I recently interviewed Karl Sanders about the new Nile album "At the Gates of Sethu" for Alarm Press. Here's the full transcription of the interview. Enjoy.
This new record is awesome. By the
way.
The new what
record? The new Nile record? [laughs] Just wanted to clarify which
record we're talking about. I'm sure there's a lot of new records out
there.
There's plenty of new records out
there. Not sure if any of them are good, but this Nile record is
fantastic. Since you were just practicing, that's actually one of the questions I was going to
start off with. On this new album, the lead playing seems to have
been really taken up a notch, so I was going to ask what you actually
do to practice.
Usually my routine
starts pretty early in the day. I get up and start working with the
metronome. Basic scales and arpeggios. I start off really slow with
the metronome, then I gradually work my way up in tempo.
After a few hours
of that insanity, it's onto new ideas. I'll work on new ideas for
different melodic things or different techniques or maybe something
I'm learning. I have a pile of instructional DVDs. Anything from Mike
Stern to Paul Gilbert to Rusty Cooley to Jeff Loomis to Jeff
Beck...I've been quite fond of that one lately.
Then, I might work
on some new riff ideas for some songs. By that time, I'm pretty well
warmed up and my hands can follow along with whatever my brain might
come up with.
So basically playing guitar is a
full-time job for you.
Yeah, especially
in the last couple years. I had taken quite a bit of abuse on the
internet based upon a stupid-ass video that...I should have taken
more seriously. We were so completely exhausted on the Ozzfest tour
that we just did not have the energy to dredge up the ability to give
a fuck.
That video, which
I got slammed for quite a bit, just really...It was really, really
psychologically crushing. I'm going to take all of this ill will that
people are throwing at me and turn it into a motivational iron will
to improve. So that's what I've been doing the last few years. Just
fucking working my ass off to push forward.
What are you
working on right now?
I'm doing four finger patterns in diatonic natural minor. In each
position, the four finger pattern changes so it takes a lot of
fucking concentration. I'm working on that, trying to be able to move
between the four different shapes. It's quite a challenge.
Do you do any
improvisational work in practicing?
Sometimes
after I'm finished with working on scales, I might just play
whatever. Just jamming
some blues with my kid and whatnot. That's fun. He's into...get
this...Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Eric Clapton. My seventeen
year old kid...that's what he's into. Go figure!
Hey man, that
works out fine. Those are some hot licks there.
Obviously to progress you have to
continue to challenge yourself. Do you challenge yourself with other
people's ideas or with your own? Which do you find to be more
beneficial?
I think other
people's ideas are a jumping-off point. I might learn a Rusty Cooley
lick, but the next challenge is to make it your own. To take it
somewhere new melodically or to take the pattern and invert it...in
some way personalize it. That's really where I try to steer to. Even
if I learn something, I try to make it my own and take it someplace
that's a little personal.
In terms of actually composing these
Nile songs, where do these riffs come from? Are you humming melodies
to yourself? Are they coming out of licks that you practice?
On this record,
like I usually do, I write the lyrics first.
When it came to writing
the riffs, I did it just a little bit differently. Every day, after
I'd gotten warmed up with a bunch of technique and stuff, I'd sit
with the guitar and the lyrics sheet and just start riffing.
Sometimes I'd just leave the recorder on. I've got my cabinet in the
next room with the mic on it that goes straight to a digital record.
I'd just record every fucking single riff. And just try to not think
about the fact that the red button was pushed. I'd say to myself, “If
I don't like anything, I don't have to keep it.” And saying that to
myself was liberating. I'd just play a gazillion riffs.
The next day,
I'd sit down and sift through them. I had so many riffs for this
fucking album. It was insane. You could make a couple of albums out
of all of the riffs that got thrown out.
So you'd basically end up jamming
with yourself.
Yeah, I think so.
Always with the lyrics sheet around so that my mind was on whatever
the song happened to be talking about.
Nile obviously has a certain sound
based upon certain scales and modes. Are you conscious of the theory
behind this stuff while you're in your “jam sessions?” Or are you
just tuning out and going for it?
I find the most
beneficial things for me are to forget about the theory for awhile
and play. And then examine the theory afterwards. Or, to learn a new
scale and just see where it goes. Quite a bit of the leads just
happened to fall into this scale that I had just come across in the
last year called supraphrygian mode. It's like a phrygian mode, but
it has a flatted fourth. It's got a lot of unique fingerings and
pattern shapes that really worked well within some of the songs we
were writing.
Now that you have all of these riffs
is the arrangement a communal process? Or are you the one sifting
through everything and composing with what you have?
Usually if I'm the
one writing the song, I'm the one sifting through the riffs. If
Dallas is the one writing the song, he self-edits just as well. Then
we make song demos.
We record guitar,
bass, drums, vocals. We recorded every single thing that was going to
be part of the song. Down to the last iota. Especially with the
vocals this time. We wanted to get the vocal patterns and phrases and
melodies down there as soon as possible so that they could be under
the same sort of scrutiny as the guitar riffs were.
I actually noticed that. The vocals
on this record seem to be more intelligible and catchier.
I'd agree. I think
the process of scrutinizing them and refining them at an early stage
in the songwriting process really helped with that.
Just from a “fan” standpoint, I
was thinking, “These songs are much more distinct because the vocal
patterns are much more distinct from song to song.”
Also, how do you decide who songs?
There's things
that Dallas does really, really well. There's things that I like to
think that I can do. Usually it falls into...Dallas is really tight
rhythmically, and I usually slither
around the beat. Like odd phrasings.
