Nick DiSalvo of Elder on 20 Years, Burnout, Creative Intention & the New Album Through Zero

Nick DiSalvo — vocalist, guitarist, and founding member of Elder — joins The Sonic Road Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation ahead of the band's seventh studio album Through Zero, out May 29th on Blues Funeral Recordings in North America and Stickman Records in Europe. Twenty years into Elder's existence, Nick reflects with mixed feelings — bewildered that they're still doing it, proud of everything they've accomplished, and honest about the moments where not hitting the mainstream still stings. But the definition of mainstream is shifting, and Nick makes a compelling case for why more people coming to live music than ever before might be a more meaningful measure of success. This highlight covers a lot of ground: 🎸 20 years of Elder — mixed feelings, quiet pride, and what "making it" actually means in 2026 🌊 Scaling back activity to avoid burnout — and what nearly hitting the wall taught him 🎚️ Being a maximalist and learning to pull back — not overstimulating the listener and tightening the screws ⏰ Working for a European record label, playing in two active bands, and still barely finding time to pick up a guitar 🎵 The song that's about feeling removed from the real reasons he started playing music in the first place 🔥 Why COVID proved that stopping isn't actually an option — it never goes away ❓ The most important question any musician can ask themselves: why are you writing this? Does it move you? Or are you making a product? 📦 Create first, package later — the most genuine way to make music in 2026 💪 Do anything with real intention and real passion and it'll shine through 👑 A lesson for every young band: always be the boss. Don't let anyone tell you what to do. 🏰 Medieval peasant society looking up at the castle — and how that image maps directly onto the billionaire technocracy of today 🌍 Fans, creators, and musicians building the world they want within a broken system ❤️ Why the underground scene runs on love of the creative process — and why that matters more than ever Through Zero is out May 29th on Blues Funeral Recordings. 🎵 PRE-ORDER THROUGH ZERO: Blues Funeral → bluesfuneral.com Bandcamp → beholdtheelder.bandcamp.com 🔔 SUBSCRIBE to The Sonic Road Podcast: thesonicroad.com | linktr.ee/thesonicroad 📲 FOLLOW THE SONIC ROAD PODCAST: @thesonicroad on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook & X thesonicroad.com 📲 FOLLOW ELDER: beholdtheelder.com | @elderofficial ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 20 Years of Elder — Mixed Feelings, Pride & What Making It Actually Means 00:30 What Mainstream Means in 2026 — Live Music Is Bigger Than Ever 01:00 Scaling Back to Avoid Burnout — Learning to Breathe 01:20 Being a Maximalist and Learning to Pull Back 01:45 Working a Label Job, Two Active Bands & Barely Finding Time to Play 02:10 The Song About Feeling Removed From Why You Started 02:35 COVID Proved Stopping Isn't an Option — It Never Goes Away 03:00 Why Are You Writing This? Does It Move You or Are You Making a Product? 03:30 Create First, Package Later — The Most Genuine Approach 03:55 Do Anything With Real Intention and It'll Shine Through 04:15 Always Be the Boss — A Lesson for Every Young Band 04:30 Medieval Peasants, Billionaires & the Technocracy of Today 04:50 Building the World We Want Within a Broken System ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #Elder #NickDiSalvo #ThroughZero #BluesFuneralRecordings #TheSonicRoadPodcast #PsychRock #HeavyRock #ProgRock #StickmanRecords #NewAlbum2026 #HeavyPsych #MusicPhilosophy #CreativeIntention #UndergroundRock #RockPodcast ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━