Recently, Davia of SF Retro caught up with songwriter, guitarist and producer Nathan Stocker (aka BrotherKenzie) on the road in support his new album, “North Star.” Also known as a longtime member of Minnesota indie rock band Hippocampus, Stocker’s creative output is boundless, as his poignant lyricism and guitar stylings anchoring a pantheon of genres, including experimental rock, singer songwriter confessionals, and art pop instrumentals. His recent collaborations include icon Mavis Staples, indie songstress Samia, and many other figures of the indie alternative scene. Catch him live in San Francisco on July 14th at Cafe du Nord and get your tickets while they’re available!

Davia: Hi, Nathan. Thank you so much again for chatting. So you are in Boise, Idaho right now, correct?

Nathan: I am. I just got back from a little coffee and breakfast, and it's going to be 100 degrees to get today, and we're just chilling. So yeah, beautiful day. It's great. Where are you?

D: I'm currently in San Francisco, which is about 60 degrees and foggy, so we're in our different season right now. But how's the tour been going so far?

N: It's great. No notes. Wouldn't change a thing. Just grateful to be here. It's cool. I was talking to my friend, Sam, who's playing keys with me out here, and yeah, it's just been a minute since we've done a proper van tour. And we're just discussing how sleep is different and how time works differently and the highs are different. I'm just really grateful, and it feels really special. And the last two shows have been great. Salt Lake City was great. Denver was great. Everybody's been just great, man.

D: I also want to congratulate you on the release of North Star, which was a surprise to many of us, of course. We knew that there was something coming, but I love the way you just dropped it. And had you been planning to do this kind of release, or you were like, "There's no fanfare here. I just want to bring it out to the folks"?

N: A bit of both. I think there's been a pretty there's been a shift in how I care about this. I can't do the rollout anymore. I can't drag it all on. I have no interest in waiting that long. And yeah, I'm in this place of I'm just trying to stay unclogged creatively and in a productive mindset. So yeah, it's kind of planned, but it's also if there wasn't music, then I wouldn't drop anything. But yeah, it's been a really fruitful period of three different records within a seven, eight-month span. I'm not precious about that either. I don't have expectations to keep that streak going in any way. I'm just grateful for the material to present itself to me and grateful that, obviously, people are willing to listen. But yeah, I just can't be thinking about it too hard anymore. There's no time for me to think about it that way.

D: It's understandable.

N: And I'm also kind of blessed and privileged to be able to have the best of both worlds with Hippocampus as an outlet for the more standard album campaign mode and to be able to supplement that with or balance it out with kind of just doing whatever I want with my Brother Kenzie output. It's a space that not everybody gets to occupy, and I'm really grateful for it.

D: Absolutely. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the album itself. It's a beautiful listen. And I think in a day and age where singles and shorter releases are really kind of the meat and potatoes of the music industry right now, it's really lovely to just sit down and listen to a record from top to bottom that really feels like it has a narrative attached to it. Images that were popping in my mind were a road trip with many different stops along the way. It's very Wim Wenders, “Paris, Texas.” And I think there's a meditative process to listening to an album in full. So I wanted to ask you about if there was any meditation on the sequencing of this record and the imagery of the North Star?

N: First off, thanks for listening to it. And I'm glad that it was so vivid for you. I love Paris, Texas. Breaking it down, I suppose the sequencing of it, I think I just wanted to I really just thought about it kind of in two halves. I'm always just side A, side B. And side A being a little more up-tempo, higher energy. Side B being a little more reflective and kind of controlled. I guess the imagery of it is reflective of my time in Minnesota.And since last summer was when I moved out to the woods and I was suddenly surrounded by essentially the most beautiful and natural aspects of the state, which I always loved and always represented such a pure energy growing up for me, moving away and moving back….It also reflected a more balanced place in my life personally and just kind of navigating various chaoses. And I think that I found a real peace out there, and that also ties into the whole not wanting to hold anything back and kind of just surprise release things. And if the music is there, just get out of your own way and let it happen. The imagery of the North Star specifically, yeah, I mean, that came pretty later in the recording process. So the song, North Star, was towards the end. I think I wrote that March or April or something. Very recently. And it just kind of it's pretty biographical. It's very just narrating my surroundings. And I had that photo shoot where the album cover art comes from.

