quinta-feira, 4 de outubro de 2012

Interview: Nightmare - The Powerful Force of Metal From France

"We always was a heavy metal band and we consider still as a 'Heavy Metal band' today"

(Confira a versão em português clicando aqui)


Formed in 1979, in Grenoble-France, the band Nightmare prematurely ended its activities in 1987, but in 1999 with a new line-up, with Jo Amore, founder drummer, now assuming the vocals, and his younger brother David on drums, the band was reborn, releasing in 2001 the full-lenght album "Cosmovision" with great acceptance, and from there has been releasing quality work, showing an evolution with each new release, but making a point of saying that they make "Heavy Metal", making the music that they feel, without worrying about labels or business trends!

Check out the exclusive interview with Jo and Yves, who spoke about the new album, the band's history and willingness to play in Brazil soon!




Road to Metal: Hi is a pleasure to interview the band. Thanks for your time.

Jo & Yves: Thanx to you

Road to Metal: The band is in the midst of your European tour disclosure of "The Burden of God". How are the shows now and receipt of songs from the new album being performed?

Jo & Yves: All is going great! We had couple of shows in the Benelux with cult US band Crimson Glory and that was a first step very exciting for us… Of course we have focus our set list with songs from “ The Burden Of God”  and the least we can say is that the audience gives extremely great response to them so far…

Road to Metal: This new album, "The Burden of God" brings the band back to the studio with new stuff since 2009. How was the writing process for the album?

Yves: Was very effective… we have worked with our longtime friend and producer Patrick Liotard, who helped us a lot in the process. For example, we recorded the vocals with working guitars tracks, meaning that we could change many things and arrangements, and we have recorded the final guitars then after all this and after the vocals, and that is much better to polish and strengthen the songs.

New album takes the band to greater global recognition

Road to Metal: The video "Sunrise in Hell" was just released and without doubt, we can say that the band made a great choice of song for a single. What is the message that the band tried to go with the story told in the video?

Yves: Sunrise In Hell is telling the story of a junkie that is thinking that the drugs that he takes makes him live in an perfect and heavenly world but the reality is something else… “the sunrise in hell” and he is going to his suicide at the end !

Jo Amore rocking at stage

Road to Metal: The song "Children of the Nation" remembers "Cosmovision" (1999). You have used composite material that were left out of other disks or what we hear there are new even for the band?

Jo: I don’t agree so much, I think that “Children of the Nation” is more a mid-tempo song when “Cosmovision” is faster track when it comes to the tempo…

Yves : “Children of the Nation” is much more a brand new track written in the standards that we used for songwriting this new album.

Album released in 2005
Road to Metal: In this new album, there was the participation of Magali Luyten (Epysode/Beautiful Sin) finishing the trilogy of "The Dominion Gate Part III," which began in 2005. How important is a song that follows a thread for years? This Third party marks the end of the saga?

Jo: It was very interesting for us to have Magali as special guest on this song, because she is a woman who sings “with balls” and the combination was great.

Yves: It was the end of a saga that started with “Dominion Gate-Part One”, in the album “The Dominion Gate”, with a very beautiful world to end up to the apocalypse for the end of the trilogy. We let the listener to discover by themselves with the lyrics the complete trilogy and make themselves their own interpretations…



Road to Metal: Historically, Nightmare is considered the most important band in France. When it comes to French Metal, Nightmare is the first name that comes to mind of Brazilians and, we believe, that in other nations the same thing happens. As the band sees the history of Metal in France? How was the scene and how it is today?

Jo: Thanx a lot for the compliments! We really would like to come over to Brazil as soon as we can! Now its up to the promoters to check this opportunity!

Yves: Yes, It's strange but it looks like we have better feedback in exotic countries than at home in France for example! We are just back from Israel where the audience was awesome to us as always… as for the French scene, it has always evolve since years in different steps and of course new bands have emerged like Gojira, but in the eighties the scne had something special with many bands singing in French and that became cult with the time like Sortilege, H Bomb, Vulcain who are still there nowadays…

"There were no sense then to continue under the name Nightmare and then we decided to split up"

Road to Metal: Would you tell us about the reasons that led the band to end its activities in 1987? The end of the band was positive or would have been better if the group could have continued active?

Jo & Yves: In 1987 the complete change of line-up ends up to our loss! Only me (Yves) and one of the former members (Nicolas de Dominicis) were the only survivors and musically we were completely losing the spirit of the band and becoming an AOR band… There were no sense then to continue under the name Nightmare and then we decided to split up!

Road to Metal: Jo, Would you talk about what you did during this hiatus from the band, even back in 1999, and how was the reformulation of Nightmare, with you taking the vocals and your brother the drums? You always believed that the band ended prematurely? What motivated you to reactivate the band?

Jo: During the hiatus time of nightmare, I started my career as a singer and then decided to stop the drums. I then started to learn and improve to sing in a band named temple. Of course I always believed that Nightmare at this time ended prematurely and when we got back together I felt we were in a process of rebirth to a new life!

The reunion show in our hometown of Grenoble, back in October 1999, was a great idea and the success of this concert, that was supposed to be a unique and exclusive show, brought us to where we are today and it was definitely a real motivation to reactive the band!

EP from year 1999, the year of band's reborn

Road to Metal: The band has always opted for a shed heavier power metal itself. Do you believe that this was a natural evolution of style or something more thought to attract an audience of more Headbanger oriented sound extreme?

Yves: We are not playing music to follow the trend just to get more into the commercial process, that why I would say that it’s more a logical evolution of our feeling at the time… we always was a heavy metal band and we consider still as a “Heavy Metal band” today!

Road to Metal: Nightmare never performed in Brazil. The group was never contacted for negotiations shows here? There is a possibility of seeing the group soon or plans for a world tour have not yet been drawn? Know that you have many fans who follow the group, especially today, with widespread Internet access.

Yves: That is definitely something we are working for! If you know a promoter who is able to bring us there it would be a total blast for us to come to Brazil and we are looking forward to it! Our new booking agent from Germany is working on different options and of course Brazil in on the table!

"It's strange but it looks like we have better feedback in exotic countries than at home in France"

Road to Metal: We would like to thank you for the interview. Use this space to a last message to our readers around the world, especially the Brazilian ones.

Yves & Jo: Thanx a lot for the support! Looking forward to meet all our Brazilians fans as soon as possible!

Please follow our update news through: www.nightmare-metal.com and www.facebook.com/nightmareofficial

Nightmare are:

Jo Amore - vocals
Franck Milleliri - guitars
Matt Asselbergs - guitars
Yves Campion - bass
David Amore - drums


Interview: Eduardo Cadore/Carlos Garcia
Translate: Fernanda Nascimento
Edition: Carlos Garcia/Eduardo Cadore

Like Us: Road to Metal
Contact: contact@roadtometal.com

"Sunrise in Hell"

Nenhum comentário: