Formed in 2000 as one of the first extreme metal bands to emerge from Dubai, U.A.E., “Nervecell” are playing a mature and solid death/thrash metal with some middle eastern sounding atmospheres. They independently released their first E.P. entitled "Human Chaos" in 2004. Their debut album "Preaching Venom" was released in 2009 under German label “Lifeforce Records” (Europe) and “Spellbind Records” (Middle East). In May 2011, “Nervecell” released their new album entitled "Psychogenocide". With the success surrounding "Psychogenocide", the band had opportunity to be on tour consistently. By playing at nearly every major music festival imaginable, “Nervecell” have steadily built a devoted following of metalheads worldwide. The interview available below features “Nervecell” guitarist Barney Ribeiro. Can you name the lineup? How solid has it beenthrough the years? “Nervecell” consists of James (bassist/vocalist), Rami (guitars) and myself (guitars), unfortunately we don’t really have a permanent drummer simply because there isn’t any drummer based in the Middle East who is either committed or capable to work to the extent we do. Its just something we’ve constantly faced as a limitation based here among many other factors too of course. I only ended up meeting James and Rami at one of the earlier “Nervecell” gigs during that initial stag. We had instantly become friends and changed numbers, about a year later they eventually ended up joining the band too. It was kind of inevitable as they shared the same interest musically and passion for
music that I had myself, ever since then (2003) onwards the 3 of us have been the key members in "Nervecell". You guys are from Dubai, what about coming from that part of the world affects your approach to metal the most both as players and as fans? Dubai has only been around for 42 years and we’ve been a band based here for the last 12 years, so you can imagine there is still a lot more to learn here with regards to the music industry. Just like everything in Dubai it’s all completely westernized and completely trendy. So the music scene that exists here has always been dominated by the same chart topping hits you’ll hear all around the world on radio stations, of course there is also the Arabic
pop music that seems to dominate here too. Having vocals/lyrics in the song “Shunq” and that was a said that, we only experienced a rise in rock and really challenging step for the band since it’s not metal music pick up in the Middle East somewhere really that easy to have Arabic growls in a death around the late 90’s. This had a lot to do with metal song, we did work on that and it turned out channels like MTV being broadcasted here, music pretty good! The track also features Karl Sanders magazines and the Internet starting to become more from “Nile” on guest vocals, which makes it extra accessible for all of us to discover new bands. You special. It’s very important for us, as musicians to also need to realize that we never had access to be 100% satisfied with our songs and if we keep the going to a music store and buying a metal CD as the fans satisfied too then there is nothing like it! stores here at the time didn’t really have a metal Do you think you reached in this album the section. So it wasn’t very easy or common to get sound you guys have always had in mind for into metal music in the first place. Regardless of all yourselves? the lack of initial support we’ve still been able to I think it’s important to stand out amongst all the accomplish a lot as a metal band based in Dubai, other great bands playing metal today for sure. I right from releasing albums, touring etc. if you believe we have reached to a certain level where we were to tell me 12 years ago that we would one day have found our sound and I think in get to open for “Metallica”, I would of thought your “Psychogenocide” you can hear our strengths as either being too kind or assumed your crazy! But composers and definitely hear the progression in hey what do you know, it did happen in 2011 with the band. So yes, I believe we have reached and us and we’re out there tody continuing to put Dubai achieved that sound that we like ourselves to sound on the map for heavy metal! like but we still want to stand out and be unique Has recording “Psycogenocide” been a different within our style as well, so as long as we feel process from recording the first album? comfortable and natural experimenting with our When we wrote our first album “Preaching Venom” music we will keep trying to push the boundaries it was different because those songs were written no matter what. over 4 years, since we were all still in university Karl Sander (“Nile”) appears as guest vocalist studying and balancing working on the band as on the track “Shunq”. How did you get in touch well. So we were only able to focus more on the with him, or him with you? band once we had all graduated in 2006. Of course The idea to work with Karl actually came about a lot of those songs were played live too which when our singer James decided to write Arabic helped us when we went into the studio to record lyrics for the song “Shunq”. So since the lyrics the album as a lot of changes were made along the were written in a story telling form we decided that way to those songs. Also you need to realize thatweit would be cool to have someone guest on the track were insigned at that point and it was only afterthe and have him sing in English to compliment the album came out that “Lifeforce Records” heardus Arabic lyrics on the track. So after a few days of and immediately signed us soon after. So with discussing who would be the right person for the “Psychogenocide” we had a bigger budget and we job we all agreed that Karl Sanders would be the wanted a good follow up to “Preaching Venom”. best match, not only cause we were all fans of We wanted to write a heavier and faster album, yet “Nile” but also considering his style and theme’s he keep an overall darker feel to the songs. So we uses in Nile’s music too. It just made perfect sense created more dynamics within the songs and added to reach out to him and so we had our management a whole lot of different feels for the album, which reach out to his management and make it happen. It happened in a very natural way. We did take our wasn’t too long after that then when Karl came to time writing since we recorded and tracked the Dubai and even ended up recording the video for entire album in Dubai ourselves, and then handed “Shunq” with us in the U.A.E. It was an amazing the recordings over to “Hertz Studios” in Poland for experience working with Karl and he has become a the mixing and mastering stage. You’ll notice we good friend to us today. experimented a bit too by adding a little touch of Tell us what it’s been like touring with legendary Middle Eastern/Arabic instrumentations on the death metal bands such as “Morbid Angel” and album on tracks such as “Anemic Assurgency” and “Suffocation”. also added ArabianGulfstyle percussions in the It's been really amazing getting to tour with such instrumental track “The Taste Of Betrayal”. The legendary bands for sure, we’ve been fans of both most interesting addition to the album is Arabic bands for years of course so getting to tour with
them and see them live for an entire month each was just an incredible experience. It’s always great when you get to hang out and chat with these guys who have been doing this for 25 to 30 years now playing extreme music. The entire industry has changed over the last few years, so by doing such tours not only do we get to experience life on the road but we also learn and understand how the business side of things work in this line of work too. Especially for a band like ourselves, we are a band from Dubai playing extreme music. For us touring with bands like “Suffocation” and “Morbid Angel” is only a sign that heavy metal is here to stay and is truly without any boundaries. “Morbid Angel” put out their last album “Illud Divinum Insanus”. What were your impressions, and do you think it was as awful as everyone (including me) has said? Well to be completely honest I was shocked by certain tracks and I don’t need to mention them haha. But I have to admit, there are still some real solid tracks on “Illud Divinum Insanus” – The first track I heard off that album was “Nevermore” and I liked it instantly. There are songs such as “Existo Vulgore” and “Blades for Baal” for example, which has classic Morbid Angel elements. So no I wouldn’t say it’s an “awful” album because it’s not! What I think is really awful though is that remix album they put out after – Now that wasn’t cool at all! In October 2011, you open for “Metallica” in Abu Dhabi. How was the response received from Metallica's metalheads? You know fortunately for us we have quite a big fan base in the Middle East. So there was a lot of people there who knew us from the region or have either heard or seen us live before. I don’t think “Metallica” ever have had many extreme metal bands open for them before, so for that gig in Abu Dhabi it was really special because it was their first time playing in the Middle East region in their 30 year career and for us to open that show was seriously a dream come true! I think we made a lot more fans from that one show alone. From what I hear with our performance at that show we made a lot of people become aware of the fact that there is an actual metal scene growing in the Middle East and we’re proud to be that one band to push this further. You headlined many shows in East and Middle East so far. How does it feel to be the main
attraction in an headlining tour? I mean it feels great when you reach such a status for sure, as long as the shows go well and the fans come out to support the band then that’s all that matters really. I mean headlining a tour or shows in general is always something any band aims for at some point, in this day and age its important to make sure its not just the band who benefits from a show, but the promoters who book you, as well as your fans leaving satisfied too, all of that combined together is what makes a band successful and able to grow further in the long run. For many years we have put up with rough conditions and limitations playing shows in the Middle East and overseas too, so having done this for 12 years now its great to finally see things start to change. Do you guys work on new material while you’re on tour? We are constantly writing but when we’re on tour we don’t really have the luxury and space to get into the writing mode. So far we’ve never really written on the road, we focus more on that when we’re back home and in a more comfortable environment. What can we expect from “Nervecell” in 2013? You can expert a lot of touring to take place this year, we still feel there is a lot more places we want to play in before we start writing the next record. So we will be doing a bit of both, which is write new music and tour through out the year as well. Do you have any other messages you need to get out before the end of the interview? Well just thanks for having this interview with me, I wish you all the best with “Milfits Zine” and hope to see you when “Nervecell” play next in Italy. For all the readers do check us out on www.nervecell.net or www.facebook.com/nervecell to keep in touch with the band and get all our latest news and updates instantly. Ciao! "Nervecell" online: www.nervecell.net www.facebook.com/nervecell www.twitter.com/nervecellband www.myspace.com/nervecell www.reverbnation.com/nervecell info@nervecell.net