Once afraid that sobriety would silence his creativity, N8NOFACE has discovered a new relationship with music. On ‘Tomorrow’s World,’ the underground synth-punk artist confronts his past while embracing a future he once struggled to imagine.

Stream: ‘Tomorrow’s World’ – N8NOFACE

‘Dream or Die,’ to me, dream meant in this one to create. To keep an imagination, that inner child alive.

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For much of his life, N8NOFACE existed between two worlds.

One was the world he knew intimately, where drug dealers and bank robbers were more familiar faces than musicians. The other lived somewhere inside his imagination, among strange synthesizer melodies and songs that seemed to understand feelings he had never learned to articulate. He knew how to navigate the streets he grew up on. It was the company of artists that made him nervous.

As a young outsider, he found comfort in the fragile, unvarnished recordings of Daniel Johnston and the hypnotic electronic experiments of Suicide. There was something profoundly human about music that allowed its imperfections to remain audible. Johnston’s aching vulnerability and Suicide’s uncompromising strangeness spoke to a young man who had always felt a little out of place. Eventually, N8NOFACE began making his own synth-punk recordings in the solitude of his closet, guided by little more than curiosity and an irrepressible need to create.

For seventeen years, addiction accompanied him through much of that creative life. The sadness that followed his binges found its way into his songs, until he began to fear that losing the drugs might mean losing his ability to write. Sobriety eventually revealed how mistaken that belief had been. His imagination remained intact, and with a clearer mind came a deeper understanding of the emotions he had spent years trying to outrun. The music was still there. It had been there all along.

His new album, Tomorrow’s World, released through Stones Throw Records and produced by Dave Sitek, represents a future that once seemed almost unimaginable. After years of recording alone, N8NOFACE found himself working alongside a producer whose music he had admired from afar. Together, they explored how far his songs could go while preserving the imperfections that made them feel human.

The album takes its name from a television program about the future that N8NOFACE encountered while watching a documentary about synthesizers. Fascinated by cyberpunk, he imagined a distant world where street kids made strange electronic music on broken equipment, creating something beautiful from whatever they could salvage. Yet the title also speaks to his own life. The future he once imagined from the confines of his room has become the one he is living.

Tomorrow’s World - N8NOFACE — Tomorrow’s World – N8NOFACE

Despite everything he has accomplished, a part of N8NOFACE remains that uncertain young musician,

still intimidated by the artists he admires and uncomfortable hearing his own recordings played in front of others. There is something endearing about that contradiction. His experiences have changed him, but his affection for music remains almost innocent in its intensity.

Perhaps the most revealing sentiment on Tomorrow’s World comes from “Dream or Die,” a song about preserving the imagination of childhood while learning to navigate adulthood. For N8NOFACE, growing older has meant confronting the consequences of his past while refusing to surrender the part of himself that still believes in possibility. The boy who once disappeared into his room to make music has survived long enough to see where those songs could take him.

N8NOFACE spoke with Atwood Magazine about his journey through addiction and sobriety, his collaboration with Dave Sitek, his musical influences, and the deeply personal experiences behind Tomorrow’s World.

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:: stream/purchase Tomorrow’s World here ::

:: connect with N8NOFACE here ::

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A CONVERSATION WITH N8NOFACE

Atwood Magazine: For people just learning about you through this interview, what do you want them to know about your project?

N8NOFACE: This is my debut solo album on Stones Throw, produced by Dave Sitek (producer of TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Foals, Liars, etc.), who I had been a fan of for years. After releasing synth-punk EPs and albums out of my closet for years, not really knowing what I was doing, this would be my first project sitting with a producer at his studio, helping me take things further and turn demos into fully fleshed-out songs, all while keeping a trace of that DIY vibe. And it’s synth-heavy.

You’ve said, “Put me in a jail cell and I’m calm as f***. Put me around artists and I’m shaking in my boots.” Why do you think the world you came from can feel more familiar to you than the artistic world you’re part of now?

N8NOFACE: I say that by no means of claiming I am a tough guy, the farthest thing from that, haha. It’s just my truth, my reality. I can truly say until I was maybe 27–29, I knew more drug dealers, jackboys, or bank robbers than artists. It’s just who I came up with from the sandbox to this day.

