MIKE BROWNING (USA)
PART III - NOCTURNUS
Well I was in INCUBUS with Gino and Bateman had just quit AGENT STEEL and Vince had just broke up his first band Entity! But I knew Bateman and Bateman knew Vince, so we all sort of just got together and started jamming.
Vince really hated Florida and him and Gino didn't get along so he quit first and moved then Richard got the offer to join NASTY SAVAGE and it was pretty much a full time thing, so he left too and Gino and I got new people and kept going. Then Vincent moved to Colombus, did he move to Columbus, because he founded ACHERON? He moved to Pittsburgh first I believe that is where he formed ACHERON. Did you part ways with them in a friendly term at the end? Yes I did, they both quit mainly because they hated Gino! As far as NASTY SAVAGE, they were an excellent band, but with the bassplayers they always had bad luck, what do you think about it? They had Fred Dregischan, Dezsö István Barta, Chris Moorhouse and then Richard. It did seem to be a cursed thing with their bass players! Have you heard at that time of Chris' death? What happened with him? No I didn't know him, wasn't it a car accident I think? Were you always a NASTY SAVAGE fan? What's your opinion about their albums and crazy gigs? I really liked the old NASTY SAVAGE stuff best, their shows were always totally crazy! The new members became Mike Davis on guitars from LIZZY BORDEN and Jeff Estes on bass, in which groups did earlier Jeff play? How did they get in the picture? Mike was Gino's cousin, right?
NOCTURNUS was the first band who used keyboard for the first time in extreme (death metal) music, I think so, you bet/dared to make experiences with the using of keys, do you agree with me? I never really care about what people think or want me to do with my musick I just do what I do and if people like it than that's cool and if they don't then there are thousands of other bands that they can listen to instead! Did you surprise the fans as far as the using of the keys? Yes I think so, people weren't sure what to think at first. Would you say that the using of keys came into fashion within the death/black metal scene? A lot of bands started later mixing their music with keys. Yes definitely, now keyboards are a very common thing. I would say, you have had a very great impact on the extreme music scene. It would seem so!!!! Would you say that both NOCTRUNUS and ATHEIST renewed the death metal scene? While you used keyboard they mixed their music with jazz and progressive elements, which was also unusual at that time, right? Yeah, you could say that and we used to do a lot of shows with ATHEIST back then, and in fact I was just talking to Kelly the other day about possibly do a show with them and AFTER DEATH. Your next demo was "The Science Of Horror", what about this legendary demo? How much did you develope compared to the first demo? It was a huge difference!!! We got Jon Oliva of Savatage to produce it and he even sang backups on it too! Jon is a very cool guy, we still talk to this day! But there is a huge difference between the two demos in just one year! Did your music radically change because of the new members? I mean, did they take part in the songcomposing, did they pump fresh blood in the band? Were Mike and Jeff more talented musicians than Vincent and Richard? Yes, it definitely changed because of the new members, it was a really different sound overall, especially with the keyboards added. The demo was produced by SAVATAGE singer Jon Oliva, was he the perfect person for this job? Was he proficient in death metal? He was definitely the perfect person, he plays keyboards too, so he really understood what we wanted and how to get the sound we were looking for! This demo caught the eye of Digby Pearson at Earache Records in Nottingham, England and subsequently they were given a record deal for the band, didn't you get any offers from other labels? Do you still remember, which labels did you sent from the demo? Well we really wanted to be on Earache and Trey was pushing Digby to sign us so we were waiting for that first and it happened so we never really shopped it to any other labels. I remember, at that time I read a review about the demo in the Hungarian Metal Hammer magazine as well and under the band photo stood: reliable appearance - destroying death metal. Hmm I don't know what that actually means??? (That meant, they looked like reliable, but they played death metal - ed.)
The new material that they were working on was supposely even better than that demo, but unfortunately none of it was recorded, Gino sent you copies of that demo, possibly with the idea of you working together again, but why wasn't the cooperation among you and Gino realize? Gino is a very hard person to deal with and that's all I will say!!!! Gino was replaced by Sean Mc Nennery, what have we to know about the musical background of Sean? Did he play earlier in local acts? No, Sean never played in a band before NOCTURNUS, but he lived just a few houses down from Mike Davis on the same street, so they used to play together all the time, so Davis was the one who got Sean in the band after Gino went to jail. Were the songs for "The Key" ready when Sean joined the band or did he also write some tunes? Everything was pretty much written, Sean only wrote a few rhythms in NOCTURNUS, but nothing on the "The Key". What about the recording sessions of the album? How much time did you spend in the studio? How was to work with Tom Morris? We did the album in about a week with a 10.000 dollar budget, which isn't a lot for Morrissound! I really wanted to work with Scott or Jim Morris, but Earache insisted that we use Tom because he did MORBID ANGEL. Why didn't you work Scott Burns with? Was he perhaps busy with other acts? Was Jim the perfect person for the position of the producer? Actually I think Jim would have been my pick, but Earache was spending the money so we had to use Tom.
