30 Apr Q&A with 311’s Nick Hexum

Celebrating their 25th anniversary as a band, alternative/rock/reggae/fusion band 311 is set to take the SunFest stage this Friday, May 1.

Their 13th studio album, “STER3OL1TH1C,” released in March of last year, peaking at No. 6 on the US charts and at No. 1 on the US Alternative chart.

I chatted with the Omaha, Nebraska based band’s vocalist and guitarist Nick Hexum and got some word on the band’s SunFest, beer and album plans.

Check it out:

What should SunFest fans expect at your performance on Friday?

A big sweaty mess. We’re all about bringing live energy, making it a party and our shows are just an overview of our career. We switch up the setlist a lot. This will be a bigger festival crowd so you’ll probably hear more familiar songs. We just like to pick the cherries and we always do our best and make sure that we have fun and then the crowd usually does too.

Twenty-five years later, what’s changed and what’s exactly the same?

What has changed is the lifestyle. Twenty-five years ago, we had the power to party like mad men and still work so hard and just do it all again every single day. Now, 25 years into it we have to pace ourselves but we just keep the music first and the fans really stay the same. Our love and our gratitude to realize how fortunate we are to be able to do it for a living. We find ways to stay inspired and I still get as excited today about writing and performing a new song as I did back then.

This tour has 20-something shows. Is that shorter than usual?

We get up to 30 or 40 sometimes but this year, it’s more spread out. We had the cruise in late February, we just racked up some dates to Mexico and this weekend, we’re obviously coming to West Palm. We’ve learned to be able to do fly dates where we just fly with our gear and travel light so the year is more spread out instead of just going on a summer tour. July is always our busy month. We’re always gone. That’s the same this year.

Is it easier to tour spread out this way?

I don’t like to be away from my kids too long because if you leave for too much, you come back and they seem to have grown so much. So I guess it is better to spread it out over the year.

Looking at “STER3OL1TH1C,” a little past a year from its release is there anything you’d change?

After you put out an album, six months later you start to poke holes in it. Every time you go ‘well this time here’s what I’m going to do different.’ I’m excited to do more reggae on the new album. There’s a lot of creative riff rock and innovative stuff on “STER3OL1TH1C,” but I’d like to have some more reggae tunes on the next one. But overall, we just wanna continue that creativity we have going. It was a pretty painless album and I’m looking forward to getting going on the new one.

So tell us about this new album…

I’ve already put together maybe 20 or 30 demos of songs ready. We picked one that the band’s most excited about and already put that together as a band. So we’ve already kind of gotten started and we’re going to work in between these fly dates. The pre-production is the heavy lifting of the recording process where you get in there, hash things out, try a bunch of different things. So we’re already getting going on that. Then we’ll do the final recordings after summer tour.

I read that you’re working on an Amber Ale craft beer. How did that come about?

We’ve been wanting to do it for a long time maybe five or six years but just saying ‘we need our own beer.’ The guys in the band love beer, and our fans obviously do too. So why not have our own? With these guys Rock Brothers, who are affiliated with Cigar City in Tampa Florida, they really had all the right answers for us and really kept us very involved in formulating the beer and coming up with our Amber Ale.

I would say SA and P-Nut who are in the band were really the most instrumental in it because they are big fans of craft beer and buy those little weird beers at Whole Foods. They took the reins on the formulation of it and everyone seems to love it. We’ll also have some products that we aren’t ready to announce yet, but we just love having the whole lifestyle whether it’s on tour having a cruise, having a 311 day, it’s all about the movement that 311 has become.

What does 311 beer taste like?

Happiness.

What do Florida shows mean to you guys?

I used to be a part-time Florida Keys resident so I made a lot of friends down there. I just really love being there, being on the water and near the water, the endless summer vibe of it. We’ve got friends down there. Venus Williams, whenever she’s in town, comes to our shows when we play down there, it’s like random people like us who love good music and want to have a good time.

Any Florida rituals?

Just to get out and be on the water. Florida’s just — everywhere you walk you can find some beautiful setting. Wherever I travel I try and take in the local vibe so it’s just a matter of going down-shore and taking it all in.

Any final thoughts?

I just want to say thank you to our South Florida fans and I look forward to seeing them soon.

311 performs on Friday, May 1 at 9:15 p.m. at the FPL Stage.