One thing that happened while we
were making these song demos...the very first song demo that we would
make would be me recording all of the parts to be able to show it to
the other band members. Then, the other band members would come and
rerecord their parts. Those were always called the “Cave Box
Demos.” I would sing in registers that I was thinking were for the
other band members. Not necessarily the super low stuff that I do a
lot. I ended up singing in more of an area that I thought would be ok
for Dallas or Chris. Then Chris came to me and said, “Dude, you're
fucking nuts! You're fucking crazy! This other voice you're using
fucking sounds killer and we should be making use of this!” At
first I was like, “What are you fucking crazy? These are just demos
for me to show you guys your parts.” And Lollis [former bass player
Chris Lollis] was like, “No man, this is an absolutely killer voice
and we should make use of it.” So it turned out that we gave his
idea a chance.
You hear some of that voice in track number two, “The
Fiends Who Come to Steal the Magick of the Deceased,” the title
track, “The Gods Who Light Up the Sky at the Gate of Sethu” and
“Tribunal of the Dead.”
I actually just
assumed that all of the different vocals were from the new bass
player.
In a lot of the European interviews I've been doing, they said that
to me when I told them that was me doing those parts. They're all
like, “No, that's not you! That's the new bass player!” And I'm
like, “You motherfuckers! The new bass player isn't even on the
fucking record, so shut the fuck up!” [laughs]
It sounds like
you guys have really tightened up the songwriting process for this
record.
Absolutely!
Is there
anything in particular that is an overarching goal that you're trying
to achieve with these songs?
Well, my first goal was to completely and utterly not do anything
we've ever done before in terms of song structures or time signatures
or tempo changes. I wanted absolutely every bit of it to be something
completely foreign to us. Which is kind of insane. About halfway
through the songwriting process George Kollias, our drummer, sent me
an e-mail. He said, “Karl, what the fuck are you doing? All these
fucking insane time signatures and tempo changes and fucking weird
fucking odd time riffs. Dude, please! You're killing me! Will you
please just write something like old Nile? Something simple and
classic, because you're driving me crazy with all of this shit.” So
I thought about it for awhile, and I was like, “There's some
reality to what he said.”
You can't go so far overboard that you lose the listeners. So I
rethought my approach a little bit and I toned it down and pulled it
back a little bit into the realm of the accessible. And I think he
was absolutely right about that, because I think the album definitely
benefits from the listenability factor. Listeners have to have
something to grab onto. It can't be so technical that you lose your
listeners.
I think that the
vocals are a big part of the listenability on the new record. The
vocal patterns from song to song differentiate the songs more than
I've experienced on past Nile records.
I really agree with that. Each one of these songs has its own vocal
approach. The rhythms and the melodies and the way the vocals fit
with the guitar patterns...each one, to my ears, has a unique and
distinct identity.
In terms of this
newer record, is there something you'd like to see happen with this
thing that hasn't happened in the past?
We want people to hear what we're doing. That was an absolutely
primary focus. We want to capture stuff cleanly enough that the
listener actually hears what we're doing. There's a saying that I've
been beating up everyone on this record with that was involved in the
making of it: If the audience didn't hear you do it, then you didn't
do it. It counts for nothing. As far as guitaring and drumming and
the bass playing and the vocals...if the listener doesn't hear it,
then you didn't do it! We've had struggles in the past...you might
play an awesome guitar riff or guitar lead, but, if for whatever
reason, it doesn't come across out of the speakers to the end
listener, then what good was it?
Another goal, and this was coming more from Neil Kernon. Neil came to
the rehearsals for the record, and he said, “Guys, one thing we're
going to really do is capture the fire and the feeling that you guys
have here in the rehearsal room and make that translate through the
recording process into the end product.” Because a lot of times
that shit gets lost somewhere along the way. You know, the fire that
the band has. Trying to record it, and you do it a thousand times to
get it perfect. Sometimes, somewhere along the way, you lose the
human element. That's one thing Neil really wanted to focus on this
time: retaining the human fire and the spirit.
In terms of
recording then, did you play the songs together or did you instrument
by instrument?
Well, we always do the drums first. That's done with scratch guitars
where Dalls or I will play along with George. We don't necessarily
keep those guitar tracks. They're just scratch guitar tracks. You get
the spirit of the thing going on in the recording.
Once we're satisfied with the drums, then we go about the process of
laying the keeper guitars on there. The real ones. And this time,
man, we took about a fucking month just trying to get that shit
nailed down as clean as we could.
Cool man, those
are the questions that I have for you.
[laughs]Well this was a goddamn fun interview! I'm glad to be talking
about fucking music, shit that is actually relevant to the fucking
record. I can't tell you, my friend, how many interviews I do that
have nothing to do with the motherfucking record, and it's so
frustrating.
Well yeah,
that's usually my attitude when I'm interviewing anybody. What do I
want to know? What do people usually ask other than about band name?
[mocking voice]What's your five favorite albums right now? What's in
your Discman? What's in your iPad?
And I'm like, “There's nothing in my iPad!”
I mean, I guess
I would be curious what you're listening to.
But yeah, as a
listener, when I hear something I'm like, “Man, that's cool. How
did these guys actually come up with this?” Especially for someone
like you who has been in this forever and is continually getting
better. You usually see the reverse.
You
know, I don't live like that. I'm playing metal because that's what I
want to do with my love. It's my passion. It is
my life. I didn't start playing metal just because told me it was
cool. No. this is something I've always wanted to do. Ever since I
was nine years old and I picked up a guitar, this is what I've wanted
to do with my life. Man, I'm always trying to learn. There's so many
amazing bands and so many amazing guitar players, and you never have
to stop learning. It's endless.
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