And now for the conclusion of our interview with Nick Diamonds:

ND: So it’s very weird. He had problems with his manager, who was involved with the Hells Angels and used to work for the C.I.A. He was stealing money from him. [Hendrix] was trying to fire him. So you know all these little things make you wonder.

AM: He seems…Well you know with the Bob Marley and John Lennon conspiracies, I get those, because they were both somewhat political figures.

ND: Yeah.

AM: But Jimi Hendrix kind of seems out there, you know?

ND: Yeah. The Jimi Hendrix was more his manager’s doing. The manager was a thug and wanted Jimi’s money and stuff. But it wasn’t like Jimi Hendrix was a counter-revolutionary like Bob Marley, who really was shot. He wasn’t killed, but he was shot at a festival. He was shot in the leg by a Jamaican warlord or something. The son of a C.I.A. agent apparently gave Bob Marley a pair of boots with a steel toe. Um, I mean, a steel pin was in the toe. He put them on and pricked his foot. He got this bad infection, which people say came from playing soccer, but which the book says came from this shoe, this gift. Then he went to Switzerland and had this Nazi doctor, who starved him to death, basically; because he was avoiding traditional medicine until the last minute. So like this doctor [laugh] this Nazi doctor killed him.

AM: Wow.

ND: Pretty insane. Pretty funny, well not funny, but entertaining, I guess.

AM: Yeah. It definitely has some amount of humor in it, though.

ND: Yeah.

AM: So it kind of seems to me that in some of your lyrics…Since we’re talking about political figures in music. There seems to be an amount of politics in your lyrics, but it doesn’t seem to be too overt. Do you agree?

ND: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, that’s the nail on the head right there. I’m trying to think about things and to be conscientious, I guess, of current events. But I’m not trying to be, like, proselytizing or trying to indoctrinate anyone. I’m just trying to think about it and have a dialogue. But use, like, metaphor and narrative as an analogy to what’s going on. I don’t like it when people try to preach to you and tell you what to think or what’s wrong; because it’s always more complex than that. I think just painting a little picture of the way you see things is sometimes more effective, I guess.

AM: So you prefer to pose a question? Why is it like this?

ND: Yeah, and using…Shouldering it, I guess, in a little story, a little innocuous narrative that doesn’t seem…But, you know, I’m kind of getting past that too. That was definitely that record. I was feeling like things were pretty messed up. Pretty messed up state of affairs in the world. Of course, there always are, but I felt like addressing it in that certain way. I think I’m beyond that too. The new songs that I’m writing, some of them are still in the narrative thing, a lot of them are just more abstract. More abstract than the last record even.

AM: What issues are you dealing with in those terms?

ND: In the newer material?

AM: Yeah.

ND: I’m trying to think of examples. I mean, a lot of it is just reflections on being, like being alive, I guess, and the weird little intricacies of that. You know, that fact is pretty insane concept, if you think about it. Existence… I think there are lots of ways to unravel that. There is a lot to pick apart in song. Some of them are stories of things that have happened to me or to people I’ve known, but there also couched in a weird, bizarro world narrative. Like this one song is about this…I don’t know. Fuck. I’m not really good at defending my lyrics.

AM: It’s hard to talk about something you’ve written.

ND: Yeah.

AM: Because it’s kind of like, “Well, it’s already done. That’s what it is.”

ND: Yeah, exactly. I kind of feel like I’ve already done my part, you know.

AM: Oh, there was something I wanted to ask you, it kind of fell off from me. There was something you mentioned that I just wanted to bring up again. Never mind. Well, in terms of material on the next album, I know you’re into hip-hop and there is one song on the album that has a rap. It’s really good. Can we expect to see more of that?

ND: I’ve definitely thought about it. I don’t know if it would seem like a gimmick. I don’t want to have a token rap song on the record. But if it works, if it makes sense, and it seems natural, we’ll do it. On the last record it definitely wasn’t a forced thing or contrived. It was really natural. And we had that song. We were in L.A. and we knew both of those rappers. We actually did a couple shows where we did that song. This was actually before this band existed, but it was Jamie and I. It just made sense to put it on the record and it was thematically adapt. It was also a cool different thing to have these guys rapping on the record.

AM: It comes across well. Who are the two rappers?

ND: Subtitle and Bus Driver.

AM: Are they putting out their own material?

ND: Yeah, they put out records. Bus Driver just got signed to Epitaph. He’s going to be putting out a bigger record this fall, which is cool for him because he’s really good. He’s been doing it for a long time. He has a bunch of records out under smaller labels. And Subtitle is putting out records still. He has one out and another one coming. He’s the first guy who raps. They’re both kind of weird in a conventional sense, in terms of their flow and subject matter. Subtitle is definitely the more out-there kind of guy. He’s got a new record coming out that’s really good. I just heard it and it’s on a small label. I hope it does really well. It’s really good.

AM: Do you know when that’s supposed to come out?

ND: I don’t, maybe in a couple of weeks or in October, but it’s called “Terrain to Roam.” And Bus Driver’s record is coming out in January or February.

AM: I’ll check it out. I really dug what they did on your album.

ND: I think we’re still… Jamie left the band, left Islands, but that was kind of a Corn Gangg song. Th’ Corn Gangg was a project that Jamie and I had. It was what we were working on in L.A. It was rap. Subtitle and Bus Driver basically rapping with beats that Jamie and I made. Even though he left the band, I still think we’re going to work on that, which is exciting because those guys are talented rappers and I still get to work with Jamie.

AM: Do you two still have a solid relationship despite him leaving the band?

ND: Well, for a couple of weeks it was really tough. He broke the news on tour. I stopped talking to him. There was just no communication. I was really upset and shocked. But now we’re at a point where we’re cool. I don’t see him. He is kind of on his own path. He doesn’t live in Montreal anymore, so I don’t see him. But we talk over e-mail. Before he left and before I left for our European tour we hung out a little bit. So we’re cool. We’re trying to mend that friendship, because it was a good solid friendship underneath all that. And it’s important to maintain.

AM: I’ve understood that his reasoning for leaving the band wasn’t so much a personal issue (Well, I mean, it was personal issue for himself.) with you.

ND: No. No. It had nothing to do with the way the band was being run or the way our relationship was deteriorating. It was nothing like that at all. Jamie just had a complete life change. He woke up one day, I guess, and just realized that it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to lead a different kind of life. You know, he had to act on that and follow through with his…his…own life. So he did.

AM: This kind of jogged my memory in terms of what I wanted to ask you before. You were talking about how on the next record a lot of the subject matter is just basically living, life.

ND: Yeah.

AM: It seems, I guess, on first take, an obvious thing to cover. At the same time it seems so un-often that people grasp their existence.

ND: Yeah. Yeah.

AM: Just getting caught in day-to-day things and not realizing that you’re alive.

ND: For sure. You know, there are a myriad of ways to express that. It is such a seemingly simple concept, but at the same time it is actually quite complex. There are a lot of complex ideas that people have grappled with for thousands of years. It’s the furthest thing from being trivial. It’s truly trying to get in touch with being a live, which is very temporary.

AM: Well I look forward to the next album any sights on when that we’ll be coming out?

ND: I think we’ll start recording in December and finish up in January. Hopefully, we’ll have it out by the spring or next fall. That’s the plan, anyway.

AM: As I said, I look forward to it and to seeing you later this fall in New Orleans.

ND: Cool. Thanks man.

AM: Yeah. Thank you, too.

ND: Ok. Take care.