I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Efthimis of Nightfall! Enjoy his words and check out the new album CHILDREN OF EVE.
JP
For people who are new to your excellent career, can you give us a very brief overview of your career?
We’ve been around since 1991. Nightfall were fortunate enough to be the first metal band from Greece that got signed to a record label abroad (Holy rec, Paris, France); our debut Parade Into Centuries was that very label’s debut release as much as the entire Greek metal scene’s abroad. Three in one. It came out in 1992. Since then, we have released 10 full albums, with the 11th one coming out on May 2nd. Our career is unorthodox.
I feel that Nightfall is not given the credit they deserve when people discuss the Greek extreme Metal scene. You are one of the original bands in that entire scene. My theory is that because Nightfall, in the early days of Holy Records and Black Lotus Records, did not have the best international distribution, as compared to your colleagues signed to Century Media for example. Once you guys signed with Metal Blade more people in North American at least, seemed to notice and appreciate Nightfall. Would you agree?
You are correct. I am glad we got that exposure with Metal Blade. There were few other factors as well. Let me share some with you here, coz I think it is interesting, since you too come from the Underground. As a teenager, I started to play music to escape bitter reality. I founded Nightfall after I got kicked out from a thrash metal band I was playing the bass in, because I was pushing them to play original stuff and stop being a clone of mid 80s Kreator. The first and only demo tape I made, named Vanity, for a reason, and got released immediately after. It was based on the exact stuff I had already in my hands, and got ousted from the previous band because of it. The rec deal offer came through tape trading. My world changed overnight; recordings, debut, international release, interviews, then another release, a tour, etc. The entire decade run like that, until the moment we were about to do the big jump, but decided not to. It was when I gave priority to my Uni studies instead, a decision not that hard, as I never saw extreme music like a real business thing for me. I was there only for the music and the communication with others. Since then, I’ve tried hard to keep the band rolling as much as it needed to stay self-sustained, with good music and lyrics, but not touring. For about two decades we remained a studio act, releasing new stuff every few years only, and doing 2 or three gigs. That’s all. The Underground spirit, or what I did consider “underground spirit” back then, was well alive in me and I totally enjoyed staying in the shadows, if I had nothing new to share with the scene – whether that was a new album or a show or tour. The other reason influenced my decision, was an educative meeting I had with the main distributor of metal music in Greece back in late 90s. At the peak of our career at that point, I asked him to give a little more support to our new release. He cynically replied to me that the market had a ceiling, and if Nightfall is to give more copies to his region (the entire country), some other label with similar artists will give less, jeopardising his long term business relationships with all major record labels he had on exclusive basis abroad. I was caught off guard, leaving his office totally discouraged and sick about his cold point of view.
From that point on I started noticing how the game was played from the financial point of view. The scene we thought of as a romantic pool with rebellious poets, it was obviously a market place. Welcome to the real world buddy. Circa 2000, the influx of money to the Underground scene as a direct result to the global financial prosperity, you know, lotsa cheap credit offered by the banks, increased fans’ purchasing power with much more money to be spend on shows and albums. That money had never been seen in the scene before and with it a plethora of never before existing roles got created, like that of the manager, promoter, designer, merchandiser, photographer, etc. No more DIY, experimentation and pure rebellious attitude. Success now meant good business. That switch got an impact on me, and I think that it was also due to my financial background in the Uni. After all, I was still a fan lucky enough to play my own music and be supported by a label and the fans and that was more than enough for me. I felt like I got to be true. Not quite sure what “true” really meant, but that’s another story. An incident I still recall from the Metal Blade era, was an offer we received to do a tour with a US act, but had to take out one member of our band because the nightliner was short by one bed. That was definitely a red flag for me. Bottom line, I had no true interest in pursuing a business career in music under such conditions. Consequently, that attitude took its toll with band’s popularity as it started losing pace. Nowadays, we are ultra-keen to tour extensively and we know we have to be extra good to cover the distance successfully. We know we can do it. That’s the story. Good thing is that despite the long absence of promo campaigns and touring, Nightfall never ceased to attract interest from fans around the world, whenever a new album came out. And that’s awesome.
Please tell us briefly about the album title and art of the new album CHILDREN OF EVE.
