NILE pour l'abum "The Underworld Awaits Us All"

Keyser proposed us a long NILE’s interview in 2007. We thought that with the release of “The Underworld Awaits Us All” on August, 23rd, it was time to meet again with Karl for a short talk, in order to get news from him and to know more about this 10th album.

1/ How could you compare your new album to "Vile Nilotic Rites" (released 5 years ago)?

Ohh, I'd say that this one is much newer (laughs). I think this one is a very streamlined kind of record. It's very to the point, it's direct. There’s not a lot of extraneous elements or instrumentation.

2/ One of the new songs has the longest name ever in the NILE's discography (“Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes”). What is the story behind it?

Well, this is from chapter 181 of the Book of the Dead. The chapter for not being hung upside down and made to eat feces. It's about what happens in one version of the Egyptian underworld, and there's many. The souls of the damned, or to be tormented by being hung upside down on stakes and tormented by baboons. I don’t know if you know about baboons, but they are very vicious creatures. They always got erections, they’re very violent. They're horrible and one of the things that they do is throw their feces, all the time. For them this is fun, this must be like going to a baseball game or something. Crazy Egyptian mythology. When I opened the Book in the Dead and I saw this chapter, I was like “How is this not a metal song ?”

3/ We love your liner note on each song in the physical album. Will there still be that time some explanations about each song?

Absolutely. We spent quite a bit of time underlining it, this time. It's very fun to read. Yeah, we got a liner notes. It's a really good reason to buy a vinyl or buy a CD because we believe the fan who’s willing to take his hard earned money to support the band by buying an album or CD or a t-shirt or whatever… These fans deserve our best work, so liner notes on physical copies. People who buy them, they get something extra.

4/ How do you find enough matter to make new concepts after all those NILE’s albums?

With thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian history, I will not run out of subjects very soon. I could probably go a few lifetimes writing new songs and still never worry about running out of songs ideas.

5/ The artwork is fabulous, one of our favorites. Can you tell us a little more about the concept of it?

Well, this one was done again by Michał "Xaay" Loranc. Early on during the recording of the record, we gave him the songs to listen to, the demos, we gave them the song’s lyrics, we told what songs were about. And we said yes, go do it. And this is what it is. I think it symbolizes a lot to do with eternal life, reincarnation and the underworlds.

6/ After you received his draft, did you ask him to make some changes?

Oh of course, I hated the colors of the first draft. Michał loves to do everything super dark, like so dark you can't even see anything. We have to be able to see what this is, we need some white on this thing. All joking aside, he does great stuff, and we let him do whatever he wanted… it just couldn't be so dark. You got to be able to see it, right? When you put it on a t-shirt, there has to be some ink.

7/ As a guitarist, we would like to know more on that side. How does the writing process go with NILE? Do you write everything on a software (Guitar Pro or equivalent) and submit it to the other members?

Usually what we do is record actual audio demos when we're writing the song. Those get passed around between the band members and that's when things start to really get interesting because everybody starts going “well, if we did this and you did that, and we changed this all around”. Well, there we go. Sometimes the songs go back and forth 10, 11, 12 times until we're happy with it.

8/ Do you write bass lines also and maybe drums parts, or do you let others do their parts ?

Well, the initial demo of the song usually does have software drums just filled it so George gets, you know, even a vague conception of what's this song about? But usually he changes everything, right? Whatever it is that I write, he'll change it, he'll change it just to change it. But he's quite a genius, so, it's fine, it's a lot of fun.
As far as the base, I purposely did not write bass lines. I let Dan do all that. I just gave him the demo of the song and he wrote his own bass parts and brought some really interesting ones. I was really happy with what he was able to bring with the bass parts on this record. Because they're not the same as the guitar parts, they're different enough to when/where you can hear them. On a lot of other records, the bass is doing the same thing as the guitar, so the bass disappears. Yeah, it's in there. Sometimes it's too aligned because a guitar player played it, like me, right? So I was not going to touch the bass on this record and I was mother fucker determinate. I was not gonna play any bass on this record, I'm not doing it. Just give that job to someone else.

9/ How much do you practice guitar every day? NILE’s songwriting is quite exigent, so I guess you need to practice a lot to get those songs ready for live action.

Every day, every day that I can. It seems like the more adult responsibilities one has as you grow up, the harder it is to carve out time to practice, but I do my best frankly. On a good day 4-6 hours, on really good day maybe 8 hours, on the day where there's responsibilities, maybe only an hour. I do what I can. I love practicing, I live for fucking practice.

10/ Could you also tell us which is the hardest part or song ever from NILE to play? And why?

I'd say some of the stuff on this new record is very challenging to play, very challenging. The crazy timing in “Chapter For Not Being Hung Upside Down” is disturbed, you can hear it and it goes right by but the all-time blowing rhythms is going on, they're just gotta be focused. “Stelae of Vultures” got insane guitar and drums, just keeping all that together… Man it’s a challenge, some hard stuff.

11/ Are you confident for a proper play during a live show?

Well, we managed to play it good enough to record it, so I'm pretty sure it will translate just fine. If you like, you can come to the show and see how well we did.

12/ The Death Metal scene has quite changed over the years. Do you have any inputs on the current situation? I feel that there is still a lot of people going regularly to Death Metal shows, and that the flame is even more possible today, what do you think?

I think that flame is alive and it's burning. It's not possible to be the same Death Metal scene that we had 20, 30, 35 years ago. The world has changed since then. And even Death Metal itself has become more acceptable. I mean dude, GOJIRA has just played at the opening of the Olympics and that was just fine. That was OK. So, do we need any more signs that Metal has become accepted in mainstream. In a few more years, when we're all old enough to go to the retirement home, somebody will be playing CANNIBAL CORPSE there. It'll be just OK, no problem. But that's everyone will just turn their head hearing aids down. So it'll be just fine to play CANNIBAL CORPSE in the retirement home if you want to, while they're playing bingo.
13/ Do you feel the “love” from your old/new fans on stage?

There is a bond that you feel with the fans that have been with the band for a long time. It's that's real, you can feel it. It's when you walk out on stage and there are people in the audience that have been there 5,6,7,8,10 times to see the band over the years. There's this guy when we play in Worcester, Massachusetts. That's been the 15th NILE show and I see him there every time and I recognize them. He always makes his way up to the front to make sure that I can see, right. And I'm like, dude it's so great to see you again. That's, that's love. They believe and love the music so much that they stay with you over the years. That's meaningful. That's special. That means something.

14/ There have been quite a few "Saurian…" albums (your Egyptian Ambient solo project) over the years. Will we see another one in the future years?

I'm not opposed to it. I'm OK with the idea. At the moment it's really busy with this NILE whole thing, so we'll see. Ohh, it's not difficult music, it's quiet music and it's low-key, so it's not difficult like NILE records. NILE records eat up a lot of my life. A lot of people just have no conception of the amount of work that goes into an hour record. But the “Saurian…” records are easy, they're low stress, it's OK. So, when it's time to relax and do another one, sure OK. Why not but no plan.

Photo Credit: Casey Coscarelli

Interview prepared by Chri$