Interview: NAUTHIK

It was a nice surprise to hear such an amazing release, with a pure doom sound that I haven’t heard in a while. Therefore, Nauthik have proven this with their debut album Araganu.
To know more what is all about, below you can read an interview I had with Nauthik’s Damager (guitar) and Plorator (vocals), about the new album, doom metal and other interesting stuffs.

I don’t remember when was the last time I’ve listened to a great doom album. Araganu is amazing! First of all, congrats on the release!
Damager: Wow, thanks a lot! That is really cool to hear!

Tell me about the concept behind Araganu.
Damager: Well, there was no real concept. I just wanted to write songs without musical limitations and, well, it became a rather gloomy doom records, hahaha. It seems, this reflect my personality in the best way.

The lyrics are inspired by the Sardinian chant, is that correct?
Plorator The lyrics are inspired by traditional Sardinian Chant ‘Procurade é moderare’ written by Francesco Ignazio Mannu in 1794. It is the Chant of the Sardegnian revolution. I travelled to Sardegna lot of times in the recent years and discovered the wide and overwhelming landscape with the sea and the mountains. It is one of the few places in Europe, where you can really experience a felling of solitude and nature. I researched about the culture and history of Sardegna and I came across ´Procurade é moderare’.
Damager: I have said this before, but in these troubled  times, where the world is fighting for health and survival, it is even more important:
In my view, the chant is a powerful statement for freedom and against oppression. Today it seems, there is a struggle between horrible, oppressive nationalist movements and the so called “modern” neo-liberal ego-society. But both ways are leading into the same catastrophe, economically, ecologically, socially and in terms of culture. So we need another way, a different way.
Today we can see more clearly than ever before, that it is not the Dow Jones and it is not nationalism, that keeps our society running, but it is the people working in the hospitals and the supermarkets, all the jobs, society tends to look down as „low cost jobs“ and all the people getting paid only minimum wages, that keep our society safe and alive. We need to set our values straight now, and value those people better than we did in the past. We need to find our way to common sense instead of ideology and money-driven values, and back to solidarity and altruism in our economy, our culture and our society.

Also the album is sang in Sardianian. Was it difficult for you, Plorator, to sing in this language?
Plorator: As it is not clean singing, but a sort of growling, it was easier because pronunciation is not as accurate any way and in any language, when you sing this way. But there might be some wrong pronunciations and I ask all Sardegnians for forgiveness, if so. I wanted the lyrics to be as raw and direct as possible and focussed on emotions while in the studio. Liquid Aether Audio Studio is in a rather rural area and before the recordings, I spent some days alone in a small hotel, built in an old school building in a village nearby, to calm myself down from modern life and to connect to the lyrics and the music and find the energy to sing.

Your music is pure doom, funeral doom. How do you manage to keep this sound?
Damager: Doom is just the way I want it to sound. But not doom as a set of rules, but more as a mindset. It includes a bit psychedelic guitars here and there and even some blastbeats, if the song asks for it, if the atmosphere is still doom. It is always difficult to analyze my own music, because it derives from pure emotion and is a direct expression of feelings, without a structured and well-thought plan behind it. I never limit myself, when writing a track, if it needs a fifth layer of guitars, I record it, and if it needs a dose of death metal or black metal, I inject it. I think this time, the feelings I have channeled into the music were more dark and therefore it became doom. It was a hard and painful process to record this album, even with the songs, that were already on the limited split tape and were rearranged and rerecorded. I spent a lot of gloomy nights in front of the computer, laying down guitar tracks, but actually that´s what creating music is about: Intensity and commitment.
And of course I really have to praise Mario from Liquid Aether Audio for creating this really great and doomy guitar sound with me. We used a shitload of amps and pedals to make it as raw and dark as it is now.

