On the first anniversary of the release of Those Whom the Gods Detest, Nile was already on their second tour supporting the album.  It was during their show in New York, that I had the pleasure of sitting down with master guitarist and musician, Karl Sanders.

Lynora: After 15 years the first ever full length Nile DVD is being released on this tour.  What can you tell us about it, and what took you so long to choose to release one?

Sanders: You seem angry about it!

Lynora: I’ve been looking forward to one!  I’m very excited to hear that it’s coming out, what can you tell us about it?

Sanders: Well it’s a documentary on the making of Those Whom the Gods Detest, it’s entitled Making Things That Gods Detest, and it follows the process of the making of the album from inception to final mixing.

Lynora: For me it’s hard to believe that today is the year anniversary of the release of Those Whom the Gods Detest.  How has the year been for you and what do you think you’ll be doing by the second anniversary of this album?

Sanders: Well hopefully we’ll be doing another interview commemorating the anniversary!  Hopefully, next year we still will be playing metal, hopefully with some new songs, and kicking new asses.  This was a very busy year, a very busy year.  We went to South America.  We went to Australia, New Zealand, Japan; we’re about to go to the Scandinavian countries, and go on another European run.  Oh yea, and we did all the European festivals in the summer.

Punchy [tour manager]: They played in front of 150,000 people this summer.

Lynora: Very cool!  So the European tour is following the American tour immediately after?

Sanders: It starts in January.  So after we finish this tour we go home for the holidays, and then right back to work.

Lynora: What has been your favorite place to play in Europe?  Do you have any favorites --or is it all gravy?

Sanders: No, it’s definitely not all gravy.  There’s some venues like the Bikini Club in France, that pretty awesome, Offenhaur in Holland that’s amazing O 13, Lala Terre in France, it’s amazing.

Lynora: Is it because the venue, or the fans?

Sanders: Well I would say that the venues in western socialized Europe are certainly better equipped, and certainly much more conducive to the comfort of the artist.  They have actual toilets and they have showers and real food.  Those things might not sound like much…

Lynora: No, they’re critical.

Sanders: Yea!  Now in Eastern Europe the fans are fucking insane and crazy, but the conditions are like very…

Punchy: They’re progressing…

Sanders:  Well-- they’ve come a long way baby since their entrance from behind the Iron Curtain.

Lynora: Can you elaborate on your guitar lessons on tour and George Kollias’ drum clinic?

Sanders: George did a clinic tour, 10 dates in Germany, 10 dates in Italy; I think he’s got an Australian drum clinic tour as well.  I think it’s great.  It’s going out and showing people what kind of drumming this actually is, and there is really an incredible amount of skill involved.

Lynora: What about your guitar lessons?

Sanders: Well guitar lessons from Karl on tour are pretty simple.  It’s like I’m a traveling guitar teacher. 

Lynora: How many students do you usually teach?

Sanders: The first time I did it, that was a big, big long tour, there was like 60 students.  The next tour was about the same, this tour is a much shorter tour, but I still have a considerable amount of students, definitely enough to make it worth my time.

Lynora: Do you really like doing it?

Sanders: I really like doing it.  What I really enjoy is meeting the young players, getting to know them, getting to see what they are doing and perhaps helping and sharing with my considerable years of experience and blah, blah, blah.  I wish when I was younger, learning to play, that there had been an opportunity like that, where I could meet someone who was really doing it and really see the real thing. That would have been so incredible, educationally, for me as a young player.

Lynora: Who does your art design, is the same artist?

Sanders: We have a guy, Xaay, and he’s from Poland and does incredible work.

Lynora: In regards to finding professional musicians for tours and for studio recordings how have you found them? And what advice would you give to musicians looking to do this?

Sanders: Well, a lot of it comes down to personal recommendation.  I think anyone who has ever at least made it into this band was from some sort of personal recommendation from someone that we trust.

Lynora: As opposed to tapes?

Sanders: Well that’s a good way to call a big wide variety of people.  When we auditioned for the bass player for the last tours and we had done that and there were so many applicants, and so many of them were amazing.  But it’s a much stronger thing if somebody who knows the band says this guy is good, he’s dependable, he’s honest, no he doesn’t have a drug problem-- that stuff really counts as much as actual playing.  I mean Nile music is very challenging instrumentally.  But you have to be able to do more then just play.  Like if we hire you to do the tour, we have an expectation that you’re going to show up and do the job and when you get here-- actually stay on the bus.

Lynora: We saw a drunk guy come up to you at a NY show on the first tour supporting this album and he said “I’m gonna go in the pit and go break peoples noses” and you responded exhaustedly with “Don’t do that!”  What do you expect from your fans at live shows as opposed to when they listen at home?

Sanders: Well, I would hope that they wouldn’t hurt each other.  I mean come on.  I would want or hope that fans that come to the show will enjoy the show.  If they want to go headbang, if they want to mosh if they want to stand there and listen, if they want to stand on their head, I’d rather them not get hurt if possible.  We have a vast age group, sometimes there’s high school aged people or younger, and do they want to get mowed over by a person much older, larger and inebriated?  No come on, I’m a parent, I have a 15-year-old son I’d like to believe that he goes to a show and someone’s not going to intentionally hurt him.

Lynora: I have a technical question, how is the high pitch section in the middle of “Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld” made?

Sanders: That’s a series of harmonized pick harmonics.  It’s just pick harmonics but they’re harmonized.  It’s like there’s two sets of them, as if two people were doing them together.  So it’s as though two sopranos were singing in perfect harmony, it’s just way the hell up there and it give it that eerie, eerie sound.

Lynora: After reading the “anoint my phallus this anoint my phallus that” on your website, what was the weirdest thing you guys read or you’re favorite historical thing, that you ended up incorporating into your music or lyrics?

Sanders: Well the Hittite dung story is pretty amazing.  I came across this discussion about some ancient Hittite practices that involve dung therapy.  Where you could cast off sorcery or spells upon you, by smearing dog shit on yourself and this old Hittite woman would chant this mumbo jumbo and it was pretty weird so we were like we have to write a song about this one.

Special Thanks to Nile and to Karl Sanders for taking out the time to speak with me.  I picked up the DVD Making Things that Gods Detest exclusively available for sale on tour.  If you are a musician, love Nile, or want to know more about how recording is really done, this DVD is a must have.  Watching the process, discussion, little tweaks, and performances that ended up on the album was equally as impressive as it was fun and informative.  And, if you haven’t seen Nile live yet, go!

Nile's Karl Sanders

Interviewer: Lynora

Formed 1993
Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Brutal/Technical Death Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Karl Sanders:  Vocals, Guitars,
                                   Bass & Keyboards
Dallas Toler-Wade:  Guitars,
                                          Bass & Vocals
Chris Lollis:  Bass & Vocals
George Kollias:  Drums & Percussion

DISCOGRAPHY:

Festivals of Atonement EP (1995)
Amongst the Catacombs of
                          Nephren-Ka (1998)
In the Beginning Best of/Comp. (1999)
Black Seeds of Vengeance (2000)
In Their Darkened Shrines (2002)
Annihilation of the Wicked (2005)
Legacy of the Catacombs:
                      Best of/Comp. (2007)
Ithyphallic (2007)
Those Whom the Gods Detest (2009)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

November 17, 2010

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