John Nuttall was a talented guitarist who also sang and played the drums, but his unpredictable behaviour left him constantly in search of musicians who could tolerate his periodic outbursts, says a former bandmate.
“He was always a little weird, but I accept everybody’s idiosyncrasies,” said drummer Stefano Pasta, who played with Nuttall in the Sooke band Head Rush. “I am disheartened about the news, more than anything else.”
Nuttall, 38, and his partner, Amanda Marie Korody, 30, were charged Tuesday with attempting to explode three bombs filled with rusty nails near thousands of people attending Canada Day celebrations Monday at the B.C. legislature.
Pasta, a native of Sooke, met Nuttall after the guitarist arrived on Vancouver Island from the Okanagan. Nuttall was a gifted musician but struggled within the confines of a group dynamic, Pasta said. He was tall and skinny and had long hair at the time.
“Playing rock ’n’ roll was looked down upon in Sooke, so we were getting into fights at least twice a week. But he was fearless. He was like a guard dog,” Pasta said.
Head Rush broke up in 1993 after more than a year together. Though they both went on to play in other local groups, Pasta didn’t cross paths with Nuttall again for 15 years. “He was looking rough,” Pasta said.
Three years ago, he caught up with Nuttall again. They reminisced over a drink, Pasta said. “He tracked me down out of the blue, and asked me to come out and jam with [Victoria group] the Lust Boys.”
Nuttall was playing guitar in the group at the time, but was kicked out after a month. Pasta eventually signed on to play drums in the band, though Nuttall was long gone by this point. “He would show up in different states of mind, be it on drugs or drinking. It was not easy.”
Nuttall played guitar in the punk band Rat Salad during the mid-’90s, after moving to Victoria from Sooke. That’s when Kristina Verruyt first met Nuttall, then in his early 20s.
“He was kind of like a big goofy kid, really,” she said. “I knew he had a dark side, but I also knew the episodes that he had — they all took place when he was under the influence of drugs and that was really a constant battle for him.”
The episodes, she said, included frequent bar fights and violent altercations, but they were always of a personal nature.
“Whether it was real or perceived, there was an issue with him and the person he was going to fight,” she said. “I mean, to think that he would be capable of harming a bunch of innocent people really doesn’t make sense to me.”
Verruyt said she last saw Nuttall about six years ago when he was on methadone and trying to kick a heroin habit.
When she first met him, Verruyt said, Nuttall favoured military fatigues and sported tattoos all over his body. He also wore combat boots that added a few more inches to his already imposing frame.
“He had a presence about him when he walked into a room that you couldn’t really ignore,” she said. “He was the biggest guy there. I think oftentimes people may have picked on him just to try and get him to go down, just because he was so big and intimidating looking.
“But it was just a look. I mean, it was just a wardrobe choice. It didn’t reflect the way that he was in person to those who knew him,” she said.
“At some points, he would shave his head, I guess to display his tattoos, which made him look like a skinhead. But he certainly wasn’t. I mean, we were friends and I’m First Nations, so I don’t believe there was ever anything racially motivated.”
Verruyt said Nuttall could be a “very caring guy.” On one occasion, she was to attend graduation at S.J. Willis school in Victoria with Nuttall’s roommate, but the roommate headed to the wrong rendezvous spot and would have missed the ceremony.
“So John put on the clothes that his roommate had laid out and came to the rescue to be my date for the grad ceremony,” she said. “It was a really sweet thing to do.”
Verruyt said she knows little about Nuttall’s early life, except that he remained close to his grandmother even in his early adult years.
“I met his grandmother on several occasions,” she said. “I mean it was hard on her. She did her best to keep him out of these situations. She would give him money or whatever it took.”
Verruyt believes Nuttall’s closest relationships were with his grandmother and the women in his life. “When he was in a relationship with a woman, they were inseparable. They would do everything together.”
Verruyt was unable to explain Nuttall’s struggles with drugs and violence, except to say that he seemed to be searching for something.
“In all the time I knew him, he was always involved in something, whether it was role-playing games or alternative religions. I really think he was looking for something.”
Phillip Cavanagh, a local music historian, became aware of Nuttall’s work in Rat Salad while working on his music archive website, the Victoria Demo Restoration Projekt.
He still has a cassette copy of the group’s 11-song recording, The Last Supper. Song titles include Guns Made America, The End of the World and I’ll Get You in the End. It also includes a version of In League With Satan, a song written by the metal group Venom.
In 2008, Nuttall played briefly in the Victoria band No World Order, which Nuttall claimed in online profiles featured Murray Acton of the Dayglo Abortions in its ranks. Acton could not be reached for comment.
Nuttall also played briefly with Victoria metal band Skycastle in 2009.
After moving to Vancouver, Nuttall became the leader of No World Order, using the stage name Johnny Blade. He had difficulty finding musicians to play with, posting often and unsuccessfully on livevan.com, livevictoria.com and rcmpsite.com.
About two years ago, he sought the services of a drummer for NWO through livevan.com. In a posting dated Aug. 29, 2011, he listed among his influences “anything that makes you wanna mosh, the Quran, and Allah.”
Pasta hopes that Nuttall will not be judged simply by the type of music he made. Metal music is an easy scapegoat, he said.
“The music he played had nothing to do with [his charges]. He went off the rails because he went off the rails. He was the product of a failed system. He was in and out of foster homes. I don’t think he ever found a place where he belonged.”
