Interview: Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), 2001

“If somebody listens to Sigh’s music, and if they thought they heard something funny or humorous, I think that is one of the right impressions that people could have….”

2001 interview with Mirai Kawashima, the main man behind Japanese black metal experimentalists Sigh. Their new album at the time was Imaginary Sonicscape, which I was really into—as much for the “wrongness” of some of the transitions and juxtapositions (of instrumentation, stylistic references, etc.) as for the not-infrequent moments of straightforward hard rock/metal indulgence. Thank you to Century Media, Sigh’s label at the time, for footing the bill for what must have been a pretty expensive long-distance phone call.

Interview: Karl Sanders (Nile), 2002

“I think people take death metal ideas much too fucking seriously. I mean, Jesus Christ, we might be writing about heavy subject matter, but you cannot … actually live those lyrics.”

This 2002 interview was done as background for a very brief (250 word) blurb in Alternative Press about Nile’s Egyptology obsession. I remember staying up all night trying in vain to compress an entire interview’s worth of quotes into essentially a couple of paragraphs—a ridiculous amount of effort for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it filler piece of that sort. I have not followed Nile since the early 2000s, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of their Black Seeds of Vengeance album. They were also a really great live act back then.