We were lucky to catch up with Nicholas Pascarella recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nicholas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I don’t think there was a single event or moment that I knew I needed to pursue an artistic path; I think creating was just in my blood. My parents tell me I was playing simple melodies on the piano, listening to what I heard on the television and playing it back, before I could walk. That momentum grew naturally as I got older, picking up other instruments and playing in bands, and I think there was a natural progression from that to writing, which is what I studied at college. My focus was creative writing which lent itself well to writing lyrics, but I found I enjoyed writing poetry and prose much more than I did writing lyrics. I’ve been writing music for as long as I can remember, but getting deep into poetry really helped me whittle down little lyrical knives for the compositions I put together. Alongside all of this was a little point and shoot digital camera; I didn’t do much with it for a decade other than landscapes, but when I got back into the aviation world, all of these elements sort of came together in a crazy way. Each one of these creative avenues complements and influences the other in a way; it’s a real mess in my head sometimes, but having release valves like that in so many different directions… it’s therapy. And knowing the things I create resonate with people, it makes it all the more worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I always feel like a tornado of thoughts when I’m asked to talk about myself; there’s so much going on at any one time that it’s overwhelming sometimes. I’m a musician, I currently play guitar for five performing groups including my own band Dive Brake; we’re progressive rock, and we actually just released our debut EP in February. I’m a writer, I’m a Contributing Editor to a few aviation publications, and I’ve been published a number of times in various forms over the years. I’m a photographer, same deal; I’ve been humbled to have some of my photos run in different publications both online and in print. Including Combat Aircraft recently, that was cool.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

This is my purpose. Getting raw and open-wound sensitive to everything I feel and pushing that through these artistic channels is not only something that helps me process things, it helps other people, the same way other artists’ art helped me. It’s my job to give that back; I have it to share, I have to share it. I can point to a couple albums that quite literally might have saved my life at one point or another…if I can be that type of safe haven to someone going through some rough shit, every bit of struggle to get this art produced and out there is worth it. Every bit of it. We’re all here in this together.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I often thought that I couldn’t release something until it was perfect. What I didn’t understand is that perfect, whatever that means, is a set of moving goalposts. If we’re doing this right, we’re always evolving, always changing, always picking up new influences and inspirations and revising our perspective on old inspirations, and what we deem as perfect today might not seem that way tomorrow, and on and on. If you get 95% of the way there with something, cut it loose and move on. That last 5% will be changing every day as you evolve as an artist until you die, and if I’m like any other artist, I could tweak something endlessly until I’m actually dead, and then it will never get released. And, no one has any idea what you’re aiming for in your head, your 95% might be someone else’s dream shot or supportive song in a time of need; they wouldn’t care if you thought it could be just a little bit better, they don’t even know what better means to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nicksglasseye.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/nicksglasseye
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicksglasseye
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-pascarella/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/nicksglasseye
• Other: www.tachworkmedia.com www.wingsmag.co.uk www.fulldiscaviation.com

Image Credits
James Woodard, Nicholas Pascarella, Ambika Verma, Connor Cassidy