Nitefire: LA’s Hottest Band

WORDS: Adrita Talukder

PICTURES: Courtesy of Maddy Rotman

Hot off the heels of their first headline tour, with a soon-to-be-released EP in tow, Nitefire is, for lack of a better word, on fire.

The Los Angeles-based band got its start in 2018, when friends Luke White and Nico Geyer — who jammed together throughout their teenage years — got to writing songs, despite attending university on opposite ends of the country. In 2021, Noah Champ, the band’s drummer, and Christian Renard, their guitarist, rounded out the lineup. Since then, they’ve been having a blast. 

From throwing larger-than-life backyard shows to touring the U.S. opening for headline acts, the band has put its punchy, playful garage-rock sound on the map. Their songs are charged with the energy of lives lived in the fast lane, and their lyrics carry a charmingly self-aware youthfulness, brought alive by Geyer’s vocals. That said, their upbeat songs can often be twinged with a touch of angst, often stemming from the frustrations of young love and the band’s tumultuous relationship with LA.

Static sat down with White and Geyer of Nitefire prior to the concluding New York show of their first headline tour, which was in support of their upcoming EP, “The Great Unwashed.” We talked the tour, the band’s personal history, and the not-so-sunny reality of LA’s music scene.

[Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

For the record, could you two introduce yourselves?

LW: I’m Luke White, I play bass, and I’m 27.

NG: My name is Nico Geyer, I’m the singer.

How are you feeling about the concluding show of your first headline tour?

NG: We’re excited. We love playing New York. I went to the New School for college, so I was living there for six years. It’s always fun to go back and see friends and play at all these places that I’d go to see shows.

Do you have any favorite artists you like to see when you come to New York?

NG: Yeah, there’s so many bands out there that I love, personally. I’m really excited about both of the people that we’re playing with on Friday — Mila Degray and Push Ups. They’re really fun. Momma’s great. I really like Fcukers, I think they’re really cool. I mean, there’s so many. Strange Ranger.

How long had the tour been in the works?

NG: Not very long.

LW: We figured we’d do a bunch more opening tours before we did our first headline, but I don’t know, we just wanted to try it out. It’s been fun.

NG: Yeah, and we’ve been meaning to release this EP, “The Great Unwashed,” for a long time now. Our first single came out for it in March. The full thing’s still not out, and that’s because we’ve been waiting on a lot of other shoes to drop. But, the shoes finally did. We’re gonna release the EP next month, and we wanted to do this before that.

What’s your favorite part about the scene in New York and the crowd you get here, and how does it differ from the scene you get in LA?

LW: There’s like real bands in New York, where it’s not really the case in LA for the most part. LA is like — it seems like everyone is a pop artist, or an artist rather than a real, proper band, which New York has a lot of. Both Nico and I really are drawn to that aspect for sure.

Have you felt that you’ve been able to stay stimulated in LA?

NG: I think a different environment would be exciting for us. There just aren’t that many bands here in LA and I think being in a place where there are more bands would be beneficial for us, just creatively.

LW: That being said, we always had a “we build it, they will come” kinda energy towards it. If we throw our own stuff in LA, it’s always very highly received, and I think there is a desire for a scene in LA of bands — it’s just, the supply doesn’t meet the demand. There’s kind of a pendulum swing that’s gonna happen, where there’s gonna be more bands coming up in LA.

[Shortly after this question, White had to step out for an appointment. But don’t fret; Geyer kept the answers coming strong.] 

Could you talk to me about your personal experiences in New York? In regards to music — what’s changed for you? Do you see it as a better or worse change?

NG: I think it’s an awesome change. From the outside, looking at it — like I personally wanna move back. Just cause I don’t think I felt quite ready to leave when I did, but it made the most sense for us as a band. We’re all from LA anyway, and it was just the easiest thing to do. It’s hard to get everyone to move back out to New York. I kind of feel FOMO a lot of the time, just cause it seems like something’s always happening and there’s such a vibrant music scene. Not that there wasn’t when I was in college, but the music is a lot more aligned with what I’m into right now. When I was there, it was a lot of synth-pop and post Mac Demarco type stuff. I think this stuff is a lot more exciting to me.

I want to talk to you a bit about the band’s sound. What’s the best part of experimenting with genres? Do you find yourself wanting to focus in on one single genre more?

