Stay Dangerous: Q & A with NVR ENDVR

Editor’s Note: NVR ENDVR is one of the busiest local bands in the Grand Junction scene. They have regular local shows and tour nationally. Their energetic stage presence and provocative timely lyrics have made them a fan favorite. Jake Duffney is vocal about his political beliefs that inspire both his music and his participation in local protest movement. This also marks tahrihi bochmann’s first article as The Revolutionists’ Arts and Culture Editor!

tahrihi bochmann: How long have you been making music? 

Jake Duffney: Oh god. 
I cut my teeth in church. As far as metal and stuff goes, 14. I was a drummer before anything else. The whole family was musical. 

tb: So, you started with music at church, and now you’re playing protest metalcore. 

 JD: 
Well, I subscribed to the whole American evangelist thing until I was about 18, 19 years old and left my parents’ house. I didn’t stop believing in God until I was, like, 26. There’s a lot of trauma there. Believe it or not, I grew up really conservative until like my early 20s, when I understood more about the world outside of my rural suburb and got a better understanding of what people actually go through as the average American citizen. 

tb: So you left your parents’ house at 18. Did you start making your own music at that time too, or did that come later? 


JD: No, I went and started working for the Department of Defense as a contractor. 

tb: Oh, shit. 

JD: Yeah, yeah, I was fucking…I had a horrific, traumatic career. 
I was a professional climber and outside machinist scaffold builder. So I worked a lot at over 150 feet, standing on pipes and building stuff as I went. I worked in confined spaces and was involved in some accidents where people got really fucked up. It changed my perspective on things. I worked with fucking L.A. gangbangers, like motherfuckers who had Los Sureños and shit tattooed on them. 
I worked with these people, and I lived with them, and they weren’t bad people. I heard stories of their childhood, how they had to grow up in fucking ghettos, cause their parents were “illegals” and couldn’t get fucking mortgages, couldn’t get ahead, but the alternative for them was their dad either becomes a gangbanger or he takes his family to America. I saw that they were good people underneath the shit they had to do to survive. So it really changed my perspective on things, especially immigration. 
There were a lot of epiphanies along the way in my early 20s. 

tb: Were there other places where you ended up in underprivileged communities? 


JD: I was in San Diego, Seattle, Norfolk, Mayport. You can literally see the red line in Norfolk. You still see the effects of Jim Crow in Norfolk today.

tb: When you started writing your own music, you were drawing on a lot of these experiences, right? 
And things happening in the political sphere today. 

JD: I mean, the night Donald Trump said “they’re eating the cats” on live television, I started writing “Cat Birthday” immediately. 
The debate was still going, and I pulled out Logic and immediately got to fucking work on that shit. “Magic Eyes” is a little bit more satirical. “Innocence, Pt. 2” and “Asylum, Pt. 2” deal a lot with self-esteem and problems that I’ve been through in my life. And” Innocence, Pt. 2” is an apology to my son for my generational trauma that he inherited. “Post Car Crash Coitus” is about a car accident, sort of, but it’s also just a fucking train wreck of things after this car accident. Pretty much all of my songs are written through personal experience or things that I see and need talked about. 

tb: Have you or the band gotten pushback on your lyrics or messages? 


JD: No, we really haven’t. The people who don’t agree with our message have come up to me and said, “I don’t agree with what you guys said, but that shit was fucking crazy.” So, even if our message doesn’t hit you, our vibe does, and ultimately, that’s what’s important. The music, but also who we are and what we actually do outside of the music. 

tb: I’ve been to my fair share of NVR ENDVR shows, and that’s something I see every time. You guys are really invested in the community and it definitely shows. 


JD: I’ve always said music is the most universal language in the world. I used to teach music back in Virginia Beach. I burned out of construction for a little bit, and I taught music for two years. And my first lesson with kids I would draw a bar and write some random note. And I would say, “Okay, how do you think this is written in Chinese? How about Swahili?” 
And they would say, “Well, maybe they use different letters or something like that.” And then I’d hit them with a no. This bar of music is written the exact same way in every country in the world. Music is the most universal language. It’s expression, it’s political. Music is just a raw form of human expression. I just love being a part of it.

tb: And NVR ENDVR’s been tearing it up. You guys just released your first EP, right? 

JD: We dropped that back in July. 
We’re gonna be doing a full length this summer. We’re tying in our next single with our festival It Wasn’t A Phase, Mom. 
Dandy’s gonna be opening, and then we’re gonna have Handbrake Hero, Buried in Lies, SALT, and us closing it out. Next year, I have sixteen bands booked already. That’s what we’re gonna be focusing on, making this next festival a big one, something that people look forward to every year. 

tb: 
When is It Wasn’t A Phase, Mom happening this year? 

JD: March 6th.

tb: I’m really proud of all the work that NVR ENDVR is putting in because I know it’s a lot, but you guys are fucking killing it. 

JD: This band does not work with different members. 
It really doesn’t. I literally could not ever think of replacing anybody that we have. It’s been a dream come true. 

tb: We’re all expecting great things. 

JD: 
Thanks, homie. 

tb: You guys are constantly on the go, doing shows all the time. You have another tour planned, right? 

JD: We have several tours coming up this year. We have a new booking agent — shout out Rob Volkov. Those announcements are around the corner. 

tb: When you’re at home, you always show up at protests. Every time there’s a protest, you’re volunteering as a medic.

 JD: I got my EMT basic when I was 16 years old, and, I don’t know, man. I like to help people, and being a medic at a protest is something that not a lot of people want to step up to do, cause you never know what can go wrong. It’s a really high-pressure situation, and my past experience kind of laid the groundwork for me to be able to do those things, and that’s just one way I can give back. 

tb: How long have you been showing up for protests? 


JD: It started after Trump won. I would say BLM inspired me the most to get out there and fucking say something. Those dudes were on the ground every single day; that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. I’m finding that the smaller protests are more important to hit than the larger ones. The consistent messaging is way more important than the big one every couple months. You gotta stay out there holding your sign, even if it’s by yourself.

tb: It’s a sign of resistance, but it’s also encouragement.

JD: You’re not alone. 

tb: Anything else you want to add?

JD: Shout out to Rick and Henry at Mesa. Mesa Theater fucking rocks, I love playing there, and every band that comes through loves playing there. The staff take good care of us, we fucking get paid. Shout out to the bandwives for holding shit down. That’s a big one. 
And just shout out to the community. The kids who are carrying it forward, fucking put that in there. All them high school kids that walked out of that fucking school yesterday (Jan 30th ICE OUT protest). As soon as I saw that, I got up off my couch. 
Those kids literally made me walk out the door yesterday. 

tb: I’m very, very proud of this generation.

JD: They’re being kind to each other. 
That’s what fucking throws me. I didn’t grow up like these kids. They’re all growing up being kind to each other and emotionally intelligent and shit. 

tb: They’re all looking out for one another.

JD: They’re taking care of each other. That’s what hardcore and metalcore shows have always been about for me. I’m autistic as fuck, and I didn’t fit in very well growing up. 
My mom had me overmedicated on Adderall, and I was really fucking weird. And those shows just gave me a place to go and not have to worry about impressing anybody. I’ve always wanted to cultivate that environment for somebody since I started giving a shit. We got to keep taking care of each other, and we have to influence on the local level. Support your fucking neighbors, especially when we’re undergoing fucking ICE raids and everything. I think right now, that’s the most important issue. 
Whatever’s happening on a municipal level is kind of chum bait for our neighbors getting our fucking doors kicked in. 

tb: Any last things that you want to say? 

JD: Fight back by being better. The only way out is side by side. Stay dangerous, dude. 
 

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