At age 17, most people are concerned about applying to their dream college or getting a head start in the workforce. Personally, my biggest concern was figuring out who I was taking to prom. The COVID-19 pandemic helped solve that problem for me.
Though, It doesn’t take a world-altering virus to get an answer to your biggest obstacle in life, and some 17 year olds have concerns far more impactful than who they’re bringing to prom. For 17-year-old Ezra Terry, his biggest concern is self-expression — both for himself and the benefit of others.
Terry is in a unique situation.
He’s a guitarist for the Houston-based thrash metal band Nemesis, who are currently in the middle of finishing their second album alongside Randy Burns, a legendary producer who has worked with the likes of metal giant Megadeth.
But, why even make music in the first place?
“It helps get our emotions and feelings about it [problems in American society] out and it helps expose it to other people, I think those are the two most important things,” Terry says.
It was apparent that Terry and the rest of the members of Nemesis have a special bond as I watched them horse around like teenagers through their character box on Zoom before the start of our interview. You can also see this wholehearted fun on their TikTok page.
However, don’t be fooled by it. They carry themselves beyond their age.
“You see all these people nowadays just picking a hardcore left or hardcore right. It’s like damn, we need to all calm the fuck down and just be like ‘let’s make some compromises and meet in the middle,’” Nick Broussard says, the 19-year-old vocalist and guitarist for the band about what drives some of their music.
Their debut album, “False Reality,” was built around this principle. Broussard implored the audience to listen to Nemesis’ music however one pleases, however, he was adamant in the importance of having deeper meanings in their tracks.
Whether it be the sixth song of that album, “State of Pain,” delving into drug addiction or the title track talking about greed and lies in a “rippled society,” there’s always something there to interpret. It’s not just mindless music, which is something the band prides itself on.
Nemesis has reached an impressive amount of people already, accumulating around 2,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and nearly 5,000 followers across their social media platforms. The latter has been “instrumental” in their growth, Broussard says.
Of course, social media is not the only way to spread the word about your band. Just ask Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters.
Nemesis has played shows all over Texas, even appearing at the legendary Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood which has seen bands such as Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses and Sir Elton John himself grace the venue’s stage.
Whether it be the blaring kick drum and piercing cymbals of 18-year-old Alex Fullerton, the crazed-bassline of 21-year-old Reagan Burkhardt, the tight and explosive guitar solos from Terry, or the Dave Mustaine-esque vocals of Broussard — every person plays their part in creating a symphony of beautiful speed on stage.
The latter was the most instrumental founding member of Nemesis, as he brought the aforementioned four together — a lineup they consider to be the “original” lineup of the band. Broussard was playing shows and writing some songs with friends as a first attempt to start a band, but dropped it after an established band, Labyrinth, asked him to play bass in 2021.
That fell apart after their vocalist started associating the band with people Broussard thinks he “shouldn’t have been,” causing him to leave and try to start up Nemesis again. Broussard had met Fullerton already through the local metal scene, and Burkhardt was about to join the first installation of Nemesis before Broussard left for Labyrinth.
Once the three got back together, they began their search for another guitarist, and they quickly found Terry.
“I found Ezra [Terry] shortly after on Instagram, like the first person we looked for. He came over, got a jam going, and we were like ‘hell yeah this is going to work,’” Broussard says.
It’s been smooth sailing from there, as the four have continued to play shows and write new songs as the band celebrated their one-year anniversary this past month. For them, though, it’s about fleshing out their work and bringing something new to the scene.
“With a lot of the copy and paste pizza thrash bands that are out there, we have something very new to the ‘new thrash band scene.’ It’s something different that hasn’t been done a million times as we’re speaking in recent years,” Broussard says.
The term “pizza thrash” is typically used to slander new thrash bands that rely heavily on culture from the 1980s in their music and public appearance.
Nemesis is not that. They’re in the present.
“The metal scene is alive. I feel it, every time I go to these shows I see more and more people. Younger people especially,” Burkhardt says. He was smiling ear-to-ear as everyone else nodded and contributed their own smirks.
While their unnamed second album is likely going to release sometime this summer, they shared, they have many other things in the works — including an East Coast tour in the future.
