Madder than a bag of spanners with a metallic sound to match, brace yourself! The future is here…
Can you introduce each member of the band to us?
I am Wolf-Rami. My main job in Nightsatan is the lower frequencies and bass sounds. I also do the graphic design and a lot of the live visualisation for the band. In the movie I am the muscle of the band, the feral, brutal fighter with a hidden soft side.
My Name Is Inhalator II. I play the drums and ”sing” using the vocoder. In the movie I’m the beating heart of the band, trying desperately to get some lovin’.
I am Mazathoth, the synth wizard, and an analogue synth aficionado with a fondness for gloomy melodies. I’m also mostly in charge of our studio work. In the movie I basically play myself.
Tell us a bit about where the band is from on earth and from the apocalypse!?
Wolf-Rami: We’ve arrived from the year 2035 to warn you people of the impending doom. Greed and stupidity will eradicate mankind and it might be too late to turn back, but it’s worth trying.
Man, you’ll be a woman soon, like Lean Diamond sang in 2027.
Mazathoth: We met on the Karelian wastelands after the bombs fell. Separate, we had neither direction nor goal. Together we are Nightsatan. We do not speak of the time before the great fire.
It’s interesting that seeing Reverend Bizarre live in your record shop influenced you starting Nightsatan. Can you tell us more about how this experience affected you?
Wolf-Rami: I used to work in a record store for maybe six or seven years. We had a lot of in-store gigs at the shop and one of them was Reverend Bizarre. It was bright daylight and the small record shop was filled with eager metal heads. The band played in full doom metal mode without shirts and with studded leather belts, bandoliers and long hair. I was amazed and instantly wanted to start my own metal band. I however didn’t own any”traditional” band gear but a pile of synths and drum machines. I invited my friend Inhalator II to accompany me in my basement rehearsal space and we hit it off almost instantly. In a few weeks Inhalator II brought back his then roommate and synth wizard Mazathoth to a rehearsal and the rest is history. Since that time I’ve got to know the guys from Reverend Bizarre and I’ve spent some great times with Albert in his hometown Lohja. They’re genuinely wonderful people.
Do any of members of the band have a history in the metal scene?
Wolf-Rami: I guess we all have a history in listening to metal, but this is the first real band I’ve ever played in. In the beginning I had a dream of Nightsatan being even more traditional 70’s doom in the vein of Sabbath’s “Who Are You?” with vocals and everything, but the guy I had asked to join our band as the vocalist got cold feet and hence we became an instrumental group.
Inhalator II: Yeah, used to listen to it a lot (still listen to some), and used to play in a sort of Kyuss/Sabbath/Black Flag-styled band in the end of the 90’s/early 00’s.
Mazathoth: As a player, aside from some short lived attempts, no, not really. As a fan, yes.
How did you come up with the term laser metal?
Wolf-Rami: When we realized that we wouldn’t have a vocalist in the band we started heading in a new direction with a lot of Miami Vice-type influences. Instead of the 70’s we started to take influences from the 80’s and from the 2030’s. It was like metal music from the future. Sci-fi Metal wasn’t a good term so we came up with lasermetal. Very shiny, very sleek, very futuristic.
I can hear a big Tangerine Dream influence in your music both from their soundtracks and classic albums. Which are your personal favourites and how much have they had an impact?
Wolf-Rami: I love Tangerine Dream and especially their sequencer-based work from early 80s/late 70s (Thief, Le Parc, etc.) but even more than that I love Edgar Froeses solo work, especially the album Ages. That’s my favourite TD-related work.
Inhalator II: I love everything they did from ”Phaedra” to ”Force Majeure”. Big influence.
Mazathoth: To me, Phaedra and Rubycon was the pinnacle of Tangerine Dream, though I do enjoy the later (and some of the earlier) stuff as well. There’s definitely a lot of TD influence on “Stars, Our Destination” from our debut (an improvised jam we recorded at Jori Hulkkonen’s studio) and ‘Secret of The Mystery’ from Loops of Doom soundtrack.
What synthesizers and sequencers do you use? (Do I hear a Moog!?)
Wolf-Rami: It is in constant flux. I’m always looking for new sounds and ways to produce them. Lately I’ve migrated from late 70s and early 80s vintage analogs to more modern stuff. I’ve bought a lot of digital synths, samplers and modern analogs like the new stuff Korg has been releasing. My latest acquisition is an Arturia Minibrute SE for the simple and effective sequencer. Now I have both, the regular version and the SE. They fit in my gig-setup perfectly.
Inhalator II: I do my drumming mostly with the Roland SPD-series (SPD-6, SPD-11, SPD-20, and SPD-30 octapad), but I also got some synths too (CS-15, Juno-106, Microbrute), and some drum machines (DR-55, 606, 707). I’m also getting into the new Korg stuff.
Mazathoth: My main tools are Sequential Circuits Prophet-600, Roland Jupiter-4 and a Roland SH-101. And yes, there is some Moog on Loops of Doom! I used a Moog Sub Phatty for some of the leads.
Can you give the readers a final message from the post apocalypse?
Wolf-Rami: Apocalypse isn’t half bad. If you survive it, that is.
Inhalator II: The world is dead. It raped itself. But we’ll purify it with blood! No one is innocent! But only we, Nightsatan, are the ministers of revenge!
Mazathoth: Amen.
Garry Brooks
November 2015
This feature appears in Yoshiwara Zine Issue 1. Still copies available from our store.