I left the Merchant Marines in 2014. As I packed my bags, I was overcome with the feeling that I wouldn’t be coming back. My brain screamed and my heart pounded. Once I hit the road, I drove with such a fury that I didn’t even realize a bad snow storm had set in and the roads were getting very slick. I snapped out of my trance when I began to slide out of control. I regained traction and looked down to see I was going about 100mph. The roads steadily worsened but I refused to stop - I couldn’t get far enough fast enough. My breath was still heavy and I sweat uncontrollably, dripping from my nose onto the tattered remains of my Carhartts. I was making an escape. A desperate escape.
I had worked my way up from deckhand to wheelsman. My favorite memory of wheeling the ship was late one night when the ice was so thick in Green Bay that it brought us to a complete stop. The mate called the captain who appeared from his quarters and ordered me to give her a hard left, hard right, back and forth until a crack appeared in the ice. “Now follow that crack,” he said. The crack widened as the ship entered. It then turned and twisted in varying directions as we gained speed. I maneuvered the ship through the small avenue as it developed in front of me. Through the windows of the old wheelhouse, the sea of ice illuminated by spotlights the size of truck tires. One morning I wheeled the ship past Mackinac Island when the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the water from the pilothouse.
I still have dreams about being back on board. Sometimes the ship’s driving through city highways at 60mph, jumping through the air from one ramp to another and fishtailing. Sometimes the dreams are just business as usual, I’m on board and happy to be back. Sometimes I’m running around the deck, barefoot with rolled up jeans, the sunset blazing in the distance.
I was born and raised in northern Kentucky, right across from Cincinnati. I spent a lot of time on the road with my dad who drove an 18-wheeler. I spent summers in northern Michigan at my grandparents’ cabin. It was there I first saw the Great Lakes freighters pass in the distance.
My father and grandfather were Henry Erwin Nuelsen Jr. & Sr. Dad went by Hank, grandpa went by Erwin, or Er to those who knew him best. Er was an unusually intelligent man who, though commonly described as quiet, spoke 12 languages. He crossed the Atlantic to the US alone when he was 12 years old, two months after the Titanic sank. He had an office job in World War II which is where he met my grandmother, Maggie — a philosophy student, English teacher, and lifelong world traveler who worked in the Red Cross. I have a picture of her splitting wood with an axe, dated 1936. I watched her split wood into her 80s.
Previously told she couldn’t have children, Maggie & Er were a bit surprised when my father was born almost nine months to the date after their wedding. Er was 47. Convinced Henry “Hank” Jr. would be a prodigy, they were again surprised when he dropped out of college his first semester and decided to become a mechanic. He worked at an auto dealership until I was two, then drove an 18 wheeler.
Er died of cancer when I was seven. Maggie was shattered and cried constantly. Maggie died of cancer when I was 14. Mom told me that dad cried that day but I never saw it. Dad died of cancer when I was 19. I still cry.
My parents were both forced to take music lessons when they were kids and both hated it. So one of their first pacts of courtship included that should they ever have kids, they’d never make them take music lessons. When I begged them for a guitar at age seven, after having my life changed by the video of “Cult of Personality,” they tried to talk me out of it but eventually caved and bought me a cheap Strat knock off, a red Series 10, from a pawn shop in Covington, Kentucky.
25 years later I left the ships knowing I hadn’t been doing what I was supposed to.
My debut record release show in Austin was double booked when the club hired new management. They gave me another date and then refused to pay me when not enough people showed up.
I played another release show in my hometown in Kentucky in a beautiful venue that had been converted from an old church. An hour before showtime, over a foot of snow blanketed the rolling hills. Every other band on the bill cancelled. It took us an hour to get one mile to the venue, during which time I emotionally prepared myself to play to an audience of zero. I walked into a room packed full of people who had risked life and limb to support me and it was one of the greatest moments of my life.
I put my album up online and sent links with booking inquiries to thousands of venues around the country. I got a couple responses. It was enough, so I hit the road. I couldn’t afford to take a band, so I went solo and learned a lot about myself and what I was trying to do with music. It was a great time.
In 2015 I was evicted, down 50 pounds, diagnosed with cancer, operated on, and back on tour by June. Having cancer and recovering from surgery was great. It was a distraction from the severe depression. I had more help and support than I knew what to do with, at first. Six months later, with my medicine still a year away from being dialed in, I was homeless, nearly depleted of the last of my savings from the freighter, and crippled with depression. I didn’t have the energy to book tours. I didn’t have the energy to sing. I wondered if this bout of cancer was just the tip of the iceberg and I was likely to go out like the rest of my family, at an even earlier age. I reflected on my life and came to the interesting conclusion that it felt extremely complete and in hindsight, I’d done some pretty awesome shit. At 34 I felt I’d made peace with mortality. I felt ready to die.
