Nothing, nowhere. has never been about clean lines or easy arcs, ten years in, Joseph Mulherin is still pulling threads from the same knot of anxiety, burnout and raw honesty that built the project in the first place.
As Nothing, nowhere‘s Return of the Reaper tour hits Australia this week, kicking off tonight in Brisbane, the Vermont artist finds himself looking back without pretending it all makes sense.
Peyton Bernhardt of Blunt caught up with Mulherin ahead of the run to talk about a decade of releases, the self inflicted chaos of dropping four albums in a year, and the weight sitting behind what he’s calling his most important record yet.
Peyton: This tour is a celebration of a decade of the nothing, nowhere. project. Have you had any insights as you’ve reflected on that with your fans?
Mulherin: I feel old, but other than that, no. Just really a lot of gratitude, honestly. Like I say on stage, I didn’t know that this thing would last 10 days, much less 10 years. So for me to be touring in Australia and people showing up and me still doing my thing, it’s so surreal and I try not to take anything for granted. It’s been a wild ride and I’m trying to take it day by day because I still don’t know how it’s going. They haven’t said that they’re sick of me yet, so I’m hanging around.
Peyton: Looking back at your discography, is there a favourite child record for you?
Mulherin: Honestly, one record that I always go back to lately is Trauma Factory for me because that was very methodical in a sense that it took me two years to make and I had over a hundred songs that I had to whittle down to 12 or 13 tracks. And it was just a real pivotal moment in my career and it was on the radio and it was being played in grocery stores and it was a weird moment. It showed me that if you work really hard at something, you can make it happen. And it was a really unique experience. But outside of that, it is really hard to pick a favorite. It is like they’re all your children.
Peyton: You had 2024 where you released four full lengths, and I wanted to ask about that. People have years obviously to work on records, and then you had four records with varying concepts come out in such a short period of time. What was that like for you?
Mulherin: I don’t know why I did that to myself, but I started the top of 2024 where I put out a tweet or something where I was like, “I’m going to release four albums this year.” And I just tweeted it out because I knew that I would have to if I said that. And I was really starting to regret it towards the fourth record because I was like, “This is way harder than I thought it would be.” But it was an awesome experiment. And honestly I think I did it mostly because I was on a record label for so many years and you can only really release so much music on a record label. I had so much pent up inside of me that I didn’t get to say and that was left unsaid. And I figured why not? Let me just release as much music as I possibly can this year because I need to get it out of my system. It was screaming to get out. So it was a wild year and it was a challenge. It has made making a set list infinitely harder than it already was, so that’s cool.
Peyton: Did that impact your approach to releasing another full-length? You haven’t dropped a full-length since then, did you just need a break?
Mulherin: Yeah, exactly. Thinking back to Trauma Factory once again, that was the last time that I really took my time on a record because even Void Eternal after that, I wrote that record in essentially three weeks. So I’ve been really intentional in my songwriting lately and I haven’t released anything from the new project yet. I’m still writing a lot. And that’s just for me, it’s kind of like I view writing music as a creative experiment. And this experiment that I’m conducting with this project is being very intentional and trying to make sure that I’ve crossed my T’s and dotted my I’s and I’m very, very proud of where it’s at right now. And I know that the fans will stick around. They always have. And I will drop some stuff to keep the fan base fed in the meantime. I won’t disappear completely.
Peyton: You have released singles recently, so they’re not part of the new album, that’s just you wanting to make songs.
Mulherin: Yeah, having fun and like I said, keeping everybody fed for sure.
Peyton: What is inspiring you and what are you enjoying right now?
Mulherin: I want to have such a cool and poignant answer to this because I wanted to have a romantic answer to this and be like, I’ve been reading stoicism and I’ve been watching A24 films and French New R. But in reality, I’ve been watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, playing Fortnite, watching Love is Blind and just consuming absolute trash. So I go through phases where I’m inspired by different things. I’m inspired by media. I will go through phases where I will consume junk. I will say I’m a human being and lately I’ve been playing too much Fortnite and not reading or watching art films. So I will get back into that. And I wish I had a more poignant and artful answer, but I will say I’m mostly inspired by other music. When I sit down and I hear a new band or I hear an old band that I love, a record that maybe I overlooked, it hits me and I have that feeling where music, it hits you, it gives you goosebumps, it makes you emotional.
