Nik Nocturnal

Nik Nocturnal is a Canadian metal musician and content creator. With over 1.27 million followers on YouTube, the Termina guitarist has gained popularity through lightning-fast guitar covers, breakdown compilations, and his humorous takes on “fun metal things!”.

Nik was first introduced to heavy music by his cousin, who showed him bands like Alexisonfire, As I Lay Dying and Underoath. At age nine, he became obsessed with the video game Guitar Hero and played it every day until he decided he “wanted to play the real thing”. With an Ibanez guitar in hand, he took lessons for a year and learnt chords, scales, and modes. From then onwards, he taught himself, covering songs and studying theory and technique on his own. He has cited Misha Mansoor, Jason Richardson, and Dimitry Demyanenko as key influences on his playing.

In 2014, Nik launched his YouTube channel with the simple intention of sharing his original music. In fact, at that point, he was studying commerce at York University, planning to become an accountant. However, by the time he graduated in 2018, his online presence had considerably grown. He had become well known for posting covers almost immediately after songs dropped, and his content had expanded to include tutorials, list-based videos, and infotainment. He decided to pursue music and content creation full-time.

As a guitarist, he’s released music under different projects: 
– Nik Nocturnal, his main solo work. 
– DeathPhonk, a side project born from the YouTube series “Proof anything can be metal”, where he turned a Drift Phonk beat into a “metal” song. 
– Termina, a modern metal collaboration with vocalist Andy Cizek.

He has also recorded with I, the Breather, and formed Graystone during the YouTube show Musician Mansion, where he also met his wife, Brazilian metal guitarist Paula Carregosa.

Nik is also the creator of CoreKid, a metal-inspired clothing brand, and the host of the Nik Nocturnal Podcast, where he interviews artists like Jeremy McKinnon and Cristina Scabbia. Now based in Florida, he continues creating music, content, and community for metal lovers everywhere.