Nick Moss breaks the blues mold

Nick Moss breaks the blues mold
April 5, 2010
By DON THRASHER
Dayton Daily News

On his seven previous solo albums and two live discs, Nick Moss stuck close to the Chicago blues template. However, he took a different approach on his new album, “Privileged.”

“The material is definitely different than most of the stuff I’ve done in the past,” Moss said. “This leans more toward my influences in the rock era. Pretty much all the stuff I grew up listening to was leaning in the direction of the blues like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Blind Faith, Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers. The stuff I listened to with my brother and my uncle pointed me in the direction of the blues.”

Bluesy classic rock was his passion at the time, but Moss was also exposed to true blues.

“Growing up my mom was a blues fan, and an R&B fan,” he said. “She was a fan of the popular music of the time too, and my dad was an early rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop fan, so I grew up listening to variations of blues, including straight blues.

“It was played, but I really didn’t pay much attention until my brother and I started figuring out these rock ’n’ roll guys were blues fans and were doing blues music,” Moss continued. “You start reading articles and these guys are talking about all these blues, R&B and doo-wop guys in your parents’ collection and you go check that out. That’s pretty much what happened.”

While the stylistic detour was a conscious decision, Moss believes “Privileged” is an album he was destined to make.

“It was my intention to do this album this way, but the songs were coming out as I was writing them,” he said. “I was just messing around with some of these modern type songs. I started adding some of them to my set list, and people loved these newer songs. That was cool because I was just throwing them in there for fun and people started asking about them.”

Moss and his band the Flip Tops perform at Gilly’s on Saturday, April 10.

“Most of the blues-listening audience coming out to clubs isn’t really schooled in traditional blues,” Moss said. “They want to rock. They want to boogie. They just want to go out and have a good time. That’s why I think this album is much more easily obtainable for people and will soak into a wider audience.

“Not to sound cliché,” he added, “but it was this album’s time to be recorded.”

Contact contributing arts and music writer Don Thrasher at donaldthrasher8@aol.com.