Onslaught: Religion is futile

Following up you can have a look at a small interview I've done with Nige Rockett, Leader and guitar player of legendary ONSLAUGHT. The interview was done for an article in Austrian Rock magazine SLAM in which I used quotes from this here, but I thought some of you might be interested in the full questions and answers.
To read or not to read... That's no question here! ;)

Otti:
Hey there, thanks for answering my questions. The reason for this interview is your upcoming album called VI.

Nige:
Hi my friend, it’s a pleasure and thank you..

Otti:
What is the core theme behind that record, if any?

Nige:
All the usual Onslaught favourites are included, Religion, Violence, Hatred & War! But the core theme is all about extreme power and control.. No fiction included just cold hard facts about the world we live in today..! its not meant to be pretty.

Otti: I think you can be really proud of your new work. Are you? Nige: Oh yes, we are immensely proud of what we have achieved with VI.. Everyone involved with Onslaught, from the band members / management to the Record label, everyone think this is without question our best ever record! We cannot wait for the fans to get this album!! Otti: As I've read, there are some connections to your former longplayer Sounds Of Violence so I think there was a long period of songwriting. How can I imagine the birth of VI? Nige: Yeah there are connections between certain tracks on the 2 records, It was something we planned when writing Sounds Of Violence, neither of them are concept albums but I thought it would be cool to have some continuity within the lyrics.. To give you an example Chaos is King from VI is the prequel to Code Black on SoV.. You can actually hear the musical connection in the Code Black intro and of course the lyric themes are clearly tied.. Otti: My personal favorite on VI is Children Of The Sand with it's arabic influences? What can you tell me about the idea and development of that song? Nige: Awesome, thank you.. its actually one of my personal favourites too! The idea for the song came from letters we received from friends who are actively working in Afghanistan. Some of the images they portrayed were extremely dark and thought provoking, so I wanted to make the song as dramatic and as close to their reality as possible.. We used Arabic sounding guitar scales to enhance the theme and we then added a live string section and female vocals to make it truly authentic. For me personally, the experiment has worked so well, the final result was beyond all my expectations..

Otti:
Being one of the most experienced and renowned bands in Thrash Metal, many young musicians call you their idols. How do you feel about that?

Nige:
It’s a huge huge honour of course when people say these kind words about Onslaught, it’s a great feeling to actually inspire other people to go out and form their own bands and in some cases even name their band after our songs!

Otti:
You often have songs about wars... So what do you think about the current situation in Syria?

Nige:
The Syrian situation is again very typical of the fragile situation in the Middle East.
Yet another symptom of religion and the hatred it breeds maybe???
This time around I really believe Syria is a conflict that the Western World needs to stay clear of , there is serious potential for it to expand in to a much bigger global confrontation and who knows where that would lead..
Its very strange, but I wrote the lyrics to Enemy of my Enemy (from VI) around 9 months ago and now the words are becoming scarily poignant indeed..

Otti:
What's the fascination but also the biggest problem of violence in general?

Nige:
Violence is everywhere you look across the world and rears its head in many different ways. People don’t necessarily like it but they always have to watch it, even if it scares them, the human race are voyeurs for violence..
It´s part of our lives and it fascinates people, I have seen a lot of violence in my life, so I feel I can write honest lyrics on the subject..
The biggest problem of violence in general = Religion!!

Otti:
And to end this short interview: What else are you proud of at the moment besides VI?

Nige:
I’m proud of my family for actually allowing me to do everything we do with Onslaught! it’s a huge sacrifice for everyone involved and it would be an impossible task with their total and undivided support!

www.onslaughtuk.com

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