When you’ve spent three decades in a band that’s seen the rise and fall of every genre from nu-metal to nü-rave, your answer to “what’s next?” better be more compelling than “we’re doing the hits.” Luckily, Nick Hexum isn’t interested in coasting.
“I mean, there’s some new 311 music brewing,” he says, as casually as someone mentioning they’re out of oat milk. “We didn’t plan it, but the first couple songs Chad and I brought in were all in drop D. So… I guess we’re getting heavier?”
But don’t mistake heaviness for hostility. One of 311’s long-standing traits—often misread as SoCal blissed-out obliviousness—has been their refusal to indulge in the kind of self-important rage that defined the late ’90s. “We were more interested in Jane’s Addiction, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy,” Hexum says. “The grunge stuff just wasn’t funky enough. There was this anger that became the default mode, and I just thought—do you really want to feed yourself that all the time?”
This, coming from a guy whose band once put out a song called “Misdirected Hostility” just to make fun of the genre’s knuckle-dragging mosh-pit rage. When Amber dropped as a single—right in the middle of alt-rock’s Great Testosterone Epoch—it wasn’t just a vibe shift; it was a middle finger to everyone screaming into their microphones about nothing. And yet, Amber became their biggest hit.
“It’s about being sincere,” Hexum says. “You can say I’m goofy or embarrassingly sincere, but putting something positive out into the world? That’s more of a challenge than just sitting back and criticizing.”
That philosophy has carried them through more musical shapeshifts than anyone could count, including now, as they quietly approach the 30th anniversary of their debut Music. “A debut album is like a greatest hits of your formative years,” Hexum says. “All your best ideas at once.” That album didn’t break them wide open—but their next two did. And now, they’re revisiting the early catalog with reissues and maybe even a remix or two.
“You can hear the excitement on that album,” Hexum says of Music. “We were finally in a real L.A. studio, just exploding with energy. It’s like a time capsule of confidence.”
Confidence is a running theme with Hexum—he had it when they started, and he still has it now. “I said in high school, I knew we were going to make it,” he says. “If you’re not sure you have what it takes, give up. Because you’re gonna hear no, no, no again and again. But why not us?”
Why not, indeed. The band never quite fit the mold, and that worked in their favor. They weren’t grunge. They weren’t ska. They weren’t rap-rock. They were all of it—and also none of it. “We just stuck to our thing,” Hexum says. “Eventually the culture came around to us.”
Their current musical path? Still unfolding. Hexum calls their more ambitious compositions “epics”—songs that never return to the same place twice, influenced by his deep dive into Beatles tracks like Happiness Is a Warm Gun. “Sometimes Jacks Rule the Realm,” from 2003’s Evolver, was the start of that journey. “We’ve had a bit of a renaissance with that on the last couple albums,” he says, pointing to tracks like “Wildfire” and “Too Late.”
Thematically, he’s still searching for transcendence. Seems Uncertain (from Evolver, which turns 20 this year) includes the line: “In times of trouble, everyone joins a team.” He follows that with a shot across humanity’s bow: “No one waves a flag for all human beings.” That lyric inspired him to go out and find the actual flag of Earth. “It’s just the sun, the Earth, and the moon,” he says. “All of ours. Not just ours, excluding them.”
Even now, Hexum is still having firsts. “It feels like a breath of fresh air,” he says of writing new material post-pandemic. “I don’t want any self-imposed boundaries. You gotta break through that and go where your heart takes you.”
So, what’s the mission statement of 311 these days?
“I guess we accidentally nailed it years ago,” Hexum laughs. “‘I’ll Be Here Awhile.’”
So far, they have been. And if you believe him, they still will be.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
