Nic Hessler

In 2005, at the age of 14, Nic Hessler created the alias Catwalk to write, record and perform his music. Armed with Wipers and Roy Orbison records, an 8-track recorder and a garage, Nic set about to make Catwalk the next great guitar-oriented Californian band like many teenagers before him. Two tiny run 7″ singles on the now defunct Yay! imprint soon appeared, making the rounds in small indie record stores and mail order distributors. This led to Nic, as Catwalk, to be signed to the also young and new label Captured Tracks at the ripe old age of 18. Two Captured Tracks 7″ releases in 2010 and 2011 followed, leading up to a full-fledged Catwalk LP and tour for 2011. Press reaction was swift and, as interest grew, Nic garnered support in his hometown of Orange County, CA to get together a line up to tour the LP. However, none of that would ever happen. Around this time, Nic was struck with an ailment that kept him sidelined for quite sometime, Guillain–Barré Syndrome. A rare autoimmune disorder at times mistaken for Multiple Sclerosis, Guillian-Barre proved to be no walk in the park for Nic, preventing him from playing guitar and leaving him partially paralyzed for the bulk of this lost period. While this was detrimental for Nic and Catwalk, strangely, it may have helped the musician Nic Hessler’s career. Now ditching the moniker of a hypothetical band, Nic re-emerges in 2015, healthy and reinvigorated, with a more fully-formed and ambitious sound: the sound of Soft Connections, his debut LP years in the making though he’s just 23. While it’s leaps and bounds away from Catwalk in terms of fidelity and depth, the melodic and harmonic quality of Catwalk remains deeply rooted in time-honored songwriting structures. Soft Connections bridges the songwriting influences of the vintage American power-pop of Emmit Rhodes and Alex Chilton with UK giants like The Kinks and XTC. Tracks like “Hearts, Repeating” and “I Feel Again”—two classic singles in the radio sense of the word—show the maturity in craftsmanship Nic’s been honing these past four years.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of artist