Nick Cove & The Wandering | Interview | “Live at The Kaleidoscope”

Uncategorized February 2, 2023

Nick Cove & The Wandering | Interview | “Live at The Kaleidoscope”

Nick Cove & The Wandering recently released a live EP, ‘Live at The Kaleidoscope,’ a mixture of alt rock, grunge, and singer-songwriter finesse.


In this era of digital islands, there’s a magic surrounding live, local music communities. Music that doesn’t need a stadium or a full staff to make possible. Music that’s made by and for the people in a local scene. Local music scenes take the work of dedicated songwriters, musicians, engineers, and videographers to make that magic happen. And Nick Cove & The Wandering’s recent performance of ‘Glass Houses’ live at Lancaster’s The Kaleidoscope is a testament to what’s so special and important about independent music.

Nick Cove, Trevor Kiscadden, Joe Mancinelli, and John Decker have come together to create something larger than four musicians. Theirs is a spiritual quest, to provide an auditory respite for all of us weary travelers. They describe their music as “akin to a bonfire in the dark; a beacon of safety – a moment of respite – before heading back out on your journey.” It’s a tall order, but the band is more than up for the challenge.

This new live take of ‘Glass Houses’ shows the band coming into their own as players and collaborators. Previous versions of the song, while still earnest and emotive, lack the intensity the band managed to capture at The Kaleidoscope. Sometimes, it takes growth and interacting with new people to reveal the essence of a song. As the song heads towards its driving chorus, Cove & Co manage to create just the right amount of harmonic dissonance. It’s the musical embodiment of hitting that last obstacle before returning home.

We need local legends. We need bands who are willing to give their all, whether they are playing to five people or five hundred. Nick Cove & The Wandering are that band. If this recent live session is any indication of where the band is heading, I think we’re in for a slew of good music.

How did you hear about The Kaleidoscope? What made you want to film a session there?

We heard about the Kaleidoscope and the gentle people (Jon Smith and Ben Roth) who run it from living in Lancaster, PA and going to shows there when they were still using it as a DIY venue in addition to a full time studio. It’s a real vibey space featuring some wall to wall art by some really talented local artists. No one in the band had recorded at The Kaleidoscope yet and when we decided we wanted to record an in-studio live session, everyone agreed that The Kaleidoscope was the place to go.

How long has this current iteration of The Wandering been playing together? Based on the performances in this session, you would think decades!!

The current iteration of The Wandering has been around for more than a year! But the majority of us have played together on and off for around a decade. I first started playing music with our drummer, Trevor, when we were in high school. We ended up playing in a couple bands together and now he is my go to drummer for more reasons than being the best drummer I know. I spent a lot of time with John Decker in college listening to music and always supporting each other’s bands. Joe is actually the most recent person in The Wandering that I started writing music with and that was around 5 years ago? We all just mesh really well together and it feels effortless. Thank you for that!! There is a level beyond just being knowledgeable of the music to be locked in. In my experience, it really helps to know a person’s musical personality to be able to push the performance to the next level. At some point, everyone just locks in.

Your mission as a band is to provide a kind of comfort to listeners. What does that look like for you as you approach writing and arranging songs? Has that mission changed at all as the project has blossomed into a full band?

There is an ebb and flow to the tension in the music we love to listen to and comes out in the writing. The conversation surrounding the building and release of tension in a song is a super common conversation with us. It may change the chords underneath, the content and space the lyrics hold or don’t hold, or the idea all together. I’m not good at writing positive lyrics that don’t sound cheesy, so even the happiest of lyrical content contains a sense of melancholy. The sentence “misery loves company” sticks out in my head, but not in a cynical or sad way. I think everyone wants to be heard in some way and feel like they aren’t alone. I want the listener to know that they aren’t the only ones feeling this way. We’re all working through something and sometimes we don’t want to be alone when we are working through it.

What’s next for you? Where can we find you for the rest of the year?

Releasing new music is the number one goal for us! We should hopefully have a new single out by the end of the year and then with an EP or album to follow! Beyond that, we’d love to play with Manchester Orchestra, The Dear Hunter, or Thrice. That would tick some lifetime goal boxes for us haha.


Nick Cove & The Wandering Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / YouTube

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