http://www.myspace.com/bspropaganda
1. The first
thing that I want to ask is about your band name. Are you Lord of the Rings
fans? Also, I believe there are other bands with the name Nashgul, does it ever
cause any problems for you?
Santi – Hi there!! Well, I
always like “lord of the rings” but I never became obsessed with it, I like the
books and the movies, they are great, but that’s it…. Nowadays a lot of metal
bands are trying to look evil using LOTR themes, that’s nerd!! I don..t have a
problem to be a nerd, but you know I..m not trying to look evil and trve!!
Anyway, ask our bass player, he’s the one who got the name for the band when
they were teenagers.
Iván – I think that nobody else uses Nashgul. Actually, the
name doesn’t exist, it’s a conscious alteration of Nazgul, the Dark Riders. However, a countless
number of bands use the name Nazgul, mostly Black Metal bands.
2. Aside from
Nashgul, I know Hector plays in Black Panda as well. Do any of you play in
other bands also? Do you ever have schedule conflicts with your other bands?
Hector - We are very active people when it comes to
rehearsing or making gigs and tours with our bands. Each band has a rehearsal
day and whenever a gig is planned we discuss it with the other bands to avoid
problems. I ended up playing with 4 different bands once, in 3 different
rehearsal places, 6 days a week and with no car, it’s everything about
interests and organization.
I also play in Black Panda www.myspace.com/blackpandakillers and Asedio www.myspace.com/asediados
Iván
– I play with Hongo www.myspace.com/fungivoro , a slow metal band
that might remind you to Neurosis, and with some other bands... but we never
had any kind of problem with that. We do everything that’s possible to organize
ourselves so no one gets hurt. The difficult thing is to plan our vacation, we
never have!!.
Santi – I play bass since a few
months ago in the grind/death veterans Machetazo www.myspace.com/bandamachetazo and got some other projects here
and there, if some of them arise from the sewer I will let you know….our bass
player got a hardcore punk band named Codia www.myspace.com/codiacore , check them out!
3. You guys have done quite a few splits already over
the past few years. It seems to me that your sound has changed somewhat since
the split with Anti-Hero, what can you say about the progression of your style
since the beginning of the band?
Santi – I hate our songs from our split
with Antihero, they suck, we were young and naive and we were trying to be
“original”, fuck! Satan bless the day we decided to play straight to the point
fuckin Grindcore!! Now we are only worshiping our grind, death and hc-crust
classics….hail Bastard and Rise Above from Japan!!....
Hector – Our sound has changed mainly
because it’s been 6 six years since we recorded our split with Antihero, so i
think that the evolution in every Ep is quite reasonable.....
When we recorded the split with Antihero we
were kids with no experience playing live, recording or anything like that. A
couple of years ago we saw that things were going well, we were playing in
festivals around Europe, an European tour, some Spanish state gigs and tours,
editions in nice labels with great bands... so we began to take it “seriously”.
We are now playing in festivals and meeting
bands we used to watch on TV when we were kids, like Extreme Noise Terror,
Discharge, Dismember, Brutal Truth ,Napalm Death... we sometimes talk about
that, it’s weird !!
4. Out of
all your previous splits, do you have a favorite? You have done splits with
some other fantastic bands like Sewn Shut and World Downfall.
Iván – My favorite one is World
Downfall's. I think that our most strong and motherfucker sound is in there,
and Telerealidade and Tú que lo sabes todo are my favorite
songs.
Hector – The split with FromTheAshes. The
Pushead-style artwork is fucking great and the band is amazing, they are good
friends and we met a few times around Europe and even they are not active today
we still have a good relationship.
Santi – Probably my favourite is our split
with Sewn shut; I always loved that fuckin band!! Cheers to those lazy
bastards!!
5.While
we're speaking about releases, you recently finished recording an LP, which I'm
really excited about. What label will this LP be on? Also, how was the
experience of writing for a full LP rather than just some songs for a 7"
split? Was it easier or more difficult to write that much material?
Hector – There are bands that can record quickly... but
we are not like them, we do it slow... It took us too long, more than 2 years.
We were going over and over every track but we can assure that we are 100%
pleased with their arrangements as well as with their recording.
We are lucky that the owner of the studio is an
old friend of us, so we took it easy, we were going there a few hours once or
twice a week when we were available so we didn’t stress out, we began in
December 2008 and finished in May 2009.
Santi – Torture Garden Pictures from USA and Trabuc Records from Spain are going
to release a nice gatefold LP version of our new album and Power It Up is going
to release the CD ….we spent a lot of time preparing the new album, but they
were a lot of factors involved. We spent
weeks without rehearse, also we were releasing a lot of stuff thru 2006 &
2007, so we didn’t want to saturate the scene with tons of Nashgul releases in
one year haha
6.Along with
recording a new LP, you're going to appear on a tribute to Repulsion. Why did
you decide to record Slaughter of the Innocents? I think your version of the
song came out really good from what I heard online on your Myspace page.