But then I didn’t die. I decided I needed to take a motorcycle trip out west instead, and crash landed in Jerome — a tiny town in the mountains of Northern Arizona where I had a couple good friends from years back. The whole town seemed to chip in to help me put my life back together.
One day I woke up panicking about how badly I needed a job and suddenly a lightbulb went off and I realized I’d been paying all my bills the last few months just by playing gigs. So I quit panicking and started booking more shows. I played 120 gigs that year.
I still had doctors I needed to see back in Austin for checkups. By chance, some friends including my old drummer from back in Kentucky, Adam Nurre, was on tour with Porter and the Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes. They were in an airport shuttle they converted into a tour bus and named it Sally Ride.
The band’s motion and energy gave me a much needed jolt and I began to slowly shake off the funk. Lead guitarist Dan Stoddard was wanting to get out of touring and I talked with Porter a lot about taking over lead guitar for their next tour. I began to clear my schedule and dove into practicing lead guitar like I never had before.
Porter eventually told me he was doing the fall tour as a three piece, for monetary reasons. I was disappointed but understood completely. It was a choice that most likely saved my life.
There was an accident in North Carolina. Chris Porter and Mitch Vandenburg were killed instantly. Adam miraculously survived with intense surgery and some pretty gnarly scars. I was a pallbearer in Porter’s funeral and became, and remain, close with his and Mitch’s parents. Adam got out of his wheelchair to go on tour with me three weeks later. I couldn’t talk him out of it.
By 2018 I was playing 180 gigs a year and, encouraged by people who wanted a new album, I launched a Kickstarter and before I knew it I had raised over $20,000. I booked time at a historic recording studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I hired former Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes Shonna Tucker on bass, Dan Stoddard on pedal steel and organ, and Adam Nurre on drums. I called it The Copper Album, in tribute to Jerome, Arizona, the little copper mining ghost town that had taken me in and nursed me back to health.
I also could have called it Murphy’s Law. Though 90% of the recoding was done in a week, it would take another year and a half to complete. A week after I finally got all the completed mastered tracks back, Covid hit.
I’d always pictured touring a bunch to promote the album when I released it. That’s the only way I’d known how. But eventually, I could contain it no more. It’s been a wild ride. I’m excited to share this with y’all and I hope you like it even half as much as I do.
The Copper Album - available everywhere October 22, 2021.
I had worked my way up from deckhand to wheelsman. My favorite memory of wheeling the ship was late one night when the ice was so thick in Green Bay that it brought us to a complete stop. The mate called the captain who appeared from his quarters and ordered me to give her a hard left, hard right, back and forth until a crack appeared in the ice. “Now follow that crack,” he said. The crack widened as the ship entered. It then turned and twisted in varying directions as we gained speed. I maneuvered the ship through the small avenue as it developed in front of me. Through the windows of the old wheelhouse, the sea of ice illuminated by spotlights the size of truck tires. One morning I wheeled the ship past Mackinac Island when the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the water from the pilothouse.
I still have dreams about being back on board. Sometimes the ship’s driving through city highways at 60mph, jumping through the air from one ramp to another and fishtailing. Sometimes the dreams are just business as usual, I’m on board and happy to be back. Sometimes I’m running around the deck, barefoot with rolled up jeans, the sunset blazing in the distance.
I was born and raised in northern Kentucky, right across from Cincinnati. I spent a lot of time on the road with my dad who drove an 18-wheeler. I spent summers in northern Michigan at my grandparents’ cabin. It was there I first saw the Great Lakes freighters pass in the distance.
My father and grandfather were Henry Erwin Nuelsen Jr. & Sr. Dad went by Hank, grandpa went by Erwin, or Er to those who knew him best. Er was an unusually intelligent man who, though commonly described as quiet, spoke 12 languages. He crossed the Atlantic to the US alone when he was 12 years old, two months after the Titanic sank. He had an office job in World War II which is where he met my grandmother, Maggie — a philosophy student, English teacher, and lifelong world traveler who worked in the Red Cross. I have a picture of her splitting wood with an axe, dated 1936. I watched her split wood into her 80s.
Previously told she couldn’t have children, Maggie & Er were a bit surprised when my father was born almost nine months to the date after their wedding. Er was 47. Convinced Henry “Hank” Jr. would be a prodigy, they were again surprised when he dropped out of college his first semester and decided to become a mechanic. He worked at an auto dealership until I was two, then drove an 18 wheeler.
