Band's front-man discusses two-year album-making process.

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Don Levandier

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The Nuclear are one of Moncton's best kept secrets. And while they plan on touring to promote the release of their brand new 13-track self-titled record, for the time being they're happy to remain that way.

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It's no big secret The Nuclear's front-man Marco Rocca is no fan of traditional band promotion like press photos or interviews, but I was able to sit down with him for an hour and discuss the making of the record, his future as a musician, and even a bit of what goes on inside his head when it comes to putting a record like this together.

"We started in June of 2006 and it just came out in July of 2008," says Rocca referring to their two-year recording process. It was in the fall of 2006 when The Nuclear had an article featured on them in this very magazine. I think it's necessary to put this record in perspective so here's a line from an article I wrote almost two full years ago about the band: "While the debut record is still in the production phases, it's months away from landing in your CD player." Months? Well if by "months" I meant 22, then I was dead on the money. So why does it take a band two years to put out an album? "" and was it worth the wait?

"We recorded it whenever we could," Rocca says, referring to the band's eclectic music-making schedule. Sitting in the engineering/producing chair was Halifax music veteran Craig Sperry (co-engineer for Hope and The Dean Malenkos). We played in Halifax a few times when Craig saw a show and said 'if you guys need to record an album, I want to do it'," says Rocca. Tom Antle, the band's drummer and Rocca had discussed the possibility of working with Sperry to produce the record, but being approached by him to do just that came as a surprise.

So in June of '06 Sperry made the trip up from Halifax to begin the arduous task of starting a two-year record. But it's unlikely the engineer/producer or any of the band actually knew what they were getting themselves into.

In a garage/machine shop on Gorge Road microphones were placed all over the converted room. Twenty microphones - to be exact. Many of these came from Halifax's now defunct, but very famous Idea Of East studio. These would be used to record the drums and bassist Pak Twisted's parts only. Guitars and vocals came much later and only some of them were recorded in the Moncton based ad-hoc studio. The remainder of the guitars and vocal tracks were laid down with Craig in Halifax.

"Either Tom and Pak were with me for the rest of the recording. Most of the time both of them were there," explains Rocca on how the record was produced with the majority of the band on hand.

This process took many of 2006's weekends away from the band. "We didn't commit to playing any shows because we'd only find out on Monday if we'd be recording the following weekend," Rocca says.

Once all the recording was completed near the end of the first year, the mixing and mastering process filled up the next half of the timeline. But was it working around the schedules of three full-time working musicians and a producer/engineer who lives out of province that made the project so long in the making? While it certainly played a part, the big obstacle was the financial strain laid upon the band with making a record. The band paid for the entire process, including recording, mixing, mastering, and finally the hefty bill of manufacturing out of its own pockets.

"If you added up all the actual recording time the whole process was probably about a month," laughs Rocca. The question going through my head at this point was clearly "" would you do it this way again? Rocca simply states "Hindsight is 20/20" "" but I learned from this."

So now that the record is finally out (officially as of August 22) what does it sound like? Was it worth taking two years to make it?

"These are songs I wrote because of the bands I love; Tom Petty, The Beatles "" I didn't try to copy them but they're huge influences on me," says Rocca. And while this statement rings true "" it's merely the stem to a much more deeply seeded set of roots.

The album is certainly glazed with the pop/rock sensibilities of bands like The Beatles (early years) and The Byrds, but tends to be much more introspective lyrically and all around darker. While it's safe to say these influences exist within the band "" it's also safe to say that the above description would likely get a band chewed apart or at the very least completely ignored in a predominately heavy rock 'n' roll city like Moncton.

The Nuclear however is a band made of up veterans from two of Moncton's most revered punk-rock outfits, Hope and Sour Grapes. This marriage of the two bands has given us a record that wouldn't generally be called a punk-rock effort "" but wouldn't turn off any fan of the genre. It's laced with all the bite and well-placed angst you might look for in a Hope album but with hooks and tones that make it almost destined to be rock-radio classic.

How will this sit with fans of Hope or Sour Grapes? "This record came from satisfying what we wanted musically," says Rocca. "I feel fine about being played on any radio station. What do I have to be ashamed about? I'm not going to let someone's ideas of what I should be doing affect what I want to do."

So why then does The Nuclear exist? If this record has got all the right elements to potentially be a punk rock album "" why didn't Rocca simply use his existing band to play these songs?

"I want Hope to be fast, aggressive, angry and melodic - the place I go to get my aggression out," says Rocca. "I want The Nuclear to stray far from that. I want every Nuclear record to be completely different "" and I don't want that for Hope." So with a sound that's clearly redefining what people should come to expect from a Moncton band and a brand new 13 song album on shelves in Moncton and soon to be on Itunes world-wide, what is next for the band?

"We're not band managers and we don't have management," says Rocca with a laugh. "Right now our ambitions reach as far as getting a two-week tour planned. I don't know about the things that other bands do to promote themselves or to be rock stars "" that's just not where our heads are oriented right now."

If we can say anything for certain about the new record "" I'd go with simply "It's different." It won't remind you of Hope, Sour Grapes, Eric's Trip or The Monoxides. It doesn't have an obvious established band to compare it to nor does it sound like 1991 or metal...and it certainly doesn't sound like it was recorded in a machine shop.

The Nuclear's self-titled debut is a spitefully catchy, poppy, rock record that covers everything from their views on faith and religion to deconstructing one's own mind and is an instant classic for followers of the Moncton music community.

Whether or not it was worth the two-year wait to get your hands on the album is up to you, but what's apparent is that this record will still be a relevant piece of Moncton's audio history well over two more years down the road.

The Nuclear is currently available at Moncton's Spin It Records and Frank's Music.

Check out www.myspace.com/thenuclear for tour dates and mp3s.