PipemanRadio Interviews NightWraith

0:04 Hey, you have unto censure double wow, crazy young. Ro whycoume America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four c HY dot com. West pomp Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. You're intern wish the convenience, mister.

0:54 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with our next. Guest, who. Actually we were going to do this last week, but I was hanging to rock Lahoma, so we bumped it to post rock Lahoma and so let's welcome to the show, Ben from Night Wraith. How are you. I'm doing great, Thanks so much for having me. What's up? Puntnan Radio? Happy to be here. Nice. So now here's my first question. Yeah, how many press people that do interviews fuck up pronouncing your band name? Not too many. I feel like, like phonetically, it's it's not too hard to pronounce. You know that there's a lot of like black metal bands out there that have like names in different languages or you know, yeah, yeah, that'sn't That hasn't been a common.

1:45 Issue because it's not unless you're familiar with the witcher, you're not really familiar with that, so I could see people say night wrath because that's what they would be used to in their brain. You know. Yeah, wrath is probably a more common word than wraith. I feel like wraith is sort of like a made up term almost, Yeah. Totally, totally. So tell us a little bit about your band, because you've evolved over the years. Yeah know, And really that's one thing I love that I know about you guys, evolving. It's like home thing. People really realize that musicians want to evolve.

2:31 They don't want to be the same band you saw when they were paying playing their first shows. Although there's fans self included back in the eighties that you want them to. Only play long days, you know exactly. But to an artist, it's kind of like when you think you weren't even that good a lot of times and you haven't even really figured out where you wanted to be. You kind of grow album after album, and I think you finally got there with this new album coming out on the thirteenth, to where you really want the band to be as far as musically and you know, really fine tuned it.

3:16 Am I right? Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, we've been a band for eight years now, and this is our third album, and it takes a long time to really like kind of like find your identity and like find your sound, and like, I'm happy with all of our recorded material, but this record record in particular, we finally like found what I think we always envisioned ourselves sounding like and presenting ourselves, Like we finally like kind of achieved that and have like a very just like defined sound on this. I love it. And you know, one thing I saw a quote from you actually that I really dug okay, especially again coming from the beginning, like the beginning of death metal and pretty much most metal. You know, I am from those days where it's like you have to be faster and heavier, and every band had to be faster and heavier, and for us it was like that. And it's so funny too because my best bro since like thirteen years old.

4:22 Actually unfortunately he passed last September, but his birthday is the day that you're releasing the album. Oh, Friday the thirteenth. Yeah, yeah, so he it tears to him, right, and so but I remember a couple of years ago, we were like riding down the road playing some music. He's like, I think it was Venom I was playing. He's like, wasn't this faster back then? I'm like, we thought it was, but then music today that makes that look slow. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point, right, you.

5:03 Know it's like what you think is faster, what you think is heavier, Like to us back then, Venom was like, oh my god, that's the fastest, heaviest stuff there. Or like when Ride the Lightning came out, that was like the most intense, like distorted guitar tone anyone had ever heard up until then. Now you want to hear something funny since you brought that up. So I'm one of those first twenty five fans of Metallic because I went to a first show that we hated. When the Black album came out, we're like posers sellouts. But it's funny. When Ride the Lightning came out, we all said, if you took fight Fire with Fire and took it off of Ride to Lightning and put it on Kill Mall and took Jump in the Fire and put it on Ride the Lightning Kill Mall was the most perfect metal album ever in history.

5:54 Yeah that's what we said then. Yeah, totally interesting right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish I gets our player Igor was here because he's an older dude and he grew up through all that as well. I think you'd have a lot in common with that. We've talked about the Black album specifically, and he has some he has some interesting opinions on it too, but they're mixed. They're they're like good ad. He's like the production is insane. But yeah, everyone was just kind of bummed that. You know, we thought it was like kind of a sell out record. But again, back to your earlier point, that's what bands want to do. As an artist, you want to evolve, and you know how boring would it be if you just made write the Lightning over and over again. No doubt, no doubt. And you know, it's actually rather funny because I remember watching Kirk on that Metal Show ranking all the Metallica albums and he ranked my favorite as his least favorite.

6:46 Right, and that's kill them all? Yeah, you know, but. Even James, he says, I don't get it. Like, you know, they play Seeking Destroy at the San Jose Shark games and he's like, why they use my original version? I didn't even know how to sing. I sucked I'd rather they play an updated version when I learned to sing, Yeah, you know, And that says it all right there, because I loved his voice back then he didn't really love his voice and even like, okay, so bring me to Rise and Guy a lot of flak over the past few years and the shit they're putting out, and Ali said in an interview, and what's brilliant. He's like, why do I want to write the same song over and over again?

