Marc Yeadon
Audio By Carbonatix
On July 8, singer Salim Nourallah posted on Facebook that he had ruptured his eardrum: “A ruptured eardrum has sent my life in the opposite direction I thought it was going …” he wrote. “My show next week with Paul Slavens, on July 15, is postponed. My tour with Rhett Miller, starting on July 21, is off.”
He asked for ear, nose and throat specialist recommendations and mourned yet another change of plans for his latest album, A Nuclear Winter.
A Texas-based indie artist, Nourallah is no stranger to uphill battles in his career.
“I think it’s fitting because there’s really nothing about my 30 years being an independent musician that’s been easy,” Nourallah says. “It’s never been smooth sailing. At the root of it, my name is difficult. Being a Texas artist with this name … I don’t think many people would want this name in Texas.”
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A new sound for Nourallah, A Nuclear Winter is a rock album in the vein of Tom Petty. It’s a not-so-Texas album released by a lifetime Texan, and it dropped this summer with a frosty tundra album cover that starkly contrasts with the season’s triple-digit temperatures.
“Texas really loves things that sound like they’re of Texas,” Nourallah says. “And I’ve never really fit in in that respect. I came from El Paso. I was a Beatles freak that moved over to punk rock and a lot of British punk rock like The Clash and The Damned.”
The album release was fraught, with Nourallah initially tracking the songs five years ago in Nashville. Later, his band recorded with Marty Willson-Piper of the Australian band The Church. Nourallah met Willson-Piper through Bucks Burnett of 14 Records.
“I was buying a Church 12-inch single,” he says. “It led to a conversation, which eventually led to my band giving Bucks our demo tape.”
That interaction prompted an introduction to Willson-Piper. Later, when Willson-Piper was looking for a Dallas venue to play in, Nourallah helped him out.
“We became friends, and that was the beginning of thinking it would be fun to work together,” Nourallah says.
A Nuclear Winter has a standout guitar section. Joe Reyes, a longtime collaborator with Nourallah, plays on one channel and Willson-Piper the other.
“I was intrigued by the thought of this guitar section with Joe Reyes,” Nourallah says. “Joe is in the left channel, and Marty is in the right for the most part. I really wanted Marty and Joe’s guitar to be at the fore and drive most of the songs.”
The album was set to come out in 2020, but the pandemic curtailed those plans.
“I’m just a big believer in you put out a record and you try to play shows,” Nourallah says.
This ethos was tested by the times, and Nourallah pushed back the album release and potential tour until COVID-19 lost steam and Willson-Piper could safely travel from Portugal to tour with him in the United States. Finally, Nourallah was able to release the album this summer.
“Sometimes you put out a record and everything will go smoothly and everything will go the way you want it,” Nourallah says. “Then there will be other times … it’s almost like certain records can be cursed. A Nuclear Winter has a bit of a curse about it.”
Nourallah planned his East Coast tour with Rhett Miller and set his release show at Sons of Hermann Hall in Deep Ellum.
“Just when you think you have all your ducks in a row, something can flip on a dime,” Nourallah says.
The singer caught a bug after the Sons of Hermann Hall show, but didn’t think it was anything serious. Then, one Friday after the show, as he tended to the plants on his balcony, a bug caught him.
“If you’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been doing it, you get used to this notion of setting your ducks up, but life doesn’t always work that way.” – Salim Nourallah
“I suddenly felt a stabbing sensation super close to my left ear,” he says. “It was my first wasp sting.”
Within the next two hours, he started experiencing vertigo.
“My whole house felt like it was spinning,” he says. “I thought I was having some sort of brain aneurysm. It was kind of the most terrified I had ever been.”
All of these instances – the sinus infection, the sting, the many live shows – turned out to be a perfect storm of trauma, and he found that his eardrum had ruptured.
“I’ve had different opinions of whether Mr. Wasp played a part or not,” he says.
Maybe the wasp sting played some role, maybe it didn’t. But it does seem to be emblematic of the bad luck Nourallah has experienced. After waiting years to put this work out into the world, this setback hit hard.
“This has definitely been one of the most disappointing, biggest blows,” he says. “But the good news is, it could have been a lot worse … I’ve spent my whole life hustling basically. It’s just constantly hustling. Even though I knew I was in no shape to go, I still beat myself up over it.”
At the same time, Nourallah knows that this hardship comes with being an independent musician.
“There’s something about the way musicians have to operate where you set up all these things, gigs, tours, album releases, video releases on a calendar,” he says. “And they are hanging out off in the distance for a while. You get closer and you start knocking these things down. I’ve been living my adult life like this with each album and record that comes out.”
With Nourallah’s ear still healing, maybe audiences will hear A Nuclear Winter live, and maybe they won’t. For now, though, Nourallah is just focusing on what he can control.
“If you’ve been doing it as long as I’ve been doing it, you get used to this notion of setting your ducks up, but life doesn’t always work that way,” he says. “There’s just constantly things that are obstacles that are presented or things that get put in our way. You have to be durable.”