PipemanRadio Interviews NILE at The Culture Room

0:04 Hey, you have unto sensuu. Wow, pray you. Young ro. Whycoume of America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipeman on W four c Y dot com. West pomp Beats is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, The White. Man listens to pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio.

0:57 And I'm here with. Carl from Yes So we talked back in June. I think, yeah, that's when it was June and at Grasspop. So here we are back in my home area where my radio studios are here in Fort Laurdale at the Culture Room. That's pretty cool. Like I got the email from Nate Palm Records. I'm like, oh, I gotta go to that show because that's right in hometown. It's very rare. I get that. Yeah, man, you can't ignore it when metal comes to your. Town, no doubt. And nobody really wants to come down here anymore. And I understand why. It's a drag. The state of Florida is so big to drive through, so it's like you gotta drive all the way down to drive all the way back up.

1:46 You know. It's like that in Greece too, is it really to play in Greece, you got your choice. You can either ride the ferry from Italy or drive down from up north. Wow. And then and it's just like Florida. You got to turn right back around and head back the same path you just went through. But now you've already played the show, so there's no shows. But it's a dead. Drive, no doubt. Yeah, they don't like that. It's expensive. Yeah, and it's kind of be a drag for you guys because it's tough enough being on the bus sometimes and Florida is a boring drive, to be honest, Like, if you're. Going to drive, feel that way. I really I love driving down here.

2:28 Well that's good. And it's January, so coman, it's. A good time to be in Florida for sure. My in laws live in Florida, so for Christmas we always come Florida. Nice escape the cold ass weather. Yeah, and you know what's funny about that. I keep laughing at people because I'm from the Northeast, So to me, this weather we're having today, which is like sixty seven degrees, is not cold, but Florinians are wearing parkas and scarves. Yeah, Oh it's pretty funny. But yeah, so you guys played in Orlando last night, you're hearing for Lawerdow, and then you'll be in Tampa tomorrow night. Perfect example what I'm talking about, because that's like playing ping pong of the whole state of Florida.

3:17 At least we got a show on the way back, so it's not a dead drive. That's right, that's right, And so tell us what we can expect here tonight at the Culture Room. The Culture Room. Well, there's four bands here tonight, Nile six, Speed, Under, Psychicroptic, and Embryonic Autopsy. That was pretty good, because that is a mouthful, it is. It's gonna be a great show, though, Like, are there one of the bands that you're on tour with or just all of them that you dig being out in their show when you're done working. Well, we played last so that that doesn't get to happen when we're done working well.

3:57 That's true. Yeah, that's well, that's that's the that's the bummer of being the headliner, right. I know, I really enjoy being a support band because you do get to see the show, right, right, You do have time to like see your friends at the bar and you know, say hi to fans and all that. So they're trade offs. You know, it's always greener on the other. Side, that's right. Always. So last time we talked, we talked about you had an album that was coming out, and now that album's been out. So how do you find, especially playing live shows that people are receiving the new album.

4:38 A new album, people seem to really respond to it live. The new songs go over like a storm. Yeah, they're thought of fun to play and people seem to enjoy them. So okay, I bet, I bet. As an artist, it is fun to play the new music. I think a lot of listeners don't realize that. It's like when you're used to playing the same stuff over and over again. It's nice to have a breath of fresh air and play your new stuff right. Right, even when Zeppelin got tired of playing Stairway to Heaven. Right. As much as people love the song, and I'm sure they love it too, you know, you got to do things that move you forward and make you feel alive.

5:23 Playing a new song or playing some new songs is that breath of life. Yeah, if you have to play the same songs that you've been doing for twenty five thirty years and that's all that you do. It's not alive, it's it's you know, it's there like a robot at that point, because yeah, because you could do it on autopilot, exactly right. It's all muscle memory. After a decade of playing any song, it's muscle memory. You don't have to even think about. It, exactly. It's just part of you, you know. That's why it's even strange to me sometimes when I see musicians, guitarists I will play for like twenty thirty years, and they still are looking at the notes that they're playing while they're playing. I'm thinking, man, that just must be like in your brain. You shouldn't even have to look at that.

6:13 Point, right. Like Gary Holtz from Exodus, he never looks at his guitar. Nack, No, it's awesome. I love it. You just watch him and he's just like, he's not look at it all. To me, that's also the sign of a great guitarist, because you should know your craft well enough after that long that you don't need to look. You don't need to really, right, you know exactly. Having said that, though now all music is not necessarily easy to play. It requires a lot of concentration, so we kind of have to look. So there's kind of like a peripheral vision kind of thing.

6:55 Yeah, you know, where you can see your hand, you can see the guitar neck in your field division or you know, conversely, if you're trying to sing while you play, you know, you have to reverse that. I always find that to be I'm in awe of people that sing and play because it's like rubbing your tummy and your head at the same time. You know, It's like I had a hard enough time when I was younger playing each instrument by themselves, much less doing two different things. You got to get the one thing well enough where you don't have to think about it, which you know, just if you do it enough times and understand where your hand moves and when your mouth moves, and where those two cross paths, like the nexus point right right or the anchor point, and that's what you do, like you just lock the two points together and the rest you work in between. Yeah.