I think a big chunk of it, too, is I just love this shit, songs, poetry, and art, so damn much. I’m always in awe of those who do it well (to me) or those who make a living off doing it, which can be two different things, haha. But I don’t know, I just always wanted props, like a “Hey, that’s dope,” from a peer. I do it regardless if that comes, but maybe that makes it scary for me. I always lack confidence in this shit, haha.

You’ve described yourself as the artistic “weirdo” growing up, and people around you would tell you to turn off artists like Daniel Johnston and Suicide. What did you hear in that music that made you feel understood?

N8NOFACE: Yeah, my girlfriend keeps telling me to stop using that word “weirdo,” but again, just where I am from and the people (who do love me) I was around, that frequency of music was just not resonating with them. It was just our environment.

But I can’t say why or what grabbed me. I’m a sucka for catchy melodies and pretty, sad songs that are raw and not overproduced. It just felt like all heart.

You battled addiction for 17 years. When you look back at that period now, what do you understand about yourself that you couldn’t understand while you were living through it? And what would your advice be to listeners who are currently struggling with alcoholism or addiction?

N8NOFACE: Just being blind to the pain I was causing others stands out the most to me. I always had a job, I never pawned any gear, never stole from anyone. All these things were what kept me also jaded, like telling myself at times, “I got it under control.”

I would work, then disappear for three days on the weekend, end up in a dope house, then when all the money was gone, go home and repeat. For 17 years. Never noticing the no-shows, the letdowns, and the worry and heartbreak I caused others.

To anyone, I tell them it doesn’t get easier, but I promise you it gets better. You have to want it, and once you do, it’s the best, I promise. The tough days sober beat the best days high for me now.

You’ve said you were afraid that if you lost the drugs, you would “lose the funk.” How closely had you connected addiction with your identity as an artist by that point?

N8NOFACE: Oh, bad, at least in my songwriting. From my first synth-punk band Crimekillz to solo N8NOFACE stuff, when I listen to the songs, I’m like, “Oh shit, I’m screaming for help.”

I mean, I didn’t say, “Let me do drugs to be a cool rockstar.” That’s what scares me about some younger artists who possibly play with that shit for an identity. Once it sinks its teeth in, it’s done.

But I definitely wallowed and soaked in the sadness and regret of a binge, put it in a song, then at the time loved the song, and that cycle just repeated.

Once you got sober, when did you realize that your creativity was still there?

N8NOFACE: It kinda hit me after months of being off meth, coke, crack. I mean, you just keep writing songs, and then you see it’s always there. As long as you still love exploring things through songwriting, the stories will come.

It was one of my many silliest rationales of “I’ll lose the funk if the drugs go.” It was just wrong.

I feel now, sober and clearheaded, I can express an emotion faster, whether it be a song of some type of sadness or regret or anger. I can tap in.

I wrote a breakup song, “HURT,” performed it on socials, and got a DM once asking, “Are you and ya lady good?” Hahaha. Never been happier, but I am glad it got that response.

Your routine now involves lifting weights and making music every day. Did having that kind of structure become important to you after getting sober?

N8NOFACE: Yeah, I kinda do it more for my mind. Sometimes I don’t go crazy or lift heavy. I don’t wanna be huge, haha. That looks weird while singing a sad lo-fi indie-type song, haha.

But I do it for routine and discipline. I do enjoy showing gym bros can be into poetry and art, though, haha.

You spent years making raw, lo-fi recordings at home. When you began Tomorrow’s World with Dave Sitek, what did you want to preserve from that way of working?

N8NOFACE: I always wanted bigger or better sound quality. My motto was just always, “I can’t let my lack of knowledge, budget, or even talent stop me from creating and doing what I want.”

But I was never anti-big pro sound or studio.

When I told Dave I looked at all my other released music as still just demos that I didn’t have the skill set to take further, make them any bigger, he quickly replied that bigger sounds or more sounds or the perfect snare I think I’m searching for isn’t always the answer.

I loved that. I do agree sometimes that the perfect melody and tune has something to it when lo-fi and a shitty recording. That same melody overproduced and recorded can then turn into like a f***ing Disney song.

What did Dave understand about N8NOFACE that made you comfortable giving him that much involvement in the record?