Er died of cancer when I was seven. Maggie was shattered and cried constantly. Maggie died of cancer when I was 14. Mom told me that dad cried that day but I never saw it. Dad died of cancer when I was 19. I still cry.
My parents were both forced to take music lessons when they were kids and both hated it. So one of their first pacts of courtship included that should they ever have kids, they’d never make them take music lessons. When I begged them for a guitar at age seven, after having my life changed by the video of “Cult of Personality,” they tried to talk me out of it but eventually caved and bought me a cheap Strat knock off, a red Series 10, from a pawn shop in Covington, Kentucky.
25 years later I left the ships knowing I hadn’t been doing what I was supposed to.
My debut record release show in Austin was double booked when the club hired new management. They gave me another date and then refused to pay me when not enough people showed up.
I played another release show in my hometown in Kentucky in a beautiful venue that had been converted from an old church. An hour before showtime, over a foot of snow blanketed the rolling hills. Every other band on the bill cancelled. It took us an hour to get one mile to the venue, during which time I emotionally prepared myself to play to an audience of zero. I walked into a room packed full of people who had risked life and limb to support me and it was one of the greatest moments of my life.
I put my album up online and sent links with booking inquiries to thousands of venues around the country. I got a couple responses. It was enough, so I hit the road. I couldn’t afford to take a band, so I went solo and learned a lot about myself and what I was trying to do with music. It was a great time.
In 2015 I was evicted, down 50 pounds, diagnosed with cancer, operated on, and back on tour by June. Having cancer and recovering from surgery was great. It was a distraction from the severe depression. I had more help and support than I knew what to do with, at first. Six months later, with my medicine still a year away from being dialed in, I was homeless, nearly depleted of the last of my savings from the freighter, and crippled with depression. I didn’t have the energy to book tours. I didn’t have the energy to sing. I wondered if this bout of cancer was just the tip of the iceberg and I was likely to go out like the rest of my family, at an even earlier age. I reflected on my life and came to the interesting conclusion that it felt extremely complete and in hindsight, I’d done some pretty awesome shit. At 34 I felt I’d made peace with mortality. I felt ready to die.
But then I didn’t die. I decided I needed to take a motorcycle trip out west instead, and crash landed in Jerome — a tiny town in the mountains of Northern Arizona where I had a couple good friends from years back. The whole town seemed to chip in to help me put my life back together.
One day I woke up panicking about how badly I needed a job and suddenly a lightbulb went off and I realized I’d been paying all my bills the last few months just by playing gigs. So I quit panicking and started booking more shows. I played 120 gigs that year.
I still had doctors I needed to see back in Austin for checkups. By chance, some friends including my old drummer from back in Kentucky, Adam Nurre, was on tour with Porter and the Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes. They were in an airport shuttle they converted into a tour bus and named it Sally Ride.
The band’s motion and energy gave me a much needed jolt and I began to slowly shake off the funk. Lead guitarist Dan Stoddard was wanting to get out of touring and I talked with Porter a lot about taking over lead guitar for their next tour. I began to clear my schedule and dove into practicing lead guitar like I never had before.
Porter eventually told me he was doing the fall tour as a three piece, for monetary reasons. I was disappointed but understood completely. It was a choice that most likely saved my life.
There was an accident in North Carolina. Chris Porter and Mitch Vandenburg were killed instantly. Adam miraculously survived with intense surgery and some pretty gnarly scars. I was a pallbearer in Porter’s funeral and became, and remain, close with his and Mitch’s parents. Adam got out of his wheelchair to go on tour with me three weeks later. I couldn’t talk him out of it.
By 2018 I was playing 180 gigs a year and, encouraged by people who wanted a new album, I launched a Kickstarter and before I knew it I had raised over $20,000. I booked time at a historic recording studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. I hired former Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes Shonna Tucker on bass, Dan Stoddard on pedal steel and organ, and Adam Nurre on drums. I called it The Copper Album, in tribute to Jerome, Arizona, the little copper mining ghost town that had taken me in and nursed me back to health.
I also could have called it Murphy’s Law. Though 90% of the recoding was done in a week, it would take another year and a half to complete. A week after I finally got all the completed mastered tracks back, Covid hit.
I’d always pictured touring a bunch to promote the album when I released it. That’s the only way I’d known how. But eventually, I could contain it no more. It’s been a wild ride. I’m excited to share this with y’all and I hope you like it even half as much as I do.
The Copper Album - available everywhere October 22, 2021.
