No. 103 - A Place To Bury Strangers’ “Ocean” changed my life

An iTunes suggestion, a poster design, and Nick Kulp’s fortuitous path to the stage

Aug 15, 2025

Winner, winner: Our two-year anniversary giveaway has concluded and we have a winner… Congrats and thanks for your support Zoe R! Your gift card is on the way :)

This Song Changed My Life is an independent music publication featuring weekly essays from people all around the world about the songs that mean the most to them. Created (and illustrated) by Grace Lilly.

Enjoying the series? Support here to keep the good stuff coming 😊

Place to Bury Strangers: Place to Bury Strangers: 0801340200422: Amazon.com: Books

• 6 min read •

It’s difficult to single out one song when your life revolves around music. It’s really hard to pinpoint what song sparked which part of the madness in me that caused my love of music and my constant search for more. Yet one song has shaped the last 17 years for me — not quite half of my life, but close. The longevity and impact of this song have culminated in a full-circle experience that I couldn’t have imagined the day I discovered it.

It could be said that “Don’t Say Slow” by Skywave is where this story truly begins. In the fall of 2009, I was soaking up new music like a sponge. A friend asked if I had heard of this band Skywave and showed me their music video for “Don’t Say Slow” on YouTube. I heard the song and it blew me away. I had no idea what the history of the band was, I just immediately looked to see what album the song was on, downloaded it, and burned a copy onto a CD. I probably listened to that CD on repeat for the entire winter.

Meanwhile, I found a ton of bands associated with Skywave: bands that either played with them while they were active, or bands that certain members had formed after they split up in 2003. There seemed to be this small, tight-knit scene in Virginia that had produced some really amazingly loud, blissful shoegaze bands. Most notably, Ceremony (Now Ceremony East Coast) and Screen Vinyl Image.

At that time, I was constantly searching for music. I was, and still am, an avid record collector, so when I could find something I liked in the wild I would buy it on vinyl. But I also tried to find new music any other way I could; Pandora, iTunes, college radio, and so on. In those days, iTunes still had a feature that suggested new music based on your library or past purchases. I was digging through my suggested songs and came across “Ocean” by A Place To Bury Strangers. Immediately, I thought, “What? This sounds like Skywave… How? What? What is this?”

I listened to the song 20 or 30 times while researching its origin, and found out that Strangers was in fact fronted by Skywave’s bassist, Oliver Ackermann. I knew it and I could hear it, but there was just something about it that was new and different. I downloaded the album and was hooked. It resonated with where I was mentally in that moment and kind of helped fill the void of never getting to have another Skywave album again.

Within a few months, I found out that Strangers would be touring and coming through Philadelphia. I was a graphic design intern back then, and was screen printing and doing posters for bands, so I tracked down the band’s email address and reached out. Sometimes when I wanted to design posters for bands, even if I didn’t know them personally, I would just try to contact them to get permission. Most of the time it was a labor of love and I would just design the posters on my own time, screen print them myself, and sell them at shows.

To my surprise, I got two emails back: one right away from Oliver and one within a short span from their manager, Steven. They said they loved my work and instead of doing a poster for the show, asked if I would do a poster for the whole tour. They wanted 100 posters screen printed on 18” x 24” stock. I had only been screen printing for a year and, up to that point, had never printed anything larger than 12” x 18”. It was kind of insane, but of course I took it on. I didn’t say that I had never done something of this scale before, I just printed them (over a long period of time).

Oliver gave me his number and we arranged for me to hand deliver the posters to their show in Philly. I didn’t get to see them play “Ocean” that night though; they were notorious for having technical difficulties, blowing the power, or destroying amps. It wasn’t until the second time I saw them that they played “Ocean.” That night will forever be impactful for me, because it was an outdoor show in Rittenhouse Square Park in Center City Philadelphia and they ended their set with the song just as the sun was going down. It was epic and just cemented the song as being a favorite of mine, recorded and live.

Over the years, Oliver and I kept in touch and some of the bands I played in played shows and toured supporting A Place To Bury Strangers. One of them even went up on stage during their show and played “Ocean” with Strangers at the end of their set. The song kept evolving with meaning for me. It was what I looked forward to most when I would see them live. I would always hope that it would make the setlist, and sometimes it didn’t. That added to its significance for me.

Nick (right) performing “Ocean” with A Place to Bury Strangers

In 2017, I started working for A Place to Bury Strangers. I joined them on a tour where they could only take a few people with them, so I had a bunch of jobs: doing merch, driving, loading, and helping with lights and projectors. During that tour, the band had me play “Ocean” with them on guitar. For some reason, I just think there was this unspoken feeling of how much the song meant to me. Fast forward to now, and just last year alone I did 6 tours working for the band. I am their lighting designer/stage manager and have been consistently since 2022.

I contemplated writing about this, because in some ways it’s weird writing about something so personal or about people you’re directly involved with. Ultimately, however, I feel like it’s important to share a portion of my life and how full circle — and, in a strange way, organic — it is. I like life that way. I’m really grateful and lucky to be living the life I’m living. It’s odd to think that one song could actually change your life, but music is magical like that. ◆

About Nick

Nick Kulp is a multimedia artist, screen printer, and musician from the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. He runs a design imprint called Mental Healing, has an industrial electronic musical performance project called LUNACY and works as the Lighting Designer/Visual Projectionist for A Place To Bury Strangers. He is a world traveler and a sleep enthusiast.

Instagram @zerozeroufo

⭐ Recommended by
Duane Lauginiger (No. 040)

Every TSCML writer is asked to recommend a future contributor, creating a never-ending, underlying web of interconnectivity 🕸️

This Song Changed My Life is open to submissions. For consideration, please fill out this simple form.