And I’m like, whatever that just did to me, I want to do that to someone else. And how did they make me feel like that? I will say that most of my inspiration comes from my love of music and being inspired by other musicians for sure.
Peyton: You romanticised that answer by the end. How does that make you think about your next project – do you want it to be emotive, or are there times where it’s less serious?
Mulherin: I will say the media that I’ve been consuming is not reflected in my music right now. It is not. This record will inevitably be about this winter for me because I have had a trying time this winter. It means no surprise. I read an old article about myself recently. I don’t remember why I was showing someone something, but they tagged me as a … They were like, “nothing nowhere. the famously anxiety-ridden artist.” And I was like, am I famously anxiety-ridden? I guess I am. I know I’m not that, but it’s something that I deal with. I do have a panic disorder and I do have my fair share of mental struggles. And this past winter, past six months has been really difficult for me. And the new record is sort of delving into the idea of things being non-linear in progress and getting better isn’t a linear thing and how crushing it can be to feel like you’re on the right track and to have a setback or to have some sort of relapse in the way that you view the world.
So it is a very serious record. It is a very bleak record, but it is my hope that through how serious and bleak this record is, that people can find solace in it and know that they’re not the only ones feeling that way, no matter how difficult things can get. So I’m really excited about it. It’s challenging in every single way, but I think that it’s going to be the most important record that I’ve made so far.
Peyton: You’ve provided solace for a lot of people. What gets you out of that feeling of darkness, making music obviously, but in that moment, what brings you out of it?
Mulherin: Yeah, that’s a really good question because sometimes it feels like you can’t get out of it, but I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who really love me. I have a great partner who is there for me. I have a family that understands how I am and what I deal with. And I have a community of people that support the things that I make that understand what I have in their kindred souls in a way. I had a panic attack recently on stage when I was in Prague and it was a difficult moment for me, but it was also a beautiful moment because I knew in that moment that I could tell the audience exactly what was happening because I knew that 90% of the audience in there would know exactly how I was feeling in that moment. So the community that we have all collectively built has helped immensely.
I would say for anyone else struggling, there’s so many things that you can do to feel better. You don’t have to take drastic measures immediately. You know what I mean? There’s yoga, there’s meditation, there’s psychiatry, there’s therapy, there’s so many things. And I think to have an all-encompassing sort of way of going about it is important. I do look at some people in the world and they’re neurotypical and they can just wake up, go through the day and have a jolly good time. People like myself and a lot of people who are in my community, we have to do a lot more just to feel okay. And that can get you burnt out. It can make you discouraged, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There always is. And it is cliche, but it’s that saying where it’s like, tough times don’t last, tough people do. And you just have to remind yourself that it will get better and it has before. And I know that. It’s been better before and it will be better again. So that’s just kind of what I live by.
Nothing, nowhere Australian tour dates
Nothing, Nowhere tour dates
- Thursday, April 16th – The Triffid, Brisbane 18+
- Saturday, April 18th – Factory Theatre, Sydney Lic AA
- Sunday, April 19th – 170 Russell, Melbourne 18+
- Wednesday, April 22nd – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide Lic AA
- Thursday, April 23rd – Magnet House, Perth 18+
Find out more and get your tickets here.
And through it all, there’s still that same thread running under everything Mulherin does, the honesty isn’t polished, and the answers don’t always land neatly, but that’s the point. Nothing, nowhere. was never built to be tidy.
With a new record taking shape in the background and an Australian crowd waiting in front of him again, he’s not chasing resolution, he’s documenting the mess in real time, setbacks and all. If that’s what makes people feel seen, then it’s doing exactly what it’s meant to do.
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