Interview with death metal band from France - NIHILISM.
Answered Séb PASQUALOTTO and Seb SCHERRER, thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
Ave NIHILISM! I haven’t found any interview in the Czech language with you, yet. So please, first introduce the band to our readers who don’t know you. You could start from the early beginnings and describe the whole NIHILISM history.
Séb PASQUALOTTO: We are a French Death Metal band created in 2009. Influenced by bands of the same style from the early 90s, the first 6-track demo "Twelve Thousand" was released in September 2011. After a series of concerts, we have a split album in 2014 with the band Dehumanize titled "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed". We promoted it at gigs with Nervecell, Crusher, Absurdity, Hideous Divinity, Ichor,...
In October 2016, the band's debut album "Beyond Redemption" was released on Overpowered Records. Mixed and mastered by Damien Dausch (Dust In Mind) at Psyrus Studio, it will be accompanied by the shooting of our first music video "Ocean's War" directed by Christian Brémont from Technical Spirit.
2018 begins the recording of the 2nd album "Apocaliptic Fate", which will again be mixed and mastered at Psyrus Studio by Damien Dausch, and will be released on November 22, 2019 on the Great Dane Records label.
2020, we took advantage of the various confinements linked to the health context to prepare a 12-track album to celebrate the 12th anniversary of "Twelve Thousand", our first demo. In addition to the rearranged and re-recorded original titles, this album is composed of 5 covers of death-metal classics. It's called "Codex Nihilistic Exhumed", and was again mixed and mastered at Psyrus Studio by Damien Dausch. It was released on 03/24/23.
I’m just listening to your new record „Codex Nihilistic Exhumed“ and I feel like as if I am closed in some tomb together with DEICIDE, VADER, ASPHYX, BLOODBATH, MORGOTH. The record has a great dark sound. Where did you record it and how satisfied you are with it? Did you have the "last word" concerning the resulting sound?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: We recorded the album remotely due to the different confinements. However the vocals were recorded in my studio. We then entrusted the mixing and mastering to Damien Dausch from Psyrus Studio, with whom we had already worked on our 2 previous albums. He knows our expectations in terms of sound perfectly, which greatly facilitates discussions. This last sounds even better than our 2 previous ones because of having had much more time for the recording, which made it possible to fine-tune the different takes.
How was the new material for album „Codex Nihilistic Exhumed“ created? How exactly NIHILISM writes the music?
Séb PASQUALOTTO : We decided to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the band by re-recording and re-arranging our 1st demo "twelve Thousand". This album is therefore a little special since it is composed of pieces from this 1st demo and embellished with 5 covers of classic death metal. The health situation forced us to declare the release initially planned for 2021 in order to be able to redo concerts. Suddenly, the album was released for the 12th anniversary of the demo.
In general, the writing of songs follows a well-established process. I compose the instrumental models of the pieces that I propose to the other members of the group for validation. We rework the pieces together so that everyone appropriates them, then Seb (Scherrer) adds the vocal lines and Jules the solos. When the final result is satisfactory, the final version of the title is recorded.
„Codex Nihilistic Exhumed“ has dark cover art. Who is an author? I really like his work. How did you actually choose the idea of the cover and what exactly illustrates?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: Basically, we wanted to release a 5-tracks EP with only the covers. The idea of adding the songs from our 1st demo came later, from being locked up at home, without being able to rehearse or do concerts.In fact, writing the songs was very simple since this is our first re-arranged and re-recorded demo.
Could you reveal us who is an author of the lyrics and what is their background? Where did you take inspiration for certain topics?
Seb SCHERRER: I am the author of the lyrics that were inspired by the New Testament: The revelation of Saint John.
You play music as old as death metal itself. How do you perceive new directions in the death metal? I mean mixing with death core or technical death metal? Do you have any favourite bands in “modern metal”?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: We've actually all been long enough in death metal that we've seen the style evolve over the past 35 years. Even if we have a more marked preference for the groups of the beginning of the 90s, we appreciate certain more modern groups, which knew how to evolve the style either by integrating new elements into it. Some new bands are still doing old school death metal, and they're doing it very well. I'm thinking in particular of LIK and our friends from Voorhees.
In technical death, I advise you to listen to Catalyst which is the other group of Jules, our solo guitarist.
I also like more extreme bands like Dying Fetus, Cattel Decapitation or Benighted.
What about NIHILISM and concerts? Do you play a lot? Are you going on tour or you are choosing only bigger festivals? And what about touring over Europe?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: We have concerts scheduled until the end of September at the moment. We are actively looking for new dates for the end of the year and the beginning of 2024. All members of Nihilsm have a full-time job, it is very complicated for us to consider a tour. We therefore prefer isolated dates. We try to do between 10 and 15 concerts a year, even if the last 3 years have been, as for all groups, very complicated due to the health situation.
Can you recommend some new albums, which impressed you at the latest time?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: Catalyst's latest album "A Different Painting For A New World" is absolutely monstrous. In a more old-school register, I really liked the last Bloodbath.
Do you know and listen to some metal bands from the Czech Republic?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: The first group I discovered was Citron in 1990 with the album “Vypusst'te psy”, which I have on vinyl in my discography. It's old-school heavy, and at the time, I thought the album was really good.
We are slowly approaching the end of the interview so I would like to ask one more philosophical question. How would you define the death metal style? What represents this music for you and why did you choose exactly this genre?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: I started listening to metal in a very classic way with Iron Maiden, then Metallica and Slayer. Heavy and Thrash Metal are the basis of my musical culture. I discovered Death Metal a little later, with mythical albums like "Cause Of Death" by Obituary, "Leprosy" and "Spiritual Healing" by Death. I was immediately fascinated by the sound. I smelled the American groups who produced the majority of the albums at Morisound Studio. But the 1st wave of Swedish Death Metal, like Entombed and Dismember, redefined the genre with this very particular sound (thanks to HM2!!), which still remains a reference for me today.
What NIHILISM is planning for the next few months?
Séb PASQUALOTTO: We plan to do as many concerts as possible to promote the release of our new album. Then, by the end of the year, we will start recording the next one, hoping to be able to release it at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. We want to prepare the recording of a live, which is the only format missing from our discography.
Thank you for the interview and I wish you a lot of sold CDs, hundreds of crazy fans and tons of great ideas.
Séb PASQUALOTTO: Thank you for the interview and for your interest in Nihilism.
Recenze/review - NIHILISM - Apocalyptic Fate (2019):
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