For over 30 years, Omaha rockers 311 have been a fixture on alternative airwaves and renowned for their dynamic live shows. The band started in 1988 and their current lineup —Nick Hexum (vocals/guitar), Chad Sexton (drums), Tim Mahoney (guitar), SA Martinez (vocals/DJ) and P-Nut (bass) —has been solid for some 31 years. Blending heavy riffs with reggae flourishes, hip hop verses, funk breakdowns and touching on countless genres, the band’s musical influences are varied and have led to chart-topping songs, including “Down,” “Amber,” “Come Original” and a popular cover of the Cure’s “Love Song.”
2023 is as busy as ever for 311, as the group is headed on a fall tour with openers AWOLNATION, reissuing their debut album “Music” on vinyl, announced a new beer called Come Original India Pale Ale, and even released a TikTok-friendly sped up version of “Amber.” As if that isn’t enough, they’re planning to record a new album during a break on tour.
Hexum spoke with PvNew from his studio about how the band was able to get their big break while embracing their unique style, how they keeps things fresh in the studio and on the road, and what the new album will sound like.
311 embraces so many genres. When you first came together, how did you nail down the blend of musical ingredients that worked?
My biggest heroes and influences were bands that were brave about genre-jumping, and whether it’s The Clash or The Beatles, you could just hear that they were not going to be hemmed in to any one category. I always loved that that you could hear “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and then they would have gospel sounds. Or The Clash… “Sandinista!” was just so eclectic that you go to New Orleans for a song, and they include New York rap and breakdancing staples, even though they are a punk band.
Then, when I heard what was happening in the late ’80s in LA, which was Fishbone, Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, I was like, “Wow, you can do anything.” But of course in the early ’90s, radio was looking for the next Nirvana and Pearl Jam and we were out of step with what was going on. We like it a little more funky. Grunge is cool —it’s cool that you can be heavy without having big hairspray and the metal thing that had gone on in the ’80s. But I also wanted hip hop in there and reggae. We just had this attitude that anything we like can go in our music, because why not? We’re already from Omaha, where there’s not an established scene that we have to fit in. We were making our own new scene.
Did you get advice from industry folks in the beginning to narrow your lane, musically?
I remember a big executive A&R person and who was like, “You need to watch Eddie Vedder, because that’s really what we’re looking for.” That’s just not helpful. Other bands are doing the Pearl Jam thing, and that’s definitely not going to be us, so we’ll go elsewhere. Then we ended up getting signed by what was basically a Southern Rock label, Capricorn Records. But they heard something in us, they had major distribution, they guaranteed they were going to put out our record, and just wanted us to tour.
When was the first time you realized the band was connecting with fans and could be a success?
In our hometown in Omaha, we whipped the crowds into such insane frenzies. We were playing this place called the Ranch Bowl, and we would do New Music Mondays and the place would just turn into complete mayhem, there would be stage diving and a crazy mosh pit and everybody was taking their clothes off. It was just so hot and sweaty and way over-capacity.
Then at the local record stores in Omaha —Homer’s and Pickles, they were called —I went and got a chart of their top sellers and we were outselling the biggest artists, which at the time was U2 and Michael Jackson. We had this little dot matrix printed out chart that I could send to the record labels and say, “Look, this is what we’re able to do here. I think we could really make a go of it on a wider basis.”
When the band comes together to create a song, do you write it first and pick the genre you want to express it in, or start by saying “This next one’s going to be a reggae jam” or “This song will really open up the mosh pit.” How does that process work?
I like to start in grandiose concepts sometimes. Let’s take a song like “Beautiful Disaster,” which was the first song that I wrote for “Transistor.” We were touring with a band called The Urge from Saint Louis, and they always had these really cool, elaborate horn lines. I was like, “I want to have one of these big intros, but rather than horns, we’ll have dueling lead guitars like Thin Lizzy.” But then I wanted to go reggae, and also have NOFX-style guitars in the choruses, as I was listening to “Punk in Drublic” a lot at the time. At first, I was just thinking with really broad strokes before I even got into the notes. “I want to have The Urge combined with NOFX, and then to have some dancehall rhythms in there.”
After 30 years of recording, how do you keep things fresh while writing and recording?
I think that sometimes being critical darlings, which we are not, can sometimes damage a band, where they start to believe their own press. We’ve always had an underdog, outsider feel. We do still feel like there’s a lot of territory, a lot of people to reach, younger audiences to reach out there. We do have a hunger, and now we’ve started to say, “Wow, this is overdue. Let’s get going.” We’re making new music right now. We’ve got sessions planned to rehearse the new tunes this summer and record them for real in August.
