– Hello, thanks for answering to our questions. What are you currently up to?

Right about now we´re getting ready to play a show in my hometown Hannover.
The rest of the guys will get here on Friday night. It’ll be a big party cause all my friends will be at the show. And our record company SPV is located here as well. So there’s no escape: Drink until you fall.

 

– First off, if you don’t mind (as despite being well-known musicians NITROGODS is a new band) I would like you to start with some history of the band.

I’ve gotten to know Klaus during my first stint in Primal Fear from 2000 to 2002.
We became friends and kept in touch after we both left PF.
I got to know Oimel as I was playing on a biker party with Klaus. Oimel punched me out accidentally. Later he apologized and Klaus said he is a great singer. We watched a show of his band and I thought I gotta have this guy for my band.
We got together after I left Primal Fear for the 2nd time in 2010 and took it from there.

 

– And why did you pick the name «Nitrogods”? Both its origin and meaning.

Its originally a term I heard in the drag racing scene. As a driver wrecked his rear tyres during a burnout, he said: This is dedicated to the Nitrogods.
I found that kind of cool and we wanted the name of the band to sound like a supercharged nitro injected drag engine. So the name was born.

 

– You have recently released your debut album, “Nitrogods”. How has the feedback been both from the fans and press? Everything as expected?

Yes and No. We’ve got a lot of feedback from England and France and USA.
Some of our German press likes to put us down because they say we sound too much like Motörhead. But we can live with being compared to Motörhead. So that’s no big deal. The fans love it and we have great live shows.

 

– I guess you might by tired of hearing that, but your sound has a huge MOTÖRHEAD flavour; have they been an influence for you? And what are some of your other musical inspirations?

In Nitrogods we put all our favourite influences together. We would like to be seen as a mix of Motörhead, Rose Tattoo, Status Quo and ZZ Top spiced up with a heavy shot of Rockabilly.

 

– In fact Eddie Clarke has been a guest on the album, as well as NAZARETH’S Dan McCafferty. How did everything arise? I mean, was it easy to have them on the album? And what have they both brought with their cooperation?

I got to know Dan on the Rock meets Classic Tour 2010. He was one of the singers on the tour and I played guitar. We became friends and I made him promise he’d sing a song on my next album. He said he’d do it, if he liked the song.
I sent him a demo of Whiskey Wonderland and he flew in from Edinburgh to sing it with us in the studio. His performance is outstanding and his voice just never fails. On top of that he’s just a great guy.
Eddie had been playing with Oimel in a charity project before. Oimel asked him if he’d like to donate a solo for Nitrogods and he spontaneously sent this great WahWah Solo for Wasted in Berlin.

 

– Something that really stands out off your music is the really organic production. Now it seems that many bands and artists, not just into Rock and Metal, are refusing more modern or digitalized productions. Why do you prefer to have a less modern sounding production? Or why does that fit so well with your music?

I believe that there are many musicians and fans who are getting to dislike the uniformity of modern digital productions. Every new record and band sounds the same. Very compressed and with the same drum samples and digitally corrected drums and vocals.
So some bands go back to the way it was done in the analogy days. The greatest Rock n Roll albums have been recorded this way. They are not perfect, but they still blow the modern stuff away. There’s got to be something about it.

 

– In fact I bet some people will be surprised when hearing to your material after seeing the band’s line-up, anyway your style is pretty unique, taking elements from different musical genres but, how could you describe the music you guys are NITROGODS doing?

It´s plain and simple no bullshit Rock n Roll with a heavy shot of Rockabilly.

 

– Taking about such, what does NITROGODS provide you that your other bands can’t?

I have no other band. It’s the best band I’ve ever been in. It combines the Rock n Roll attitude and rawness of Thunderhead plus the fact that we are a bunch of friends playing music together. The best of both worlds so to speak.

 

– All this being said about the album; how could you describe “Nitrogods” in just 3 words?

No Bullshit Rock n Roll.

 

– Lyrics seem to be an important part of your creations, in fact they deal with real issues but, what life experiences do inspire you to create them?

That is true. The fact that we play simple Rock n Roll makes many people think: «Oh yeah…Cars, Girls and Booze». But that’s really not all. We took a long time to write our lyrics and we like if that’s appreciated. We use Nitrogods to talk about stuff that’s annoying us like Lipsynch Stars or we sing about what life on the road is really like in Licence to play loud. Whiskey Wonderland is about domestic violence.
It’s mostly stuff that one of us experienced in his life.

 

– How did you come up with the idea for the cover artwork and who created it? Is really straight-forward, just as your music. Did you want to give with it an idea of what is your music about?

Yeah. We wanted know to know people right away what we’re all about.
The skull was drawn by Oimels Tattoo artist Mad Melon. He also has it on both his arms.

 

– You have filmed a video for “At Least I’m Drunk”; how was the experience like? And do you plan shooting any other clips for this effort?

The shooting of “At least I´m drunk “was great, because we got to party with our friends. Unfortunately not all video shoots are that pleasant.
But we have a great animated clip for Zombietrain. It was done by an Australian animation studio and it came out really well.

 

– And finally, what are your near-future plans?

We are playing a couple of festivals this summer, a little tour in October and we’ll start writing for the next album.

 

– That’s all from my side, thanks again for taking your time to answer our questions. If you now want to add some final words; feel free to do it.

Thank you very much. What I’d like to say is: Support your favourite bands by not downloading illegally. Go buy their records, go to their shows; it keeps them alive.

Tania Giménez

tania@queensofsteel.com

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