I had done this photo shoot with Graham Tolbert, and he was, I mean, yeah, stunning human being all around. And I didn't really know what I was doing it for at the time.

I had just moved into this new place in the woods, and we just kind of spent a day exploring. And I had met a neighbor of mine who owns a horse ranch, and we went over there and shot some shots. And we went to this town called St. Boniface, Minnesota, and just had a whole day with Graham. I didn't really have I didn't have any music at the time. This was back in September, and I was just kind of sitting on all that. It was before my last two records, Ditto and Ribbit, came out. And I was just like, "Oh, I'll use this at some point. I'll just have these photos for something down the road.” And it wasn't really until North Star, the song, popped up that it really solidified the imagery for me.

And I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is what I've been on, and this is the trajectory. It's this place I belong to now where I'm happy with the search. I'm happy looking up every once in a while and seeing, okay, yeah, I'm still headed north. I'm still going. I'm still on the right track here." And then just keep my head down and get back to the work that I enjoy. And it's funny - I haven't talked about this album at all with anybody, so. I'm here. I'm going out as I go, but I appreciate that question, saying it all out loud for the first time. But yeah, North Star, it's the North Star state, Minnesota. It became this homage to the physical place as well as the sort of creative one.

D: I think it's felt definitely in the album itself. And I also have a personal connection to Minnesota. Half of my family is from there on my dad's side. And that's kind of how I discovered Hippocampus and your work was because I had a bit more of a pulse on the Midwestern scene. And I think it's really I think Midwestern artists in particular have a really special quality of storytelling that I think the environment does allow them to work on. The themes are a little bit different. And to come back to the album itself, songs like for example, "Shower Scene" and "Sticker on the Bill," and you have very clear images. I was wondering about your songwriting process, and I think it's just I know it's relative to sometimes it's day-to-day. You can't just sit down at the desk and write out the lyrics and the chord progression like, "There it is. I've got it." So for those songs or for other songs, what was a process that surprised you during the making of this record? And I can understand that maybe it wasn't such a linear process, but was there a song that kind of really made you rethink or approach your process differently?

N: That's a great question.”Sticker on the Bill" was definitely a part of this wave of songs like "Lion's Den," "Maybe I Didn't," "Do It Over Again," "Want Me,” & “I'll Go Through.” Pretty much every song except "Shower Scene" came so quick. That was like a very all that was very linear and very rapid. And I think it was surprising to me how easy all of that felt to sort of let it come out. And I had sort of put in a little bit more work into my at home studio, and I had spent a pretty long vacation in Mexico working on an entirely different project. I had it in my head that I was going to be in Mexico for like four weeks, and I was going to bring a guitar and an interface and just kind of write a whole record down there. And I did, essentially.

But when I got home, ICE officers were just causing absolute mayhem in Minneapolis and elsewhere. And the whole album in Mexico kind of was more of like an art project or whatnot that I didn't want to put out.

So yeah, I got home and then I was like and then it all just kind of fell out of me.And I was at home just really trying to stay out of my own way. So I guess it was just surprising how in the midst of all that chaos and a scrapped album, and instead of getting down on myself, it was like, "All right, here's where you're supposed to go now. Here's your actual north star. And it's these songs, and here they come, and be ready and don't overthink it, and just track the be able to play the songs, just you, sit down and play them front to back, and then record them," kind of thing.

So I guess, in short, it was surprising to me how, yeah, how it all just kind of fell out at once and in such a short amount of time. And then I was like, "Well, this feels like a record, so let's go."

"Lion's Den," I wrote after this tour in February with this band, Y. And yeah, like you said, they all kind of come from different places on a micro level. "Sticker on the Bill" started literally just from that line, "Sticker on the Bill," just right about the just the physical thing. It was just something my friend said to me when we were at a thrift store in Durham, North Carolina, and I was like, "That's tight." Just the energy of that image. And it brought me back to my time in Arizona as a kid. And then that's where the rest of the song kind of came from, was just that formative time in the mid-aughts.

