N8NOFACE & Valerie Bower: Kids in Love
- Introduction by Ira
- Interview and portraits by Ira and Sawa
- All feature photos by Valerie Bower
- Published:
- In Features
N8 and Val have a creative energy that is undeniably contagious. Our conversation with them felt like catching an electric current. Following along as they travel the world together, it’s obvious that they are not taking any of their success for granted. Destroying everything in their path like a sort of punk rock Mickey and Mallory, they seem to be soaking up each and every moment of the journey they are on together and it becomes impossible not to root for them.
N8 moves between musical genres as effortlessly and tactfully as Val moves between mediums. Analog, digital, scratchy and raw, their art carries a soft empathy just beneath its chaotic surface, often feeling akin to standing in the eye of a storm.
Creative collaboration between lovers is a sacred thing. Sawa and I have been working together since the very beginning of our relationship, and so for us, it was serendipitous that we were able to sit down with N8 and Val to discuss the turns of fate that brought them together in our inaugural issue of Art Bar. -IAI
Sawa: How did you guys meet?
N8NOFACE: I was living in Tucson and had a synth-punk band where we modded out Game Boys, and I’d scream into them. We met, and she liked what I was doing. We were friends for years, and then she came to Tucson to photograph artists. We hung out that week, and I moved out here a week later. A friend told me to leave Tucson, come work on music, and stay with him rent-free in South Central LA. From then on, we never stopped hanging out.
Sawa: I love that. Ira and I, we went on our first date, and it never ended.
N8: That’s tough. I love that. That’s exactly how it was.
Valerie: We’ve been together since 2012. Twelve years. Crazy.
That’s what we call ourselves: Kids in Love. ‘Cause I always feel like those are the dreamers, the kids in love. And so it’s cool to be with a dreamer.
Sawa: You have spoken about coming from a dark place with drug addiction. Were the two of you together during that time? What was that like for you, Val? There’s something really strong about you both coming out on the other end.
Val: I’ve never been like, “Oh, I don’t wanna talk about it,” but nobody’s really asked me. I had a different experience with somebody struggling with drugs. He was almost like a part-time addict. Things were cool, then it’s like, “Nate, where’d you go on the weekend?” For the first nine years, we were doing that. I had to think, “I care about this person, but what do I want my life to look like?” He hit rock bottom and kicked hard drugs. It felt like a brand new relationship without this cloud. Things were clear, and he was sober and honest.
N8: ‘Cause she never even knew; she didn’t know my past. Even though I wrote about it in songs, I don’t think anyone ever really knew how bad it was. Years before her, I was messing around in Tucson and wilding out. So I think when she got with me, even my people would be like, “Yo, she don’t really know who you really are. You’re lying to her.” She didn’t know how bad I was, for sure.
Val: There was something that I didn’t know, and it was how dark it could be. We were living together, and I was already in love with him, so it wasn’t as easy as “Why don’t you just leave, or leave him?”
N8: When I moved out here, I was living with a big gang member who was doing a lot of stuff out of that house. I remember homies—nobody would visit me at my house in South Central. Buddies would be like, “Oh, hell no, I’m not visiting. You come visit us.” Val would be the only person who would pull up to that spot, like at 3:00 a.m. And I’m talking, we were getting raided by police, gangs were at the door asking for their tax. Like, yeah, it was bad. She saw some stuff, but even then, she never saw me disappear for four days until she was already living with me. And we were madly in love. I held a job down, so I hid it really well. Whereas when Friday came, I disappeared for like four or five days, and you know, she wouldn’t even know.
Sawa: It’s beautiful what you once said—that you stopped because you didn’t want to hurt anyone.
N8: Val was the first time ever. I remember coming home one time after three days, her not knowing…and of course she was pissed at me, but her first reaction was, “I’m just glad you’re alive.” And then it was like, I was in the doghouse for a week. Yeah. But at that moment, I saw in her eyes that she genuinely just cared about me. She put me in a shower, cleaned me up, washed me up, you know, ’cause I’d be a mess. I had never seen it before. Before her, if I was hurting somebody, it was someone who I didn’t really know if they loved me; it was just a mess. But this was the first time ever.
Val: I would be really upset, but then as time went on, I’d get really worried, like, “Is he alive?” We pushed through.
Sawa: So N8, you were already making music in Tucson, and Val, you’ve been taking pictures since high school. When did your art start intersecting?
Val: Some of the shows that they would do here in LA, I would be taking pictures. So that was probably the first iteration, trying to document some of the beat scene stuff that was going on. So then that was cool for me because people were using my pictures, and that was getting me inspired, and it kind of just started snowballing.
N8: Now she designs stuff for me.
Val: It also just comes from, you know, DIY. We try to do everything that we can in-house because one, we can’t afford anything else. So we are just trying to do what we can, and we sort of started developing a style, like these punk-inspired graphics and then also photos and collages.
Sawa: I love how you record music in your closet and print zines at home. I love DIY, and I think it could inspire people that you don’t need these fancy studios. You can just set things up and do it yourself. Is there anything you want to say about that?
N8: Well, my motto is I never let a lack of budget or talent stop me. I just do it. I’ve been playing and creating my whole life. If I can’t afford studio time or an engineer, I won’t let that stop me from getting ideas out. Always create with what you have, even if it’s a crappy program or mic. I’d hate for anyone not to create because they lack resources. Figure it out. That’s my motto, same as her motto with zines.
Val: Yeah, with photos and zines and everything, and figuring out how to manually print on a Xerox machine.
N8: If no one’s going to publish a photo book of hers, we’re going to make it ourselves and put it online and sell it.
Val: And we probably bonded over that too, just being creatives. You know, him doing his thing and then me doing my thing. And then sometimes it overlaps.
