Last December, Nick Carpenter had an existential experience onstage.
Theres a huge fear of: If I stopped working, will it all go away?
says Carpenter, 33.
“I’d like to scare some people away, or bring in new fans,” says Nick Carpenter, a.k.a. Medium Build.Beth Garrabrant*
And if everyone fucks off, then the question is: Was I ever good?
The dream is to be relevant, to add to the conversation.
But you have to be able to talk yourself off the cliff.
Theres a kid waiting in line to sing along with you in fucking Copenhagen, you did it!
Fuck me, I guess.
His 2024 major label debut,Country, exposed his quirky confessionals to a new audience.
Carpenter is uninterested in replicating the success hes found with the stripped-down, accessible sound of his last LP.
Now Im like, Yeah, Id like to scare some people away, or bring in new fans.
Im scared to just be a white guy with an acoustic guitar.
I need to pop off on some shit thats not so easy to eat.
I want to make more challenging stuff than Ive been invited to make, he says.
And maybe thats because theres a part of me that wants to be like and isawareofSam Hunt.
I dont know, if you askedAlex Gwho Sam Hunt was, if hed know.
Maybe thats my cross to bear.
THERE ARE SEVERAL touchstones in Medium Builds backstory that, frankly, hes grown a bit tired of retreading.
Carpenter was the guy getting blank stares when he started to talk about Randy NewmansGood Old Boysat co-writing sessions.
(Carpenter and Baker reunited for Yoke, a highlight from his recentMariettaEP).
In Nashville, Carpenter began writing weird little songs he felt were too strange to sing onstage.
He refined and developed Medium Build after he wound up living in Alaska in his twenties.
I dont need to say it anymore!
And I wear fucking short shorts and dangly earrings.
I dont need to talk about who I have sex with anymore.
He asks big questions: Do I want to scare the money away?
Well, not really everybody can be at this party.
Then its not a fucking party.
Its a state fair.
You are a twisted fucker, he says to me.
That song was, If I can do this game, Ill get paid.
And if I can get paid, I can keep making my little Medium Build records.
One hundred kids showed up to see him play his twisted little tunes.
The parts of himself he believed for so long needed to be kept separate could coexist, after all.
Medium Build can literally say anything, he says.
And we all need that.