NG: I think there’s a really great freedom to experimenting and not being an open ended kind of thing. I don’t think we’re necessarily committed — I don’t even know if committed is the right word, but — we’re not hard-set on the genre of indie rock and fast guitars and all that. I think here, like our album, or some songs that are going to be coming out on our album next year, you’ll see that a lot of it is very rock based, and very classic rock tropes, but there’s so much more playfulness to it.

Why do you think that as a band, it’s important to have fun and embrace the concept of play?

NG: I guess I’ll start with — I don’t really like going to shows that much. Not because, you know, I hate music or anything, but most of the time — like 90% of the time — the shows are just boring. It’s just very boring. And you know, you see bands standing up there, they’re nervous as hell, for 35 minutes playing something that sounds like the same song over and over again. Which is, you know, it takes a second to get there, I guess, but I haven’t ever been that huge on seeing live music. So I think our approach is — we put a lot of importance in making it fun. Making it something that people want to go see, instead of just seeing another fucking band of four guys just standing up there.

Do you think LA is still accommodating for bands to get their name out there?

NG: Honestly, I think it’s hard, ‘cause the classic thing is like, a band moves to LA to try to become a band, but there's a lack of infrastructure for a band. Which is literally why we had to do these backyard shows in the first place. There was no infrastructure, you have to drive everywhere, there’s so many barriers to entry, and people are less willing to go out; people are less willing to spend money. It’s harder for a band, I think, to grow their roots here. I was thinking about it last night as I fell asleep — like, oh my god, we’ve done so much shit to get here. Like throwing all these parties and doing all this shit, and it’s kinda crazy. And every time we go to New York, it’s just like — it’s just built in. We never tried as hard as we did in LA. And we’re not even from New York. We live in LA, that’s our home base. But it just seems easier in New York.

Looking at the future of the music scene in LA, do you think that there’s room for things to get better?

NG: I do, yeah. I think Luke said it earlier, where I can see in the next couple of years, or even in the next few months, honestly, a lot of bands popping up. Not just individual artists. That’s not to say there aren’t good artists in LA — there are. But not a lot of bands. I’m excited to see that happen. I think there’s gonna be a cool wave of guitar music coming out of LA.

What would you say your relationship with LA is like?

NG: Hate? Hate-hate? Not really. I like it. I’m from there, I’m from the suburbs, and from Woodland Hills originally. I love the valley. I love the suburbs, I love the light there. I love all the restaurants, and I love the way of life. I guess when I moved back to LA in 2019, 2020, it was my first time living in the city. I would rarely come for shows in high school. So I didn’t even really know anyone here. But, it’s really overwhelming. I live in the middle of Hollywood right now, and it’s just super gnarly, politically. And just socially, it’s kind of hard. I’ve made a lot of really good friends here, which I love about it. I love the space that it affords me, I love that it’s sunny most of the time, I love that the rest of California is like my backyard. But, so many elements of it have really frustrated me.

Before we wrap up, I want to talk to you a bit about young love in your song “Uptight.” In “Uptight,” there’s this image of two people liking each other, but because of their confining environment, they’re not able to experience the depth of their relationship. How do you see one’s environment impacting their ability to connect with others, and how have you personally grappled with this in your life?

NG: I think that an environment does indeed affect one’s ability to socialize. I also think that an environment can be more or less romantic than another. I don’t think when you’ve found a person you adore, that the environment really changes much about what you feel about them. But for music and stuff, an environment can influence the ease in which you can get into something like that.

I have a friend who said a good joke. You know that bar, Zebulon? We were just talking about how in New York, there’s so much serendipity, and the root of your day can change just by running into a friend on the street. You run into someone, you make friends, you keep in touch, cause you’re constantly walking around, you’re constantly engaging with the social elements of the city. Whereas in LA, it’s the complete opposite. You’re constantly alone in a car, alone in your house, far away from friends. There’s all these barriers to entry. And because of that, they built Zebulon. So you can run into people. I forget who told me that, but I thought it was really funny.

After the conclusion of the tour, what’s next for Nitefire?

NG: We are going to release the rest of the EP, with just a couple more songs. For the winter, we’re just going to be prepping for the album. Really excited for the album.