On The Verge

Nicos Gun

Philadelphia, Pa.
Moving in Front of the Board
www.nicosgun.com

If you could distill the feverish intensity of an all-night rager and alchemize it into a musical form, then you’d get a sense of what to expect from Philly-based foursome Nicos Gun. Made up of drummer Harry Zelnick, singer/guitarist Barney Cortez, bassist Andy Black and guitarist/keyboardist Nick Bockrath, this these merry revelers were fully immersed in the Philadelphia music scene before they serendipitously linked up to churn out party-ready jams. Before forming Nicos Gun, the members of the quartet were separately writing songs and beats for the likes of Big Boi, Ludacris, the Disco Biscuits, The Roots, Usher and Kelly Clarkson, and decided to ditch the high profile knob-twisting to make their own tunes. “There’s a chemistry that made us want to make songs together,” explains Bockrath of the palpable connection. “There is nothing more fulfilling than playing your own music.” Fusing punk rock energy with a genre-jumping eclectic mix of psych-pop, funk and glam rock, Nicos Gun just wants their fans to have fun enjoying their sound. Or as Cortez so aptly puts it, “We just hope they get laid.”