Nicholas McMaster Interview
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Chad Bowar: How did you get started in music?
Nicholas McMaster: I played piano for 6 years as a kid. My parents made me, and I wasn't terribly dedicated, but I took it more seriously than other kids seemed to. I never played jazz or had any idea how to improvise, I would just drill these simple classical pieces until I could play them from memory. So it's really pretty similar to playing metal! Thankfully the music school also had a requirement that anyone taking instrumental classes had to take a theory class, which gave me musical understanding that was applicable beyond the piano as well.
Around 9th grade I dropped piano and started doing visual art pretty similar to the album covers I've done for Krallice, but in the second semester of senior year of high school a friend offered to teach me bass.
I don't know why I was drawn more to bass than guitar, though I remember thinking bass seemed to suit me more, physically. I played finger style, I didn't learn how to play with a pick until we'd started in on the Bleedthrough material.
Who were your early musical inspirations?
First, at 13/14 or so, it was experimental/industrial groups: Skinny Puppy, Coil, Nurse with Wound, Muslimgauze, Death in June, Lustmord, Autechre. I was getting into them my friend Mike (Sochynsky, who would later found the band Genghis Tron) who at some point brought Napalm Death's Fear, Emptiness, Despair over to my house. I hated it, but after he left I kept thinking about it and found myself compelled. I went to the local HMV, and when they didn't have it, I bought Diatribes instead. That album sorta sucks, but I was fascinated.
We found some website called "Grindcore Is Art" and it had, along with a bunch of grind, some Cryptopsy songs from None So Vile—getting warmer. Then Morbid Angel came around, touring on the Formulas Fatal To The Flesh album.
They were playing Coney Island High in Manhattan with Napalm Death and I remember being puzzled that Napalm was opening for "this Morbid Angel band." That performance was IT—so commanding, yet intricate, intelligent. I remember being blown away that these guys were making sounds as extreme as any noise group with just guitars, bass and drums. I was hooked.
How old were you when you joined your first band, and what kind of music did they play?
I knew Lev (Krallice drummer) in high school, and when I shipped off to college at 17 he advised me to just play in any kind of band, as working with others would be the fastest way to improve my skills.I felt behind because of the late start. So I played with some guys on some generic rock, some singer/songwriter types, another guy who I'd play songs from In the Nightside Eclipse. I was just looking to maximize hours.
The first real band was when Lev joined me at college, and that was Astomatous, which was a death metal band with this guy Foy David Scalf. Foy was a graduate student where we were studying, I think he was 24 or something, and we were in awe of him because he'd been in this band Internecine with Jared Anderson back in Cincinatti, and they had toured with Morbid Angel, played with an early incarnation of Nile, etc.
He definitely showed us the ropes—just how hard it is to pull off real death metal. But me and Lev adapted quickly. Though the band never toured, we self-financed a recording (The Beauty of Reason) in Chicago with Sanford Parker, who was just a friend's recommendation at the time, but has obviously become a fixture in the US metal scene since then.
How did you come to join Krallice?
Max Schneider, the artist I collaborated with, was in Chicago my first year, and we met because we both took Norwegian language class, solely because of our interest in black metal. He knew Mike Lerner (Behold…the Arctopus guitarist) from high school back in LA, and when he moved to New York the subsequent year, told me I had to hear Mike's roommate play this bizarre instrument that "sounded like 12 Necrophagists." This is back when Necrophagist existed as a one-off drum machine album on a no-name label, not the symbol of technical excess and deathcore inspiration they'd become with signing to Relapse, the Epitaph album, etc.
The roommate of course was Colin, and we all became friends. So Astomatous and Behold…the Arctopus (and later, Dysrhythmia, when Colin joined and Kevin moved to NY) existed in parallel in Chicago and New York, with a lot of respect on both sides. Lev moved back in mid-2007 and Colin asked him to do session drums for this one-off black metal project he was doing with Mick Barr (who'd amazed us when we dropped by Colin's house a bit earlier, while he was mixing down Orthrelm's OV).
I moved back a little later in the year, around the time the guys decided they might do some shows as Krallice, and as Mick and Colin had played the bass on the record, they needed a live bassist. We met in a bar along with the artist Karlynn Holland, of course I agreed to play, and Karlynn sketched out an early (but pretty close!) draft of the logo on a bar napkin.
Are you able to make a living doing this, or do you have a day job?
As far as I can tell, the only way to make a living (and not even) is to tour constantly, which will never be our style, though I do love playing live. I have a day job coding php.
What's the best movie or DVD you've seen recently?
Agora, Restrepo.
Anything else you'd like to mention or promote?
I think the new Blut Aus Nord is really good.
