Transcript of an interview I recorded with NIGE ROCKETT of ONSLAUGHT - 20200727. Full article here. MAL-
Talking to Nige from ONSLAUGHT. Nige, thanks for taking my call. NIGE- My pleasure, Mal, how are you doing today? MAL- Doing pretty well? How's life over there? How are you finding it? NIGE- A little strange, mate, to be honest, still not so good here. I believe you guys are having a bit of a second wave in places as well. So yeah, all very strange, but I'm getting used to it I guess but yeah, we got we got to live with it for now. MAL- We do.Now because I've never spoken to you before I just want to ask you a question about the reunion if I can. When was the decision made to get back together when you did and how has it been since then? NIGE- Well, that was way back 15 years ago now 2005 we got back together. We'd have a long layoff, for 18 years, I guess and wasn't until that we find out about our first 2 albums being re-released actually in 2002 kind of find out about that in 2004 couple of years later. So obviously we looked into who released it and what it had been doing obviously because we were owed royalties from that of course, so I got in touch with the label and we were amazed at the amount of records. It actually sold it was incredible. So it kind of showed us that there was a big interest in ONSLAUGHT once again, so, did some research on the net and there was lots of people talking about the band and it just seemed like the right time if we were ever going to do it, that would have been the right time to get back together. So we kind of looked at the pros and cons and yeah, we got back together 2005 and it's been an incredible journey ever since, really amazing. We've played in almost 70 different countries around the world now, this is our fourth album release, there's two live albums. So yeah, we've been busy and it's been fantastic I must say. MAL- It's a totally different world now though isn't it with regard to music, albums and concert tours that sort of thing. How have you found how the industry has changed with regard to touring life and recording compared to what it was back in the day and how has the band adjusted to that? NIGE- Lots of things have stayed the same but obviously the with the situation with the illegal downloading what happened several years back, that's had the biggest impact on things now. Whereas we used to make really good money from record sales, you don't do that anymore. So it's kind of a role reversal, whereas back in the 80s for example, you may call your living from record sales and touring you'd very rarely make money from touring. Now it's flip side, you make all your money from touring and no money from record sales. So it's kind of weird in that aspect and a little annoying to say the least because we do seriously get ripped off with the streaming side of things which I know is an ongoing thing for the labels and stuff, but obviously communications is another thing as well, it's made things a lot easier for the tour. And as I said, we've played in almost 70 different countries this time around whereas before it was just mainly Europe and the USA back in the 80s obviously communication, I mean everybody used to use kind of snail mail ordinary sort of air mail back in the day and you'd send a letter off to somebody and you might get a reply like six weeks later it take that long to go to Brazil and back and now you're obviously as we're in touch now and it's just an immediate, you know costs less and immediate so it's so easy to arrange tours and all the things that I communicate with fans. So that's obviously the plus side of things, communication's so much easier and it just allows us to do a lot more than what we used to do back then. MAL- How about recording? Are you recording as a band or, you know, I've spoken to some bands that are living on different continents and they're exchanging files over the web and recording that way. How is ONSLAUGHT doing it? NIGE- Yeah, pretty much the same. I mean, I think it's kind of standard procedure now to to actually physically go into a studio and record as old-school style, you know costs an absolute fortune. I mean if you look for example where we recorded 'In Search Of Sanity', for example, I think that our cost us like over a hundred thousand pounds to make in 1988, which is criminal financially. You can go and make an album now, we're very fast in the studio. So we'd go and make an album for 10 to 12K maximum, you know, so we could go and make 10 albums for what we did back in the 80s, you know, so we record separately so everybody's in a different studio, different time and then everything goes to mix and master. I quite like it. I mean is it does work well. MAL- 'Generation Antichrist' about to come out. How long did you take to record that? Did you have it wrapped up before all this covid stuff happened? NIGE- Yeah, we started writing sort of October 2018 I guess took about nine to ten months to write the whole album and we start recording with in January this year. So yeah two weeks two weeks all the recordings are wrapped up. The only problem we faced this time around with the mixing because as we were due to start mixing the lockdowns kicked in in the UK and basically, the mix is being done in Sweden and I'm back