D: Good times.

N: Yeah, 2005. What a formative period. "Shower Scene" was a little different. I've been sitting on that one for a little while. I wrote that kind of directly after the Ditto process. And that one was definitely more tied to being recently sober and losing weight and none of my clothes fit me anymore. And just really strange detachment from things that used to hit really hard and the state of media and art now. And then "North Star" was also, yeah, a latecomer. But everything else was pretty much within a couple months of each other.

D:  I think it's really great to shine light on this process because I think the songwriting process in general is so mystified. People watch the biopics and see people writing these massively famous songs in the course of two hours, which sometimes happens, of course, but…There is a lot more that comes into play. I love the story of you just hearing this phrase on a day that you probably wouldn't have thought an idea would have come out of, perhaps. But maybe we're always receptive to things day-to-day as creative folks. There's a free quality to the album. You sound very free.

N: I'm glad.

D: I also want to talk a little bit about "Ribbit" and how it influenced this record because "Ribbit" is fantastic also. And that's an amazing amalgamation of proggy math rock with some funk. It feels very Minneapolis to me.

D: Cool. I love that.

N: So how did that influence this current moment for you?

N: It was a part of that process of re grounding myself. So I recorded "Ditto," which is my first record after I stopped drinking. It was the first batch of songs that I wrote dry. And that process was very therapeutic, very necessary for me. But I also underwent a sort of identity crisis and detachment from the material. So I ended up shelving the record, kind of hypothetically, for like a year or so. And I didn't want any I had it slotted to release at the top of 2020, 2025, I think, maybe. And then I was just like, "Fuck this shit. This is not me. And I hate it.”

And I was angry. And there was a lot going on at that time that I just I was like, "I'm ready to quit." And so I took a break. And a part of that break was booking studio time. I didn't know what else to do. So I was just like, "I got to get out of here and kind of just escape and do something completely different from Hippo and from Brother Kenzie and just find a different source of inspiration." All I knew was that I wanted to play hard, and I wanted to be loud.

And so I booked time in North Carolina at Betty's studio.

And I flew an old friend out from California named Judah McCoy who played drums in a band called The Happy Children from Minneapolis. And he went to SPCPA, which is where the rest of the Hippo guys and I went. And nobody had really been in contact with Jude for a while, and he hadn't really been drumming at all. And I didn't really have an agenda. I just was inspired, and I wanted to get him on the drums again. And so we posted up for like four days, maybe. With Caleb at Betty's. And Caleb Wright, baby Caleb from "Baby Boys," Caleb from "Samia," legend.

And yeah, it was a really healing time, and it was really exciting. And we just played music for like eight hours a day for three days and then spent the last day kind of combing through everything.And it's all very improvised, very kind of chopped-up little bits of these jams that we had.

And yeah, so that's kind of that's the literal story of that record, but how it then affected "North Star" was giving me that freedom to walking away from that session at Betty's, I was really there was a sense of depressurization. And I felt very grounded and capable.

And it granted me that as a part of granting me that freedom, not too soon after that session, I moved to the woods. And then it all kind of from there, it was like, "Oh, there are no rules, and I can kind of do whatever I want."

So yeah, that was a really huge project. And we recorded another "Ribbit" record a couple months ago. And I hope to tour that project at some point. I have a pretty clear vision for it, but it's funny. At first, I was like, "This doesn't feel like Brother Kenzie," but then it is still a part of it is still kind of a part of the whole canon, so I couldn't ignore that either. And I wanted to get at least some ears on "Ribbit" without it just kind of falling into the void entirely. So I ended up attaching it to the Brother Kenzie name. But I think that there is still a lot of freestanding power to that project outside of the Brother Kenzie moniker. So it's kind of a weird hybrid thing, but I definitely couldn't have made I couldn't have done "North Star" without. Without that process, and I'm really grateful for it. I'm grateful for Caleb and Judah, both.

