Nightbreed is a thrash metal act from Athens that had the courtesy of answering my questions, involving their debut release, their plans about their upcoming record and the gigs we can attend to see them performing live.
What are you waiting for?
Check those motherfuckers out!
Evening guys! Welcome to Metal Invader! I hope this is a good time for you!
Good evening and thank you for your hospitality. As far as the timing goes, it couldn’t have been better.
For starters, explain to us in a few sentences who / what is Nightbreed and which is your plan for worldwide musical domination?
A: We are 5 immature guys, whose initial goal was and still is to create mature music based on Horror Fiction exclusively targeted to immature people yet authentic people. Now, dominating the global music industry is something hard to achieve, since it is controlled by Elohims and Nephilims (it’s all written in the books, man).
Your full length debut record (“Nightbreed”) was released almost a year ago. Now that time has passed and the thoughts have matured, are you satisfied by the outcome? Would you change anything if you had the chance to do so?
S: We are quite satisfied by the final result, however, unfortunately some things were done in a hurry and not in the way they should have been done, so the truth is that we would change a few things if we had the chance.
A: Maturing in the first place is something that will never happen, it’s unimaginable and clearly impossible; nonetheless there are certain things that all of us would like to have done a little bit differently but in any case we don’t want to change it in this release. There will be future opportunities to put into practice the changes we want to do.
Judging by the various reviews about your record and seeing that the album was embraced from the first moment by the listeners, I understand that all this must have filled you with joy and satisfaction, right?
A: Our purpose was to do what we like and I’m sure that every one of us satisfies himself in his own particular way, privately (hopefully) but surely the joy caused by the acceptance of our material by the crowd is massive. Even the criticism exercised on us makes us feel good, because to do this it means that someone has been working on our music.
Talk to us about the creation process of your debut! How long did it you take you to complete your effort? Was it easy, difficult, both? Did you encounter problems or did everything flow as expected?
A: Nothing went as expected. The only sure thing is that it took more time than we expected.
S: As far as compositions go, these existed long before, so we just polished them a bit, with some beers figured what we should use for solos, so we were complete. As for the recordings, if you decide to record and you are fully prepared and organized, you’ll have no problem… Of course we have nothing to do with this case, so the whole phase was very loose. We encountered several problems that we have created, but in the end we are satisfied with the result.
Where did you record the album and who handled the mixing and mastering processes?
S: The drums were recorded in Soundflake Studios by Giannis Makris, the bass guiter was recorded in Lamina by Dimitris Charisis (Released Anger) and the rest of what was left and the mixing / mastering process was handled in Clepsydra Recordings by Panagiotis Misdeal.
“Nightbreed” cover artwork catches your interest from the very first glimpse and urges you to pay attention to every detail (as opposed to the tasteless artworks used by other bands). Whose creation is it and what were the reason that made you choose it?
S: The artwork was a creation of our friend Trifonas Stathopoulos, who also took care of the artwork in our demo. We chose it as soon as we laid eyes on it. We were completely satisfied both visually and thematically, since a large part of our lyrics are about 80s – 90s Horror movies.
Still staying on the album, you announced that it’s expected to be released on vinyl from Witches Brew and Left Hand Path Records. Give us some more information! For example, when should we expect it?
S: Each and every one of us wanted this release to happen so eagerly! Our thirst was shared by Witches Brew in cooperation with Left Hand Path Records. So the vinyl will be released on March 7th, limited 300 copies.
A: It’s definitely a dream coming true to see yourself in the cover-inside cover of a vinyl release.
As you have long now announced, you will perform in Taunus Metal Festival in early April! It is a big step for a band to play at festivals abroad. How did this happen and how do you feel as time passes and the date is getting closer?
A: Like most bands of the genre, we exploit the internet for contacts abroad to promote our music. This deal should be credited to Nir, as he was the one to come in contact with the organizer of the festival. The excitement we feel intensifies as time passes.
Apart from your participation in the Taunus Metal Festival, where else can we enjoy you perform live? Have you got any plans about performing soon in Greece? If so, where?
A: Although we do not have anything specific at the moment on our hands, we definitely want to perform live and we believe that this will happen soon. Hopefully in cities apart from Athens.
What does the future hold for Nightbreed? Is it in your plans to release any new material? Should we expect new material soon or is early to think of such a thing?
S: We have almost finished the material for the next album, which, if all goes well (and we take things seriously) we will have finished the recordings by summer.
That’s all from me! Thank you for your time! Would you like to send a message to our readers?
A: As frustrating as is the current situation in Greece, go out and socialize. Oh, and buy our CD!