In the weeks leading up to the Houston Press Music Awards showcase on Sunday, August 4, Rocks Off will be profiling a handful of performers each day, mostly in their own words - part of the best top-to-bottum lineup the showcase has ever had, in our humble opinion. See the showcase schedule and ticket information at HPMusicAwards.com, and watch Twitter (@hprocksoff) every day until the showcase for your chance to win tickets.

To which member are we speaking? What are you nominated for? Free, of The Niceguys. We're up for Best Local Recording [James Kelley], as well as Best Rap Group.

Please list all of your regular band members and what instruments they play. There's me, I play the xylophone. Yves Saint is the crooner, Omar plays the banjo and Todd plays the tuba. We make folk-rap.

OK, bad joke, I'm the producer, Yves is the MC and front man, and Candlestick is the DJ, and Todd is a producer as well.

Describe yourself or your band in four to seven words. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. That's eight words -- four to seven words isn't great enough.

Who is your single biggest musical influence and why? Herman McCain, duh. When he sang the Pokemon theme song, I was brought to tears. It inspired us all.

Have you ever been HPMA-nominated before? When and what for? For the last two years we've been nominated for best rap group, yuh.

Where and how often do you perform (publicly) around Houston? Here and there. We did Free Press Summer Fest recently; we're not as active performance-wise right now. Working on new music, and working on getting out of the city a bit more for shows.

What is the next step for you and/or your band? Success. Yves is dropping his solo project, Clockwork, soon. I'll be releasing my instrumental/remix project, Grandior II. Candlestick is working his ass off dropping mixtape after mixtape.

And maybe some new music from the group after all that? Hmm, maybe.

Finish this sentence: "Houston music is..." Pretty damn good, especially The Niceguys.

The Niceguys' HPMA showcase spot is 8 p.m. Sunday, August 4, at House of Blues' Bronze Peacock Room, 1204 Caroline. See more about the group at theniceguys.bandcamp.com or facebook.com/TheNiceguysMusic.