Maybe a bit, but I think it's a lot different from MORBID ANGEL, too. But you can't help but to be influenced on your past works! Kam Lee appeared as guest vocalist on the record, whose idea was to invite him in the studio? Is/Was he a fan of NOCTURNUS, was/is he your friend? It wasn't really planned, he just happened to drop by the studio because Digby was there and they were talking about signing MASSACRE, too and we just happened to be doing the back up vocals, so Kam just jumped in there and did it with no planning at all!!! At that time was it habit among the death metal bands that the bands invited musicians from other death metal ones, did it symbolize the friendship between the bands? I think both, people always make guest appearances on other peoples recordings, but we were all friends too. Why was "Undead Journey" a bonus track? Was it at that time released on the original version of the record or did the song get up on the re-released version? That was because of time constraints, remeber CDs were brand new and an album is much shorter than a CD, so we left out "Undead Journey" on the actual album and so it became a bonus track for the CD. The songs on the record are very atmospheric, technical ones, all of you were technical, talented musicians, but how could you sing and play the drums so technical at the same time? I think, it was a hard task for you, wasn't it? Well it's not easy by any means, but I have gotten really used to it and now it is pretty natural for me to do both! But we toured Europe almost all of the US and Mexico and lots of people saw me do both with not too much of a problem!!! As far as your lyrics, was a concept behind them? I mean, you didn't write about cliches, like bowel, blood, gore, but about other space, horror etc. which was new in the death metal, right? It was just what was in my mind at the time, but also Davis had some of the ideas too when it came to the sci-fi stuff. After the releasing of the "The Key" record you went on tour, but instead of Jeff Estes played Jim O' Sullivan on the tour, why did Jeff decide to leave the band? What about Jim's musical past? Jeff had become and still is a major drunk, he showed up to record "The Key" drunk and couldn't play at all and just left the studio, so actually Mike Davis had to play most of the bass on "The Key" and he had to learn it and play it while we were in the studio, so the bass is not very loud on it. But we fired Jeff after that!!! And we got Jim from Fort Lauderdale, he was in a band called ELYSIUM before NOCTURNUS (ELYSIUM did a demo in 1989 called "Inspired Hatred" which was recorded in Morrisound studio - Leif).
That was a really awesome tour too, but I really liked the European audiences better! But yes, Earache did organize that tour along with Combat Records back then. Was it hard for you to perform the songs live? You had to concentrate both on drumming and on singing! By then I was doing really well with both I thought, just ask anyone who saw us live back then!
What about TORTURED SOUL? Was it a local band? Did they record demos? They were a local band that did have a demo out back then. (they also did two demos in 1994 called "Deadly Realms" and "Undead Legions" - Leif) As far as the studio sessions, you worked again Tom Morris with, how do you remember about it? Did you pause a little bit between the Grindcrusher tour and the recording sessions of "Thresholds"?
Was it unbiguous for you to have with Dan Seagrave the covers done? Were you satisfied with his work? In my opinion, both of them are great. As I explained we already had the idea and a cover but the artwork wasn't very convincing, so we got Dan to redo it and it was amazing!!! You toured in 1992 with CONFESSOR as well, but on this tour played instead of Jim O' Sullivan FALLEN IDOLS member Emo Mowery, what happened with Jim? Did Emo help you out only for the tour or did he join the band as a full time member? We fired Jim right after the Grindcrusher tour, he was just really to weird even for us!!! Emo did join as a full time member back then. How did get Emo in the picture? I don't actually remeber, I think he had just moved to Tampa from Seattle and we tried him out. How was this tour compared to the BOLT THROWER one or to Grindcrusher? Did you get on well with the CONFESSOR guys? The tours for "The Key" were way better than the "Thresholds" shows, although we did have some good shows on that tour, but there was a lot of small crowds compared to what we had on "The Key" tours. We got along great with the CONFESSOR guys, they were really cool! I consider their first full length record "Condemned" a classic metal one, did you like it? I thought it was awesome, Steve's drumming was fantastic on it! They were a totally original band! "Thresholds" was your last record for Earache, how much support did you get from them? Did they care a lot of the band, I mean, merchandising, promotion, support etc. Hardly any, when the CD came out it wasn't selling very well and Earache didn't give us any tour support or merchandising at all, the tour and merchandise was all put up by the tour promoter Yohan of Metalysee and he lost money on that tour too, because of lack of people at the shows. For how many records did you sign them at that time? It was supposed to be a 5 album deal from what I remeber. Did they drop the band after the releasing of "Thresholds" or did you leave them? Did you contract perhaps expire and you didn't want it to extend, because you got a better deal from an other label? Most people know about this, but I had never trademarked the name NOCTURNUS and knowing that we were a signed band with albums out I didn't think anybody else would ever try to use that name, but what I didn't think was that my own band would go behind my back a steal the name from me and that's exactly what happened. In 1992 Lou and Sean went behind my back and trademarked the name and once they owned the name legally they fired me! Then they told eveyone what they did including Earache, well Earache said they better record some new songs with the new drummer as a demo and so they did record those two songs that ended up on that 7" and sent them to Earache and Earache dropped them!!! That's when I joined ACHERON. Would you say that Earache was at that time the home of the death metal bands? Yes for sure! Shortly after you left the band and you were replaced by ASTAROTH member James Marcinek, what kind of reasons did lead to your departure? I explained it above in the other question, Lou wanted control of the band so he devised a plan to get me out and tried to take over the band which failed miserably!!! Would you say, that your departure was the end of the evil NOCTURNUS? Of course, none of those guys were into the occult at all, in fact they hated that type of stuff, that's why I hardly wrote anything as far as lyrics after "The Key".
No they were done!!! I thought it was pretty funny myself that less than 6 months after they fired me they were dropped from Earache and broke up. Maybe it was My Curse against them! After 7 years of silence NOCTURNUS came back and released "Ethreal Tomb", what do you think about this record? Can it be compared to "The Key" record? |
