Nachtmystium

Nachtmystium just came off the ‘Creatures From The Black Abyss’ North American tour with Cradle Of Filth, any stories from that tour, favorite stops, etc.?

This was a great tour for us. The Cradle of Filth guys were really good to us, we played right before them every night out of four bands (aka direct support) , so the rooms were totally full for us every night which was great. I’d say the majority of their fans seemed to ‘get us’. We didn’t get boo’ed or heckled at all (haha), so I guess that’s a good thing. Sold a ton of merch and had a really great reaction over all I’d say. The best shows were definitely the shows in eastern Canada. Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto were all very memorable. There were some killer ones in the States as well.

How do you spend your downtime musically from the band?

Downtime? Haha, we don’t take much downtime. Nachtmystium practices two to three times a week (for many hours each session), we tour about five to six months out of the year these days and play a lot of festivals and one-off’s as well, so there isn’t too much of my and the other guys’ lives that isn’t completely centered around our music. Charlie Fell (drums) and Andrew Markuszewski (guitar) are both in another Chicago-based metal band called Lord Mantis (who just signed to Candlelight Records USA / UK) which is also very busy. Will Lindsay, who played bass on “Addicts” and has been touring with us recently is also in Indian (Relapse Records – they have a new album out which is absolutely amazing) who are equally busy as well. I do some local work DJ’ing a couple of metal / punk / industrial nights here at two different bars, one called Exit, the other is Cobra Lounge. Other than that, I have a normal private social life like any human being that I enjoy when I’m not working with the band or DJ’ing. I’m also going to take on a business endeavor here shortly with a partner doing something totally unrelated to Nachtmystium in my personal life. Have high hopes for that.

‘Addicts’ sure was a 180 from the Doomsday Derelicts EP, what would the next EP sound like if you are planning on releasing one before the next studio album?

Hard to say because for the first time, we don’t plan to release an EP in between this album and the next full length. We’re actually releasing a 12” vinyl EP series with remixes of three songs from “Addicts”, which will all come out digitally as a full package (and I’d imagine they’ll do a CD with all three 12” singles on it as well) The EP’s will feature the original song from “Addicts” on the A-side, and then the remix(es) on the B-side. The three songs that were remixed were “Ruined Life Continuum” (2 versions), “No Funeral” (2 versions) and “Every Last Drop” (1 version, by James Plotkin which has already been released on iTunes and the Japanese CD pressing of “Addicts” on Daymare Records) The other remixes were done by individuals from Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly, etc. They’re very industrial and very, very different than anything we’ve ever released before, so we’re all extremely excited about these. More news on this soon.

What do you feel is the strangest pairing Nachtmystium has been booked with?

2006 we did a west coast tour with Pelican and Daughters. I think that may have been the strangest. We also played a festival in Norway called the Oya Festivalen last August and were billed on the same day as M.I.A., The Stooges and Raekwon (Wu-Tang Clan). That was pretty fucking weird too.

Wrest (Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice/Twilight) performed drums on Addicts: Black Meddle Pt.2, what did he bring to the table for the recording?

His unique style of playing, but also many arrangement ideas for the songs. He played around a lot with using different time signatures than the standard ¾ and 4/4 stuff Nachtmystium normally does. It was really great working with him on this record. He and I have always achieved results I’m satisfied with when we work together with Twilight, so it was easy to work with him in Nachtmystium.

Bruce Lamont and Sanford Parker have been staples on your last two releases, can we expect further collaboration from them on the next album, and how important was Sanford Parker’s input for the recording of Addicts?

Yeah, these guys are both big parts of each record. Sanford Parker’s roll definitely being the more involved of the two (as he not only performs on each record but also engineers and co-produces them), but Bruce’s rolls are always crucial and the results are always bold. I really enjoy working with both guys and I’d expect to hear more from each of them on future Nachtmystium records. Sanford is a full-time member of this band these days. He did the Cradle of Filth tour with us, he’ll be doing all of our festival appearances this summer and our headlining European tour for September / October that we’re booking right now. There are also talks of a west coast run of North America in November, we’ll see on that though. Anyways – to answer all parts of this question, Sanford’s input on Addicts was absolutely essential to the end result of the record. He wrote and was creative on this record just as much as I or anyone else involved. This was by far the most collaborative Nachtmystium has ever been in a studio setting.