in the UK. So everything done in the mix was done by email, I mean the mixes were done by email or text message. Obviously Daniel the mix engineer was in Sweden and I'm in the UK so really long job, you know, but we got to results in the end, and that's the main thing. MAL- So just about to come out. What's the release plan these days? I mean we touched on streaming, how much physical product actually goes out? And is there vinyl? Every band seems to be bringing back the vinyl? NIGE- Oh, yeah vinyl's huge, making a big comeback, fantastic and we've learned a lot over the last four or five years. I mean obviously it's great for us to get the physical product out as opposed to digital stuff. I love the vinyl myself the more that we can shift the better for the band. But yeah, I mean I'm not a big fan of digital stuff. And as I said before with this with the streaming and things like that, we really get ripped off. I mean, we look at it. Every statement comes through is probably half a million to a million streams and we're basically getting a couple of hundred dollars or a couple of hundred pounds which is which is really not fair on the musicians. It's a real bad situation still in that respect. So yeah, I'd rather keep it to the physical physical with CDs and vinyls if possible. MAL- That sort of has a snowballing effect too because like someone like myself over here on the other side of the world. It makes it more costly for places to get the physical product which in the end drives you more towards streaming as a consumer. NIGE- Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been trying to pick up as many independent releases around the world as possible. You know, I've arranged myself. I've arranged three different license deals in South America, so that people don't have to physically send to Europe for it and then obviously there's a risk of getting lost in the mail. So I've been trying to solve is many different places to pick up the physical copies as we can. I'm still not sure what's going on with Australia and New Zealand about that but I'm told there's going to be somewhere that you're going to be able to get the hard copies, you know, which which would be great if that happens. MAL- Right, any stories about any particular track on the album that you want to share with us? NIGE- The obvious one that's closest to our hearts basically is 'A Perfect Day To Die' because this is our tribute to MOTORHEAD who were our friends and mentors at the early days of our career and also having lost those guys is very sad. So that's a very important track for us on the album. You know, the least we could do for those after what they did for us in our early days. So yeah, I mean that's that's the one of the key tracks for us on the record really. MAL- Tell me about 'Addicted To The Smell Of Death' NIGE- Very funny story to this one. Basically. I'm quite near there now actually, where the place not too far from where I live. There's a crematorium and whenever they're burning the bodies of the crematorium after that the services, you know, obviously they can't release the kind of smell of burning flesh out into the open air because it's quite built up area where people live so they have to release this kind of perfumey, medical kind of smell into the atmosphere to mask the smell of the burning bodies I guess, but it's kind of weird cos it smells really nice. It sounds a bit weird but it really really does smell quite nice. So keep driving pass this every day, that's a kind of cool smell so I kind of got the title, little bit of sarcasm I was being addicted to the smell of death really, but the actual song's about an American serial killer from back in the day back in the 18oos, I think I could HH Holmes and he was an alleged to have killed up to 200 victims. Yeah slice them and dice them and then burn them after so it kinda acted with my with my little smell I was getting to breathe in every day. So I kind of put the two together. MAL- What's the funniest music related story? Whether it's the funniest thing that's happened on tour or in the recording studios. You got any stories for me? NIGE- I've got so many MOTORHEAD stores where this one was classic. We were on tour with MOTORHEAD in 1987. I think we were playing we played a show in Copenhagen in Denmark and we were all in the bar at 4:00 a.m. There was I think a few of our guys and there was Philthy Phil, Phil Campbell and Wurzel from MOTORHEAD, we were all down there. We were all pretty drunk and the lift comes down into the into the bar area, lobby area and out walks. Lemmy in a pair of Paisley pajamas and a dressing gown. Everybody, we just fell about laughing. It was just the funniest thing ever just to see Lemmy like that and he went fucking crazy. He didn't like it. He said fuck off you bastards, got back in the lift went back to bed. So funny you had to be there. It was just incredible in the these pajamas and slippers and stuff. It was hilarious. MAL- Nigel from ONSLAUGHT, thanks so much for taking my call best of luck with the new album 'Generation Antichrist' and best of luck with the release of that and thanks again for your time. NIGE- Yeah. Thanks Mal, great chatting to you, mate. Take care and be safe. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |