Nick Vann, known professionally as Nobide, is a musician, DJ, and record producer out of Boulder, CO. Focusing on bridging the gap between traditional instrumentation and electronica, Nobide’s performances and records range across many genres from bass music to ambient spaces. Nobide has performed nationally, playing at renowned festivals like Camp Bisco, Hulaween and Summer Camp.
Nobide: I was reading a long form poem about Buddhism and a passage stuck out to me – it spoke about “not biding time” so that when you meet death you don’t go full of regret. Nobide means get up off your ass and make it happen, don’t wait around for things to work out. GO!
Nobide: Born and raised in Boulder, CO baby. Being around mountains and having a music scene that had everyone passing through was (and is) really exciting. The phrase “twenty-five square miles surrounded by reality” definitely holds - I feel like I’ve been able to get deeper into my art living here… it feels like a fantasy land sometimes. Which is cool, but also kinda boring at times. Definitely motivates me to get out and see new places and check out new sounds.
Nobide: Hulaween was a standout – I’d not spent much time in Florida and didn’t know what to expect, which was probably why it was so much fun. There were no expectations to be let down, so getting there and feeling the energy of everyone and having a crowd respond to the set like that was unbelievable.
Nobide: I’m figuring it out – I think it’s going to be satisfying and different and exciting. I can try some stuff that would have been hard with a band. I’ll definitely miss being with my boys all the time, but I know we’ll still be working together. My goal right now is to throw as many stones as I can genre-wise, try out a lot of stuff, and really refine the sound I’ve been chasing. I want to find my fingerprint of “organic electronic” music and stamp it, hear it.
Nobide: I pretty much made it because I felt like there was nothing else that would work for me at the school. It was the first time I felt like my academic life crossed over and started having a semblance of connection to what I was interested in. I wrote a curriculum, got a team of professors to back me and presented it to the school, and got to chart my own course of study. My thesis project was the first Nobide record, “Contrary To Popular Belief,” and was an awesome opportunity to explore music technology and concepts around that.
Nobide: Keep it fun, make stuff that your friends like, hone in on your craft and your sound… and get out and find your people, keep it fun and work hard.
Nobide: I honestly have no idea. I’ve been in one spot for so long that I’m definitely itching for a change of scenery. I want to keep exploring parts of the U.S. and Europe and see what inspires me and gets the juices flowing. It’s really important to me to have a community of artists that are pushing their style in whatever medium, so there’d probably need to be a good scene for me to want to move somewhere.
Nobide: This was the first song I made entirely solo, and it was an exploration into a more dance-focused form. It’s not quite tech-house, it’s not quite house, I don’t know what the hell it is. It’s cool though, and I’m proud of the production. It’s got some more life than other electronic music in that style that I’m hearing and that feels good. It’s not quite what I would expect from Nobide, but it feels like a Nobide exploration into some different sounds.
Nobide: Onwards & upwards! Lots of new music and exploration. I’m exploring how to convey the Nobide sound through DJ’ing and looking forward to building a live show again. More collaboration. Who knows? I’m stoked to find out and stoked to share the journey.