8:01 Absolutely, So. Do you have any story that is like the wildest story from your whole career of doing this? Yeah, there are things I'd love to tell you, but better not. Are there any that you can tell, because there's a lot I'm sure you can't tell, like sometimes sticks out of your mind. That happened even in the very beginning that you're just like is implanted into your.

8:42 Brain, implanted into my brain. Well, probably the first couple of tours that we did here in America, we did that year nineteen ninety eight. We did three tours of Norban Angel, did a tour Cannibal Corpse. We did Death across America with Gorguts and Cryptopsy You Oppressor. And there was a moment at the very beginning of that first Morbid Angel tour where we had driven in our van all the way across the States and we were somewhere by the ocean near Seattle, on the highway side of the road. It was like a cliff looked out over the ocean, and we stopped because we were tired, you know, we're taking turns driving in and me and Peter Mora stood and looked out at the ocean and there was this just incredible feeling like wait a minute, our music took us all the way across the continent and now we're looking at the Pacific Ocean. Music did that our jobs at the factory but you know, before we did the band that would have never made that possible. Music

10:14 made that possible. And if you think that a step further, music fans made that possible. True. Absolutely, it was a profound moment for us where we realized, yes, it is possible. If you work hard enough and you know, give the people what it is they want, you can do things. I love that you say work hard enough, because to me, your job is as fun as it is, like the most work possible. And I don't think people realize that.

10:56 They think it's just all like fun and games. That's a piece of it, But there's a lot more. That's just a lot of work, a lot of practice, a lot of dedication, a lot of going through a lot of crap to get to the point. If someone had fully explained to me all the life sacrifices that you would have to make if you want to make music your life, it would have probably sobered up my young, naive mind. Right. Just for instance, like my kid, my son, he plays guitar, nice, fairly talented.

11:38 I didn't encourage him to take up music as a career, right, Music do it because you love it, but making a career out of it expecting to live by it. That's a tough road, especially today, especially today, like the odds against succeeding have grown ten thousand bold. There's so many bands now that you know, just getting a foothold is really tough. So, you know, hats off to all the young bands who are sticking out and making themselves known bringing music to the people. That's you know, was all different ballgame when we were coming.

12:32 Up, well, TWILD because I think of that often, you know, like I think of the days that I was hanging out with bands in the early eighties and how they got their music out and what they had to do compared to what bands have to do nowadays. And oh my god, it's like twenty times the amount of work to be a band nowadays. Like you know, we had to tape training days. We had the newspaper circulars and you didn't have to go out there and do all this social media and all this and that. Like there's like so many different jobs that didn't exist that you have to. Do all the work. Right, the work has been transferred back onto the people, yes, right, you know, it's part of the technology and information age that we're living in. You can find a path pretty quick to getting yourself out there, put you know, take out your Facebook and your Instagram, your TikTok. But getting people to care about whatever it is you do. There's a I like to think of it as a tsunami wave of indifference because there are so many options. Yeah, if you see, you know, in your feed a band that seems interesting and you click on it, how many seconds are you willing to listen to it before you just click on something else.

14:00 I think of some of my favorite songs that if they came out today and I was a kid today, I probably would have never heard the whole song, like right fast as a Shark, Like we've never gotten through the intro, We've been next track, battery, next track, Like there was a song I was listening to the other day. The intro was like a minute long of like mellow and then it went like insane. Right, nobody would ever get to the insane part nowadays, you know. Right, we certainly have shortened the attention span. I've even talked to people like about the songwriting process and how it's different today to compensate for that short attention span. So like get ready of to intro, get ready to bridge, get rid of solo two verses instead of three, you know, stuff like that.

14:54 Dude, it's become so formulaic. Ye, exactly, Like even AI apps can write great songs. Like we'll be laughing around after the show and drinking beers whatever, and some be able to say something stupid and some other person will go, hey, that'd be a pretty good country song. And then someone else will whip out their little app and turn whatever stupid words that was into a great country song, right, indistinguishable from anything that you would hear on national country pop radio. It is. It amazes me, but it bumps me out at the same time, because like, I want real musicianship, not computer generating.

15:42 I don't want to hear computer generated Still, we're very much an organic kind of metal band, right. Or we play and that's what we give you. There's no fancy other stuff, no crazy stage show. We just play metal. Right. We try to make that. Interesting exactly, that should be what's interesting. I remember back in the eighties when the band Craftwork came out and I'm like yeah, and I'm like, fuck this shit, man, I want musicians. I want synthesizers. You know, there's a very famous scene in WKRP. You know, yeah, I joke about w KRP all the time.

