Interviews: Narsilion
Jeremy’s interview with Tommy Lythgoe, Mike Bottoms, and Dave Fugman
of Narsilion on a chilly February night over steamy cheese fries. Check
out the review and then their website for more information on this amazing
melodic Death Metal band from Richmond, VA.
Jeremy: Why is Narsilion’s past marked by so many member-changes?
Tommy: Our first drummer was Richard, who ended up playing with another
band from around here. He ended up getting carpal tunnel and couldn’t
play with two bands anymore, so he went with the other one. Then we got a
guy who used to play guitar in Disinterment, Kris Norris, to play
drums. Then he went through a bunch of personal crap and did some stupid
stuff to himself and ended up not being able to play anymore and that’s
when we picked up Mike. Mike is the only drummer we’ve had live. We had
a session bass player when we recorded, this guy Cory because we didn’t
have bass player. He played one show with us at Alley Cats. It was our
first show. He wasn’t really into it and he was just doing it to help us
out and then we ended up with Jason. He was with us up until about a
month ago. The problem is he’s just so busy with work, he runs a family
business and he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tour. So, he left and
we picked up Dave. Other than that, there have been!
no official lineup changes because when we changed over from our first
guitarist to Mike, we hadn’t really written that much material yet anyway.
Jeremy: When you came to Narsilion from Disinterment, did you want to
bring anything with you or did you want to do something completely different?
Tommy: Different in the aspect that I didn’t want a million notes a riff,
I didn’t want everything to be so complicated that nobody could grasp
it. I wanted to keep the harmonic and melodic feels of it, keep it heavy,
but be more straight forward. Just fucking big, fat Rock n Roll.
Jeremy: What do you guys do when you write guitar parts together?
Mike: Argue. Well, basically, it’s two different styles. Gun [Tommy’s
nickname] likes to do straightforward rock and I was in a progressive
metal band called Stratus Fear that was like the whole Fates Warning and
Dream Theater kind of thing. I’m really into Power Metal and actually
hated Death Metal to be honest with you. So I decided we’d put a little
melody in it and I write more of the technical, fast paced Power Metal
stuff you hear in the music. You can hear it the solos, too. We like to
say we’re like the Amott brothers—he’d be Michael and I’d be
Christopher. I do all the wank, as they say, and he does all the wah-wah
shit. We butt heads a lot.
Tommy: But we make up at the end of the night and everything works
out. He writes a lot of the faced pace, more aggressive riffs, whereas I
field the more mid-paced melodic stuff, the more rhythmic shit.
Jeremy: Dave, you play a six string bass. How’s that working out in
Narsilion?
Dave: I use it mainly for solos and the more melodic sections. I come
from more of a Jazz background, honestly and Progressive Rock as well. I
don’t usually listen to Death Metal myself, actually. I play a six string
fretless bass, so my influences a little more obscure. Not to belittle
bass players in Death Metal, but most of them sound like they’re chasing
the guitarists. That’s ok and everything, but my goal is to be able to
write a solid foundation and accent the drums as well.
Jeremy: Like Michael Anthony in Van Halen?
Dave: Well, nothing that simplistic. But, there’s nothing wrong with
playing that simple as long as it’s complementing the drums.
Jeremy: What’s going on with the record?
Mike: We’re scheduled to go into the studio March 27th through the
29th. 10-hour days, knock it out. It’s looking like it’s going to be on
Lifeless Records, which is the guy, Matt, from Shadows Fall, it’s his
label. He’s going to distribute it for us.
Jeremy: Is there going to be any European distribution?
Mike: Yeah, there’s going to be Belgium, Japan, America and what other
country? Germany?
Tommy: Well, actually it’s pretty much going to be worldwide. I believe
in North America and Canada he’s distributed by Century Media and I know
he has Japan, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and I think Spain. I’m pretty
sure. But I think he’s locked down pretty much the planet now.
Jeremy: Do you think the show where you opened for
Nile/Incantation/Impaled helped?
Tommy: I think it did help the crowd response to us a little bit because
none of those people had seen us yet. And two shows later, we ended up
drawing a pretty decent size crowd, so I think that did help a lot.
Mike: We were a little different style than the brutal Death Metal. A
couple of buddies of mine, they’re into, well I call it noise, they call
it chaos, but they were like ‘it’s not up my alley, but it’s good at what
you all do’, so it’s kind of a different school of Metal. Most people
want to hear racket; we want to make music.
Jeremy: What are you goals?
Tommy: Long term? I just want the music out there. I want people to
know who we are. I want people to love this band. This is something I’ve
been working at for almost ten years now. It’s good because even though
Disinterment didn’t really go that far—we put out a CD and three years
later we hadn’t put out anything else—but with this band, we’ve been
together less than a year and we’ll still have been together less than a
year when the CD comes out.