D: I'm glad that you talked about that, because I was wondering if there was some relation to the records. And it's almost like you could listen to both of them in companion, you know, and just have that be the prelude.

N : Also, it kind of, like, pairs with this— with the— it's got me thinking about my first— technically my first record, "Barncat," which is like an instrumental, kind of like ambient record that, you know, having that side of the whole experience be pretty left of center is nice. And it, again, depressurizes, like, the songwriting, the singing and having to make some sort of effort at pop music. And it just kind of, like— yeah, it grants me that freedom that you mentioned earlier.

D:  It seems like you have a nice relationship with doing instrumental music and then kind of putting it into the lyrical narrative form too…which is so nice to have, that kind of also genre freedom. I think so many people are tied to, "this is my brand," which is so corporate and exactly the opposite of what artists should do. You know? “I have to stay within these boundaries because people have expectations.” When, in fact, people & the audience love when they're seeing someone evolve. And it seems like you have been going through this evolution with your health journey as well.

N: I feel like there's also, like— it depends on the project, kind of. Where, you know, I respect people who do one thing very well instead of, like, a bunch of things kind of mid. You know, there's— there's, like— we talk about it in "Hippocampus" all the time too, where it's like— or at least of late, where I'm kind of like, "Damn, like, what if we— what if we just zoned in on the shit that we were doing early on and just tried to perfect that?" Like, how cool would it be if we made the same record twice?

Like, instead of having to make these broad strokes and swing the pendulum super hard, but it all— it just— as long as you're reflecting the process, like, just the honesty about where you're at in that moment, it doesn't really matter what you're making. You know— I respect a pop artist who…You're like, "Yeah, you're probably going to be singing every song," right? You're trying to convey the most universal message within a palette that people can grab onto. And yeah, that's dope. Like, I want to make a record like that too.

But, for me, I just have too many ideas, kind of. And I know what it's like to be clogged up, and I know what it's like to want to quit when I have too much music that I'm sitting on. So for me, I can't— I can't really do that. And I'm granted the space to be able to move freely. But with a band like Hippocampus, you know, the stakes are a little different. And the relationships are a little different. You can't really— you can't really, like, boil it down to one formula or not. It's always just about representing where you're at.

And, you know, I would hate to convey that I am, like, 100% this kind of artist or that kind of artist. I'm really just waking up every day and trying to— trying to do the best I can with what I got. I feel like most people are, but there's such a desire to figure it all out. From a consumer standpoint.

D: Audiences are already are enjoying your live performance of this record. You're coming to San Francisco next week on Tuesday at Café du Nord, which is a great venue. Are you going to be playing songs off of "North Star" and "Ditto" and older things? And maybe things that aren't even on any records yet? What can people expect?

N: It's a good slew. It's a solid mix. We've been rocking a lot of "North Star." It's funny having this many songs. It's really hard to boil it all down or to, you know, just chop it up and make a set list. The last few shows have felt really good. Maybe two songs off of "Bloodsucker." Really only one song off of "Big What." But, you know, a couple songs from “Ditto.” Stick Around" is on there.

 Thankfully my band, Sam and Tarek, are fucking gees. And they rip so hard. It's crazy.

D: You've got a trio, essentially, for this tour.

N: A true power trio. It's all awesome. I feel really blessed. You know, there are moments of— throw down, if you want to throw down, I would welcome that. Sit down if you want to sit down. I'd also welcome that. Really, choose your own adventure.

D: I think the more liveness and spontaneity a performance has, the more the audience is going to enjoy it. Thank you again for taking the time to talk to me on the road.

N: I appreciate all the hard-hitting questions and looking forward to seeing you at Café du Nord.

D: Up until then, I hope your shows are fantastic and charge you up with really good energy. We look forward to seeing you here in the Bay.

N: Ditto. I appreciate that so much.

“North Star” the new record by BrotherKenzie, is available to listen to on all streaming platforms.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and accuracy.