Remember the days of old-school Thrash Metal?? I'm refering to the time when Cliff Burton was still alive, Slayer was still Slayer, and the Bay-Area Thrash movement was alive and well. Sadly, that time has passed, but there is a glimpse of hope left today. Introducing NIHILIST, the Thrash Metal trio from California. Their guitar riffs will crush you; their drums will make your heart explode out of your chest; their bass & vocals will leave you wanting more. This band strives on the old-school frame of mind: play metal fast, melodic, and aggressive .......oh yeah, and bang your fucking head!! I have watched this band grow and develope for a few years now, and if they keep it up, they will be at the forefront of Thrash Metal's ressurection. I had the oppertunity to interview the whole band.......read on, and learn all about the band that will kill you all.
Interview by Anthony
[UF] Please start out by introducing yourself, and tell me a little about yourselves.
[Sean] Hello….I’m Sean, the drummer for Nihilist. I’m into old metal, and that’s pretty much it.
[Joe] I’m Joe, and I play guitar. I grew up on Slayer, Motley Crue, and Metallica. My influences are Zach Wylde, Marty Freedman, etc.
[Loren] Hi, I’m Loren and I play bass and sing. I pretty much listen to all the same stuff these guys listen to.
[UF] For anyone who has never heard of the band, please give a brief description of what Nihilist sounds like.
[Loren] Slayer meets Motorhead….
[Sean] or Testament meets Motorhead.
[Sean] What year is it…..2006?? It would be about ten or eleven years.
[UF] Have you played in any bands prior to Nihilist, or was this your first band?
[Sean] I’ve had long periods of time jamming with people, but nothing that ever really developed into something that had a band name. I guess Nihilist would be the first band. We actually had a different name for about a week. We called ourselves Kill Switch, but then we found someone in our town or near us who had the same name. We changed it to Nihilist two weeks later.
[Joe] I’ve been playing guitar for ten years. I was in a couple of random bands when I first started; some alternative rock bands when I was 18. They all never really worked out; I ended up hooking up with Sean when I was 19 or 20. That’s where it all started, but I always jammed to Slayer and Metallica. I had always wanted to be in a band, so I took whatever was there and played with whoever was around. I always wanted to play metal, so I then hooked up with Sean, and that was the beginning of the whole metal thing.
[UF] Are you self-taught, or did you take lessons?
[Joe] I took lessons for a couple months when I was seventeen just to lean some theory, but I have mostly learned by ear.
[Loren] It took me a while to get used to, but it’s not that tough anymore. It just takes a little bit of practice.
[UF]How did Nihilist form? How long has the band been in existence?
[Sean] From when the “Kill or be Killed” album came out, it was around 1999. It was the end of us dealing with the vocalist at the time. He kind of just stopped showing up a lot, so we told him not to bother showing up anymore for good. We didn’t have a bass player to record that album, but we did have two guitar players. One of the guitar players recorded all the bass tracks. That album was a learning experience. The configuration of the band at that time didn’t last too long…….probably a year or year and a half after the album was recorded. We juggled bass players until Loren came around. When Loren came around, he was just singing. He played bass after he was singing for a while.
[UF] So, you had no bass player for a while.
[Sean] We had no bass player for a little while, and then we went through a number of bass players. After that, we went through not having a bass player for a while again.
[Joe] We were playing with two guitarists for a while, but then we had the other guitar player leave. Loren had just started singing in the band. Now, we only have a guitar player, a drummer, and a singer………Loren was already starting to work on bass. So, he just kind of picked up the bass & kept with it; he sang and played at the same time. We just kind of went from there and did the best we could from that point. We started working a lot of harmonies that you can do with two guitars with Loren and myself. Loren runs his bass through a Marshall amp and uses a really distorted sound, which compliments with the other guitar. This makes us sound like a four-piece, but we’re really a three-piece. It’s kind of Motorhead-ish in that way, but there are a lot of harmonies and fast stuff you’d hear from bands like Slayer.
[UF] I’m glad you mentioned that, because one of my other questions was how you handled all the guitar parts live, being there’s only you on guitar. I hear a lot of duel guitar leads and harmonies on the album, so that answers my question.
