Hailing from the epicentre of most Cult Metal Genres, Nale from Sweden are gearing up for their two city tour of India. We caught up with Vocalist Mathias Bloom and Guitarist Tomas Åkvik for a little chit-chat before their first tour of the country:
Eight Octaves:Take us through the formative years of the band. How did it all start?
Mathias: Our former guitarist and our drummer Andy hooked up and started jamming on some songs and when I joined in it resulted in a 3 track demo. Initially I was supposed to play bass but during rehearsal they wanted me to sing too so I made them choose between vocals or the bass. So it was the mic for me, luckily.We didn’t have a bass player until after the demo was done when we managed to convince Tomas here to start playin with us. He played guitar in a progressive Death Metal band back then but we managed to get him to play bass. Luckily he plays guitar now!
Eight Octaves:What’s the story behind the band name? Is it somehow related to the web comic series – The Order of the Stick’s evil character named Nale?
Tomas: It doesn’t have anything to do with comics or anything like that. Mister vocal dude Matt here had his beer goggles on and saw the name on a bottle of ale during a night of drinking. And since the other band names we had sucked, we went with Nale.
Eight Octaves: The band was formed in 2006, your first EP – Nale was out in 2007. Followed up by a huge crowd response and then the second EP – From Sh*t To Salvation, which also got a very good response. But surprisingly you guys decided to take a break and rediscover your sound. What was the reason behind the decision and not riding the momentum created?
Mathias: It’s because we’d fired our original guitarist. The EP From Sh*t to Salvation was a closure of that era and the start of the “new” band, the Nale 2.0. Recording the EP was pretty much the first thing we did with the new line-up but we wanted to figure out what the new band was all about with writing, rehearsing and all that. Just kinda figure out who we are as a band, how we wanna function and where we wanna take it.
Eight Octaves: They say Metal was born in the U.K. but it’s the Swedish and the Norwegians who groomed it to perfection. Coming from a country rich in various sub-genres of Metal, how is the actual scene there? How hard or easy is it to form a band and establish yourselves?
Tomas: It’s very easy to form a band. Or twelve. But it’s not that easy to establish anything because the scene here is over saturated.
Mathias: Sadly you can be a great band here and nobody cares ‘cause you don’t know the right people and you can be the worst frickin band as well and still get radio time and a lot of attention. We see it all the time. Still waiting to see which category we’re in, haha.
Eight Octaves: The full length album – Ghost Road Blues, is an interesting piece. The music isn’t complex, but the music has that typical heavy sound that hits you. Tell us more about the song writing process of the band. What went through your minds while composing the tracks for the album?
Tomas: I just write riffs with a theme that I’m looking for. If I wanna write a John Mayer song then I just write me a John Mayer song and transform it into the Nale sound. Then we hook up with the band and if it sounds like Nale when we play it then it’s a keeper. I had a different vision for the songs than what came out on the album but that’s the thing with a band. When doing something with other people they make their mark on stuff and the result is the band Nale. And actually Andy wrote the foundation for “New World Order” and “Why Am I?”.
Eight Octaves:While writing the lyrics for the album was there a particular lyrical theme you were following? Or does every song have a different theme?
Mathias: I tried to write love songs just dedicated to Tomas calfs but I couldn’t rhyme all that much on anatomy. But there are some anxiety things, some semi-political things and actually some love to. But mostly it’s just some dark, angry stuff that I spit out. My mom actually thought I was depressed or something after reading some of the lyrics but that’s not the case. I’m a sane retard telling a story.
Eight Octaves:Come second week of March, it will be your first tour of India. You’ll be playing in two cities – Gandhinagar and Silchar; and you will be the first International band to play in Gandhinagar. What is in store for the Indian fans here?
Tomas: Heavy riffs with a lot of Viking distortion on it, haha. No, actually we just try to deliver at our best and blast out a heavy load of energy on stage. We wanna take the Indian fans for a ride! Hopefully they’ll like it.
Mathias: Everyone should be at least half dead when we’re done, including us. Or else we’ve failed. We try to push ourselves to the edge when we play and most of the time we’re a big pile of tired when we walk of stage. It’s not supposed to be easy to play heavy music.
Eight Octaves: Any other International shows booked as of now?
Mathias: We are looking at the German market right now and UK also so we’ll see how far it goes.
Eight Octaves: Which one, according to you, would be the best show you’ve played till date?
Tomas: When we played at Nalen in Stockholm, opening for Degradead was awesome. Cool place with a great stage. Many legends have played that stage before us so that was fun.
Mathias: Also playing at a festival called Lillemanfestivalen was an awesome thing as we came there and no one knew us but at the end of the gig pretty much all of the festival was in front of the stage digging it.
Eight Octaves: Any international bands you would like to open for in the near future?
Tomas: Wouldn’t mind opening for John Mayer and Tim Christensen on the same night.
Mathias: I’d really wanna open for Kvelertak. Awesome band. Or Barbra Streisand just for the hell of it.
Eight Octaves: Lastly, any messages for upcoming bands?
Tomas: “Rock out with your cock out!” haha. And have fun!
Mathias: Do what you want, not what everyone else does; unless it’s house music. Then don’t do it!