Chad Bowar: How did you get started in music?
Nicholas McMaster: I played piano for 6 years as a kid. My parents made me, and I wasn't terribly dedicated, but I took it more seriously than other kids seemed to. I never played jazz or had any idea how to improvise, I would just drill these simple classical pieces until I could play them from memory. So it's really pretty similar to playing metal! Thankfully the music school also had a requirement that anyone taking instrumental classes had to take a theory class, which gave me musical understanding that was applicable beyond the piano as well.
Around 9th grade I dropped piano and started doing visual art pretty similar to the album covers I've done for Krallice, but in the second semester of senior year of high school a friend offered to teach me bass.
I don't know why I was drawn more to bass than guitar, though I remember thinking bass seemed to suit me more, physically. I played finger style, I didn't learn how to play with a pick until we'd started in on the Bleedthrough material.
Who were your early musical inspirations?
First, at 13/14 or so, it was experimental/industrial groups: Skinny Puppy, Coil, Nurse with Wound, Muslimgauze, Death in June, Lustmord, Autechre. I was getting into them my friend Mike (Sochynsky, who would later found the band Genghis Tron) who at some point brought Napalm Death's Fear, Emptiness, Despair over to my house. I hated it, but after he left I kept thinking about it and found myself compelled. I went to the local HMV, and when they didn't have it, I bought Diatribes instead. That album sorta sucks, but I was fascinated.
We found some website called "Grindcore Is Art" and it had, along with a bunch of grind, some Cryptopsy songs from None So Vile—getting warmer. Then Morbid Angel came around, touring on the Formulas Fatal To The Flesh album.
They were playing Coney Island High in Manhattan with Napalm Death and I remember being puzzled that Napalm was opening for "this Morbid Angel band." That performance was IT—so commanding, yet intricate, intelligent. I remember being blown away that these guys were making sounds as extreme as any noise group with just guitars, bass and drums. I was hooked.
How old were you when you joined your first band, and what kind of music did they play?
I knew Lev (Krallice drummer) in high school, and when I shipped off to college at 17 he advised me to just play in any kind of band, as working with others would be the fastest way to improve my skills.I felt behind because of the late start. So I played with some guys on some generic rock, some singer/songwriter types, another guy who I'd play songs from In the Nightside Eclipse. I was just looking to maximize hours.
The first real band was when Lev joined me at college, and that was Astomatous, which was a death metal band with this guy Foy David Scalf. Foy was a graduate student where we were studying, I think he was 24 or something, and we were in awe of him because he'd been in this band Internecine with Jared Anderson back in Cincinatti, and they had toured with Morbid Angel, played with an early incarnation of Nile, etc.
He definitely showed us the ropes—just how hard it is to pull off real death metal. But me and Lev adapted quickly. Though the band never toured, we self-financed a recording (The Beauty of Reason) in Chicago with Sanford Parker, who was just a friend's recommendation at the time, but has obviously become a fixture in the US metal scene since then.
How did you come to join Krallice?
Max Schneider, the artist I collaborated with, was in Chicago my first year, and we met because we both took Norwegian language class, solely because of our interest in black metal. He knew Mike Lerner (Behold…the Arctopus guitarist) from high school back in LA, and when he moved to New York the subsequent year, told me I had to hear Mike's roommate play this bizarre instrument that "sounded like 12 Necrophagists." This is back when Necrophagist existed as a one-off drum machine album on a no-name label, not the symbol of technical excess and deathcore inspiration they'd become with signing to Relapse, the Epitaph album, etc.
The roommate of course was Colin, and we all became friends. So Astomatous and Behold…the Arctopus (and later, Dysrhythmia, when Colin joined and Kevin moved to NY) existed in parallel in Chicago and New York, with a lot of respect on both sides. Lev moved back in mid-2007 and Colin asked him to do session drums for this one-off black metal project he was doing with Mick Barr (who'd amazed us when we dropped by Colin's house a bit earlier, while he was mixing down Orthrelm's OV).
I moved back a little later in the year, around the time the guys decided they might do some shows as Krallice, and as Mick and Colin had played the bass on the record, they needed a live bassist. We met in a bar along with the artist Karlynn Holland, of course I agreed to play, and Karlynn sketched out an early (but pretty close!) draft of the logo on a bar napkin.
Are you able to make a living doing this, or do you have a day job?
As far as I can tell, the only way to make a living (and not even) is to tour constantly, which will never be our style, though I do love playing live. I have a day job coding php.
What's the best movie or DVD you've seen recently?
Agora, Restrepo.
Anything else you'd like to mention or promote?
I think the new Blut Aus Nord is really good.
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