[UF] It must be a relief for you guys to have this line-up now and have all your shit together. It must have been one hell of a nightmare getting a stable line-up together.
[Sean] It’s kind of weird…..you never know what’s going to happen; it just kind of happens.
[UF] What is the metal scene like in California now-a-days?
[Loren] [Laughing] VERY nu-metal.
[Sean] ….and we mean N U by that.
[UF] Oh God!!! So there aren’t any local bands that are Thrash or Power Metal that you can play out with?
[Loren] Nothing really.
[Joe] There are some Hard Rock bands that play Guns ‘N Roses style stuff, which is fine by me, but nothing really awesome you can speak of.
[Sean] Nothing you can call metal.
[UF] That really sucks.
[Loren] Yeah….that’s San Diego
[Sean] ….and L.A.
[UF] Tell me about your trip to Milwaukee for the Milwaukee Metalfest. What was that like?
[Joe] I liked it…..I thought it was fun to do. It’s a good place, if you’ve got a really good product, to go and get it out to metalheads………the exposure and stuff like that. Other than that, it’s just a big, huge metal scene with tons of bands; it’s pay to play. We did it twice…..obviously, we got hooked up with you & things like that through the New Jersey thing. We got to New Jersey through the Metalfest. Other than that, it was fun…..
[UF] Does it help the band in getting the word out there & exposure?
[Sean] The name is out there, but we really didn’t have anything at the time to sell or promote, so……
[UF] Was it the same case for you when you were in New Jersey…….you didn’t have much of anything to sell or promote?
[Loren] Yeah…..totally. We didn’t have a demo or anything. We just wanted to play that show. New Jersey actually was the best experience we had with Metalfest. It was a lot more of a Thrash type scene; Milwaukee was a lot more Death Metal.
[UF] Yeah….that’s the way it’s been, historically. I’m surprised you guys enjoyed the New Jersey Metalfest, because it used to be ten million times better than what it was from when you were there. It just went to total shit….they don’t even do it anymore now.
[Sean] Really?
[UF] Yeah……they haven’t done it in two years now.
[Loren] Did you hear about the Milwaukee Metalfest?
[UF] Yeah….it was canceled while you guys were on your way over there……..Now, it’s rescheduled for September and there’s no other information up there. Will you play in September now?
[Loren] Well, people are saying that he (Jack Koshic – Metalfest organizer/promoter) disappeared….it was postponed a couple of times.
[Sean] Yeah…..it was supposed to be in December. He had it set for December 2 or 3……on November 29 it got postponed until September.
[UF] Yeah……Jack Koshic is a little shabby.
[Sean] We were in Texas and it was three or four days before when we found out. You know there are bands that showed up that had NO idea.
[UF] That had to suck for them!!
[Sean] Totally!!
[UF] Well, we know not to deal with that guy anymore.
[Sean] The whole thing that baffled me was that it was the nineteenth or twentieth year……that’s a shitty way to go out!
[UF] Yeah, really!
[UF] Does Nihilist play out often, especially due to the fact that there isn’t much of a scene where you are? Is squid Joe’s a venue you frequent often? I noticed that name on your site a few times.
[Sean] The House of Blues is kind of lame.
[Loren] Yeah, we played The House of Blues and it was lame, so it’s just a lame scene down here. Every time we get out of town, it’s always better.
[Sean]….Always.
[UF] That’s cool. What about the show you have coming up at B.B. Kings in L.A.? Is that a prestigious club? We have one here in New York, and it’s like the Heavy Metal Mecca in NYC. Is this a good place to play for you, and how did you get on that bill?
[Loren] We actually got connected through a friend. I don’t know if it’s really known for metal…..we’ll see. Apparently it’s a nice bar, but I wouldn’t be too convinced that it’s going to be a great show for us; it’ll probably be pretty average. I think we’ll get a review out of it, or something….it’s better than nothing.
