The guy wears a Pantera t-shirt; slays with a Dime Dean axe; heck he even plays as killer as Dimebag! But don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t emulate what Dime did, rather he picked up his legacy only add a fostering soul of his own, making the music altogether “chaotic”. I’m talking about Nikhil, the strenuous guitarist of Chaos. Hailing from Trivandrum, Chaos is a four-piece thrash metal band who believes in playing thrash metal in its purest and aggressive form. They won the awards for ‘Best Metal Artist’, both Judges’ and People’s choice. We caught up Nikhil for little chat about the band, their album and other things in general. Check it out!
Eight Octaves: Greetings from Eight Octaves! So it appears that the year is turning out to be pretty good for you guys; you put an album on the table and bagged a couple at the Radio City Freedom Awards. How does it feel?
Nikhil: Yes, this year is turning out to be pretty good for Chaos. The radio city freedom awards were indeed an absolute honour for us. It feels amazing.
Eight Octaves: ‘Violent Redemption’ offers us powerful mid tempo paced thrashy riffs, laden with heavy grooves and frantic harmonies, very easily pleasing any person who’s into Thrash Metal. How satisfied are you with the album?
Nikhil: We’re more than satisfied with the outcome. We’ve been working on this album ever since the band was formed and it has been a fun ride till where we stand right now.
Eight Octaves: ‘Violent Redemption’ received a massive thumbs-up from the fans and critics across the country. How was the response outside of India?
Nikhil: We’re really happy that we’re getting a lot of support from within the country. We’ve had quite a few nice reviews about us, coming in from outside of India as well. Now we’re trying to make a few shows happen and push our music to even more metalheads across the country.
Eight Octaves: Chaos has been following the DIY technique and is currently not signed to any label. Do you prefer it that way? Have you ever been approached by any label?
Nikhil: To be honest, we didn’t have any other option when we started off. And now things are better, and we’ve been approached by a label from Sweden and one from Germany. We’re in talks with them. Nothing’s decided just yet.
Eight Octaves: The band was formed back in 2004 but it took you almost nine years to come up with a release; but in the end, the result was rather gratifying. Would you say that taking things slow kinda helped you in attaining the apt sound which you must’ve initially wanted to accomplish?
Nikhil: Well, the ‘taking it slow’ part wasn’t really intentional! It took almost 9 years for things to fall in place. But I do believe that the amount of time that we’ve invested in this record did play a major role in how it has turned out to be.
Eight Octaves: So… Coming to a very basic, boring, yet vital question, how did you guys meet up?
Nikhil: This is in fact a funny story. I’ve met JK at a local college fest. I was fooling around with a guitar, and JK walked up to me and asked me, “Dude, do you listen to Metallica?”. My answer was obviously, an emphatic ‘Yes’! And, much like most of these conversations go, his next question was, “Let’s start a Band!” And that’s how Chaos was born!
Eight Octaves: What is the story behind the name “Wartooth”?
Nikhil: That Facebook name started off as a joke! And it still is! We’re huge fans of the animated series ‘Metalocalypse‘. So, while we were creating Facebook accounts, JK, who we call Jaaga, named his account ‘Jaaga Explosion’ after ‘Nathan Explosion’, Pappu, our bassist at that time, took ‘Pappu Murderface’ after ‘William Murderface’ and since ‘Skwisgaar Skwigelf’ is too much of a Guitar God, I took ‘Toki Wartooth’ instead. That’s how my Facebook account name turned out to be ‘Nikhil Wartooth’. And that name just stuck like anything! At this point in time, let me just confirm that Old Monk Rum had nothing to do with these names!
Eight Octaves: I’ve seen you sporting a Pantera tee and playing a killer Dimebag Dean. Would I be too obvious if I ask you who your biggest influence is?
Nikhil: Dimebag f*ckin’ Darrel it is! I’m a huge fan, and I’ll always be. And I really can’t say anything about the man that hasn’t been said before! Such a legend!
Eight Octaves: As a band, is there any Indian artist you look up to as an idol or a great influence?
Nikhil: Motherjane and Avial had had a huge influence on us on a personal level rather than on a musical level. They were a huge inspiration for us in our early years and it was their success that had fuelled our band for a long time. Apart from that, we’re huge fans of PDV, Zygnema, Eccentric Pendulum, Deviod and the list goes on and on!
Eight Octaves: So finally, we hear that you’re almost done with the material for your next album already. You must be like a riff machine then, haha?
Nikhil: It’s been a long time since we were done with the recording of ‘Violent Redemption’ and we were jamming regularly ever since! So, coming up with new material was in fact inevitable! We really don’t have anything better to do anyways! And calling me a riff machine is a little too much bro! Anyways, as far as the new material is concerned, it sounds fresh! And it sound good to us right now, and we can’t wait to test Keshav’s patience again! Hopefully, we’ll come out with the next one very soon! Thank you so much for this great interview! Looking forward to seeing a lot more from Eight Octaves! Cheers! \m/
