NIGHTRAGE – interview

“We are the only cure to the poison we spit!” The concept and misanthropic message of NIGHTRAGE ‘s seventh album might appear simple and straight forward.

Marios Iliopoulos talks with us about the album

Interview by Michela (Anesthesia)

LFdM: You are going to release your seventh album, ‘THE VENOMOUS. How does it feel?

Marios: The album is already out and we are very happy here with the feedback we got so far from the press and the fans. We have worked really hard to make the best songs and the best performances on the album, and its really exciting to see that people are embracing our music with such a great welcome.

LFdM:  What does this record mean to Nightrage? How does it fit in the band’s artistic trajectory?

M: We feel that album showcase our strength and passion to play the music and carry on no matter what, we are survivors and we are also lovers of the music that we are playing. For us artistic honest expression means a lot and we always want to express our ideas naturally and without feeling any stress. So The Venomous is the perfect example of that mentality, and we are very proud for the fact that we had the chance to do an album that pleasing us as artists first and we are here to stay. As we have a lot more albums inside us and the best is yet to come.

LFdM. What was the recording process for the album? How long did it take?

M: We recorded the album for one whole month in Athens Greece at Zero Gravity studios with Terry Nikas. We did all guitars, bass, drums and vocals and we had the best of time and it was a very cool experience to get back once again and do an album in Greece. Then we had to mix and master the album in Sweden in Uppsala with Lawrence Mackrory for another 2 weeks, so the whole session took us something like  1.5 month to finish.

LFdM: Was there anything unique about the songwriting process for THE VENOMOUS compared to your earlier albums?

M: I think the fact that this time we were very well prepared and also that the line up is now complete and it feels a more solid unit. We welcomed on this album 2 new members Magnus Soderman on guitars and Lawrence Dinamarca on drums and they solidify the line up putting a lot of cool ideas on the songs. Actually I have written all songs along with Magnus and we had a really great chemistry working together. Ronnie helped us with the arrangements and he wrote his lyrics and vocal melodies, and it is a a collective effort. I think The Venomous is an amalgam of all the great ideas that we had in previous albums and also the fact that we have a new writer adds a bit of twist on our already established signature sound.

LFdM: What inspired the album title?

M: Its all the ugliness in the world that we are experiencing nowadays, all the hatred, racism, bloodshed and wars. All that stuff we see in the world every day, we got affected and we felt the need to write about it. Thee album cover depicts the female demon Marchosias she is the godless of our demise and everybody is bow to her. We are  choosing the wrong things to destroy each other, instead of loving one another, and that unfortunately is leading us to our own self destruction. The album is based on that misantropic concept and the fact that we are the cure to the poison we spit.

LFdM: Where do ideas come from, what do you start with and how do you go about shaping these ideas?

M: Usually I always start with a title or a concept that I have in my mind, then that translates to some riffs and melodies that comes exactly after, then I record everything in my studio One Daw, and that's how all the initial ideas being created. Then everybody comes in and change and edit, adding other ideas, and all of a sudden we have ready some demo songs that everybody is happy with. We take pre-production demos very seriously and we work really hard on the songs before we are going to record the album on the studio.

LFdM: What are some of the new tracks where you currently see the greatest potential for originality of the band?

M: Well originality for us its just a term is not that we are trying to achieve it to impress or please a crowd. For us is all about to write good songs that we would like also to listen as fans. So the songs on the new album I would call them mature songwriting, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel or to force our songwriting to be sort of original, I know that this is really hard to do and might be pointless too when you don't feel doing it. All I wanna say here is all of the songs or albums that we have recorded, if you ask my personal opinion, have that sort of uniqueness to them, Nightrage has an eerie signature sound that we have build up with the many years of experience and hard work. So in that sense we are original and we are not trying to copy paste any other band, as we don't care anyway what is the next big trend. Playing music from the heart is what we are suckers for.

LFdM:  You come from two different country: Greece and Sweden, What's your perspective on the relationship between music  and other forms of art – for you and your work?

M: I think music is an international language and is really easy to be able to connect first with any audience. It is great when we get feedback from the other side of the world from people that we don't know personally, but we know anyway mentally because they are happy with the music that we are doing, and in that way we are connected and we can understand each other, that is the power of the music and also the power of metal, because it is an international brotherhood that everybody is connected. There is a great connection as well with the film making and one complements each other, it is a great connection also with dance and and other forms of artistic expression, I feel that music is the heart of all things living and without it our world would be such a miserable place to be.

LFdM: Now you get to go out on the road and play it live. Are there any countries you're interested in performing in?

M: Yeah we are working now on a Euro mini tour for September and we are looking for more options for the Americas, Asia and Australia.

We would like to go out there and play as many different territories as possible, because we feel that “The Venomous” deserves our best attention.

Thanks a lot for the interview and the chance to talk about “The Venomous”, hope to see you all on the forthcoming Nightrage shows and stay true and metal, maximum respect.

LFdM: Thank you so much Marios!