[Sean] We haven’t played there before, and we haven’t played L.A. for a long time so it’s really kind of the feeling that we’ll wait and see. The look of it, from the pictures they had posted, didn’t normally look like they’re having metal acts or metal shows. It looks like a nice place, so hopefully it’s the right place for us. A lot of times, we end up in shows……we can win the crowd pretty easily, but there are times when they’re not into it.
[UF] You guys need to get your asses down to NYC and play some shows…..seriously. We’ll work on that.
[UF] How would you compare the way you sound today to the way you sounded when the Kill or be Killed album came out?
[Joe] We’re a lot better. As far as a sound style, we have more of a direction now. We still play a lot of harmonies, even though we’re a three piece……we pull it off pretty well. I’m a much better musician since then; I know Sean is……..Loren is still ruling right now. It’s the same idea, but a little bit more original.
[Sean]….more time put into it.
[Joe] Yeah…..it’s not so “Oh, that sounds just like THIS”. It’s more like “Oh, that’s awesome”. When people hear us, they know it’s Nihilist, and they like that sound. They’re not saying “Oh…it sounds just like Slayer” or “Oh…it sounds just like this”. They know the way that we sound. We’ve got our own sound now, where from that last album, it was our sound but….
[Sean]…..it hadn’t been developed yet.
[Joe] Yeah….we were playing the sound we like to hear.
[UF] For a while, Nihilist had two guitarists. Today, the band is a Thrash Metal trio. Has the band considered adding a second guitarist to the line-up, or are you going to stay the way you are?
[Joe] For now, we will stay the way we are. We never had anyone approach us and ask us. We sort of got put into a situation where we had to be a three-piece. We made the best from what we had, and got better at what we did because of it.
[Sean] Don’t fix what’s not broken.
[Joe] Exactly.
[UF] Cool. Of the MANY demo CDs I have of the band, one is a live disc. The songs on it are: “The Ranger”, “War Cry”, “Hell’s Son”, and “Confined Reality”. None of these songs are featured on your latest release “Call Down the Thunder”. Could you tell me a bit about these songs and why they were not included on the release of your newest album?
[Joe] “Hell’s Son” is probably the only one I wrote; the other three were all written by the previous guitar player. At the time when he left, we did not want to do anything that was written by what he did with us. So, we put out all the other demos after that, because we wanted to do stuff that was just the three of us. We did “Hell’s Son”, “Destroyer” and a few other ones afterwards. We phased the other songs out because they were written by the previous guitar player. We didn’t do “Hell’s Son” on the newest one because we had so many other different directions we were going in with other stuff. It’s one of those things that’s still in the bank and may come out later or be used for other things. That’s the only one that the three of us did as a trio; all the other ones were written by the other guitar player.
[UF] All right. I also have another demo called “Rise of Evil”. It’s got “Hessian Mercenary”, “Destroyer” and one other song. I noticed on this disc that “Hessian Mercenary” and “Destroyer” sound different than from the way they sound on the “Call Down the Thunder” album and on your MySpace page. Why is that? Was it a working progress?
[Loren] It’s just over time, you play stuff and think of things that you want to change and fine tune. When we were making the album, we got advice from people that were trying to help us out with the range of stuff. It didn’t really work out, but it does make you want to make your own music. We’ve done a lot of cutting and taping of the music to make it a little faster….
[UF] I noticed the version of “Hessian Mercenary” on the “Call…” album sounds a little slower played compared to the “Rise of Evil” demo version. Can you agree with that? Was it your intention to slow the song down?
[Sean] No……if you listen to it really, really carefully or if you have any kind of metronome or split-track you can compare it to, the version off of the demo is going to extremely sway in time. There will be parts that are faster and parts that are slower. The one on the album is consistently one speed the whole way through. There’s parts that slowed down and other parts that may have sped up to compensate for that.
[UF] That’s a good song, by the way…….it’s one of my favorites.
[Sean] Awesome.
[UF] Tell me about the making of the “Destroyer” video.
[Sean] That’s just me fucking around with a video camera, pretty much.
[UF] [Laughs] Oh, okay…..I thought that was something you might have wanted to put out as a promotional thing…….it was still kind of cool.