Hector – The truth
is that our first choice was Black Breath, but they told us that we couldn’t
make that one, we still don't know why… so our second choice was Slaughter of
the Innocent..
We hope to match up to the compilation and to
the bands in it: General Surgery, Cretin, Haemorrhage, Inhume, Cephalic
Carnage, Looking for an Answer, Blockheads, Machetazo…....
Santi – Thanks for your
words!. Repulsion is my favourite band within extreme music, so for me it’s such
an honour to be part of this tribute! Can’t wait to see it released!!
7. I always
know when I get a new Nashgul record that the artwork will be amazing. Is the
artwork done by a band member or a friend? What are the influences for the
artwork used for your records?
Iván – Our bass player makes all the
artwork (except for Worldownfall), he started drawing because of Iron Maiden’s
covers. He is really influenced by Derek Riggs, Repka, Pushead, Riddickart,
Putrid or Nor. He used to focus his work on children’s illustration, but now he
is starting to work for bands, you can check his work out at his website, www.myspace.com/sendonluis
8. The
vocals on all your records are aways fantastic. What are your biggest
influences for the vocal style? Also, what are your biggest influences for all
the music, and for your lyrics?
Santi - Thanks for the compliment dude!! My main
influences when I started to sing Grindcore were: Lee Dorrian from Napalm
Death, Paul Pavlovich from Assück and Iñaki from Denak but also Im very
influenced by all the old grind bands I love: Repulsion, Defecation, old
Carcass, Fear of god, Regurgitate, Terrorizer, Warsore, Brutal Truth, Dahmer
and tons more…..my lyrics are mainly influenced by daily life, the shitty city
where I live, mental illness , alcohol, weed, movies, books, and a lot of music
of course, too much to mention!!
Hector – Each one of us is influenced by different bands but we are all
freaks of NWOBHM, Grindcore, Death Metal, Crust, Thrash, Punk and Rock &
Roll. I fucking love bands like Assück, Entombed, Terrorizer, Napalm Death,
Sacrilege, Iron Maiden, Brutal Truth, Extreme Noise Terror, Metallica,
Discharge, Gbh, Doom, Amebix, Denak, Autopsy, Disrupt, Entombed, Whiplash.....
Iván – As Hector said, we all love extreme
music classics. I grew up grinding with Assuck, Brutal Truth, Napalm Death,
Neurosis, Macabre, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Deicide and Brutal/Death/Grind
underground good shit
9. Spain has
some great bands, especially some good grind bands like Looking for an Answer
and Disturbance Project, aside from Nashgul. How is the scene there, especially
relating to grind? Are there also some good fests every year?
Hector – There are good Grindcore bands,
actually... not only the ones you mention but Freaknation, Haemorrhage, Crisischrist,
Ras, Aural Butchery, Violent Headache, Unsane Crisis and so on. There are great
HC, Punk and Crust bands too that knew how to wake up in the last years.
Regarding festivals there are not a lot of
them... but we have the Etengabeko Zarata organized by Fres, from the band Ras;
and Trauma Fest.
.
Iván – The truth is
that there are lots of good Spanish grindcore bands... but people who play in
these bands is always the same. Here in A Coruña, we are from 10 to 15 guys
playing in 8 or 9 different bands.......
10. Would you recommend Spain as a place for
other bands to tour?
Hector – To be honest… no. The number of people
attending to shows at the Spanish State is not as high as it was a few years
ago. Here in A Coruña we live in the end of the world and bands used to think that playing
here didn't worth it. But 8 years ago we began organizing shows in abandoned
premises under the name of La
Cúpula del Trueno Death Crew. Today we have A Casa das
Atochas Squat http://www.myspace.com/casadasatochas to play in and we make sure that
the bands get money enough, have a nice dinner, some drinks, and a clean and
quiet place to rest... and we also offer them the chance to learn about our night
life!!
So today Hardcore-Punk-Grind-Diy bands stop
here to play. Oporto is organizing lots of shows lately too so we are having
movement in the area again. We are proud to say that bands like Inepsy,
Consume, Looking for an Answer, Magrudergrind, PLF, Hellshock, Inquisition,
Yacopsae or Gasmask Terror played here!!
11. Do you
have any tour plans, for the U.S. or otherwise?
Santi – We don’t have any US
tour plan at the moment!! We were supposed to tour across the US last year, but
finally it was not possible, damn!! Anyway we REALLY want to do it, so we hope
to find some nice band to tour with and do a 1-2 week tour sometime soon!!
Anyway we are booking now an European tour for September!! Cant wait for
that!!!
Thanks and CHEERS for the interview!! I look forward to
hearing back from you.
Santi – Thanks to you for your
interest in Nashgul, hope to see ya on the road someday and drink some nice
shit together!! Cheers!!!!!
Hector – GRIND !