, they were so young back then and — Hexum laughs — still so ignorant of the way things worked that they were offering forties to Ian MacKaye backstage.
Things have changed. Hexum now knows that Ian MacKaye is the king of straight edge. He knows how things work and he knows that they’re broken. Like other rock veterans, he’s just trying to keep his head down, pack his bags, and ride out of the revolution.
“It’s a really tough time in the music business right now, there’s so much confusion now about how to make it work in the era of piracy,” he says. “There are a lot of people that are scared and it’s pretty hard to get a record deal. Even now, this summer, a lot of tours are tanking. The music business is …on its last leg right now.”
Hexum says he first noticed the limp in 1999, after the release of 311’s fifth studio album, “Sound System.”
“It was right around that time and (“Sound System”) was available online as a pirated download,” Hexum says. “I remember our manager trying in vain to shut it down and posting on message boards, ‘Don’t do that.’ But they just banished him from the file-trading site. It was a sense of, ‘Wow, there’s nothing you can do about that.’”
Except, of course, try to adapt.
“The industry will take a new form but I’ll look different, whether that’s through subscription service or direct relations between bands with fans,” he says. “People are trying to find out what’s next. I’m just grateful we’ve got a great touring business.”
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