1-Are you happy with the album? Did everything came out the way you wanted it/expected? Do you have good responses from listeners so far?

Santi – Ah yeah, we are pretty satisfied man…Usually I don’t really like to listen to the albums I recorded because im more into searching for fails than into enjoying the product, maybe only when im drunk or high I can get an outside perspective of it haha… ….for the moment we are only having very nice reviews from people who are into old school grindcore, so that must mean we did a nice job!! Our plan with this album was only to worship the classic bands and albums that created this music we fuckin love: Listen to Merciless and Bolt Thrower!!! Cheers!!

Hector – I'm quite satisfied. I also hate listening to the albums I recorded, I only enjoy it when I'm partying or in a bar totally drunk, that's when I love to listen them, because it feels like I've never been part of the recording process. We haven't seen many reviews yet since album's distribution has just begun, but the ones we've seen so far are quite positive.

2-How long did it take to gather material for this new album? /When did you start writing new songs for it? Is writing grind material an easy task? Is it a solo thing or collaborations between members?

Santi - We started to write material for this album more than 2 years ago, but you know….we didn’t stop to do shows, tours and we all have a life and other bands, so the process was slow, but I think the result was worth!! Hector and me work on riffs and bring them to the rehearsal room, there we work together and make the songs, as simple as that….

Hector – We are not the typical band that releases EPs each six months, reaching that point where you are completely lost in the middle of all their releases and at the end it turns out that they all suck. We've always preferred to take our time to release an EP or LP, it doesn't matter if it takes two or four years, we prefer quality better than quantity.

3-How did you record it all? Did you go to a studio? Did production cost a lot? Can you describe some of your recording techniques if possible? Is recording a difficult or easy process for you guys?

Santi – I was not there in the whole process, personally I recorded all the vocals in one evening, with lot of beers and an Orujo bottle to get some inspiration haha . The studio where we record our stuff give us a very relaxed environment and that’s very important for us to get our shit done…big studios with stressing “I am so important” producers are not for us!! We hate over-produced records, triggered drums….we don’t record thousand of guitars, we record live and we don’t need too much takes to get the whole shit done….we want it raw and real!! Ugh!!!

Hector – We used to record and mix in two days but now we made it different. We recorded music and voices in three days but we spent a lot of time mixing it, we used to go once a week and only a couple of hours each time so our engines were running at full power. Our sound engineer, Jose Bonham, is a good old friend of us and has recorded every Nashgul's stuff, so he knows what we want. It's nice to work in a relaxed environment when you have to be there so many hours, it makes things work better.

We usually record live (drums, bass and guitar) so it sounds the way it has to be, raw. As Santi mentioned before, we have always escaped from all that overproduced shit, I'd rather listen to Nausea than to modern Grindcore with futuristic designs.

You'll never find a Nashgul album mastered by Rotten Sound's producer, or designed by Mastodon's designer, or triggered drums, or videos in our website showing our drummer recording in the studio just to show everybody his skills. You'll find a Grindcore, raw and hostile album, just as it's going to sound live, no tricks.

4-You struck a deal with Power It Up for this new album... They seem to be one of the biggest labels in terms of grind in Europe at least... Are you happy with their conditions? Do they support you for touring and stuff and do they just get the cd out?

Santi – Yeah, it seems Power it up is getting bigger everyday and they work like a big underground label cos this is what they are nowadays. Sometimes this made us have some lack of communication, especially when the album was about to be released, anyway we know Tom from a lot of time ago, so we can be sincere 100% with him and viceversa. It seems the album is starting to get some promotion and being distributed worldwide, time will tell!!

5-You've been touring recently, right? How hard is it to set up a tour like that? How extensive a tour was it? What places have been the most/least positively responsive to your stuff? Do you play gigs all year long? When will be the next time do you think you'll be touring?

Santi – Our last tour was booked by Luc (Doomstar Bookings) and Nicola (Bones Brigade Records) was our driver, cheers to them! To book a tour is a very hard work so its always good to have some friends helping out. Work with them was a very nice experience, they are very professional and at the same time crazy bastards like us, so im really looking forward to work with them again in the future…… The whole tour was awesome; I have very nice thoughts about our shows in France, Brno, Slovakia…you know, you always have a couple of weak shows in a tour, but the whole experience was fuckin worth.
 
Hector – Tour was 10 days, but we made the most of it 'cause we went by plane to Belgium from our city and the first day we were in Paris already, otherwise we would have spent too many days in the van, like half of the tour. Nicola was the big surprise, we were kind of reticent to travel with someone we didn't know, and we knew he didn't talk our language, but it finally turned out to be the best thing we could have done, he's a great guy we are willing to meet again so we can call him "Nicolás" again and cover his van floor with beer!! hahaha...

