Nile – Their Wrath Is Not Yet Done Part II
By: Mike Sloan
Blistering.com: I bet it is. I can’t imagine playing that song. With how fast it is, how heavy it is, how many tempo changes there are, it’s a marathon.
Sanders: It is a total marathon, but it’s a fun marathon. It’s like a super long roller coaster and I’m sure we’ll do it again on another tour. We have a lot of fun doing it but I wouldn’t want to do it on every single tour. That would get old. It’s a special song and I think it should be treated with special care.
Blistering.com: Most of the über technical metal bands going around today in my opinion don’t really know how to craft actual songs. Yes, they are very technical and can play the shit out of their instruments, but they tend to lose focus on how to create an actual song that can stick in someone’s head. I’ve always maintained that Atheist, Nile, Cryptopsy, and Death are really the only overly technical bands that have the ability to pull that off properly. Where do you think Nile ranks when stacked up against all the other technical metal bands in history?
Sanders: It’s funny because people call us a technical death metal band and I guess we are, but the technicality to us is just a means of musical storytelling. Maybe we are a technical metal band? I get it; I guess we are. But that’s not what we are trying to do. We are just trying to write songs that are fun for us to play and fun for people to listen to. There has to be the listenability factor for us. There are different levels of different technicalities where you balance the fun versus the overwhelming musicianship. There’s a balance in there and every song has to have a sort of balance. It also has to have that human connection. It has to have some life, personality, and it has to be interesting to listen to as well. It makes sense when people call us a technical band, but we’re also not a technical metal band. But…I guess that just came off sounding weird or not making sense.
Blistering.com: I understand what you’re saying. Your music is very complex and technical, but if that style of music comes out of you naturally, you don’t personally consider it technical because it is naturalto you. Is that accurate?
Sanders: Yes. People might not know this, but I’m 49 years old. I’ve been playing guitar since I was nine. That’s 40 years of playing guitar. When I strap on my guitar, it’s like it becomes of a part of me. It’s as natural to me as putting on my shoes. It’s just… there. It’s a part of me; it’s who I am and what I do. I get it, I understand the audience perceiving it as technical, but to me it’s just me musically expressing myself.
Blistering.com: Ultimately what do you expect to achieve from At the Gate of Sethu in terms of revenue, tours, opportunities, etc. over the course of the next year, year-and-a-half?
Sanders: We are realistically expecting to be very busy all the way through this time next year. We’ve got it planned that far out so, busy, busy, busy! That’s the realistic expectation: [laughs] to be busy!
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