Nick Roth: A passion evolves into musical career

Many people dream of being able to follow their passion and make a living while doing what they love. For Nick Roth, he gets the pleasure of living the dreams he envisioned at a young age.

The son of Randy and Shirley Roth, Nick is a 1995 graduate of Ritzville High School. He continued his education at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor’s degree in music production and engineering.

He gained his passion for music in high school after encouragement from music teacher, Dennis Koch.

“He (Koch) recognized our talents,” Nick said of the school music director. “He supported us as much as possible.”

The support he received from Koch fueled his love for music and performing. Koch even arranged for a portable trailer to haul the amplifier and equipment needed in order for Nick to play bass guitar in the school marching band.

Nick’s musical background is extensive; he is a songwriter, singer and plays several instruments, including bass guitar and keyboards. He was introduced to Techno-style music while on a high school trip to Spain when he was 15 and it sparked his interest.

While attending Berklee, Nick filled in part time as a deejay (DJ) for a Boston club called Machine during industrial music night, and co-founded the industrial band, Disciples of Astaroth.

Nick currently lives in New York City (NYC) and works for Media Information Services, an advertising company. He works in the special projects department and says he serves as the middleman for communicating between television clients and potential advertisers. The advertising job is very flexible and enables Nick to balance his job with his music career.

Throughout his performing career Nick has adopted the stage name Dräcos von Strecker. He said numerous influences were involved in developing the name. He first earned the nickname Ivan Drago, a character from Rocky IV, while living in the dorms at Berklee. Drago evolved to Dräcos because Draco is a dragon constellation, and Nick was born in the year of the fire dragon in the Chinese zodiac calendar. Von Strecker was a play on the word Vollstrecker in an effort to gain the initials D.V.S. and thus Dräcos von Strecker was created.

Nick got his first weekly DJ residency in NYC at a venue called La Nouvelle Justine, where he worked by himself every Friday night from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. The promoter eventually moved to another venue, named it Funhouse and paired Nick with another local DJ, Rexx Arkana, and the duo became the resident DJs every week.

“I had been producing my own bootleg remixes at home to include as part of my DJ sets to keep them unique,” Nick said about his technical work. “And that’s where Rexx first heard my remix work. He (Arkana) was putting the Bruderschaft project together and asked me if I would do a remix for it.”

Arkana liked the remix and asked Nick to help him record his own remix for the Bruderschaft release, which debuted in 2003.

Bruderschaft is an electronic music artist’s collective led by Arkana, who conceived the idea after losing his father to the disease in 1999. Bruderschaft is a charity project focused on cancer research and treatment that has brought together a large number of artists from the underground electronic music scene for the production of the band’s first single, “Forever.”

In keeping with the founding concept behind the project, all net profits from the global sales of the album were augmented by the proceeds of local release parties in cities around the world, raising nearly $50,000 for charity. According to Arkana, all North American profits went to the American Cancer Society while the European profits went to a charity in Belgium.

After the Bruderschaft project, the duo did a remix for the German band KiEw as Rexx Arkana versus Dräcos in 2003, and following that the duo decided to start their own project called FGFC820 in 2004.

They are the sole members of FGFC820 and have continued working together since its inception. They have a wide fan base and have traveled all over the world performing in places like Mexico, Peru, Germany and Russia. Their music is considered industrial; meaning heavy, loud, machine-style music with a blend of alternative electronics.

“The best part about being onstage is having other people singing and dancing to your songs,” Nick said of performing.

He continued to explain that no matter what size of crowd they play for, the energized audience feeds their adrenaline onstage for the ultimate performance.

His work gives him the opportunity to travel to new places, meet a lot of people and to try new things.

Nick and Arkana have a cohesive working relationship and their opposite styles translate well in their work.

“I tend to be a lot more emotional and outward,” Arkana said about their personalities. “Whereas he (Nick) tends to be more clinical and introverted.

“That contrast translates well to our working together,” Arkana continued, “As we tend to be strong in areas where the other might have weakness.”

Nick and Arkana are working on a follow-up release for the Bruderschaft project due out later this year. The extended play (EP) album will feature half a dozen original songs and a remake of the original single “Forever.” Nick serves as chief producer and has the opportunity to work with different vocalists and bands from around the world, including Sweden and Norway.

“The music scene is smaller than others,” Nick said of industrial music. “So it’s easy to get to know everyone and eventually work with them.”

When Nick isn’t working or on tour, he tries to make it back to Ritzville to visit his family, especially around the major holidays. He enjoys time away from the busy lifestyle of the city for the comforts of home, family and much needed downtime. Nick says there is always some music project to work on whether it is for a collaborative project or one of his own and he has plans for more solo projects in addition to continuing his work with FGFC820.