[Sean] That was just footage we’ve accumulated over time. On the demo “Rise of Evil”, we already had the song “Destroyer” recorded, and then we recorded all the other songs and put them on the same disc. That recording of “Destroyer” is when I made the video, which is before the other songs were added. It was all the footage we’ve accumulated from going to Metalfest and traveling…..
[UF] Yeah, I remember seeing that.
[Sean] …..and just random other shit. We may have been a bunch of shows thrown in there.
[UF] Throughout the years, I have noticed four different Nihilist logos: One from the “Kill or be Killed” album, one on your drum set, the skull logo, and the skull logo with hair. Why do you keep changing your logo, and which one do you prefer?
*** At this point, (for the fourth time now), Sean’s phone cuts out. ***
[Sean] ……FUCK SINGULAR!!
[UF] So, you’re going to stick with the final skull version with hair?
[Sean] Yes and no. Definitely the way the name has been written. The involvement of a skull somehow, with or without hair, biting of the name is the general format.
[Loren] Probably about a couple of years worth of jamming to get all that material together. I'd say half the album was put together within the last five or six months before we recorded it. I think you can tell which are some of the newer songs. They have more of our sound.....
[UF] Like the song "Vengeance is Mine", for example?
[Loren] Yeah....that one and "American Plague".
[Joe] If there was an order to put the songs in for the time they were written, you can hear the difference from the first song we wrote to the very last song we wrote.
[UF] Why did you choose to cover "Free Wheel Burning" by Judas Priest?
[Loren] It's a song we play live a lot. A lot of the people from around here that come to see us live like to hear it. It's fun to play. We're all Judas Priest fans.
[UF] Speaking of Priest, are you all Halford fans, or did you enjoy the Ripper Owens years as well?
[Loren] I didn't neccessarily enjoy the newer songs they put out, but I think Ripper is a pretty kick-ass singer. I've heard his live stuff, and he's good live; I mainly listen to the Halford stuff.
[Joe] The music changed a bit duing the Ripper years, but he's definately a killer singer. I listen to the music far more than I ever listen to the lyrics in ANY janura of music that I listen to. I always hear the music first, and it definately changed because of that.
[UF] I agree. What are the songs that you've covered, and ehich songs are included in your set-list when you play live?
[whistles and laughter]
[Joe] There's a lot of covers.
[Loren] It's an on-going proccess.
[UF] How about a few.
[Loren] Lately, we've been playing "Posion is the Cure" on Megadeth's "Rust in Piece".
[Sean] "Chemical Warfare", off of "Haunting the Chappel" by Slayer.
[UF] Have you recorded any of this stuff?
[Sean] Just with a video camera.....nothing of professional quality.
[UF] I'd like to request a copy of that, if it's not a problem.....
[Sean] I can probably find some live stuff. I know we've played "Ride the Lightning" by Metallica, "Black Metal" by Venom......
[UF] Fuck!!!!
[Sean] The majority of the "Show no Mercy" album by Slayer.
[Loren] Some random Judas Priest, such as "The Sentinel", "Electric Eye".........
[Joe] If you had to pay five dollars to see us play, you'd walk out DEFINATLEY getting your money's worth.
[Loren] You could pay ten dollars, and STILL get your money's worth.
[Laughs]
[Joe] Yeah.....we're a ten dollar band.
[UF] How about $9.50???
[Laughs]
[Loren] Yeah.....that's a bargin!
[UF] Tell me about the surf video you were a part of. (on the Nihilist website)
[Sean] That's just a buddy of mine who does videos and editing. He's a semi-pro surfer, and has a few semi-pro surfer friends. They do a lot of short videos and put them on their website and other websites tha tdo the same thing. They're constantely using our music for their footage because they are friends of ours. They also feel the sufing and music go well together.
[UF] Cool. I also noticed on your website that Loren was escorted out of the ASR Tradeshow.......
[all laugh]
[UF] What is the ASR Tradeshow, and what the hell happened to him?
