Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues at 7.53 and I'm happy to welcome in what I consider to be one of the busiest guys in the Finger Lakes. He's going to be playing at Seneca Lake Resorts live at the Vista tomorrow night. Nate Michaels is here. Good morning, man.
Nate Mikels: Good morning. It's great to be here.
Paul Szmal: It sounds like I hear your name being announced as performing constantly. Do you even get a break this time of year?
Nate Mikels: I do. Sometimes I take a Tuesday off once in a while.
Paul Szmal: Well at least you've been getting good weather on Tuesdays.
Nate Mikels: I have. We've been pretty soggy lately, but I think this summer's going to be nice, let's hope.
Paul Szmal: So tell me a little bit about how you got started and how long you've been playing now.
Nate Mikels: I've been in music, like in bands, since I was 15. But I played in a band as a drummer and I sang a little bit. And during the breaks I would get up and I would do an acoustic, I'd play an acoustic song on the guitar. And some people told me that I should just get into it. So that was pretty much the red carpet rolling out for me, the avenue that made me decide to be a solo musician. And then eventually it just got busy enough to be full time.
Paul Szmal: So you're a solo acoustic guy, but you've actually had a couple of singles that have gone out here in the past couple of years.
Nate Mikels: Yeah. This year I re-released a song called Red Hot Mess that everybody, I think everybody who follows me knows that song. And then I released another one in April called Smoke. My next release is June 27th and that's going to be a song called Roll With You. It's a good road trip song.
Paul Szmal: How hard is it to be an independent musician, because I know you're not affiliated with a major label, you're just kind of putting this stuff out there in the hopes of maybe getting picked up?
Nate Mikels: It's hard and it's easy because reaching people is hard because when you have a label and they're promoting you, you have a larger reach. When you're just a little individual person from the middle of New York, I depend on my excellent fans to share everything that I do. And they do great.
Paul Szmal: Tell me a little bit about your musical influences. What were you listening to growing up?
Nate Mikels: I did everything basically. Mostly classic rock like Bad Company, 38 Special, Tom Petty. I did a lot of Pink Floyd. I dove into Zeppelin for a little bit, but then I was in a punk band. We did Green Day covers and Blink-182 stuff when I was 16. That kind of swung.
Paul Szmal: What's the majority of what you perform nowadays?
Nate Mikels: It's really just country and rock. Those two things. 50-50 I would say at this point. I've been trying to reinvent myself a little bit. Not so much a country artist than I am what I'd consider more of a rock artist.
Paul Szmal: Rock artist that plays the occasional country tune?
Nate Mikels: Without the twang.
Paul Szmal: I was going to say, maybe change the arrangement, tweak that up a little bit. Sometimes a little harder.
Nate Mikels: Yeah, give it a little rock edge.
Paul Szmal: Where do you see, you've been said to me before we came on together, you've been doing this now for about 10 years. Where do you see yourself like 5 or 10 years from now?
Nate Mikels: Hopefully I'm doing this a lot less, but still doing this. Music's a big part of my life. It's what pumps my heart every day. I think I'll probably be doing about the same thing if my music doesn't take off or if I don't sell any of my music. I write my originals and I write them for me, but I would love to get them in the hands of someone that, like a mainstream artist, and see what they do there in that market. Maybe go down the songwriter route?
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I love being a songwriter. I've written a lot of songs and I've gotten a good reaction to the ones that I've put out, so I'm just going to continue to do that and if people like it, then great.
Nate Mikels: When you're writing, do you have a particular methodology that you do? Do you start with just a couple of chords or how does it come about?
Paul Szmal: I used to. I used to really try to get it structured into what people tell me I should do, but lately I've just been more writing for me and how things come out naturally.
Nate Mikels: Do you find that's a better way of doing things?
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. I'm more filled with the product, for sure.
Nate Mikels: Why don't we give a quick plug for where we can get the single from? Anything that you guys need to find from me will be on my website, natemichalsmusic.com. If you only have Facebook, I'm natemichalsmusic on Facebook, and Instagram I'll be natemichalscountryman.
Paul Szmal: Okay, fantastic. Well, I'm glad you stopped by this morning, man, and I look forward to hearing you tomorrow at Live at the Vista. It's going to be great. I hope the weather's great and I'll be getting some from DARS.
Nate Mikels: Yeah, and that's a fun venue to play, isn't it?
Paul Szmal: Oh, it's so great, and especially at sunset when the water's nice.
Nate Mikels: Oh, yeah. Well, let's hope for good weather for tomorrow, then.
Paul Szmal: We'll get it.
Nate Mikels: All right. That's Nate Michaels. You can catch him tomorrow night Live at the Vista at Seneca Lake Resorts down in Sampson State Park at 758 on FLX Morning.
