Nick Santino: “I just like playing music.”

Since it’s the end of the year, any new years resolutions?

I never follow through with any of them. I know everybody says that, but it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to have a six pack by February,” and then by February I’m eating McDonald’s. I never do that stuff, I wish I could. I wish I was like yeah, I’m going to go the gym everyday. But I’ll go to the gym on Monday, and by Friday I’m sleeping in and stuff. So I don’t know, next year I just want to… Every year I’ve said “This is my year. This is going to be our year. We’re going to make it this year.” I’m not going to say that, but I hope something happens in 2014. Maybe I jinx it by doing that. So I’m not going to say “This is going to be my year” but, fingers crossed.

Do you already have certain plans set it stone for 2014?

Yeah, we’re doing some shows in the Philippines with The Maine and This Century. And then I’m going to write the rest of January and February, doing my record hopefully in March and April, maybe release it by June. And then I got a summer tour coming up that hasn’t been announced yet. I don’t even know when it’s going to be announced. That’s all I got now. Maybe a fall tour, anything to promote the record that I release.

I read that you’ve traveled to some really cool places on tour. What’s a place that you really liked and why?

Singapore was really cool. Singapore is REALLY cool. It’s very clean, very different. It’s just like something you’ve never seen before. Really good food, really nice people, really just cool vibes all around. The show we played was really fun. We’ve been to Australia. Australia is a blast, expensive, but it’s a blast. I always have a good time going back to the Philippines because the shows are so much fun. I have a hard time finding the food I want to eat, because I’m a very picky American eater. But there’s always something. There’s always some sort of chicken that looks safe.

So where’s somewhere you would want to go that you haven’t been?

I’d want to go to Alaska. I think that’d be really fun, for some reason.

See the Northern lights.

Yeah! And I want to go to Italy really bad. I haven’t really seen a lot. We’ve done the UK, southeast Asia, Australia, and most of the States, but nothing like that yet.

Nobody every goes to Alaska.

Yeah, I just want to go for vacation. I love those kind of like out in the middle of nowhere, out in the middle of the woods, in the mountains and snow, kind of places. I think I’d like it.

You said you’re a picky eater. But have you ever tried to venture out…

No. No. Not me. I don’t even eat sushi. I eat veggie sushi. Those avocado rolls with cream cheese. I don’t mess with any sort of seafood. I can have like tuna sandwiches that I make myself. But that’s it. That’s as far as I go with seafood. So yeah, when I was in southeast Asia, when I’m was with Rocket- Halvo, not really Halvo, Andrew, and Justin were always like “Let’s go eat pig hearts and goat eyeballs cause it’s going to be great! It’s a local delicacy!” I’m like, “Give me white rice and soy sauce please.” That’s all I need. So yeah, the furthest I go is going to Panera Bread and being like “I don’t want broccoli cheddar today, maybe I’ll try the corn chowder.” That’s as adventurous as I go. And I usually get disappointed and I’m like, “Shit, I shouldn’t have changed my order today.”

That’s the worst.

Especially with Panera, because you know what you like there. If you go and you’re like “Maybe I’ll try a panini today.” And you try it and you’re like “God, it’s not a sierra turkey sandwich.” That’s my way to go. I’ll change up the soup, but its always the sierra turkey.

Do you have any dream collaborations?

Yeah! I mean, Butch Walker, Ryan Adams, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, obviously the out of reach stuff would be really cool. Um, me and John from The Maine wrote a song two days ago, we recorded it together at their studio. Probably going to release that pretty soon. But that’s always fun, collaborating with your friends. We have similar fan bases, so it’s gets the fans really excited when we do that kind of stuff. We had a lot of fun doing it. So. I mean, like I said, the big ones would be Ryan Adams and Tom Petty. Friends and all that kind of stuff is cool. Taylor Swift would be sweet.

Photo by Rosemary Vega

Have you seen the Butch Walker movie?

Oh yeah. I love it. He’s such a good dude. I gotta do something with that guy, like a record. I love him.

How’d you get turned on to him?

Butch? I really don’t know. I have no idea how I first started listening to Butch. I couldn’t even tell you. Actually I remember I think he had this song called, “Weight of Her.” And he had a video out, and it was the MySpace days and I just stumbled on to it. Because I think it was on his management’s website, and I was seeing what else they had. And I saw that, and I was like “This guy is bad ass.” And I started listening to more of this music. And ever since then, every record he’s put out I’ve loved.

No one ever knows who Butch Walker is.

Yeah, he’s always like an underdog. People don’t understand what he’s done. He’s recorded Katy Perry, he’s a producer on a Taylor Swift record, he did a song on there, all this crazy stuff. And people are like “Who’s Butch Walker?” and I’m like, “That’s a stupid question.”

Do you have any special plans for tonight, do you change things around for different audiences?

Tonight? I imagine this interview is going up after the show, so two boys are going to join me for a song, we’re going to do a Rocket song- Halvo and Andrew are coming. We’re going to play “Baby Blue Eyes,” but I don’t know how we’re going to play it, I think Halvo has a bass. We’ll see what happens. I think that’ll be pretty cool, and for the most part it’s going to be me with an acoustic guitar singing sad songs. So they’ll be one exciting part of the set, everything else will be sad.

I read that you hadn’t decided whether or not you were going to do Rocket songs.

Yeah, I was unsure cause I wanted to have the- I don’t know. I love Rocket, that’s where I grew up, but I want to move from that. I want to do other stuff and I want people to not always look at me as the kid from A Rocket to the Moon, but playing these shows, it’s the first tour I’m doing, these kids only know me from Rocket, so you know I’m doing a Rocket song every night. I enjoy playing it, and it’s always my favorite song to play live. I’m still liking it. I change it, I make it a little slower for my set a little bit. But it’s cool, and kids usually like it.