N8NOFACE: Dave is the illest. He can get you any sound, any emotion, any genre and do it honest, sonically, texture-wise, all that.

When I told him my love for left-of-center weird music and then still a love of a catchy hit, he raised his arms and said, “The right arm is that hit song and sound, the left arm is the strange and obscure and effed-up sound.”

He then crossed ’em, made an X, and said, “That center where they cross is the magic.”

I just f***ing loved it.

“Paranoid” comes from growing up around “jackboys and dudes kicking in doors,” but there’s also humor in the Amazon driver line. Is humor something you’ve always used to deal with the darker aspects of your life experience?

N8NOFACE: Our first single was “Paranoid.” It was me dealing with people thinking because they see me in posts with Travis Barker, or signed to a label working with Dave, they may think I’m a meal ticket, haha. Just me trying to shake those old ways of thinking.

I love humor, comedy. I try to never take all this or anything too seriously, or try to always see a light moment or laugh in everything.

“Memories” deals with being afraid of forgetting everything. What are you most afraid of losing when you think about memory?

N8NOFACE: “Memories” was just inspired by watching my Tata lose his in his last years, and just dealt with it in the song, I guess.

In it, I mention the good and the bad. You need both to notice either. I’d just rather leave full of them, all of them.

“I Hope It’s Ok” puts “I just wanna love everyone” right beside “keep on me a loaded gun.” Those lines seem to hold openness and self-protection at the same time. Is that contradiction something you recognize in yourself outside of the song?

N8NOFACE: “I Hope It’s Ok,” I freestyled the chorus. At first, it just came out. I dug it and recorded it.

Then I kinda wanted the lyrics to be simple and fit in this pattern or cadence I had, simple rhymes but kinda everywhere.

I just wanted to come with lines that I live with, like people carrying guns or insecurities I have, just whatever simple thing I could say, and asking, like, “This is me. I hope that’s okay.”

“When Not Asking For Anything” deals with wanting to show people your insides and then having to live with their criticism. What makes that vulnerability worth the risk? Are you open to criticism from others, or do you find it challenging to hear?

N8NOFACE: I did this for so long, 18 to 29/30, before showing the world.

My brother used to be like, “Dude, when are you gonna get out of your room? Nobody will ever hear this stuff.”

Once I did in the MySpace days, it was then I got love, which I was so grateful others got it, and I got “WTF is this?” Hahahaha.

And of course, sometimes it hurts, but I consider the source and just think it’s not for them.

Once you find your people, it’s so worth it to share.

Now that you’ve worked with Eyedress and The Bloody Beetroots, played with Cypress Hill, toured arenas with Limp Bizkit, and made a record with Dave Sitek, do you still feel like the same outsider who is “shaking in his boots” around other artists?

N8NOFACE: It’s only easier to hang out with them, HAHAHAH.

I still can’t listen to myself in front of others, and when I was recording with Dave in one session, after a couple takes, I was like, “I need to do this at home. I can’t,” hahaha.

I’m still scared of sitting in a room and creating with others, but a hang I got down now, haha.

You imagine Tomorrow’s World as what punks and street kids might be listening to in 2077. What parts of the world you came from do you think will still make sense to that kid fifty years from now?

N8NOFACE: I mean, so many songs and things I hear today from years ago still resonate, sadly, when speaking on the state of governments and war and corruption. But also love, heartbreak, loss, revenge.

When I say that, I mean I hear in movies depicting the future it’s always big techno-industrial sounds. I imagined this is from the future, made with broken gear, the gutter punk thief in alleys of the sprawl.

I am a cyberpunk head.

So when I was watching the doc on synth music, I saw Kraftwerk being introduced on a show about the future called Tomorrow’s World. I knew then that had to be the name of the album.

I was not only trying to describe the sound, but so much more to me. It was my mind state now being on a label, working with a producer, all of it. It was my future.

“Dream or Die” is a very evocative title. Can you discuss the concept of the song and what it means to you?

N8NOFACE: “Dream or Die,” to me, dream meant in this one to create. To keep an imagination, that inner child alive.

I just feel that is the key to mastering life. Of course, growth and emotional growth, but also always keeping that kid alive while being a responsible adult.

Which the latter took me forever to do, but still a kid inside.

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