[Sean] ASR is Action Sports Retail. It's all the companies involved in skateboarding, surfing, extreme action sports, etc. We got in with Volcam because we've had some radom shit go down with the skate department. They gave us some passes. The best way to put it is we just had a little too much fun and they wanted us to leave.
[all laugh]
[Sean] Well, actually they just wanted Loren to leave........we were just with him.
[UF] Is anyone in the band a skater or surfer?
[Sean] I have skateboarded many times. I'm not what I'd call myself a skateboarder. I think anyone is in that same situation. Loren might have been a surfer before....he probably still surfs.
[Joe] I can't compare myself to any skilled surfer or skater. I can crawl around on a board and ride some waves, but I'm nt busting out huge tricks or anything.
[UF] One other thing from your website: you were part of a "FOXROX" event. What was this event?
[Loren] San Diego has a TV show on one of the network stations where they play local music. They let you jamm live, and we just recorded it last week. It's pretty cool.....every time they have bands on there, it's never metal. We're probably the only metal band they ever had on there. We'll see what comes of that.
[Joe] It's big exposure. The FOX Network is the only show out of San Diego related to music or local music. It's not even local music a lot of the time......there are a lot of out-of-town bands. Never have I seen a metal band or anything half that good on that show. It's kind of cool to be on there. At least the people who are going to be on there get to see some real metal, or real music.
[UF] What will the new t-shirts look like? Are there any plans for more Nihilist merchandise?
[Loren] We're still drawing up t-shirt designs.
[Sean] It will definately have some kind of teeth biting the Nihilist logo.
[UF] What are your plans for the next album? What direction do you see the band headed in?
[Loren] We've recently been working on some new stuff. We have a couple new songs . I think that they are a lot more intense and technical. A little less choppy.
[Joe] A lot more tech, a lot longer, and not going towards radio playable. We want to just do our thing.
[UF] Do you have any song ideas or lyrics written?
[Loren] No......usually all the music material comes first. It usually takes a while to get inspired by something to write about.
[UF] That's it....your moments of excrutiating pain and bordem are over. Thank you for taking the time to do this.......I really appreciate it. If you have any final words to make, do so now.
[Loren] I haven't cut my hair since 2002. [laughs]
DISCOGRAPHY
KILL OR BE KILLED (1999)
NIHILIST LIVE (Demo) (2004)
RISE OF EVIL (Demo) (2005)
CALL DOWN THE THUNDER (2006)
LINKS
MySpace Pages
[UF] Sean.....how long have you been playing drums?
[UF] Joe……how long have you been playing guitar for, and have you been in any previous bands to Nihilist?
[UF] Cool. For Loren….do you find it easy to sing a and play bass at the same time, or is that something you needed to practice a lot to get accustomed to?
[Loren] Yeah, it’s the local place to play in North County San Diego…..it’s where we’re all from. It’s fun to play because the crowd is usually good. Everywhere else, it’s just a hassle to get a show, and everyone thinks their venue is The House of Blues.
[Sean] I think you can look at every single one of those logos as a different point in time, and that was how we were evolving at the time. We’d evolve into another format or a different configuration and then…….
[Sean] ….It’s really to say what was going through our heads. Someone would come up with a logo, a friend of ours who is an artist or someone’s brother would draw something up, and we would think “Sick…..use it! It looks cool”. Now, we are a lot more picky and we know what we’re looking for.
[UF] Your “Call Down The Thunder” album is your latest offering. It kicks ass, in my opinion. Tell me about the recording process of this album. Did you write a riff and build lyrics round it, or vice-versa? Did you have a whole library of songs which you had in mind, or did this take a long time to do.
[Sean] It's one of those things where it depends on what we're in the mood for at the time AND what kind of show. For example, if we're going to play at Squid Joe's, it's purely what WE feel like playing at the moment.......it's what we want to have fun doing. If we'r egoing to play a showcase for people, we have to place the songs a little more carefully of our originals.......maybe throw a cover in, just to be cool. As far as all the covers we've done........it's a prettly long list.
[UF] Okay, so with all that mentioned I'm going to ask an obvious question, for the sake of the interview. What can someone expect from a live Nihilist performance?