Nocturnal Rites is a long running power metal band from Umea, Sweden who has just unleashed their latest opus The 8th Sin onto the world. Demonstrating just how versatile their sound can be, Nocturnal Rites take all fans of metal on an adventure ride with their new effort, now available domestically from Century Media Records. Here is a recent interview we conducted with bassist Nils Erikkson.
Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Nocturnal Rites, and how long the band has been together.
Hey, I am Nils Eriksson and I play the bass, I write the lyrics and I participate in writing the music. We have been together since way back, we actually started in 1991 playing death metal and making demos. Over time, though, we started incorporating influences from the bands we grew up on, more in the vein of what we sound like now. Sometime by 1993 we were a bizarre hybrid of death and melodic metal with weird death metal vocals. By 1994 the only thing we had in common with the death metal scene was the vocals, so we decided to go full out and get a "normal" vocalist. Our debut album was released in 1995 and people wrote us off as pretty much insane for doing melodic music when death was at its peak. But we had a blast and I am very glad today that we followed our hearts and did whatever we felt like. So there you go, our story on a platter.
How would you say The 8th Sin compares to your previous releases? Is it fair to say it's the most adventurous, yet accessible recording you have ever done?
Probably. However, I don't think we've ever done two records alike. We always start every new album writing session with a clean sheet and an open mind and then just let the music lead us in whatever direction it takes us. That is actually what I like the most about us as songwriters and as a band - we don't give a crap about what fits the mold or not. We love music too much to only re-write the same stuff over and over again. We thrive on change and to constantly refine our sound. I think this is one of the biggest reasons why we still surprise people, why our fan base is ever growing and why we still sell more and more records.
Is there any story behind the CD title The 8th Sin?
Well, we had about a million different suggestions, but for some reason we have always had a hard time making up our minds when it comes to titles on albums. It's always the same damn story every time. This time was probably even worse then for other albums. It was the night before our deadline and it was really our deadline, because the promo records were being shipped to the printers in the morning... So, for some reason "The 8th Sin" just came to me. I mentioned it to the other guys and they did actually agree that it sounded all right, haha... The morning after I had the exact same suggestion from our A&R in my inbox and he had no idea we for some reason had thought of the exact same damn title. So that's the story. On a metaphorical basis, I guess it's really simple - it's our 8th album and there are only 7 deadly sins. So there's where we squeezed in the obligatory little play with words.
Tell me a little about the song Me, and what made you guys decide to perform an all-out ballad on this album? Any story behind the song?
That song was actually written for the last album and already arranged for a 72 piece orchestra. But since we completed the last album over the summer months, the orchestra and our schedules sort of clashed and the whole thing just ran out in the sand. However, we all loved the songs and the basic melodies, but since the orchestra thing never happened we thought we'd go the exact opposite direction and make the smallest and most personal version of the song we ever could. You know, just Jonny in an empty with a piano - that sort of vibe. I am amazed at how well Jonny pulled off the vocal parts in this song. And I am amazed at how different and weird the song turned out in the end. We had no idea how it would come out in the end, or if we'd even put it on the album. We had it as sort of a pet project through the recording session and worked on it from time to time. I think that is part of why it turned out so real.
How did the tour with Gamma Ray go?
It was pretty cool. We did some great shows and made some new friends in some countries we'd never been to before.
How was the tour with Nightwish? Was this the final tour that Tarja was on, and was she cool to be around?
Yeah, I think this was the final run she did with the band in Europe. Those shows were pretty awesome indeed. However, we didn't spend any time with either Tarja or the other Nightwish members. We hung out with our friends and got wasted on our own. But the most memorable and best times we had on the last album was our headlining shows in Japan and the numerous shows we did in Sweden. Those shows were pretty awesome.
How did your show at the Chicago Powerfest 2006 go, and what did you think about the overall town and festival?
The show was cool and the people were into it. We had never before been to the states, so it was a nice experience. Chicago to me seemed like a nice place. I only walked around in downtime Chicago for an afternoon to see some sights and what not, but the city seemed like a nice place to be.
