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One summer night this year, I was drunkenly chatting with Novacane guitarist Aidan Case, 25, at a friend’s party. Case, a talented musician in multiple projects around town, told me he had officially joined a new band.
As any polite drunk person and music enthusiast would, I asked a few questions, got a few answers, and was thoroughly intrigued by what Case had to say. Sober me woke up the next day, got ready to walk my dog, and listened to the last album on Novacane’s Spotify discography.
Thus began my plunge into the band’s psyche. I wanted to know why 2018′s “Pretty Colors” sounded so different from their subsequent single, 2019′s “Comfort Food,” and their 2021 self-titled album.
Shortly afterward, I caught wind of a show at the Doug Fir: Novacane and Growing Pains, a band I’d recently seen live, would be co-headlining one of my favorite venues. Thus, the perfect opportunity to get two birds stoned at once presented itself.
While I was mostly there to see Growing Pains, Novacane’s performance compelled me into fandom. The crowd lost their shit as the band played with energy transmitted through powerful riffs, erratic builds, and voracious breaks. Vocalist and guitarist Dylan Latimer, 26, pushed the band to connect with the audience, all while crooning.
During my interview with the musicians who make up Novacane (joined by bassist Jon Dunne’s 7-year-old son) at my favorite bar, The Vern, I discovered it’s been a little over a year since the formerly Eugene-based pop-punk band touched down in Portland.
Case and Dunne, 28, were already in Portland before Latimer and drummer Zachary Clifton, 25, made their move from Eugene; Latimer, Clifton and Case all knew each other previously from the University of Oregon DIY music scene.
As for Dunne and Latimer, they had crossed paths at a Battle of the Bands competition in Junction City, when Latimer was 16, and reconnected a little over a year ago. “Thinking back, you guys [Dunne’s band] were the only objectively good band at the battle of the bands. We all just sucked, and then Jon’s band was just, like, really good,” Latimer scoffs with a laugh.
Listening to Novacane’s discography, it’s easy to see that the band has embodied a variety of different sounds since its inception. “We all have drastically different music tastes, and that is what makes Novacane. And that [pop] is what I bring to the table,” Latimer says. Adds Clifton, the group’s resident metalhead, “I force double bass into a lot of songs.”
“[Some of our recent] singles have been very pop punk (‘Hold My Head’ and ‘Love Buzz’),” Latimer says. “[But] Zach and I have this big plan to release an album within the next year or so, and we want to solidify the idea that we can fuck shit up, basically. I feel like we’ve been cute and catchy. We want our next album to be…tastefully heavy. I know us four musicians can write some just, like, disgusting shit.”
Case was brought into the band to fulfill some of this demand for a grungier, heavier, fuzz vibe. “The heavier side is shown in our current performances because there will be a lot of poppy stuff with a really heavy jam,” Dunne says. “But like, the newer stuff [we’re working on] capitalizes on the heavier stuff, which is tight.”
Novacane is currently celebrating the release of their single “Reminded,” which premiered Nov. 16. “It kind of feels like the epilogue chapter of our old sound,” Clifton says. “Like, ‘OK, well, here you go, this is what we sounded like, and now we’re moving on to kind of more experimental stuff.’”