How are you able to keep things upbeat in the band during a long tour?
We prepare like athletes. I’ve learned to make it so my energy peak is the time of day when I’m on stage, which means you don’t need a big meal right beforehand. I do a lot of warming up. Also we rehearse a lot. Sometimes we’ll go out on tour with other bands and we’ve just come out of a week of rehearsals, and the other band says, “We didn’t even rehearse —we just show up and play.” We take it really seriously and we know we’re there to be of service. It’s not just about our enjoyment, it’s realizing that these songs have become a part of people’s lives. We’re there for the crowd to get to have a miniature musical vacation.
What’s the 311 formula to building the perfect set list for the night?
We know that if we go too far into the weeds that people will start to look around. You go back and forth between high and low energy, and back and forth between familiarity and obscurity. We want to make sure that we’re throwing in some nugs, as we call them, for the fans. But when I go to a show, I want to hear familiar songs that were culturally important, i.e. hits. We just make it a balance.
Also, since we’ve toured so much, we have a feel of how the audience is going to be. If it’s going to be a place where we’ve been playing a long time, we know there’s going to be more fans there and we’ll do some deeper cuts. But other times, if we’re playing something like the SunFest show in West Palm Beach, we know that’s going to be more sort of passive fans, new fans and people that are going to want to hear the lighter side, the reggae and stuff like that. You get the feel, the vibe in each town.
Is there a song over the years that became either a big hit or fan favorite that blew up bigger than you anticipated?
The song “Applied Science.” There’s nothing “hit” about it, but we play it at every show because that’s the song that has the drum solo and the drum line where we all get to play the big drums together. That’s a high point of the show for us and the audience, but it wasn’t a hit at all. It doesn’t really even have a chorus in the song, it’s all these different rap and reggae parts strung together with no repeats. It was definitely a surprise that it became such a staple for us.
On there other hand, is there a song or album that you think is maybe a hidden gem that fans should check out?
There’s a tune called “Places That the Mind Goes” on “Mosaic.” I feel like it’s a bit of a sleeper that maybe could have become bigger than it did.
311 has had such a steady lineup. How do you make things work to stay together?
First of all, you have to be ready to not get your way and realize that you’re going to respect the democracy. I like the expression that goes, “We have two ears and one mouth, because we should do twice as much listening than we do talking.” We have to learn to listen to each other. I also think it’s important to keep an attitude of gratitude, of realizing we’re better together than any of us could have done on our own. The odds are very, very much against you when you start a band that it’s going to turn into a 33-year career. Let’s take good care of it, because we’re very lucky to be here.
One thing that 311 fans often mention is that the band’s positive vibes have helped them through difficult times. How are you able to bring optimism to the music and performances?
Some people will say, “I love how positive you guys are,” and I say, “What it’s really about is the struggle to stay positive.” But it’s not toxic positivity, where you’re just like, “Everything is fine and there’s a smile on my face no matter what,” and letting all this crap build up. It’s about when you stay connected with people and tell them how you really feel, what’s really going on and open yourself up for support, asking for help, helping others, that kind of thing.
Also, in the early days of 311, I felt that there was a lot of toxic negativity in these white, male, angry misogynist peers of ours. I was making fun of them with songs like “Misdirected Hostility” and “Hostile Apostle.” These are privileged suburban kids…why are you guys so angry? I was a bit out of step with what was going on, but in retrospect, if you watch the Woodstock ’99 documentaries, this is what I was talking about: Pointless anger and rage and entitlement. What are you guys writing about? The water bottles are overpriced. Especially in the ’90s when it was a very prosperous time…the Soviet Union had fallen and we didn’t have any real enemies, the economy was raging, but everyone’s still really pissed off. I made a point to call them out. But still, there are stressors and pressures that everybody has that we need to lean on each other to deal with. I think that’s what 311 is all about —it’s a community.
Earlier in the interview, you said the band is planning to record songs in August. What else can you reveal about the new album?
This was not planned, but the first two songs that I brought to the table and the first two songs that Chad brought to the table were all in drop D — meaning having your E string tuned down to D for those heavy riffs. There’s definitely some heaviness going on, big rock riffs. We’re taking a lot of time to workshop them as a band to make sure that they’re kick-ass in the studio before we put them down. We want it to be 311, but 311 on steroids. Better everything: Better riffs, better top line, better performances, new ingredients. We’re setting the bar high and I think people are really going to be excited when they hear it.
