Tampa’s Nevertel have come together with an eclectic melting pot of musical tastes and backgrounds. The band have proved themselves as insightful storytellers with a 21st century delivery.
Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.
Jeremy Michael – Lead vocals
Raul Lopez – Raps & guitar
Alec Davis – Guitar
Josh Barter – Drums
For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Nevertel? How long has the band been around?
Me, Raul & Alec were actually in another band before Nevertel called Milestone. Josh used to be a drummer for a metal band called And One for All. We’ve all had high school bands leading up to those but none of them were very serious. Nevertel has been a band for a total of 6 years, but we’ve only been public since 2015.
What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?
The bands name came from a Google Documents page we had been throwing a bunch of ideas into. It started out as just Never Tell, but we decided amongst ourselves that putting the two words together and dropping the last “l” made the name stand out a bit more. We find our band name actually comes up a ton in regular conversation, which might be the best marketing technique we have haha.
Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?
Usually Raul will start with the foundation of a song at his home studio. Then he’ll send the track over to Jeremy for vocals/lyrical work. It’ll bounce back and for between the two of us until it’s as good as we can get it. Then we bring in Josh and Alec to add their spin to the track for their respective instrument, and we’ll slowly chip away at it until it becomes what people and up hearing.
What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
Man, I feel like this is going to be all over the place haha. For our newer material, I’d say artists like Don Broco, Issues, Logic, Chase Atlantic, Joyner Lucas, I Prevail, Owane, and Bring Me the Horizon. Is that too much? We just take inspiration from a lot of different places. We never want to be seen as one dimensional.
Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?
Raul seeing Linkin Park in 2013 started this band, straight up. We get the comparison to them a lot, which is totally valid. Anyone that does rap/rock will. So, if we had to point to one band, they really started it all for us.
What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, etc …
Jeremy usually does lip rolls and makes sure to drink tons of water. Raul and Alec will usually sit down with their guitars unplugged backstage and run through some of the tougher songs. And during our intro instrumental track, we always gather by Josh’s drums for a pep talk to feed each other energy and start the show in a good mood.
What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?
Probably having James Paul Wisner reach out to us to work on what become our most recent EP, Deep Down. James has produced some incredible bands, such as Underoath, Paramore, Dashboard Confessional, and Hands Like Houses, so to be scouted by him from our first album we produced ourselves was pretty surreal. Getting to stay at his place for two weeks and work on music every day was a literal dream come true and something we’ll never forget.
If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?
100% Logic. His shows are unreal. I don’t know how that would happen or if his fans would even like us, but how sick would it be for a rap/rock band to play with one of the most successful rappers in the game today? I think that’d be so cool, even if it wasn’t us.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Just wanna say thank you so much for those that took the time to read all of this! If you haven’t already, check out our band new song “All Good” on the streaming platform of your choice and make sure to check the video out on Youtube, if you have the time. Make sure you follow us on Spotify for all the new music coming later this year.