It is a call for unity against those who promote bigotry and intolerance. Specifically, the three Abrahamic religions, that nowadays cause more pain than relief. I discussed about the artwork with Eliran Kantor and I sent over to him my ideas along with a demo with the songs. He delivered. The concept of the album can be seen if you read the ten song titles as a single sentence: I hate the cannibal lurking inside my head, seeking revenge for the expelled ones, the traders of anathema with outlandish desire to disobey the makhaira of the deceiver, Christian Svengali. I don’t want to be rude with anybody’s beliefs; I do respect what others believe or don’t believe. But, I am fed up of religious interference in our lives. Take for example the debate about abortions. It’s horrendous discussing about it in 202. Let women do as they wish with their body and stop calling outdated solutions to current problems. It’s not workable any more.
Do you own Devasoundz Studios? In a related question, tell us a bit about your role as producer. I noticed you almost never use an outside producer. Why is that? Do you feel that only you can capture the sound and creative vision?
Very nice question Joshua. The answer lies with the very harsh conditions we grew up as musicians here in Greece. Metal music was a very bad thing to get into back then. In order for us to survive that scrutiny, we had to be stubborn. Stubborn to death. We trusted nobody. Regretfully, that included producers with ideas and knowledge that could assist us in producing our music differently. They all fell into the same rejection basket. But, that’s not all that bad. Greek sound well found its position in the hearts of many metalheads as exotic and unique. I guess the balance is positive. Devasoundz is owned by our drummer, and yes, it gives us the privilege to work extra time for long periods in there. That means, we go back to stuff we recorded every few weeks to check it again with clear head.
What was the most rewarding aspect of creating the new album?
The unity it brought among the band members. I am very satisfied with the current line up in all levels. The power of this album is overwhelming.
Have you ever thought about translating and publishing your poetry? In a related idea many bands have written an official biography or even an autobiography. Would you like to do that one day?
There’s a documentary about Nightfall in the making. It’s been produced by a super cool guy from France that runs DukeTV. He has produced an amazing documentary for the legendary Chris Holmes, WASP’s guitarist during their heydays, and he is concluding one about Angra soon. I look forward to watching it as soon as it is ready.
I understand that the ‘business’ side of the music industry is unpleasant at the best of times but do you have any desire to record/film a special, one-time, live event as many bands have done, and perhaps release a live DVD?
Sure, that would be great. I’d love that man. I wouldn’t consider it as boring business. A live DVD is a piece of art as long as you have exceptional material to put into it. We have never released a live recording before. So, yes, that would be wonderful.
I see Nightfall as a very evolutionary and experimental band from the beginning. How do you deal with the critics and cynics who only want you to stay in the narrow confines of just one style? Having said that, I feel CHILDREN OF EVE will appeal to some of your more conservative and, although I do not like the phrase much, ‘old-school’ fans. Was there a deliberate attempt to strip back some of the more progressive elements or, again was it just a natural evolution of your sound?
Indeed, Children of Eve was built to play live. It’s a straight forward album, with its progressive parts lying more with the riffing (lotsa non 4/4s everywhere), rather than anything else. However, if someone wants to criticise any band for being stuck to one certain style over the years, that could not be Nightfall. Going through our discography is enough for anyone to witness that we have never repeated ourselves; neither treated our art as commodity. The element of surprise is always here with us. It was just time for us to release a powerful album.
I know over the years you have little love lost for humanity, especially when it comes to politics and religion, but I noticed that the album had a broad theme and a lot of anger, perhaps more than usual. I’ve noticed as some bands age they become more complacent and less angry and yet at this point in your career you have released a very fierce album. Where does this rage come from?
The older you get, the more data you have to assess the world. Unless one becomes totally apathetic to the injustice and wrongdoings in our world, the older he/she gets the angrier he/she becomes. When we were young we thought about grownups being incapable to run the world fairly; now that the grownups are us, what are we doing? Probably very little and most of the time very late. Current times are turbulent. I cannot pretend it is ok.
Your final words for the fans?
Thank you for being there for us all these years. Looking forward to meeting you all when we hit the road, soon.
Thank you again for your time and all of the great music over the years.
The pleasure and honour is mine Josh.
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