Nervosa Interview
By Steven Smith
Nervosa is a name that is growing within the thrash metal and extreme metal community. With the release of Downfall Of Mankind, do you think the album will continue your strong influence within the metal ranks?
F: We really hope so! haha I mean, we always work a lot and expect a lot as a result of our hard work and devotion for the band, but this time i really think the album is gonna make even more people get to know us in the metal community. It’s a very diverse and extreme album, so we think people will be a bit surprised.
Your influences not only reached the fans on a musical level as well a personal level. Being a female extreme metal act, have you met fans that were inspired to pick up an instrument and start their own musical projects?
F: Definitely and all the time! I mean, we don’t get this support only from girls, but there’s a lot of guys who wanna see more women playing, once all of us have so many friends who are girls and metalhead and musicians, so why not have more and more of them pursuing their dream of playing in a band, right? But of course, we can feel an amazing support coming from the girls. Not only, as you mentioned, many of them come to us saying we inspired them to have a band, or to play an instrument, but most importantly, many of them just come tell us how much they feel represented when they watch us on stage, how much they identify themselves. Representativeness is very important and we’re glad to contribute to that in a way.
With the recording process, what was the challenges you faced while recording Downfall Of Mankind that you have not experienced on previous albums?
F: The biggest challenge was definitely the time, it was running against us! haha First of all, we were touring a lot, so the writing process became really complicated, once we can’t properly write songs together when on the road, so we had a real short time to write the album, and also, we chose an amazing studio which didn’t have a lot of dates available, so we had like 2, 3 weeks to do everything, so we spent over 13 hours in the studio everyday for several days in a row! But in the end, everything worked out perfectly and it was less tiring than i thought it would be!
The two singles that has been released, “Killed The Silence” and “Never Forget, Never Repeat”, the aggression and the musicianship you have mastered is alive and well in them. What made you pick these tracks out of the others ones to tease the fans with?
F:Thanks a lot! We chose them cause we thought they were the ones that summarized and represented most of what is in the album. They are aggressive, fast, catchy, and that’s pretty much what you’re gonna here throughout the whole album!
What influences from personal and musical approach created the foundation for the new album?
F:Many many things. As a group, i think Luana brought a lot of aggressiveness to our music. She played in a death metal band before joining us, so we knew the songs with her would probably have a darker, faster, more technical and more aggressive vibe, so we felt inspired and wrote riffs that would fit her characteristics on drumming, and in the end we felt we now found our definite musical identity, which is thrash metal with a lot of death metal influences. Personally, i was really careful about the way i wanted my bass to sound: old school, but clear and audible, and also very similar to what it is live. It was not easy to get there, but, as always, having Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse as my main influence and reference helped a lot! As for vocals, i tried to vary it a little bit more, and not only stay with the high pitches, but also explore different tones and varying between high and low a lot, i really like it. In the end, these things along with the different things that the girls also experimented on their own instruments really made a difference.
We all know touring has some struggles, what obstacles you experienced while touring was the most enduring situation to be in?
F: Definitely the things that run out of our control. like on the last summer tour we did in Europe, when we got our van broken into and all of Prika’s instruments and equipments stolen, as well as some gig cancellations by promoters that fucked many things up. Everything else, we can handle well, with patience, focus, dedication, calm and dialogue!
If you could sum up to your fans what they can hope to see on the new release?:
F: I think it’s still pretty much Nervosa, all our characteristics are still there, but in a more aggressive, technical and faster way! If you’re a fan o thrash/death, than our album will be a lot of fun to you 🙂
MHF Magazine/Steven Smith
