The boys of Pretty Darn open up on their friendship, their songwriting, and how they keep each other grounded .
If you ever want to know the power of a single song, ask any married couple what was playing on the radio when they met. Odds are good they’ll be able to tell you. Just as a single sound can trigger an avalanche, the right song can open a door you didn’t know existed in your heart, inviting someone to walk in and make themselves at home.
Nick Poulin and Kyle Wareham, the musical duo whose meteoric rise as Pretty Darn has drawn the entire local music scene forward with its gravity, can tell you exactly what song brought them together.
“The night we met each other, I was playing a gig at Aunt Chilada’s, and he just started singing harmony with me,” Wareham said. “I was playing a song called ‘Washed by the Water’ by a band called NEEDTOBREATHE, which is not a very well-known song. He just started singing the harmony to it from the audience, perfectly, the whole time. I decided in my head at that moment to go find out who this kid was.”
Wareham invited his unsolicited rhythm section on stage, inadvertently creating the first Pretty Darn performance in history.
“I was kind of looking at it like, ‘this is my gig,’” Poulin said, prompting them both to laugh. Which happens a lot when they get around each other. “In hindsight, I would probably frown on anyone getting up on stage with the musician.”
This meet cute worthy of a Hollywood rom-com gets even more serendipitous when you find out that the Aunt Chilada’s gig Wareham was playing had previously been Poulin’s. He’d given it up just as he’d decided to wind down his local playing gigs and see what else there might be out there for a young musician.
“Playing music around here isn’t necessarily real life as far as what the rest of the country would consider playing music or being in a band. It’s mainly three-hour cover gigs and not really having a reason to have music of your own,” Poulin said. “I was teetering on moving away from Hilton Head, and funny enough, it was as he was moving into town.”
Wareham had come to the island from Philadelphia, where he had been highly involved in the music scene. Fate had brought him to Hilton Head, but only (at the time) temporarily. Helping his dad set up a business, he’d decided to see what the island had to offer. “I missed playing music, and I wanted to explore that,” he said.
After meeting Poulin, Wareham realized he had the perfect way to not only explore the island but plumb the depths of his own creativity. “I think I kind of forced myself into his gigs, playing the cajon or the djembe just to accompany him. He was kind enough to let me do that, and so we wound up hanging out a bunch outside of the music and just found out we really liked each other.”
That harmony on stage had grown into a harmony between two dear friends, made all the closer when Wareham’s wife Nikki and Poulin’s fiancée Iva turned out to enjoy each other’s company equally. In fact, both women in Pretty Darn’s respective lives turned into valuable songwriting partners as the band gelled.
“My wife actually wrote all my best verses. She’s an incredible songwriter—better than me. But it’s always been kind of a family deal,” Wareham said. “It was all just very easy. Almost like … not destiny or fate, but this was what was supposed to happen for all of us right now.”
Poulin, on the verge or leaving the island, and Wareham, intending to just stay for a short while before moving on, both decided there was something worth staying here for. Following a trip up to Philadelphia, where they drew their bands name from copy on the side of an iced tea bottle, the boys were officially a band. If you’ve been to one of their shows, you know they made the right decision.
Quickly becoming one of the most popular live acts in the Lowcountry, with adoring fans now singing along to songs they wrote, Pretty Darn has come a long way from their individual trajectories as gigging musicians. Two studio albums, a live album, a series of special “firepit sessions” releases, and a handful of singles later, they have established themselves as not just a great live act, but superbly talented songwriters.
That chemistry that drew them together on stage serves them equally well when crafting their tunes. Currently at work on another album, they find themselves falling into their roles easily.
“Music especially is such an emotional thing in itself. When you combine trying to write it with somebody else, especially when you’re friends, just trying to navigate different opinions and ideas of what things should be gets delicate,” Wareham said. “It gets easier as you get to know each other, to call each other an (expletive) and get over it, which I think is healthy.”
That comfort level has fine-tuned the balance of a songwriting pair that exudes duality. On stage as in the studio, Poulin is the happy-go-lucky party starter, while Wareham is more the perfectionist, attacking his art with a laser-like focus.
“I sometimes have this idea that you can either care a lot and try really hard at things, or you can have fun,” Wareham said. “I sometimes forget those things can definitely cross over.”
“That’s the balance, because maybe I have a little too much fun, or don’t really focus on a six-month plan or a year plan and he reins me in,” Poulin said. “Of course, today, he was the one who initiated the goofy outfits.”
That would be the superhero outfits sported by the boys in the photos seen here. Shot in Wareham’s in-home music studio/playroom for his two children, it’s hard to picture a better representation of these two amazing musicians. It’s a balance of levity and sincerity, a harmony of two different voices, and a fortunate mingling of two musicians who were fated to become something bigger than themselves.