The main thing is to just start. Keep creating, even if you don’t know where you’re going.
Ira: This is more of a question for aspiring artists: how important do you think it is to just start, just to START?
N8: I think that’s the main thing. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I wanted to make punk music but didn’t know where to start. I made something with drum machines, and the first hundred songs were shit. The main thing is to just start. Keep creating, even if you don’t know where you’re going. You have to start no matter how bad it is. I posted music in the MySpace days that was shit, and people told me. My brother said you could be the dopest in your room, but the world’s got to see it. You have to be vulnerable, put it out there, and get told it’s whack. Don’t let it break you. Get started, even if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’ll take you where you’re supposed to go.
Sawa: Yeah, make your own rules.
N8: Yeah, just do it. That’s my motto.
Val: I think that’s what stops people sometimes—not having the proper tools. There should be a way to create no matter what.
N8: Always. Yeah.
Sawa: I think your style of imagery, the rawness of it, fits the scene that you’re capturing. I just want to talk about the importance of imagery with the performer; the two things make a whole. They also say, you know, it’s an artist’s duty to depict the times we’re living in. And I think it’s cool you’re not just shooting the performance, but you’re shooting the culture.
Val: Exactly, because I’m interested in that too. I think even with one girl’s portrait, there’s a whole world right there.
Sawa: Yeah, and right now it is a very specific culture. This generation has gone through so much, and I think your music is really resonating with them. Is there anything you can say about that—about just this time, this culture, and the connection with your music?
N8: I’m so grateful. I think big stuff is dying. People are more attracted to a story. For a while, everything was glossy and sold to them. After Covid, people just want REAL. They don’t even care if your story relates to them, as long as it’s real. Everything is so shiny and feels like a lie. After what we went through with Covid, people are tired of lies from politicians and everything being a crazy show. People want raw and real.
Ira: When did you commit to: “I want to be an artist. I want to focus on art, this is all I want to do.”
N8: For me, it was Crime Kills. I was making hip-hop beats and owned a hip-hop store in Tucson. Kids would come in and see my gear, like the SP 1200, and ask if I made beats. I’d say no, but I did at night. I sold local rapper stuff just for the love. A kid who came in started showing me punk, since graffiti kids liked punk more than rap. We started a punk band and put it on MySpace. I didn’t hide my face; it was under Nate or Nathan No Face. When Crime Kills got support, I gained confidence. Punk made me less scared to do rowdy music on stage. Before, I couldn’t rap in front of people. Crime Kills gave me confidence because my buddy was an amazing producer, and there was nothing like it.
Sawa to Valerie: When did you begin creating?
Val: In early 2015, after taking many photos, I decided to make zines. I was inspired by photographers like Hamburger Eyes and Estevan Oriol, and DIY zines at Amoeba. I made some and did an art fair in Long Beach. Seeing people relate to it inspired me, and it snowballed from there. As a kid, I was always writing or drawing, creating my own world since I was the only girl. I’ve always loved making books, so it feels like my inner child is still there, doing what I’ve always wanted to do.
Sawa: Sometimes it seems like you almost have an out-of-body experience when you are on stage, and you end up punching yourself until you are bleeding.
N8: Originally, I’m a hip hop head. But I knew who GG Allin was and had seen Sid Vicious’ photos, but I didn’t know the details. People say I’m doing the GG Allin thing. I literally just do it because if anybody knows me before I go on stage, I’m scared as shit. I’m having the worst panic attack. I have panic attacks and drink a lot at shows to cope, even though I don’t usually drink. The punching is me trying to wake myself up, like I’m in a fight. I’m a wreck before a show, but once I’m on stage, it’s out of body—the scared guy leaves. People might think I’m confident, but I’m someone else on that stage.
Val: And definitely being on the side of the stage, I’m like, if you need to tell Nate something, tell him before or after because he won’t see you. He won’t hear you. He is in his zone.
N8: I’m just gone. Yeah.
Val: You’re fully committed; it’s like a possession.
N8: Exactly.
We were the two fools who decided to live off art during Covid, in the middle of me kicking meth. It was like, “Let’s try it, man.”
Sawa: What a path you have been on to get here.
N8: I really feel like my drug addiction was filling a hole caused by me not being what I wanted to be or who I want to be as an artist. And then I got laid off because of Covid. That was the exact same time I was hitting rock bottom, and we were like, “Yo, let’s just try to live off our art.” We were the two fools who decided to live off art during Covid, in the middle of me kicking meth. It was like, “Let’s try it, man.”
Sawa: I want to speak to the importance of having a creative outlet for your own mental health—art as therapy. Does it do that for you?
N8: All day. I think for her too. Definitely. Even sometimes if I make her mad, I’ll see her in the corner drawing.
Val: I was in pain last week, and I felt like I had to draw. It really helps get my mind off it. Sometimes I’ll walk around feeling weird or in a bad mood, and I realize I need to create. Then I’m okay. I feel like even for our relationship, if I was with a regular guy before Nate, it was a life I wasn’t supposed to be in. I wasn’t creating much. Having a partner who gets that makes a difference.
Ira: It’s serendipitous being in a creative working relationship, that same sort of environment where you feed off each other. You give each other the space to create, and then you can talk about the work, right?
Sawa: If someone doesn’t get that side of you, it’s like, Oh… no…
Ira: You also kind of know each other’s bullshit. How much more of a bond does that create? How fulfilling is that?
N8: Oh, the best. And sometimes maybe we’re not digging the same thing, but just knowing that you’re with someone who has imagination and we’re both dreamers. That’s what we call ourselves: Kids in Love. ‘Cause I always feel like those are the dreamers, the kids in love. And so it’s cool to be with a dreamer.
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