1. HOW AND WHEN DID NILE FORM? I'd like to tell you a story that would make your head spin and the hair on the back of your neck stand up about the formation of Nile. Unfortunately it's the same old tale of every other band. Drummer meets guitar player meets bass player meets singer kicks out bass player gets new bass player singer quits bass player takes over vocals etc. etc. Actually Karl and I formed this band in 93 with Chief. We hired another guitarist (nameless) in 96. He quit after a year. We stayed a three piece until October 97 when we hired a new guitarist named Dallas. I say hired but we're not paying shit.
2. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT LINE-UP? Karl Sanders (guitar/vocals), Chief Spires (bass/vocals), Dallas Toler-Wade (guitar/vocals) & me, Pete Hammoura on drums.
3. YOUR MUSIC HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS "EGYPTIAN DEATH METAL", HOW DID THE BAND COME ACROSS A STYLE OF MUSIC WITH THE EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE TO IT? As long as I can remember, Karl has always played around with middle eastern sounding tones on his guitar and I, being middle eastern had always listened to that style of music. My mom was always playing that stuff around the house when I was growing up. It has such a mysterious and somewhat evil sound to it. So we thought we would mix it with our love for Metal to see what would happen. We really don't go overboard with middle eastern sounds, we just throw little things in here and there. We are and always will be METAL.
4. HAS THE BAND RECEIVED ANY LABEL INTEREST YET? Yes we have. Last year we were offered a contract by Evil Omen Records from France and Visceral Productions from the U.S at the same time. We decided to sign with Visceral because it was a better deal. Well as you may know, Visceral decided to close down, and this being right after the mastering of our new album. That was somewhat of a shock but now Relapse wants to do something so we'll see what happens.
5. DOES NILE PLAY LIVE A LOT? IF SO, HOW DIES THE CROWD REACT TO YOUR MUSIC? We don't get to play too much right now but maybe that will change when the album comes out. When we do play though, the crowd seems to really like what they hear. We put everything into our live performance. Our whole energy.
6. DO YOU THINK THE DEATH METAL MUSIC THAT IS BEING CREATED TODAY IS LACKING ANYTHING ORIGINALITY? DEPTH? TALENT? ECT.... Sure it is. And it always will. Every style of music has its phase where every band is trying to sound the same because they think it's the in thing to do. It's always been like that. It seems to always have a way of bending out of that form though, into something new. I hear many bands with musicians who have only been playing for a few years. I tip my hat to them for going for it and putting out their own CDs and tapes but really how well can you play after only a few years. How deep can you be? But then there are many great bands out there in the death metal scene and everyone knows who they are.
7. HOW DOES NILE KEEP THEMSELVES FROM BECOMING "JUST ANOTHER DEATH METAL BAND"? I think it comes with experience. After a while on your instrument, you start to develop a sense of yourself. I'm not saying we're original because we're basically playing death metal which has certain boundaries to the style. We just try to throw some little things in here and there that you usually would not hear in this style of music. We've reached the point now that when we write, we're not thinking about what other bands or musicians are playing but rather what we know we like and can pull off. And even some stuff that takes work to pull off. I think a lot of bands won't try new things because it's easier to play what you already know. It once took us like two months to learn this 24 bar intro to a song Karl wrote. I mean we learned it in our heads but we had to program our muscles and nerves to execute it. Many people would have said fuck it and thrown in the towel.
8. WHAT BANDS INFLUENCE NILE? Many Arabic musicians. Also many fine Death metal acts out there. Too many to name. We're big on themes so we derive much pleasure from evil sounding movie scores. Really anything that hits us the right way.
9. ANY FINAL COMMENTS? ADVICE? OR OTHER REMARKS? Thanks Mike for the cool interview. Always a pleasure to share some thoughts. Advice? My advice is to advise yourself and don't listen to what other people say. They are not you. As always, everyone get in touch by mail or email. You can visit us on the net at http://members.xoom.com/nile or our snail mail is P.O.Box 6062/Greenville,SC 29606-6062 USA Plenty of merchandise available.
EVERYBODY, check out the update to this interview now that they are signed by Relapse Records
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