Nemrud Interview

Interview:

Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview! How did you guys get together to create Nemrud? Why the name Nemrud?

Like the title of our first album, it was a long journey before we got together. All the Nemrud members have a different background, age and lifestyle. However, on one point we all come together and that is we all lived with little demons in our head and thanks to the Shaman we managed to get rid off these demons of the past which we tried to capture in this album. It was a long journey but we finally reached the top mountain Nemrud both physically and mentally and that feels liberated. Nemrud is a mountain in South East Turkey named after the famous ancient King Nemrud who saw himself as the god on earth and was the nemesis of Prophet Abraham. He believed that he was immortal. He locked himself every night in a special panic room, but was according to the deliverance, killed in his sleep after being poisoned by an insect who managed to get in the room also.

What are some of your influences? Since you play psych/space music, you must love many bands from the late 60's...

Most of all Pink Floyd and Eloy. I still remember the first time I listened to Wish you Were here album at age 15. It totally changed my view on life in general and music in specific. After this magical experience I started going back to the basic of progressive rock and ended up listening numerous times to groundbreaking, innovative out of this world like Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Camel..etc These bands are like god to me. In a way my king Nemrud.

You have an album out. Its called Journey of the Shaman. I would like if you can present the album (how it was recorded etc.)

I started composing on this album early 2009 after our band members came together in 2008. It was a very inspirational process with lots of drawbacks. After a certain point we really got into this and we managed to finish writing our songs within a few months. Unfortunately due to lack of money to finance the recording of our debut album, we could only start recording in at the end of 2009. What makes our album different from other recent progrock albums is that we recorded it analog which created a sound that comes as close as possible to the roots of prog rock.

How is touring going for you?

Touring is unlike most of musicians will tell the thing we like the most. It gives us the possibility to communicate with our hard core fans. We get a lot of really enthousiastic response from our live audience. We really feel that Nemrud must be listened to live to also experience our energy onstage. We are now only touring in Turkey and hopefully we will start going abroad as soon as possible. The first steps to his have been taken but I cannot go in details on this right now. You have to wait and see.

What is your opinion about psychedelic/space scene these days?

It is not what it used to be. Therefore the first thing we decided was to record our album analog. And we are as I said a live band. That is what is in my opinion wrong with the new prog rock bands nowadays. It is too clinic and too much fabricated. And that is not what progrock music is about. You have to live it.

How about some future plans for the band?

Hopefully we manage to create a solid base in Turkey for progrock. Do not forget that Nemrud is one of the first Turkish progrock bands that managed to go abroad with a hardcore progrock concept album. Musea Records has been a real help for our band in getting this album out on an international platform. We are preparing for our second album at the moment and the writing process is going well.

Thank you very much for your time and effort. Do you have anything else to say about the band or yourself, that I didn't ask?

We will hopefully see you very soon to one of our concerts!