7:33 Yeah? You know, so it would be boring for an artist. You know, after a certain level, you probably have to do some type of obligation to your fan base. But we're nowhere near that level, so we feel like kind of do whatever we want musically. So it's really fun. And I think it's pretty cool that in this album you're bringing stuff like film score elements and synthesize or tones and stuff like that. The film score really got me because it made me think immediately of Danny Elfman. Yeah. Yeah, so we love all those composers. We kind of like compare our style more to like John Carpenter films and stuff, because we love like the eighties, like sci fi and horror, but like all the synthesizer tones that you'll you'll hear in those films. We we tried to kind of like simulate that tone in what we did with with our new album Divergence.

8:28 And you know, it's funny. I think Black Sabbath, a lot of our music would be perfect for film scores. Yeah right, you know, so it just makes sense to me. Or to bring film score into heavy metal, you know, yeah exactly, because like some black belt bands do that, like the bigger like some phonic blackmel bands will record with like a philharmonic or something and get a lot of like make it sound like a huge production, and that that's kind of film scory too. Yeah, only we really just love that like eighties like horror Vibe, you know. Oh yeah, so that was really fun to kind of like bring it and try to write like with that in mind.

9:12 Absolutely. And I also like the fact, okay that from from one of your your quotes is. About the fact of. You know, not picking a genre right from the beginning. Like to me, I hate genres. Genres are for the record labels. They're not for all of us, you know, And I think it boxes an artist in you know, And I come from the gatekeeping days of like, oh, you can't listen to that kind of metal, you can only listen to this kind of metal, and it's frankly, it's stupid. Just listen to what you like, play what you like. You know, there shouldn't be a rules. There shouldn't be a genre borders.

10:03 I call it. That's what I call it, genre border Like. He said that, I literally like pictured a box in my mind. Right exactly, and so even the fact of Okay, so I have a I have a fun story for you and a trivia question for you, so I know also you have some you kind of like have some influence from bands like Blue Oyster Cult okay, which not many metal bands would say, but I think it's not a far stretch number one. But here's my trivia question. First, then the story. What is Blue Oyster Cult original band name? Oh god, I I knew this at one point, but it's been a long day at work, and uh, I'm a little fried at the moment, and I have no idea.

10:56 Okay, so check it out. One day in my twenties, and there's this place in New Jersey. I lived in New Jersey and there's a place called Art Stuck's playpen and bands would play their old time. So one night I'm driving by and on the Marquee there's this band playing. I'm like, all right, I'll go check it out. You know. It's this little club, dive club. And I walk in and there's this band playing this song that's really familiar to me. And then I look and I'm like, holy shit, it's Blue Oyster Cold. And they were performing under their name.

11:37 That was their original name, but that's what they used when they would play in clubs before going on tour. You know how a lot of bands will play a club before they go on tour and warm up and issues like the eighth name or something like that. So their original name, which is what was up on the Marquee soft White underbelly. Yes, that's right, Software underbelly. Right, Yeah, So there you have it. So that's I fair. I share that with you, and and I love doing trivia questions because sometimes stuff like that people are like, oh shit, what was that? So that brings me something else.

12:20 What is the worst interview question you've ever had? Oh? I never really got like bad interview questions, but sometimes they can be a little like typical, you know, like, yeah, I'm in the middle of a pr cycle now, and I you know, everyone always asks about like your opinion on the current state of the music industry, which I don't mind talking about ever, but that's something that's just like very commonly asked. You know, god, what else like you know, just like I guess I don't like general questions where you can tell it was like like from a tel and it's just like you ask this to every band, and it's just like the most basic shit.

13:05 I think, especially metal because like I sit there at these festivals do impress, and I listen to some of my other press people around me, and I'm like, man, if I were the band, i'd want to slip my throat because it's like they have the scripted interview and it's metal. If you are a metal head, you don't need a script. Yeah, yeah, and not even just a metal head. I'm like, just talk to me like a person, just like asking me like human questions because we're both human beings, you know, Like that's kind of how I feel. Yeah, just answer these like generic like band questions. And why would you ask the same question that's been asked ten million times or questions that people already know.

13:47 The whole point of an interview is to find out others. Yeah, something interesting and I will give you an interesting response exactly. So so that brings me to Okay, so you survive your survived through that lockdown of COVID. Yeah, during that period. Of time, music was out of the life somewhat, but mostly did you find some other passion that you had that you didn't know you had because you were so busy being on the musician hamster wheel? Not really, I just like doubled down on music basically, So I pretty much used that time to kind of like learn how to start like recording and using demos at home.

