BIO

Since founding Direct Hit, singer and guitarist Nick Woods has treated his band more like a comic book than the rambunctious punk-rock it is. "I'm a big fan of comic books," he says. "And I've always thought it was interesting, the way their stories are released in little parts, over a long period of time. From the start, I thought it'd be cool to try releasing music in the same way."

Even before Direct Hit! was a fully-formed band, Woods assigned each of his band's brief, four-song releases a number like the issues of a comic book. Five "issues" later, Woods is taking Direct Hit! in a direction that would seem logical to most comic book creators. "It's pretty standard for publishers to release all of the single issues in a book's story arc, and then put together a trade paperback of the whole thing," he explains. "After that, there's usually an anthology, or a hardcover… Stuff like that. I've always wondered why it is that music isn't the same."

It's safe, then, to consider the band's debut full length Domesplitter the musical equivalent of a trade paperback. Released by Kind of Like Records in the summer of 2011, the record is a collection of ten songs from Direct Hit!'s first five EPs. It's not merely its concept, though, that makes this record comic book-like; these songs, re-imagined and re-recorded with a lineup consisting of drummer Danny Walkowiak and bassist Robbie Schroeder, sound like the sort that Marvel or Image might release—they're enormous and muscular and stuffed with images of monsters and zombies and shoot-outs.

"Get pumped!" is part of Direct Hit!'s mantra and has been screamed at the beginning of each record since #3. "It's such a stupid phrase," Woods admits with a laugh, "I just wanted to put together the most obnoxious and dumb-sounding thing to shout at the beginning of the record that would wake people up." What started as silly and sarcastic, however, has come to accurately capture the band's unrestrained style and attitude. Whether it's the opener "Snickers or Reese's (Pick Up the Pieces)", where the listener is verbally berated for several seconds as the song's intro plows towards its first verse, or the barricade of chords on "Failed Invasion" created by the combination of synth, organ, guitar, and several screaming people, Domesplitter is not just an energetic record, but an energizing one.

Though Woods is proud of the influence that comics have had on his music, he's even prouder of what his project has become. "It's obvious that we've grown a lot as a band since our first release," he says, "and we can do a lot more with these songs than we did when we first started out." For that reason, Domesplitter is more than a mere anthology; it's an expression of growth, energy and at least a little nerdiness.