For this album, you teamed up with Auric records. Is a small label, but has nice bands signed up which amaze me with their music. How did you get in touch with the label?
Damager: Eugenio from Auric records is also singer of the band Excruciation, a really cool swiss band, and Plorator organized some gigs for them here in Cologne, so we got in touch. And together with Mario from Liquid Aether Audio the idea came up to release our first full-length on Auric records. And both Eugenio and Mario have done a great job on this release. We had all creative freedom for the music and artwork. The limited version in the special boxes just turned out amazing. I would love to see a cassette tape version, like the on ewe had for the spilt-tape, so if someone is interested in releasing it…

One of the label bands, Excruciation as you mentioned about too, had a split with Babylon Asleep, which in 2017 you had a split with them too. Was this a start for Nauthik, basically?
Damager: Both bands had material ready to release at the same time, we knew each other and so it was a kind of natural decision. I am really looking forward to the release of the Babylon Asleep full length. I have heard some tracks and it will be killer!

Do you already have in mind a possible next Nauthik album? Do you have some materials ready for this?
Damager: There are some ideas I am working on. It always takes a long time to write Nauthik songs, because you have to be in the right mood. As I said before, emotions are the key part to this kind of music. So I need those times, when I have the chance to focus on the music only, and not on work, daily life or whatever, and you need energy. We all know, the daily routine of work and paying bills sucks most of the energy from our souls and our bodies. But there is definitively more doom to come from Nauthik.

Can you mention 5 metal bands (doom if so) that is an inspiration for Nauthik’s music?
Damager:At first it is, of course and not very surprisingly: Black Sabbath. The start of it all, for metal and for me. When I was a kid, I bought my first guitar and a songbook with 50 Sabbath tunes at the same time and started to play. So Sabbath is in my musical DNA. mainly, but not only the Ozzy-era, I also like the Dio– and Tony Martin-albums.
As a child of the eighties, I have to mention Trouble, a huge influence for me. The twin guitars are simply beautiful, and even if they had Christian lyrics, their first three albums are just pure brilliance. Really heavy doom, with a lot of emotions.
And the there is Candlemass, just as brilliant. I admire all work Leif Edling has done. He manages to use the same patterns, even almost the same riffs again and again, but it is always loaded up with emotions to make it sound fresh and energetic. You can feel the passion and lifeblood through all his music. And those epic melodies –  awesome! Below the big three, there is a lot of bands like Reverend Bizarre, Saint Vitus, Procession, Ruins of Beverast, Solstice (UK), Winter, Ahab and many others.

What doom metal represents for you nowadays? How do you see this metal genre in the present?
Damager: I grew up in the 80‘s, as said before. In those days, Thrash, with all its aggression and speed, was something I could relate to of course as a teenager, and with all the fresh new bands, especially from Germany, like Kreator Sodom or Destruction. And at that time, doom was really something obscure and rare. But there was always this other side in my musical soul, aiming for music, with deeper emotions, with darkness, desperation and with musical beauty. And to me, that is what doom metal stands for: desperation and musical beauty. This beauty can be heavy and even harsh or disharmonic, but it is more deep and soulful than the pure energy of thrash. When you listen to „Solitude“ of Candlemass, you cannot help but being dragged into the desperation and darkness, and you really enjoy it!  Today there are a lot of strong new doom bands like Konvent, Morast, Crypt Sermon or Sludge, bands like Grim Van Doom.

You are also a member of Damage Source, another band you are part of. Currently, how can you manage both of the bands?
Damager: Plorator is also in Damage Source and we love both bands. With Damage Source, we play a more death/thrash style and it is that kind of music, made for playing shows and bang your head. Damage Source also has a band approach, so everybody in involved in the songwriting  and we combine the musical styles of 4 individuals to something new and powerful. And yet there is a certain way, I would not call it limitation, but I could not place any clean guitars into a Damage Source song. And I would never want to, that would make no sense. Damage Source is pure Rawness and fist to the face. With Nauthik I can do anything , as long as it fits the emotion, the soul of the song.

Will there be shows as well or Nauthik is a studio band?
Damager: Basically, we would like to play shows, we all do shows with other bands, so we know the pleasure it brings, but also the sweat, that it costs as a small band. The only way to play a Nauthik show would be to hire a bass player and two additional guitarists, because we would need three guitars on stage.
It is not easy to find people who are into the music, available, reliable and free of costs at the same time, because of course, we do not  earn money with it. So, at the moment, playing shows is not on our list. But you never know, what the future brings.

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