Rivers Of Nihil Interview

Hey can I just get your name and role in the band please?

Brody: Yeah sure, my name is Brody I play lead guitar in Rivers Of Nihil. I do a lot of the song writing as well so uh, yeah that’s my job haha.

Do you write the songs mostly instrumentally or do you sometimes help with the lyrical side of the band?

Brody: No, I never do anything with the lyrics. That all, all comes from our bass player Adam. He does all the conceptual and lyrics. Lyrics and concepts are all him. I’m usually music strictly. You know I write the tunes and send them to him, and he then adds the lyrics and such himself.

So this is your first gig of this tour in the UK, how do you find playing in the UK?

Brody: It’s honestly like one of my favourite places to play in the entire world. Like, honestly every show we’ve ever played has been super super sick. I love the people, they’re all really nice and like very cool and very friendly. Shows are always great, I like the history of this part of the world and everything. I love coming here it’s like the highlight of any tour that comes over the Atlantic city.

Do you have a favourite city?

Uh! I don’t wanna say because I know there’s always a-YEAH haha you know what I mean. Manchester’s great, London’s great. Shows however yeah, shows are shows we’ve done places like London, Manchester…Leeds. But I would say as far as my memories concerned, I would say that like London and Manchester are the two big ones coming over here.

On an extensive tour like this is there much downtime?

Brody: I mean, there hasn’t been much thus far because like, yesterday we flew in the same day as the show. Uh, which was brutal. Then after the first show we immediately had to jump on the ferry to come here. So there’s literally been no down time. I mean I finally caught up on some sleep. I woke up today at like 2 O’clock, we set up we play like an hour. That’s like my day right there. But I think everything is locked in and everyone is familiar with the routine. People will get relaxed. But as of yet, it’s been very GO-GO-GO.

So when you finally do get downtime, do you visit the city your playing in?

Brody: On a support tour like this, it’s a little more difficult to see the sites. Just because you have to be present to like make sure your stuff isn’t in the way. Ya know that sort of thing. But on a headline tour yeah, like last time we where in London I went to see Camdem Market because it was right by Underworld. And I went to being like a huge classic rock fan, I went to Abbey Road and did the whole tourist thing there. I try to like go out and see stuff, last time we where in Manchester we to this bar that had this massive Devils Head sort of thing. I forget what it’s called, It’s a Metal bar…

Satans Hollow?

Brody: That place, we went there last time. So yeah we try and go out when we can. Break it up a little bit.

So being on stage playing can be very intense, so is there any pre-show work outs or rituals that help you get into that mind set?

Brody: Yeah, it’s kind of hard when you’re in another country and you don’t know a ton of people. But I like to stretch, I do some stretching exorcises. If there’s a convenience store near by I’ll grab an energy drink or something like that. Don’t drink any alcohol before we play. That’s kind of a no-brainer that I’ve learned the hard way from more than a few times. So yeah that’s it really, I try and stay as chilled as possible until we hit the stage. Just so I don’t drive myself crazy. Do my stretching, if I have the time to get the guitar out and warm up I will. But at this point in the Album cycle. Like this is the last tour the albums cycle, everything is like muscle memory at this point. So I pretty much just stretch and go at this point.

So I have an American friend who’s seen you before, I haven’t had the pleasure. And when I told him I was interviewing you guys. He said to make sure you have amazing presence and an amazing sound. And I was wondering how do you get that sound?

Brody: Oh really? I wonder where he saw us. Because we have a couple of different sound guys that we use, our usual sound guy is a guy called Joel Moore. He also works for Revocation, and done work with 6 Feet Under and Carnifex. But he’s not with us, right now we’re using a gentlemen named Mellow. He’s doing sound for us, Fit For An Autopsy and Carnifex. But I’m like a studio guy at home like I try and record and everything. But I try and get our live sound as dialled in as possible back home. That way, I try and dial in everything from the audiences perspective. I honestly give all the credit to the sound engineer. Like, if we have a killer sound engineer that’s probably why we sound good. It’s a highly overlooked thing, we didn’t tour with a sound guy for a really long time, and then 2 years ago we did and it’s just been great. It’s great having someone in the corner on your team.

So fun one here, if you could have a a famous Director living or dead to do your next music video. Who would you have?

Brody: Oh living or dead? I mean if we had an infinite amount of money to do whatever we wanted and they where interested. I’d have David Lynch do a music video for us. Because we’re all like big fans, or at least me and Adam. We’re like big David Lynch and Twin Peaks fans, I think he’s great. I don’t know who the Director of this was but I’m sure being from the UK i’m sure you’re aware of Steven Wilson?

Nope, haha

Brody: Porcupine Tree, well he’s the guy who produced Black Water Park from Opeth and stuff. He has a solo project and he has a lot of these cool music videos that has this really odd style of animation. It almost looks like paper cut out animation, and I’m a big fan of that so uh, that guy. But I would say getting a David Lynch video would be next level for us so I’ll stick with that haha.

So this is the final question. You said you where on the last leg of the albums cycle. So are there any plans to record this year?

Brody: Yeah, yeah. I mean we don’t have any Studio time booked, but I have like an hours worth of new music. We’re just gonna refine it until, and get it to it’s at a good spot. After this we’ve got some festivals, no touring for a little while. And then hopefully early 2021 we’ll the next record, we’ll see though…