Name: The Brothers Nylon
Members: Nick Rufolo, Mike Rufolo
Interviewee: Nick Rufolo
Current release: The Brothers Nylon's new album Nylon Archives, Vol. 1 : Cinematic Grooves is out via BMM.
Recommendations for Melbourne, Florida, USA: Since we have been living here for the last three years, my recommendation would be to check out downtown historic Melbourne. They have quality pizza restuarants and nice coffee shops that have open mics and it feels good to just walk around and check out the stores and smoke shops.

If you enjoyed this The Brothers Nylon interview and would like to stay up to date with the duo and their music, visit them on Instagram.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you?

I always prefer to start from scratch when it comes to making a new track. Starting from the ground up with ideas spawning from loops from whichever instrument I’m feeling in that particular day.

I start with just picking up a bass guitar and just play around with ideas and noodling with notes until I find a riff or motif that I would want to build upon. The impulse is almost just music to be made for the sake of making something.

I like to write the bass and guitar parts to have a horn or string section to be overdubbed on what I think would work well for those kind of instruments. The foundation of the grooves are very simple yet heavy in texture so the horn section could sound big in combination with the rest of the track.

For you to get started, does there need to be concrete ideas?

There isn’t a strict plan when we build a song idea wise. It tends to be music for the sake of making music that we find interesting or cool. If we like the initial idea enough I might try to write or double a horn part for the existing bass or guitar part.

In the track “Taurine,” it changes genres mid way into a dubbed out reggae feel but keeps the horn line from the previous section faintly in there.



The song switches around along a lot because I like to play with similar melodies but in a new genre or feel to spark something new creatively.

Is there a preparation phase for your process?

I think that the gear we use determines most of the vibe of the track. The guitar pedals or a certain organ or synthesizer might spark a mood for the track we end up recording.

For the track “Peepin” we started by just simply testing the dan electro spring king reverb pedal on a vintage semi hollow bass and the riff was pretty much written after that pedal demo.



We hardly ever demo ideas, we commit to whatever riff we decide to record and expand on the riff with other instruments and overdubs.

Since we mainly use 8 track tape machines, the limitations of only using up 8 tracks is a good thing because you have to get creative with planning out the instrumentation of the track. So we commit to a spring reverb on the entire picked bass line and tracked a retro soul baritone saxophone and trumpet melody in unison that fit the vibe of the rest of the track.

The process is ever moving and changing based on the instruments I choose to start with. It's sort of an organized chaos of sounds.

Do you have certain rituals to get you in the right mindset for creating?

A good production ritual I like to do is listen to our inspirations to spark something creatively. Listening to an old album that we know and love and then seeing what we would do differently to improve the music that we love.

Sometimes I even get inspired by really mundane tasks such as cleaning up the studio and finding a cool piece of gear that I haven’t used in a while like a bass clarinet or trombone that is in the corner of the studio.

Other times I like to see how I can outdo a production that Mike and I recorded the previous day.

For your latest release what did you start with?

The start of “Taurine” was the bass guitar and drums. I drink copious amounts of caffeine in energy drinks like celcuis and monster so I knew I wanted to name the track after one of the ingredients as a joke sort of. I considered this track to be a faux theme song for a energy drink that never existed.

I wanted the riffs to sound funky and a bit faster than normal to change the genres a bit.

Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form.

Since we moved to from New York to Florida, it was tricky finding the right studio space to record. We tracked “Taurine” and 4 other tracks from the latest album in New York at our old home studio, but when moved to Melbourne, Florida we recorded other songs in 3 separate studios.

Mostly the studios were just our similar gear we brought down with us like the 388 portastudio and the rental space was just a room to record in. We knew these rental spaces were only temporary spaces and we were working to get a proper home studio. But I really liked the sound of these spaces sometimes. They had a vibe to them and kind of had a dry sound which we like to record drums and horns.

Once the home studio got set up and ready to go, the sound improved to me and the tunes turned out a little better I think as well.



The track “Fido's Whip” was created in a condo in Melbourne beach, then transferred from a loop pedal demo onto a semi hollow guitar and then the drums, additional guitars and horn tracks were fleshed out in the moment to get to the final result.