When is Nocturnal Rites coming back to play here in the States? Any chance for a tour soon?
We'll be touring in Europe and possibly Asia for the remainder of 2007. After that we keep all doors open for some shows on US soil, but nothing is really in the pipe as of now. But it would be cool to do a full tour in the states since we've never really given it a chance before.
How did your drummer do directing your video for Never Again, and has he directed videos for any other bands?
He has directed quite a bunch of videos by now - for Morgana Lefay, Carnal Forge, Norman and so on. He has really grown and developed his talent. It's funny to watch his early stuff and compare with the latest work he's done. It's like going from our first album from 1995 to our new one. The Never Again video - we had decided not to do the run of the mill performance video with us in some warehouse looking evil. That's been done before and will be done again. Honestly. We were all kind of sick of those types of vids. So, we wanted something really different and then something that didn't actually focus on us as a band but rather a story. I think it turned out really cool. It was a huge project to animate that thing and it took boatloads of time. The animators worked 24/7 for like a month to get it done in time.
What happened to your old singer Anders? Do you still speak with him and is he in any current bands?
As far as I know he is not really singing in any "real" bands nowadays. He is still in the business, but these days he records other bands and stuff. I don't think he was ever into the whole band thing.
When you listen back to the older Nocturnal Rites material, what do you think of it now?
I think it's full of life and enthusiasm. You can hear that we are young, eager and really hungry, and that's really cool. You hear tons of shit you would have done differently today, but I really dig the old stuff. And I am quite proud that we always did our own thing and that we for some reason never followed any trends and that we throughout our whole career have been one step ahead. You know, when that whole knight, dragon and sword metal era was really hot in Europe, we did Afterlife (2000) and people kind of thought we were insane, at least over here. Same with the first album - 1995 every other kid was in a death metal and we were doing melodic power metal. My god, people really thought we'd lost it. But we loved it.
Do you guys run your own Myspace account, and what do you think of that website overall?
Our English buddy Lee started the site and nowadays I think it's too much fun to hang there, answer emails and what not to just let him do it by himself. I think that these types of communities serve a great purpose to bands of any size. It's a great window and a cool way of getting closer to the fans and at the same time make new fans.
Are you or any other Nocturnal Rites member involved with any other band at the moment?
Fredrik and I did an album 1997 with a band we called Guillotine. Actually just a few months ago, straight after we finished the new NR album, we started working on some new stuff . It really just poured out of us and before we knew it we had the better part of an album written. When we get some time we'll record it and release it. We're doing some kind of mean retro thrash in the vein of Kreator, Destruction, Exodus, and early Sepultura and so on.
Do you have any messages for metal fans here in the Los Angeles/OC area?
Check out our new album, play it loud and get everyone in your building evicted. That's pretty much it. Have a great day!
Below is an earlier interview we did with Nocturnal Rites...
A Decade of Metal with
Updated: 02/20/06
by Kenneth Morton
Celebrating a decade of compelling power metal, the prolific Nocturnal Rites of
Sweden has returned with their latest epic Grand Illusion. An exciting
new effort for this New Year, we recently spoke with one of the Nils in the band
about Grand Illusion, a decade of metal madness, Czech beer, and the
mighty Abba. Read on...
Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in
Nocturnal Rites. I know the press
release said I was Nils Norberg available for interviews, but I’m actually Nils
Eriksson, the bassist.
Are there ever any
problems with having two Nils in the band? There are actually four Nil’s out of five. Fredrik’s second name is also Nils
and Jonny’s second name is also Nils. At least me and the other Nils go by our
last names, so it’s pretty okay.
If someone stood in the middle of the room and
said, “Hey Nils!,” you wouldn’t have four people answering? (Laughs)Yeah, I guess so.