Many of those open, airy guitar chords on Addicts are very unconventional in extreme metal, what groups or players influenced you during the riff writing for the album?

All kinds of stuff, really. Everything from poppy shoegaze bands like Interpol and Editors, obviously the classics like Joy Division and Killing Joke. Ministry has always been a big influence on me in many ways, these days it’s coming through musically more and more. (wait til the next record…) I’d say that those five bands were the first five that came to mind as big influences on this record.

You stated in an interview that Assassins was named thusly because it would ‘Assassinate all preconceived notions about where Nachtmystium belongs in the metal community’…what would you say ‘Addicts’ has accomplished so far?

I don’t really know how to answer this question. I guess “Addicts” has done what we wanted it to do. It’s a solid record that everyone involved with it is very proud of and stands behind fully. The album has sold well for all three labels that released it globally (Century Media / North America, Candlelight Records UK / Europe / Australia, Daymare Records / Japan) so, I can’t complain. I’m really excited that we made music that we were then able to give to these industrial guys to do the remixes and have them turn out the way we had envisioned. There is a lot of positive things to be said about the album and the effect it has had for us. I’m also pleased to know that the majority of our fan base responded positively to it.

What is new with your label, Battle Kommand?

Nothing, it’s been dead for well over a year. I put out “Doomsday Derelicts” by Nachtmystium in a CD edition of 1,000 units in 2009, but that’s the only release I’ve done since early ’08 and I officially closed the label after that pressing sold out. I’ve got no interest in running an underground black metal CD label in todays economy both within the underground community and the global economy sucking as bad as it does. There are a million labels releasing a million garbage bands and it requires far too much time and attention for me to filter through all the bullshit out there and know what I want to be trading for, wholesaling for my mail order, etc. I’d had enough of it by 2008 and over the next year, the label just slowly folded and closed. I sold 99% of my remaining stock (which was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 CD’s) to Relapse Records, who I’d imagine still have all that stuff still in stock in some quantity or another.
I read that what I keep thinking is a keyboard line in the song ‘No Funeral’ is actually a guitar! Is that a vocoder I can hear some of your vocals being backed up by? Were there any other instrumentation that would surprise us?

Yes, you’re correct, the driving lead melody in “No Funeral” is actually a guitar line with a synth bass (which is indeed a keyboard of sorts) playing along underneath it, which is what gives it that electro kind of vibe. And yes, we used vocoder a lot on “Addicts”. It’s buried in the mix more than I would like too might I add. It’ll be a lot more present on the next record.

What are some of the other different mixing/producing processes Sanford Parker did on Addicts like that, if any?

I could go on for hours about all the weird shit we’ve experimented with in the studio. I can’t think of anything specific off hand, but there is endless hours of playing around with different instruments or strands of effects pedals running through this processor or that processor and making all kinds of weird fucking noises. It’s a trip being a part of making these records, we really seek out the weirdest shit we can to work with and kind of challenge ourselves to make it all work. It’s a lot of fun and we’re proud of the results.

You said that ‘Addicts’ is more about being addicted to the lifestyle of touring/being on the road than drugs, and the video for ‘Every Last Drop’ has you playing Death, basically, and ‘OD’ing’ the ‘addicts’. Would you say that these represent different parts of yourself? Can you elaborate on the concept for us?

I’d really rather not get into this as it would delve far more into my personal life than I’d ever choose to share in a public interview. I can tell you that “Addicts” is an extremely real and very honest record for me at the time in my life when it was created. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Thanks for your time, any last words?

Thanks for the interview and the support. Keep listening and we’ll keep making records. Cheers.