I guess we'll be travelling again next year, we've got some European festivals in mind, we hope to be able to announce it soon. When it comes to touring...what's still a mystery is our next destination, but we have some preferences like USA, Scandinavia, Australia or Japan...

6-Now to veer off the Nashgul topic a little... I want to ask about your band side projects... I was excited about Yugular, but it seems to have taken a backseat for now? Can you talk about this other project with a member of Gruesome Stuff Relish? Spanish bands seem to be very co-operative between each other, is it a fair assumption?

Santi – Yugular chefs are still very busy with their other business, but don’t worry, the recipes are all made, so its just a matter of time that we will open our restaurant!!
And about my project with Noel (Gruesome Stuff Relish) and René (Dungeon Hammer), there is not a lot of to say yet: we are named Dossier Negro and we recorded a demo with 5 songs, which we are re-recording now for a possible MCD or 7”s release, what I can tell you is that this band is all about to worship our fave horror movies from all times, playing straight to the point and simple horror metal while we worship the entire Impetigo discography!!! Cannibal lust!!!!

7-Now can you let me know some of the latest bands that have blown you away? Live performance or on record?

Santi – Tough question, im listening music almost all fucking day but some of the new shit that is blowing my mind lately is:

50/50 – st EP
Aldebaran – Dwellers in twilight
Apostle of solitude – Sincerest misery
Aura Noir – Hades Rise
Autopsy – Horrific obsession EP
Brodys Militia/Antiseen – split EP
Church of misery – Houses of the unholy
Crucifist – Demon haunted world
Dishammer – Vintage addiction
General Surgery – Corpus in extremis….
Heaven and Hell – The devil you know
Looking for an answer – La cacería EP
Lord vicar – Fear no pain
Saturnalia Temple – UR
Toxic Holocaust – An overdose of death
Tribulation – The horror
Warcry – Not so distant future
World Burns to Death – The graveyard of utopia

Im really looking forward for the new Obliteration (nor) album, the songs I listened in their myspace fuckin blow me away!!! But what is really burning my stereo these last days are the first five Blue Oyster Cult albums!! Haha

Hector – That's what's been banging in my head lately...

Black Breath – Oblivion
DeathHammer –  Forever Ripping Fast
Deathraid – s/t
Destino Final – Atrapados Lp
G.B.H. - City Baby's Revenge
Grind Madness At The BBC Compilation
In Disgust - San Jose Oldies, Vol. 1
Kaamos - Curse of Aeons
Massgrave – All their stuff !!!
Mercyful Fate – Melissa
Midnight - Farewell to Hell
Mournful Congregation - The June Frost
Municipal Waste - Tango and Thrash Ep
PLF - Crushing Fury of bastardization
Rocky Erikson & The Aliens - The Evil One
Teitanblood - Seven Chalices
Tormented - Rotten Death
War Ripper - Hell Storm Ep

8-I really digged the post-apocalyptic themed concept of the new album... What gave you the idea to do it? Do you think future album will follow similar concept ideas? Do you already have some ideas?

Santi – We all grow up watching movies like Mad Max, 1997: Escape from New York, Dawn of the dead and of course we like a lot the post-apocalyptic/zombie Italian stuff as well…..i think it was a natural progression. When we started to write songs, lot of the lyrics I wrote were about that subject so we got the idea about make some kind of social horror grind album. Like a George A. Romero movie our songs are about horror and gore while we shit on our stupid society at the same time!!

Hector – The rest of the band are freaks of Horror & Gore movies, and me... I love documentaries about nuclear disasters like Chernobyl; False Flag operations; American Roswell, Mexican Roswell, Russian Roswell, and government's later actions to silence population... I think it was a good combination that worked perfectly both in intros and design, that was made by our bass player http://sendonluis.blogspot.com/

We all share our predilection for post-apocalyptic movies such as "2024 Apocalypse: A Boy and His Dog", "The Day After (1983)", "The Thing",...

9-Horror seem to have been making a resurgence lately... Nice films like Martyrs, [REC], Let the Right Ones in... What have been some of your favorite movies lately?

Santi - Im not into new horror movies but some post-2000 horror movies that I liked can be: The devil rejects, Land of the dead, Shaun of the dead, The Mist, REC, Bubba Ho-Tep, Madhouse…and a handful more.  I hate this remake trend shit so fucking much but I have to say Halloween and Hills have eyes remakes are very ok!! We talked a lot about the horror movies we really love in the previous Braindead interview hehehe, check it out!