You guys are celebrating 10 years as a band. How
does that feel? It actually feels good, just the stuff that I’ve experienced over the last ten
years has been awesome. When we first formed the band in the beginning, we
didn’t have any dreams or any plans. We just played music and we made some
demos. Then we made our first album and we said, “Wow, it can’t get any better
than this!” Back then, not a lot of bands got to release albums. Your dreams
and aspirations had to grow with time. We did our first tour and we felt that
this is it – we can’t get bigger. This is how cool it gets. But stuff happens
and you have a lot of fun. You get to experience stuff that very few people get
to do, so it’s been great. We’ve traveled all over the world, and yeah, we just
have a good time.
Compare the new
album Grand Illusion to the previous Nocturnal Rites albums… I
guess this new one is a bit more mid-tempo – a bit more in your face –
melody-wise it’s pretty much the same. We’ve always been really thorough when
it comes to melodies. On this new one, it’s just a bit more obvious – the
balance between melodies and aggression. Our biggest trademark today is that we
manage to combine melody and still an edge – some spunk. I think a lot of bands
in our genre just pile melody upon melody – and in the end it just comes out
sounding like Britney Spears with distorted guitars and some double bass drums.
But we’re not like that. I think we can appeal to a larger audience with this
album. It’s been like that before as well – fans of death metal and more
extreme types of metal – they can listen to us and sort of dig us. We don’t
only appeal to the hardcore melodic metal fans. I think we have a larger
audience, and hopefully in the States this will help us out with this album.
Is there any story
or concept behind the album title Grand Illusion? My thought was that when we chose the title, we didn’t want a song title for the
album title this time around. For me, it’s a bit about that things aren’t
really always what they seem. And I think that could be applied to a lot of
things in the world. Like religion – I don’t think the idea behind religion is
for people to die over it or for people to kill other people. Also, money is
always one of those things. We build all these great shiny towers, but they’re
only there to make money. I could go on and on and on about this. The whole
world is an illusion for something else. A lot of people wear a mask and
they’re not really want they present themselves to be. It’s a large theory and
it’s a nice topic to write about – and I think it sort of sums up the album. I
write a lot about stupid people and idiots in general.
Where did the idea
for the song Fools Never Die come from? It’s a bit about that it really doesn’t matter where you stop in history –
there’s always been fools. I don’t think it’s ever going to change. If you
open your history book and you pick a page at random you’re gonna find out that
things never really change – we’re always making stupid mistakes and we’re
always fighting over the same crappy things. So Fools Never Die.
What is your
favorite beer? I
like Czech beer – I love the Czech bud. I don’t know if you have the Czech beer
in the US, but there are so many great Czech beers. Last year we got to go to
the factory while on tour. We got a private tour of the whole Pilsner Urquell
factory – one of the greatest beers in the world. Just went through the tunnels
and saw the whole process of making this beer, so it was great. I love Czech
beer!
When are we going
to see Nocturnal Rites here in the States? Hopefully soon. We’ve gotten a lot of offers to come over, but it’s never
really clicked. We’ve always had other stuff to do or other tours booked
elsewhere. It’s always been last minute. But this time for various reasons,
the album came out before in Europe and now in January in the States – we’ve
already wrapped up a lot of our European tour. There’s a good chance that we’ll
get some offers that we can actually realize this time.
If Nocturnal Rites were invited to participate on
a Heavy Metal Tribute to Abba, what song would you want to do and why? These guys have so many great songs. These guys are great songwriters. I love
Gimme Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight, but that would probably sound
kind of gay – and Dancing Queen would also be kind of gay. These lyrics
are mostly sort of for girls to sing, I guess. I could fiddle around with the
words a bit – I might do Gimme Gimme A Girl After Midnight…
Or how about Gimme
A Beer After Midnight? Yeah, Gimme A Beer After Midnight. After midnight is kind of late for
one beer though. Gimme a Crate after midnight! A keg after midnight!
Sounds good. So do you have any messages for
Nocturnal Rites fans here in the States? Yeah, just pick up the album, play it loud as hell and just go nuts and have a
good time. Like I said, I think this is an album that could appeal to not only
fans of melodic metal, but also fans of a bit more extreme metal. We’ve noticed
that the people that generally don’t like melodic metal can easily get into our
new songs. I think it’s a crossover album, and hopefully it will work out.
