Band’s History...
We have been together since
1993. In 1995 we put out a CD called “Festivals Of Atonement”. It was may be a
little bit slower but really big, really heavy, epic sounding. We think it was
a good stuff. It is sold out by now. After we did that we put out a demo tape
in 1997 and called it “Ramses Bringer of War”. It sold over nine hundred
copies. The demo attracted the attention of the record company and we signed a
one album deal. Then in 1998 we recorded the album called “Amongst Catacombs of
Nephren-Ka”.
Lyrics...
I don’t think death metal has
to be tied to a certain type of lyrics. Well, I can’t understand the lyrics
anyway, ha ha! I think death metal music has a lot of potential for means of
expression, like exploring different concepts and ideas. I don’t think it
should be limited to some zombies, rape and dead corpses, whatever. Well, that
really doesn’t bother me. I think there’s a lot of bands that did that stuff
very well, but I didn’t feel like the world needed another one. We had our own
ideas of what we wanted to do. We were not afraid to do something different. We,
actually, write that better. We’d rather do something that interests us.
NILE...
Before we have done our first
CD we didn’t have any name. We were a band like many others looking for a name.
We had a list with over five hundred names! And they all sucked! And we hated
them all! And then one of the friends of ours came to us and said: “Hey, if you
are that interested with Middle East stuff, why don’t you call yourself
NILE?” And we thought: “Well, this is the least stupid name we have come up
with. Why not? It’s easy, easy to remember.”
Egypt...
I was fascinated with all that
stuff from early on. Stuff left by the Egyptians is five-four hundred years old
and it’s still standing, it’s still there. They had civilization thousand years
before Christ. And also a lot of bands sing about Satanism and other
Christian-type topics. We wanted to dig all the way back to the beginning of
the ancestry. I have been fascinated by Egypt since I was a kid. When I was
very young my father watched all the old movies like “Land of The Pharaohs”,
all those epic ancient movies. Wow, I liked that stuff. Our drummer is Lebanese
and he grew up with the Middle Eastern music in his house. I met him fifteen
years ago and that was how I got to the Middle Eastern music.
Languages...
I have a lot of books in the
house, I buy them everywhere: in bookstores, while touring, in libraries. That’s
how I find something interesting. Here in the United States we have a history
channel, a learning channel, a discovery channel. There’s a lot of information
on Ancient Egypt all the time. There’s plenty of information. I personally
don’t get turned on listening to English sounding words ‘cos I speak English
every day, I watch American TV. I am surrounded by English. It is not that
thrilling to me. I really like the sound of the “harder” type languages like
German, Russian, there are a lot of consonants, you can really dig into the
words. And Ancient Egyptian language is like that as well. You can really
accentuate the words! It sounds brutal. German thrash bands of the ‘80s sounded
vicious because they were singing in German. And it’s just mean sounding
language. My grand parents are Germanic descendent. German language is very
beautiful. Actually, all the archeological stuff is written in German and
French. This is the most important stuff written over fifty years ago. So, it’s
very difficult for me to read. I am lost! I was looking at those pages with
German text and it was just overwhelming to me!
Nephren-Ka...
Nephren-Ka was a fellow who
found a mysterious black box from outer space. Only he knew what it was capable
of. And, apparently, he used it and spent the end of his life in the eternity,
wandering around in the catacombs. He was not the most prominent character, he
was just mentioned in a few lines. But we thought it was cool. Not many people
know who he was, that he was a real Pharaoh.
Instruments...
We used a lot of different
instruments on the album. We used a fascinating stuff of the monks. They have
the drums made of the caps of human skulls. And also they have flutes made of
human bones. They were fucking incredible! We were very lucky to get them
participate on the album. We hired them having paid the donation to the
Buddhist temple and gave them a case of beer. Guys loved it! They are not
allowed to collect money for their singing. Those monks were basically exiled
from their home country, so now they tour the US. They collect money for their
Buddhist ministry. They sell merchandise and sing and play their instruments. So,
they were happy to do it. They wouldn’t let us do anything. They played
everything themselves, we couldn’t tell them what to do. They just came and
sang and we recorded it. And after they left we transferred everything into the
computer and combined with our songs. I am pretty sure we will not be lucky
enough to get monks again but we’ll do other things that will be connected with
the Ancient Egypt.
Buddhism...
Buddhist civilization has many
thousand years. They claimed that man was initially a space traveler, he came
from outer space to Earth. This is a very fascinating stuff. Their message is
peace and humanity. It’s an amazing stuff. To get into it would take forever. It
is very old. The oldest living surviving culture on our planet. And the
Communists are trying to wipe them out. There are a lot of people who get lost
in the modern civilization. They forget about the things that are very
important: our families, our fellow man, our cultures, our history. It’s all
important stuff. And we are just glad to be able to play our music to other
people, to meet with people. Hopefully, we will come overseas and meet metal
fans on other shores as well.
Ramses...
Ramses was one of the
Pharaohs, he built the most monuments, he is also rumored to be the Pharaoh of
the Exodus. He’s a huge fascinating character, very inspiring. He was once
surrounded by 2500 enemies alone and faced certain death. He chose to die
fighting than surrender. And there’s a song dedicated to that battle: I didn’t
write any words for it, I just put the real words of Ramses in it. Lately, the
last twenty-thirty years, I think we have a certain model for our children, a
model “This is what it means to be a man.” The wrong model.
Modern
Civilization...
It seemed to be the simpler
times, things seemed simpler and easier to live by. But actually, the things
that people were doing six thousand years ago, they are still doing today. Nothing’s
really changed in the world except for technology. People are still very bad. People
are still killing each other, are still lying and cheating each other. But I
don’t have a time machine, I have to live in today’s world like everybody else!
But I can try to make myself better by learning what the ancestors did, what
they believed in and what they talked about. How they learned, how they
conquered the world.
Future of Death Metal...
I am playing the stuff that I
like. It’s too big for me to consider the future of death metal. I am only one
person in only one band. We just play the music we like. Hopefully, other
people see what death metal is, they like this form of music. You can do
whatever you want with it. Death doesn’t need to be CANNIBAL CORPSE rip off! I
like CANNIBAL CORPSE but there are too many bands that try to sound just like
them. That’s the ignoring of the high purpose of music. It’s bigger than that. There’s
no reason, you can express yourself through a wide variety of ways, either
death metal form or black metal form and anything-metal-form! Music shouldn’t
be limited to just what people have done last year or ten years ago...