10-Do you have stuff like new Split Ep's planned in the near future? What's coming next for Nashgul?

Santi – Now we are waiting for the vynil version of “El Dia Despues Al Fin De La Humanidad” to be released thru Torture Garden Pictures (USA) and Trabuc Records (Spain). Its already on the pressing plant so it must be out pretty soon. It will be a nice gatefold vynil with a poster, cant wait to have it on my hands!! Soon we will start to write songs for a split 7”s with PLF (USA), and maybe for some other split, or a EP……too early to know now!!

11-That's about all I've got... Finish this off as you please!

Santi – Me cago en dios!!! Ugh!!

Hector – The ½ Faxe Beer is the only way!!!!!

So let's start at the begining with some intros... How did you meet each others in the band? When did you discover grind? And what the hell made you want to start a grindcore band?

Santi – Hector, Ivan and Luis know each other since ages ago!! I met them sometime between 2001/2002 when I was going to their old bands shows, and finally getting drunk with them!! They were about to start a grindcore band and I jumped to their rehearsal and started to sing!! As easy as that!! My first contact with Grindcore was when I was 14 and went to an old friend house and we watched the Napalm Death’s “Live Corruption” VHS, I was totally blown away and I bought the Harmony Corruption CD and Brujeria´s Matando Gueros. Some months later I got from a friend the “Symphonies of sickness” recorded on tape, and I couldn’t believe how sick and dark that album was.  Being in a Grindcore band was totally natural for me since I fuckin love this music, in my teen days I only played in shitty bands and “never to be done” projects, so to find the proper people to do a Grindcore band was a blast!!

Hector - Like Santi said I know Ivan and Luis from a lot of years ago, from the school times. I discover the grindcore/death metal music by a friend’s brother that on that time  was an extreme music freak, and I remember him listening the Napalm Death “Scum” and the Morbid Angel “Domination”; in that days it was their new album and we were waiting all day in front of the TV waiting for that viva channel to put this new Morbid Angel videoclip "Where the slim live" hahaha !!! I started to play guitar with these guys in a death metal band but it sucked, and next I played in more bands and in 2001 we created Nashgul.
I think that I started to play grindcore because it was an extreme, fast and intelligent style, you can find political, social and millions of different grindcore styles; not like a lot of brutal death bands that only talk about corpses, cocks, blood and stupid things.

How do the rehearsals go? What kind of place do you play in? What's your composing process? Who writes
the songs/or the lyrics in general......

Santi - We usually rehearse 1 or 2 times per week, we rehearse in a nice and cheap place with some other local bands. Sometimes we’re so fuckin busy that we cannot rehearse in some weeks, that’s the main reason we’re so fuckin slow doing new songs!! Hector is the one who brings tons of riffs and we work on them together, I write the lyrics and  I’m starting to bring some riffs too hehehe

Hector - We will start to rehearsal more often now, I was touring with my other band and it was a really chaos for the Nashgul rehearses. We have 9 songs now for our forthcoming LP and probably next year we will release it, but we want to make the things ok, no hurry. Our composing process??? I usually have some riffs and we talk about them and work on them.

Where did you get the band name Nashgul from? What does it mean to you?

Santi – It’s a song from a very unknown Death Metal cult band that nobody will know here, we’re so fuckin “True people”, u know??? Hahahaha, just kidding…our bass player is a total Tolkien freak and he got the name since a lot of years ago….(before the movies were made, u know as I told you before we’re so fuckin “true”)

What's the Nashgul release you're most satisfied with so far?

Hector - I don’t know....probably the Humanicidio CD because it was delayed a lot of times because we were working so much on the design and finally it was awesome. About the rest of splits i think that the Antihero LP is so old now, but the Antihero songs still kick asses!! The Sewn Shut split EP I like it so much, music and design ; and the From The Ashes EP the cover is fucking great, and I love this guys ,our Swedish brothers.

Santi – Probably the split with Sewn shut, ´cos I really like our songs on that split and for me it was an honour to share a piece of vinyl with one of my fuckin favourite bands!! Of course I enjoy their side of the split a lot, what a piece of obscure death/grind madness!!! I also love the “Humanicidio” CD (in which the split with SS is included) and the other seven inches. The only Nashgul stuff I don’t like is our split with Antihero, it was our first recording and it’s so shitty.

out!!!

You have a new full length album coming up... WHat can you say about it? Is it gonna be all new songs (compared to the split ep's) Which label will release it?