14:33 So I learned pro tools. And I started I basically like I wrote and demoed our second album, and then once restrictions kind of like lifted, then we all started meeting up and we like learned it and then like actually made the record. So I pretty much spent the whole pandemic well with my wife and dogs, which was awesome a lot of time together. But yeah, I just like wrote an album and like demoed the whole thing and then like presented it to the band. And if I didn't do that, I feel like we might have fizzled out like so many bands did. Yeah, that was kind of like a it was. It was just like a little like jumpstart on the band almost and like injected some like fresh life into us. I also like I started getting into like like like covering songs, but uh kind of like transforming them into my own style and you know, changing changing the key, changing like taking it from like a major scale to a minor doing stuff like that.

15:37 But I was. Covering like I was covering like nineties rock songs like smashing pumpkin songs and stuff, and I like reed them, like released them, and so that was kind of my project during the whole pandemic. I didn't really do anything new. I made a few puzzles and read a few books like everyone else. But to me, you did do something new. And the reason I say that is is that hamster wheel I was talking about, Like in the music business these days, it's like you're so. On a. Show, show, show, show show, Okay, give us some music, Okay, we got write it on the tour bus. It's like it's like you have no time to think. You don't even have time to think of is this where I want my band going. And I think that's one of the big benefits of that lockdown. And I think it gave a lot of artists chance to jump off the hamster wheel and really figure out what they wanted to do an experiment, like you're an experiment before. Now you can like what you were doing, perfect example that was like yeah, and the relativity right, and you got new creativity and new life. I think that once we came back, I think a lot of artists had new life. There's a lot of artists I know that they were so burnt out by time that lockdown happened that after lockdown, they had the renewed passion for music.

16:58 Yeah, yeah, which is awesome. And I think I think the pandemic did that in a lot of areas, not just music, but it just helped everyone just kind of like pause for a bit and kind of like be present in the moment and just kind of like slow down and just like you know, take stock of like you know, the things that are actually important in life. Right, speaking of important, forget all this other bullshit. Tell me about your dogs. Oh, my dogs are awesome. I have a nine year old black lab her name's Molly. And then I've got a seven year old mutt. I don't really know what she is. Her name's Marra. Our Vet was like, you could do a DNA test, but it'll just come back with like everything, so like.

17:39 Right, so I kind of like doing twenty three and May Yeah, yeah, yeah, you find out. That you're just a mutt, that's all. But they're the best, And it was so nice having them around like during the pandemic, because I feel like we would have just gone a little extra crazy, but they kind of helped like keep us grounded a bit more. And it's cool too because like you had more time with them because you didn't have to be out on the road doing shows. They loved it, right, They got spoiled. And now when I leave the house for like four hours, they're mad at me. When I come home. I believe that I was gonna say, they're probably like, now where are you going? They're not supposed to go anywhere. Yeah.

18:21 I love the animals, man, you. Know what, They're a lot better than humans nowadays. There's just an innocence to them, you know. No doubt and a loyalty. See I'm big on loyalty, and there's uncondition nothing like a dog loyalty man. Yeah, unbelievable. The world can be falling apart around you and you just have this like creature that just like loves you all the way, no. Matter what, no doubt. So near where I live, I'm in South Florida and I'm a surfer and they have a surf competition every year here and it's not humans surfing, it's dogs. Seeing videos like that, I love it is.

19:02 The coolest shit ever. Man, It's totally entertaining. I'd like to see almost maybe a dog band that would be kind of cool. Oh yeah, well, I mean that could be a tough one. To pull off, right, totally. Like the Captured by Robots guy like just made some like dog robots to play. There you go. So the album drops on. The thirteenth, Yeah, the thirteenth. Yeah, I love that. Did you plan that aheadtime? Because that that's what I would do. Yeah, the PR company kind of came up with that date, but I was like, that's perfect.

19:42 I love it. And since I'm old school, I'm big into artwork on an album, and yours is badass. Oh cool. I'm so glad you thinks so out to the artist Jeff cop He's a friend of mine. He's a tattoo artist here in Denver, Colorado, and he just really knocked it out the part. So now anybody listening or watching this from that area needs to go and get a tattoo of the album color cover. Oh my god, Hey yeah yeah. That maybe that should be like a promo you guys do. Yeah, call to action.

20:22 Yeah, get in my tattoo and you know, get free shows for life or something. There you go. I love it. Well, you guys are badass. You rock. Tell everybody how they can reach out to you on the web, on socials, how they can get the new album, check out tour dates, check out your merch all that good stuff. Yeah, totally Nightrath band dot com and fall us on Instagram. It's night Rate band is our Instagram handle and our Facebook candle. We're on band camp. We're on Spotify. Check us out, give us a follow. What we're on YouTube. We just released a couple of new music videos from the album that came out really good. Yeah, we got some shows coming up to support the album, but we really just want people to hear it. And you know, we we made it. We made it for the enjoyment of everyone. And we just really hope people enjoyed these pieces of music that we came up with.

21:18 Well, I know I enjoyed it, and I'm sure they will too. Oh yeah man, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Yeah, happy to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Main on w for c u I Radio