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...