"How many times have I gotten off work and gone out drinking at the bar and seen the sunrise?” 28-year-old Nick Batton asks rhetorically. “I’ve seen the sunrise so many times in this city.”
There’s a starkness to Las Vegas that only those who’ve lived here can truly understand, and it’s an experience 28-year-old singer Nick Batton captures well on his debut EP, Infatuation. Batton grew up in Iowa but has lived in Las Vegas for nearly 16 years, and it’s the sobering essence of this desert town that resonates through each synth-laden track.
Produced by Logan Lanning (GoldBoot), Batton harnesses the power of ’80s-soaked electronics to tell the story of a man searching for love in all the wrong places. “It’s just about all of my experiences in my relationships over the last three years,” Batton says, specifically the way initial feelings of love are often conflated with obsession. “This is what infatuation feels like. That feeling of, ‘Oh, my God, who is this person? Why am I feeling like this? Why are these feelings so strong?’ And realizing when it doesn’t work out, one night turns into many nights of trying to feel this again with somebody else.”
The pianist and vocalist received singing lessons at a young age and was a regular in both his high school’s theater troupe and choir. Even before his personal experiences jump-started his writing process, Batton wanted to be a pop singer.
“I always knew that I wanted to write my own music, but I didn’t really have anything to write about at that time,” he says. “The more I started playing and learning chords, I just started doing covers and was like, ‘I can do this now.’”
On one hand sweet and poppy, Infatuation is also dark and raw, a duality shared by Las Vegas itself. “I wanted those harsh beats and that moment of slowness, where it feels like you’re on the Strip coming down and you see the lights and that ethereal moment of serenity,” Batton says. “There’s this weird thing in Vegas; everything is temporary for people. People get into these relationships because it’s what they’re feeling in the moment, but nobody follows through.”
And while certain song titles may feel a bit on the nose, Batton helps them transcend, comparing late-night dalliances to the addictive qualities of street drugs like ketamine and ecstasy. “Maybe it’s all a lie/Maybe it’s just the high/Lovin’ you feels like cocaine,” on “Cocaine.”
Batton likely won’t be able to perform these songs anytime soon, but he’s been working on visuals and additional music for when he can finally take the stage for the first time. “I was in nightlife for a long time—well, what happens when it all comes down?” Batton says. In his case, Infatuation is what happens. “I made this in a bedroom,” he says, “and I’m just putting it out there.”
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