16:26 Johnny fever like has a meltdown in front of this audience of kids at a teen dance. We were listening to some kind of synth disco pop, right, and he goes, this is not music. You kids don't know what you're listening to. This isn't even made by people, right, And that was thirty years I know. Have you seen the meme of the rock star in the eighties and the rock star today? No? Okay, So it has two pictures, top and bottom. The top is a rock star of the eighties and it's some dude lying on the ground, guitar in one hand, bottle of Jack Daniels and the other passed out. Then the bottom one is a dude sitting in a chair with the guitar on his lap, typing on the computer.

17:16 Well, you know, I'm not sure what to say about that, but I might be able to find anything polite to say about. It, right exactly, And that's where we've come to. To me, that's the machines taken over. I remember being worried the machines are going to take over. They have taken over they have. Dude, my son made that analogy. He's like, Wow, the rise of the machines right in every little way. I mean, we don't see it because it happens a little bit by little bit, But dude, just the whole thing about whatever we're talking about. Right now, my phone is sitting next to me, right, and I'm going to get a whole bunch of stuff in my feet for whatever was that we just talked about.

18:03 It happens to me all the time. Right, And that's not a new experience. Everybody has that, but we all got used to it and said, Okay, I guess this is okay. How is that we're training it? That's why they give it to us all for free, because we're training it what to do. And it's interesting because I'm even seeing differences in the current technology like Alexa, Alexa. You you know, I always felt it was always listening, but it kept its mouth shut when it knew to kept its mouth. Shuts to be seen and not heard. Right, But just the other day, first time ever, Alexa interrupted me during two separate interviews, and I did not say her name.

18:48 Yeah, fucking bitch, right, like. Everyview, all of a sudden she's talking like you fuck her, you know, and it's like, I'm shutting all this shit off. I do you know. I've said this before. I've told my youngest daughter recently. I'm like, some days I just want to drive down the road and throw my phone, my iPad and my computer out the window and keep driving. And she's like, who you king, Dad, You're just addicted as everybody else. I'm like, yeah, but I also was around all the time when we didn't have it, and it was a lot better. Dude, If I want to get anything done working on music, the first thing I do is take my phone my iPad and take them downstairs to the wife and put them on the fucking kitchen day nice where it's uninterruptable.

19:38 No one can bring me with a notification of something that they think is important. I just you know, Or how about this. You remember what happened to Kirk Hammet where he lost like I think it was like two hundred and sixty riffs because they were on his phone and they just gone no. I don't remember that, but I believe it. Yeah. I mean, like, oh my god, it is kind of cool too to have like the old days when you're writing songs on a cocktail map or something. Still do, I love it? Still do A pencil and a piece of paper is a weapon. Right right there you go. So what else can the fans look forward to in twenty twenty five from US?

20:28 Well, we're going to be playing the well the rest of this tour obviously, but the Maryland Death best. I almost said Milwaukee, that's how old school I am. Well, there is a Milwaukee Metal fest too, playing it though, Yeah, in Maryland. I heard the Maryland ones really good. Though. After that, we do a whole pile of festivals in Europe and South America, And in fall twenty twenty five we're going to tour the States again with Kryptopsy Nice, which should be awesome. Yeah. I love those guys.

21:09 I love it. So I do festivals here in the US, I do festivals the UK and Europe. I haven't done South America yet. I'm considering actually this year doing the one in some Polo. Where do you love to play? You know, dude, if you haven't been to South America to see a metal show, you haven't lived. I heard it's insane, dude. The fans are just full of passion and energy and alive, dude. Some of the best metal shows happen in South America because the fans are awesome. I love hearing that, and it is true, like there's so much passion you know where. There's some places I won't name where, but you know, people are still complaining.

21:57 Like I would think after COVID that nobody would be complain about not live music ever again, you know, right. I mean, I was happy to go see some kid playing a recorder live if that was my choice during that time, Like I know. Man, it was. It was an awful period for humanity. And I think it was dumb because I think everybody's so pissed off and attacking each r because they didn't have live music for two years. That's such a release, like it is when something bad happens in my life, I leave it in the mosh pit, dude. It's such a cathartic type of experience, right, you get all your aggressions out. Yeah, live metal. I fucking love it.

22:45 There's nothing better. There's nothing better than the community that we have in metal. People don't even realize. Some artists I talked to it are like, yeah, let's not tell them, you know, because that's nuts, well, they say, because we don't want the assholes figuring out that we're not really mean and evil. You know, everybody thinks you're mean and evil. They should read the lyrics sometimes because they make these assumptions. They don't even know what the lyrics are, and you will see what metal really. Does for us. Okay, I'll buy that right, you know. So, man, I'm looking forward to tonight here at the Culture Room. It's insane venue to be in the audience.

23:32 Yes, yes, I love playing here. We've been playing this room since you know, the early two thousand wow. Yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot of bands here and I love going up like in the balcony and looking down like it's kind of cool, and so I'm really looking forward to it. You guys are going to kick ass. And thanks for making it down here to South Florida, and thanks for being on the Adventures pipe Man. Thank you, pipe Man. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemen on w f c u I Radio.