INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY AUTUMN THATCHER ☆
Halle Jean March
NIMA WALKER’S COMMUTE TO THE STUDIO WHERE HIS EMO BAND, HILLSBORO— brings their music to life is a long one. It begins with an Uber ride, transitions to a ferry ride and, once he makes it to Vancouver Island, ends with another ride to the studio. On a good day, the commute takes approximately three hours one way. Sometimes, he sleeps there for days at a time. Others, he does the roundtrip in a single day. But the time to get there doesn’t matter once he steps inside. Here, Walker is in his happy place.
“It feels like Boy Scout camp or something,” the Hillsboro vocalist and guitarist said from the back seat of an Uber ride on the way to the ferry. “I’d rather be there than anywhere else, really.”
Six years, several EPs and a full-length album since their formation, Walker and his bandmates comprising Hillsboro have doubled down on their goal to make honest, inclusive music that celebrates authenticity and creates safe spaces for listeners. In addition to churning out their own music, Hillsboro formed the record label, play dead, in 2024 to help bands put out music free from the road blocks and restrictions often associated with the traditional label path.
“I don’t want to have to sacrifice making good art or have someone tell me that I have to be following a trend to do what I want to do,” Walker said. “Starting play dead came from being so uninspired by everything that I felt was being shoved down my throat in terms of music by the powers that be. We just wanted to create, and we had lots of friends and good bands that weren’t getting represented that were so much better than some of the shit that was coming out. It was a no-brainer.”
Nearly three years and seven bands later, play dead is building its own sort of community, one that embraces the DIY approach and proves paving your own path is one of many ways to make dreams come true. Walker said that while forming the label and simultaneously creating music as Hillsboro is all-consuming, it’s allowed him to step into his own musical authenticity even more fully—something he said fans will notice on Hillsboro’s newest EP, this is me if i was you, out November 13.
“It’s definitely the most honest I’ve been lyrically,” Walker said. “I feel so much more peaceful just knowing that I'm being honest and there's an alignment with what I'm saying and how I'm feeling as opposed to the insecurity of saying stuff not that I don't mean, but that I feel like is trying to be received a certain way. I’m weirdly feeling a lot more confident about it now than I ever did before.”
On his way to the ferry, Walker talked to Luna about his musical journey over the last six-and-a-half years and what makes this is me if i was you so special.
Halle Jean March
LUNA: You and the rest of Hillsboro have really paved your own way in the music scene, building a solid fanbase in the Pacific Northwest and touring regularly. What inspired you to go the indie route?
WALKER: Growing up, I think people always thought getting signed one day would be the mark of success. As a young artist, you're waiting for someone to come give you the keys to the castle or bestow you with the opportunities that you've been looking for. The longer I've done music and been around musicians, it's become clear that it doesn't exist the same way it used to. The more people I met in music, anyone who's sort of promising that, ended up being kind of sketchy and weird. The fact is, if you're taking a bunch of money from someone up front, that's coming at the expense of some creative control. We came up on artists in the mid 2010s who were doing their own thing, and that's always what's been inspiring. I want success, but I want it on my terms.
LUNA: When did you realize you wanted to form your own label, and how has that been?
WALKER: We originally started the label as a way to not compromise our own creative journey, and then we realized we could do that for other people. I really didn't want to do it at first because artists mean so much to me that it felt so scary to put someone's music out. I didn't want to mess it up. But we realized there’s no one else who cares as much as we do, and we have to do it now. Even if we don’t have big budgets, we can still use our resources. There are people in music who are really cool, want to help and can open doors for you.
If you look at every culturally significant music scene in history, it's almost never just one artist. It's always a community—a group of artists. That was part of it for us, too. If we bring together a bunch of our bands, then maybe that can mean something more than any one of us just saying “look at me.” That theme of community is sort of the ethos behind our new EP.
LUNA: Tell us about the new EP. How does community tie into it?
WALKER: Some of our early recordings were made a bit more in isolation, especially given covid. But our music now really is shaped by the community we're in and the kids who come to our shows—and even the people who are signed to the label. We all show up to each other's studio sessions and listen to each other's new stuff. I feel like I'm really guided by what the people around me are excited by just as much as I am true to what I'm excited by. I can’t think about the new EP without thinking about the environment that we're in right now because it feels really good.
LUNA: How would you describe that environment?
WALKER: It's a safe space, and we do a lot of work to make sure it's safe because when you're in emo, that's naturally going to, frankly, attract a lot of younger queer kids who probably also deal with mental health issues. We in the band all deal with that. For us, it's always been about creating a space where everyone can get what they need off their chest and not worry about being embarrassed or feeling too much.
LUNA: You mentioned that this EP represents some of your most authentic songwriting to date. Why is that, and how does that feel?
WALKER: It’s too exhausting to not be honest about how you feel and know that other people feel the same way. Life feels too hard right now for everyone to put up with anything else, honestly. I used to try to make things sound cooler. I have this joke with our guitarist, Sam, that this is the first batch of songs where I'm not trying to seem sexy or something. I'm just trying to be honest about how I feel. The last song on the EP, “the sky reminds me of you now, pt. 2,” is literally about me needing to go sleep over at Sam's place because I didn't feel safe, and how small and scary that feels but then feeling safe because you have a friend that you know understands you. It makes me feel less insecure than I did when I was kind of having a mask on.
LUNA: What can fans and new listeners look forward to with the new EP?
WALKER: It’s indicative of the new direction we're going in. We’ve always been an emo band in a way for sure. On this EP, in a music-listener-experience way, we're reconnecting with our favorite emo bands from high school. That’s what the next album really is: our love letter to emo. On the EP, you can hear the bridge between going from being more of a noise pop sort of sound to being a little more focused and more sentimental. I think the songs are good. They’re catchy and they do some unexpected things. It also rewards repeat listening because there's a lot of little bells and whistles that you might not hear off the top that add to the experience.
LUNA: Congratulations. You’ve done remarkable things over the years, and I hope you’ve taken time to celebrate yourselves.
WALKER: Thank you. It's a dream at the end of the day. Money's cool, and I trust I'll get to a point where I just don't have to do anything else but music. But in the meantime, I look back on my journal when I was 15, and I'm doing everything that I've always wanted to do. The goal was always to make great music. I want to hang out with my friends all the time. I want to make clothes. I want to travel. I want to help other people put their stuff out. I want to make cool videos. At the end of the day, I get to spend the majority of my time on this earth doing that. I feel pretty pretty happy with that.