It's sort of like my rendition of beat making, but instead of using an MPC or looping in a DAW, we make in on a tape machine and try to fill up the track count that is pretty limiting on an 6 track reel to reel.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things were they lead you?

I try to keep it very free flowing in the studio. The vibes are mostly mellow even if the ending piece is not a mellow sounding song. The piece of music can be over the top with instruments but mike and I are just going with the flow in terms of recording to the end of the song.

Since the arrangement is created with just one or two ideas on a foundational instrument of choice the rest of the production is very improvised and I just feel like the track is leading me with whatever else we think would sound good over the main tracks.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let in lie and evaluate it later on?

The initial ideas are pretty refined from the get go. We don’t really overly evaluate our final work because I trust the process of creating and improvising.

For “Lock Stock” I knew it needed the instrumentation of a old school soul sound because the gear we had during that time was that of the 70s. The drumset was a 70s Rogers kit and the guitar was an old school semi hollow body, starting with those two tracks led to a chain of events that made the song really special in simplicity of moods and good vibes.



I think the finished recording is best to be listened to for enjoyment at first. Then evaluate and take notes on the mixing or the additional parts or instruments that could be in the future.

What’s your take on the role and importance or mixing?

Mike is more of the engineer technically speaking because I don’t know how to even thread tape - but Mike could do that.

I try to write music that could sound like a mixed and mastered track without mixing it. Basically I strive to give the best takes and performances I can so the mixing is easier later on in the stage.

Mike and I have a good balance of Mike mainly dealing with the sonic aspect and me dealing with the tune and vibe of the track. I will chime in if I feel like something drastic needs to be altered to the mix, whether that be a volume increase in a certain horn part or even a retrack of a part entirely.

A really fun part is the mixing because I let Mike do what he loves to do and I just get to sit back and listen to the master and hear what we recorded keeping in mind that I could chime in and give notes if need be.

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

Music and accompanying artwork are often closely related.

Our grandfather was an artist and painter. We have many of his paintings on our studio walls and it really does inspire me to create in a new way. It's very vibrant and almost looks animated with color, so sometimes I try to create music that would look just as vibrant as the painting.

I sometimes paint whilst listening to the music I love or the previous album we made and it makes me feel inspired to make more music. The more wild the music the more colorful the painting would get - like throwing on Frank Zappa’s music or Sun Ra’s Arkestra while painting does some unique things to you.

I really love it when the artist of the album goes crazy with colors because it makes the music seem more vibrant.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this?

I can for sure relate to feeling empty after recording a piece and releasing it to the world. I find that making music and even jamming with Mike gives me a purpose and definitely makes me feel better that I'm giving something that others will appreciate.

I usually just try to make something entirely different than the previous composition we made and knowingly try to make something different so the music doesn’t seem so repetitive to me.

Sometimes I go to a different genre - like instead of doing a funk soul vibe I will purposely try a cinematic thing so it's easier for me to try new ideas and not get that empty feeling of already having done something musically.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

We get a lot of great feedback on a new piece we upload, whether it be a Youtube comment or an Instagram comment. Some listeners say that the new gear or drumset performance is fire or really good sounding and there are comments about how some listeners thank us for having released a video or mixtape on youtube.  

We get comments on youtube saying that its good that we’ve been making music for this long and to never stop making music. That comment is very special and it's really refreshing to read.

Do you personally feel that writing music is inherently different than making a great cup of coffee? What do you express in music that you couldn’t express in other tasks?

Music is great for me because I am a pretty quiet guy outside of the studio. So when an instrumental piece of music slaps or makes me feel good I like that feeling of satisfaction that I can't get from other things like talking about things or watching a movie.

It hits harder when you feel like you're making the movie or the music at least. It's gratifying to know that the music will live on even while I'm away from it ,like when I'm sleeping and it still has a life on its own. Many listeners from different parts of the world can listen to the latest piece and its' going to sound different on everyone's system because of their speakers or even the way the listener can perceive the music.

After I make a piece I feel that is big sounding with lots of grandiose instruments I feel larger than life and it fuels me to want to create more.