Among the legions of death metal bands that are spawned, few endeavor to do anything more than pay tribute to their influences. However, once in a while a unique band comes along and brings their own style of death metal to the table. NADER SADEK has brought together his talents as a visual artist and musician to bring forth a dark and brooding experience via his excellent debut album, In the Flesh, and his brand new live DVD/CD, Living Flesh. While it’s easy to get star struck by the live all-star line up of drummer Flo Mournier (CRYPTOPSY), guitarist Rune Eriksen (AVA INFERI, AURA NOIR, ex-MAYHEM), bassist Novy (ex-BEHEMOTH, ex-VADER), and vocalist Steve Tucker (ex-MORBID ANGEL), APESHIT caught up with the mastermind behind it all to find out more about one of the best, new extreme metal bands in the scene.
APESHIT: Congrats on Living Flesh! It turned out to be a very special show and live album/DVD. How do you feel about the final results?
Nader: Thanks! I’m very happy with it, i was very nervous as live recordings always seem to have issues, but this went very smoothly!
APESHIT: Can you explain your vision for the live performance?
Nader: I wanted to re-interpret the album. We could have just copied the studio album, but since we only have 6 songs, I took the opportunity to make it whole new experience, faster, but extending the compositions, adding new ideas and replacing old details with new ones. I wanted it to be more haunting. Visually, I wanted to make it more alive and arresting than something typical.
APESHIT: What gave you the idea to have drummer Flo Mournier in the non-traditional placement of facing the stage?
Nader: Following the theme of petroleum, I designed the stage this way as it was metaphor for a automobile or any kind of vehicle, which uses gasoline, petroleum’s largest byproduct. The engine sits in the front while the wheels (the guitars) are on the side, the stirring wheel and shift stick (singer and bassist respectively) are in the middle and exhaust in the back.
APESHIT: Where did you find live guitarist Sean Frey? His performance on lead guitars was absolutely awesome!
Nader: Our singer found him in a guitar store.
APESHIT: The press releases for Living Flesh states that this was Steve Tucker’s only live performance with the band? Can you explain why that is? Will he be involved with studio recordings in the future?
Nader: We are not working with him again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7FjOG2rl9I
APESHIT: Going back to In the Flesh, how did you get in contact with such legendary metal artists to perform on your album?
Nader: I got in touch with their labels or I knew close friends to them who passed on the info. My working with MAYHEM really helped with finding Rune, and I knew Flo for a very long time probably since 2001 or so.
APESHIT: Seeing as all artists were living around the world, how did you work out the logistics to get everyone together to practice and/or record In the Flesh?
Nader: It just so happened that at the time, none of them were very active. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for me [haha] this isn’t the case anymore. But it was quite easy getting them together.
APESHIT: Can you give us a brief background on your background as an artist?
Nader: I started out by drawing, up until 2001. I started to think more conceptually and abandoned drawing for a while, opting more for sculptural/installation work which is more space based. In 2004 I had an exhibition in Cairo, Egypt. It went well and I moved to New York. There I started working on drawing and installation work. I wanted to experiment with video as well and started using sound. This eventually gave me the opportunity to introduce metal in to my work.
APESHIT: When did you start working with bands? How did you hook up with MAYHEM?
Nader: Attila [Csihar (MAYHEM vocalist)] and I were on the same page as far as masks. I had made several for him at this point. He was pretty excited about the stuff so he asked me to do MAYHEM’s 2009 tour design.
APESHIT: Are there any plans for future live performances?
Nader: It’s bound to happen I think.
APESHIT: When and what can we expect from the next album? Any new musicians or surprises planned?
Nader: We’ve already recorded a ton of material minus the singing as that will be all done in one shot (recording drums, and guitar is currently being done a couple of months at a time).