Hector - I´m so proud with the new Nashgul stuff. I think the music is a mix of grindcore/death metal/punkcrust mosher haha !!  and lyrics are more political zombifier. All the songs will be new and its probably that we will record one cover or something like that. We have to talk with Tom from Power It up Records and another Spanish label of a friend that wants to help us to release it.

Santi – We got 8 or 9 songs for the new album, and I think it’s our best stuff ever…it’s old school Grindcore with a touch of death metal (autopsy/nihilist) and crust (discharge/wolfpack). We’re being so fuckin slow de-composing the album for the reasons I mention above, but you know I think it’s going to be a good work. It will be released through Power it up records in CD and we don’t know which label is going to release the LP yet, we have to record first, so there is no hurry about this.

Do you have any more split Ep's lined up too?

Santi – No really, there is some talking with some bands about this, but nothing for sure yet…first we have to finish our full-length, and then Satan will say.

Hector - We will make more splits but no at this moment, it’s impossible for us.

Your lyrics are in a very social/political vein yet you seem to use alot of horror imagery too... Usually people don't seem to lo see the 2 things mixed, what's your opinion? Also is there any special reason for writing lyrics in spanish, or is it just more comfortable for you?

Santi – Yeah! We’re all old school horror freaks!! So it’s natural for us to bring these influences to our music and imagery. Also the state of the world is worse than any horror film, it looks like a mixture between “Day of the dead” and “Last man on earth” in which the thoughtful persons are like the Vincent Price character haha
We sing in Spanish because it’s the easier way for us to communicate our feelings!! But we got and we will do again some lyrics in Galician and English if we feel nice expressing ourselves in these idioms.

Hector - Yeah I think that it’s the perfect mix. We are living so fucking hard years, works, oppression, more and more strong laws and this thing only makes a small part of the society be angry. Always the same shit, I think that there are 2 big machineries that make this place worst: the State and the pigs who work defending it = the police man/woman. Fuck them, we have a lot and serious problems with them and I only want to say: "fuck state, cops on fire!” We love horror movies and I think that a zombie rampage could be the best way to destroy the system and the human race, living in a horror-anarchy; but don’t worry about that, in 10 years we will be extinct.

Your cover artwork have a very special look to them... Who's the the artist doing them? Has he also worked for other bands? Will you keep using his stuff in the future?

Santi – Luis, our bass player, is actually the man behind our artwork. He’s a professional drawer and designer so the choice is clear. He did some other work for bands like From the ashes and some other local bands. I love when I band uses a draw for their cover, and not a shitty Photoshop thing or a fuckin photo downloaded from internet, so if any band/label is interested in his work, you can get in touch with him at sendonluis@yahoo.es

 
Spain seems to be have some of the finest grind bands active right now! Does that seem that way to you too? What are your favorite spanish bands? Any underrated/new spanish bands deserving some attention?

Hector - I don’t think this is true. Probably now the people started to listen this bands but Machetazo, Haemorrhage, Looking for an answer are playing since a lot of years ago .There are awesome bands here , the ones I mentioned and  some another grindcore bands like Freaknation, Gruesome Stuff Relish, Ras, Unsane Crisis. Other cool bands: Horror ,Anti-Playax, Moho, HellDivision, Hongo ,Cementerio Show(rip),Ekkaia, Destierro, Karnvapen Attack...millions of punk, crust, hardcore bands.

Santi – Oh yeah!! There are not many grindcore bands in Spain, but the only few are real good!!!  My fave ones are Machetazo, Looking for an answer, Haemorrhage, Disturbance Project, Gruesome Stuff Relish, Altar of giallo, Ras, Tu Carne and Unsane Crisis!!

Can you tell me about this Yugular side band of yours, that project sounds most interesting to me!!! You also seem to have other projects in the band... Is it difficult finding the time to do all of them?

Santi – Yugular is a project formed with 3 members of Looking for an answer with me singing. We already got the songs for our first Mini-CD to be released through No Escape Records from Australia. We have to record them sometime soon, but you know they live in Madrid and I live almost 600 kms away from there, so we have to set up the dates for the recording yet. It sounds like a heavy mixture between traditional goregrind with heavy death metal. Very aggressive yet funny!!! Be aware!!!! Also I got a doom metal band with Rober from Machetazo named El dia de los muertos (Day of the dead in Spanish), but we don’t rehearse since months ago, who knows, maybe it will resurrect sometime soon!!!

How much have you been touring so far? What places did you go to? What's your favorite show/memory?

Santi – We usually to do more weekend shows rather than touring, mostly due to the lack of time and lack of good offers to do a nice tour. Anyway we toured across Germany last year and we played in some other countries like Czech Republic (Obscene Fest), Belgium, Portugal or Holland (Bloodshed Fest). We would like to tour next year, let’s see what happens!! Hector and Ivan toured through Europe with Black Panda and Hongo and I toured with Looking for an answer when I sang with them in their 2005 summer tour, so now is the time of Nashgul to do it!!!

Hector - Yeah I was touring Europe with Black Panda and next year will be the Nashgul year. We have a interesting idea and we don’t know...probably we will make it. One of my favourite Nashgul shows was here in our city in our old squat "Thunderdome" the reunion show of Ekkaia they did not play in 3 years and it was a really fucking chaos night with a lot of friends, 300 people during a Thursday in the air, dancing, moshing....The pics from the Humanicidio cd are taken from this show.

You seem t be into horror movies... So....... what are some of your favorite horror movies & favorite non-horror movies? Favorite directors? Why movie would you compare the band Nashgul to?!!!!

Santi- Yeah, I fuckin love horror movies, my house is filled with old VHS´s and DVD’s, I love to collect horror movies since ages ago, and I’m proud of my little collection!!! I’m really into the classics:  Universal, Hammer, Amicus…..Amando de Ossorio´s Blind Dead movies, Let the sleeping corpses lie, Horror Express, The Wicker man (1973), Texas Chainsaw Massacre, George A. Romero dead trilogy, some Jess Franco, some Paul Naschy…I love Italian stuff: Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Joe D’Amato, Umberto Lenzi, Bruno Mattei and I¨m really into their zombies, cannibals, giallos, exploitation, sexploitation…. all kind of sick stuff. Jorg Buttgereit, early John Carpenter, 80´s slasher movies, The Exorcist,  Phantasma saga, Hellraiser, Evil Dead movies…uffff, too much to mention!!!!
Like in music, I like all kind of different styles, some non-horror movies that I love are: Taxi Driver, Conan the Barbarian, Planet of the apes saga, Dirty Harry, old Star Wars saga, The Godfather, The seventh seal, The deer hunter, Scarface, Apocalypse now, old 50´s Sci-Fi, Spaghetti Westerns, David Lynch, Monty Python, Mel Brooks, Russ Meyer …ooh, I’m going to stop, the readers are sleeping already!!!!!!

We can be compared to The Omen, cos´ all kind of strange things happen when we’re around.  We’re the children of the beast!!! hahaha

Hector - I´m a Mad Max trilogy freak. With Black Panda we made a tribute LP and Nashgul we have one song called Mad Max and in the forthcoming album it will appear the 2 part.

What are the 5 most influencial bands/albums to you/or Nashgul?

Santi –

Repulsion – Horrified
Napalm Death – “F.E.T.O.” and “Mentally murdered”
Carcass – “Symphonies of sickness”
Entombed – “Left hand path”
Autopsy – “Mental funeral”

Hector -

Assuck - Misery Index
Metallica - ...and justice for all
Napalm Death - Scum
Terrorizer - World Down fall
Dissection - Storm Before Calm

What's your current playlist?

Santi  -

Electric Wizard – “Witchcult today”
Abscess – “Horrorhammer”
Verminous – “Impious Sacrilege”
Looking for an answer – “Extincion”
Damnation – “Destructo evangelia”
Nominon – “Recremation”
Bombstrike – “Born into this”
Sir Lord Baltimore –  “Kingdom come”
Nick Cave –  “The boatman’s call”
The Coffinshakers – “We are the undead”
Reverend Bizarre – “So long suckers”
Berenice Bleeding – “Demo 07”
…and for some strange reason I cannot stop listening to the Chris Isaak song “Blue Hotel”!!

Hector -

I can’t stop listen to this:

Death Breath - "Stinking Up the Nigh"
Skitkids - "Besoket vid krubban"
Drudkh - "Estrangement"
Freaknation - "s/t"
Toxic Holocaust - "Hell on Earth"
Testament - "Practice what you preach"
Looking for an Answer - "Extincion"
Inepsy - "No speed limit for destruction"

That's all I've got! Thanks for going through this boring question hell!!!

Santi – No fuckin boring at all dude!! I really had a nice time answering this interview!! Thanks for the interview, your support and the Blue Holocaust CD!! Hope to meet ya soon and drink some nice French wine till I puke my last guts out!!! Hail & Kill brother of grind!!!!! Yeeeeeha!!!!!!!

Hector - Thanks for your time and your interest, for more info about Nashgul you can go to www.myspace.com/nashgul or email us to nashgulcore@yahoo.es.
Thanks again and "Grind The Fucking System"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!