Nominon is Death Metal Madness!

Nominon is Swedish death metal at it’s most intensive, with roots dating back into the early 90′s.  Their very first show was performing support for the likes of metal legends Dissection and Dismember – surely a great way to kick off what would be a devastating, long lasting career in the underground.   Now in the year 2010, Nominon has unleashed their fourth magnum opus entitled Monumentomb unto the metal masses.  With a forthcoming North American tour and a rich and glorious history, Highwire Daze decided to check into current musical conspiracies of the mighty Nominon.  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Nominon, and how long the band has been together.
-I’m Perra Karlsson and I play the Drums ov Death for NOMINON. The band started already back in 1993 and have released several albums, ep’s and stuff though out the years. We’re now promoting the brand new album; Monumentomb that DEATHGASM RDS released in March.

Where in Sweden are you from and what is your local metal scene like there?
-Personally I live in Jonkoping, it’s a little bit of south in Sweden. Two hour ride south.-east from Gothenburg. We don’t really have that many bands around here, it’s like a black metal band called THE LEGION plus the hardrockers HELLFUELED and that’s about it. There’s a Metal club arranging shows every now and then called ZARAGON ROCK CLUB, they’re mainly organizing shows with regular hardrock and heavy metal bands from all over Sweden.

How does Monumentomb compare to your previous efforts and is there any story behind the title?
-The new album was the hardest one to complete for us so far in EVERY possible way. We had the songs written and done, but just some couple of weeks before the actual recording at NECROMORBUS STUDIO our previous vocalist Daniel left us. At first our guitarist Juha Sulasalmi were suppose to lay down the vocals for the album, but we all noticed pretty fast that his voice were fading after just one track, so we had to call in help from friends. I rang in Erik Sahlström (GENERAL SURGERY) and the original singer from INSISION; Johan Thornberg. They both did a tremendous work and recorded the vocals in just two days or something. Erik did seven songs and Johan did two, we also had Tore (the producer) singing on one of the songs; Undead Beast. In the end it turned out bloody amazing so even though it was a hard gig we managed to pulled it off just great. It was my idea to call the album Monumentomb, the title just hit me when I was out walking one day. The songs are very epic, variated and diverse, a bit monumental one could say, and since we’re dealing with Death Metal I’d say that the mixture of monumental and tomb fits like a gloove.

Where did you get the ideas for the lyrics this time around? Please cite two songs in particular and what the lyrics are about.
-Worship was written mainly by myself and ex bassist Anders Malmström. We had to sit a in the middle of the night writing and arranging everything for the vocal parts of that particular song. It was nothing but hard job, but the whole thing turned out killer and very awkward and personal in many ways. It’s about being a knight of the underworld, a soldier marching out and leaving the light behind. Archfiend is another one, it’s also pretty much of being a needle in the eye of everything that people consider as normal.

Who did the artwork on Monumentomb and how much input did you have on the completed image?
-It was an old friend and fan of the band called Chris Moyen from France who did the artwork. It fits the title perfect and it felt awesome working with Chris again, he also did our second album Recremation in 2005 and the Remnants Of A Diabolical History collection-CD in 2006, as well as some other older NOMINON stuff. The concept behind the artwork was a mixture of an idea that Juha and I have had for quite some time, and we’re very pleased with the result.

The first Nominon show ever was in support of Dissection and Dismember – two absolute heavy metal legends. Tell me about how the show went and what your memories were of the night.
-Well, I wasn’t in the band at that time (this was in 1996, I joined 2001). But I have seen the show on video and it’s fucken awesome all the way, Juha (guitar) actually plays the drums and it was a really good first show for NOMINON. The response were awesome too, lots of sicko’s banging and raising their fists in the air. It’s so insane when I think about it, because I could have been in the band already back then, since I did play with Juha in DION FORTUNE the year before; 1995. That band however re-located later to Stockholm, and since I moved to Stockholm it felt like a good decision to stay with DION FORTUNE at the time. Man was I wrong?!

Did you know Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection at all and how did you feel when you first heard of his death?
-I met Jon at first 1990 at a MORBID ANGEL/PESTILENCE show in Fagersta, Sweden, he was 15 and I was 17. We stayed in touch over the years and during 2004 I was working on the DISSECTION/WATAIN tour here in Europe for over a month. It was kinda odd when I first took notice of that there were something wrong, I woke up with a very strong feeling that something had happened. Later that day I read some notes about Jon being dead and all, so I called up my true Metalbrother Hellbutcher of NIFELHEIM to hear if it was true and he confirmed that Jon had commited suicide and that was that. I understand Jon and I can relate to why he ended his life, yet it was a great loss for the world since his music made quite an impact on extreme individuals such as myself.

How did your first North American tour go in 2008 and what were some of the highlights?
-It was a great tour and the response were all good. We didn’t really had any expectations since it was our first time over there, but the trek were just mind-blowing and we definitely had some good times in The States. Some of the highlights were when we played with INCANTATION and GOREAPHOBIA in Parma, Ohio and at the Central Illinois Metalfest in Urbana, Illinois. At the Parma show we had our good friends NUN SLAUGHTER and my ol’ tape-trading buddy “Steveggs!” coming over and the show at the CIM the response were awesome, as well as meeting people that I hadn’t met in 17 years, like Terry Butler, Kam Lee and some other really close metalbrothers and sisters like Mark of IMPETIGO, Zdenka from ESTUARY, Sean Ferguson, Ken Escobedo, Elizabeth Stephenson, Duane Timlin and the list goes on.

Tell me about the new tour coming this summer. Any chance of West Coast dates?
-Unfortunately we don’t have the time during this summer tour to do the west coast as well. We had to cut down the tour to two whole weeks due to the fact that some members have some commitments and stuff that they couldn’t deal with any other way. Yet we will be able to play in both Florida and Texas this time, that we missed out on during the tour 2008. We’re starting the tour in Atlanta, GA on June 24th and wrap it all up in the NY area July 6th. On this trip we will have direct support coming from our amazing labelmates QUINTA ESSENTIA and INFINITUM OBSCURE. The three of us will make sure to leave a black mark in each and every soul that will come to witness the shows.

What could one expect from a live Nominon show?
-Death Metal Madness!

How has the new vocalist Henke Skoog been working out, and what happened to the previous vocalist?
-The new guy, Henke Skoog is working out just great. We’ve rehearsed with him for a few rimes now and he is growing more and more into the role of being a frontman. Our previous singer Daniel (who sang on Recrmeation and the Terra Necrosis albums) simply had to quit NOMINON as he chose to join in on an educational class in movie-making. I wasn’t really surprised that he chose to do that instead of singing for us, after all he has been into that sort of stuff for ages. It’s no hard feelings between us and him or what-so-ever!!

What is a Swedish beer that you could recommend, and do you like any American beers at all?
-Swedish beer is not as good as some Czech beer (Staropramen) or Danish beer (Carlsberg/Tuborg). I really like the spanish beer Estrella Damm. For American beers I’d say Budweiser is a favourite, also the Lone Star is pretty good. Miller Genuine Draft and PABST Blue Ribbon goes down pretty darn easy too.

Do you have any messages for metal fans here in the Los Angeles area?
-Even though we won’t be heading to California this summer we hope to be there shaking your guts soon enough. NOMINON are playing Death Metal, so if that’s your thing you are welcome to visit www.nominon.com and www.myspace.com/nominon to get further information about us, as well as checking out our Merchandise. Don’t let people tell you what to do or say. Stay sick and hail the horned one!!! /Perra & NOMINON.

(Interview by Kenneth Morton)