Nick Hexum

“Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.” Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

You probably already know Nick Hexum, the crooner-voiced, laid-back California guy who has long been the lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist in 311. But do you? His three EP trilogy, Waxing Nostalgic, Full Memories, and Waning Time (yes, they are named in honor of the phases of the moon), features a Midwestern man from Nebraska who plays mandolin and pedal steel, and has many memories from the past he’d like to share.

“I’m a person who pretends like stuff doesn’t bother me. So, I knew going into writing this record that it would be cathartic for me,” Hexum says. “I think Covid made me realize just how limited our time really is – it motivated me to create as much as possible,” Hexum said with a laugh. “Is it too late for a midlife crisis?”

There is something about reaching not an age, but a stage of life, that forces everyone to slow down and inspires us to look around at what we’ve accomplished, who we’ve become, and what we’re leaving behind. For Hexum, that meant turning to a different style of songwriting. The songs on these EPs are influenced by his foray into Americana, both in instrumentation and songwriting. Reading Saved by a Song by Mary Gauthier and The Creative Act by Rick Rubin pushed him to explore writing far more personal songs inspired by his life.

Listening to Americana artists like Sierra Ferrell, Faye Webster, k.d. lang, Patsy Cline, and Madeleine Peyroux was part of Hexum’s path to making these EPs. The idea to release his first solo albums came after starting SKP, a tech company that allows artists to release albums outside the major label system and retain the rights to their work. Realizing that system, and the distribution it offered, were at his fingertips, was all he needed to release these songs after giving himself permission to become more vulnerable in his songwriting. “I don’t have to wait for other people to say when I can release music,” he says.

“Please Explain,” a standout on Full Memories, was co-written with Ben Kweller and is about asking one of his daughters to open up during a dark time — a plea for vulnerability. “Ben and I had this deep connection with what it’s like to be a dad and have worries,” he says.

“Careless,” which Hexum has made a music video for, was an exercise in owning up to the careless behavior we all exhibit in our relationships when we take them for granted. The music is a super-fast fingerpicker on banjo, with flourishes of acoustic guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and is the closest he’s come to old-school country music in the tradition of Roy Clark and Chris Thile.

From Waxing Nostalgic, the slow dance opener that saw Hexum making his debut as a mandolin player, is “Cosmic Connection.” It’s a little more akin to a waltz, with a very ‘60s message about tapping into the universal and letting go of a tribal mentality of ‘us versus them.’ “We’re so much more connected and there is more harmony than feels apparent right now,” he says. “I choose to reflect on that, even if we feel more out of sync as a species than we have at other times.”

For “1978,” Hexum collaborated with his sister, Angie, a poet, on a song that serves as a visual story of growing up together. While some of the songs are written solely by him, collaborative songwriting is a theme across the EPs. “To me, it’s about the humility of knowing that I’ve got a lot to learn from other people,” he explains.

Making a list of traumatic moments that Hexum felt he needed to explore in songs led to writing “I’m Open” on Waning Time about the time before his brother Patrick passed away following an overdose. “It’s about making these overtures to help him, but knowing I can’t force him to change his life — but I am open to help, if he is receptive,” he says. Hexum, who is sober, discusses painful moments in the song, like offering to discuss sobriety with his sibling, giving him a guitar that he pawned, and accepting that all anyone can do is offer help.

The EPs also contain a pair of covers, Chapppell Roan’s “California” on Full Memories and Billie Holiday’s “Solitude” on Waning Time. Both tap into his crooner-style voice, with Roan’s song speaking to a near-universal experience of Midwesterners who move to the coast, East or West, in search of a bigger life. It’s a crisis of confidence explored through the delivery of someone who has lived a whole life in California, and reckoned with the decisions made throughout that life. The Holiday cover, a song composed by Duke Ellington, in which Hexum sings along to a steel guitar. It is his love letter to a singer who is one of his icons. The selection, changes, and arrangements on both reflect the wide variety of his influences.

Waxing Nostalgic and Full Memories are out now. Waning Time will be released in summer 2025.