“At the moment I have a groin injury and I have a bag of ice. I was training for a martial arts tournament and I guess I kicked somebody a little too hard.”
Should it come as a surprise that the frontman from one of the world’s most intellectually grounded deployers of aural assault practices martial arts in his spare time? Well, perhaps not. Codified combat training and technically advanced death metal both provide a structured way to let out aggression and Sanders agrees that it’s far more useful to transfer one’s angry tendencies into something constructive.
“If you’re going to do something violent, somebody’s going to get hurt over it. You might as well make it count for something,” he says.
For anyone particularly intrigued, Sanders’ chosen form of martial arts is seung-ni jitsu, however this isn’t his first foray into combat training, having previously tried Taekwondo. Sanders is no slouch either and has climbed his way up the grading ladder in both disciplines. “In Taekwondo I’m a black belt, in seung-ni jitsu I’m a brown belt.”
Amidst Sanders’ touring and recording commitments with both Nile and his folky solo project, it’s a wonder he’s found the time to progress to such an advanced level. He casually explains that martial arts is a passionate interest that he applies himself to whenever the opportunity is there.
“I just do it in my extra time when I’m home, when we’re off tour or not recording. Because I often leave for a month or two months at a time it makes my progress a little bit slower than the rest of the students who are there faithfully every day.”
Cultivating a startling technical ability is nothing new for Sanders, who has proven himself a virtuosic guitarist ever since Nile started releasing music in the mid-90s. He explains that he was drawn towards playing the band’s fearsome, brutal brand of music less by aggression and more by the high skill level required.
“Death metal, extreme metal, if you want to do it right, is a challenge. To actually play this music and do it justice is quite technically challenging. As a guitar player I’d already played all the regular thrash metal and all that already and I could do that and I was looking for something beyond that to challenge myself.”
Of course, simply playing well is only half the challenge. Sanders acknowledges that it’s not enough to rest on the strength of the band’s learned prowess and he endeavours to write music that resonates with listeners.
“We know that we’re capable of playing technically and to take that and harness it and do something artistic and creative with it, that’s more than just a collection of your technique [and] actually has some musical worth where someone might want to listen to it twice, that’s a real challenge too. Making music that someone wants to hear again, or someone can actually remember or have a favourite song, that’s tougher than playing a billion miles an hour,” he says.
Nile’s technical precision is customarily coupled with elaborate lyrical references to Ancient Egyptian mysticism and the work of HP Lovecraft. Their music thus evades the mindless connotation associated with thrashy forms of metal and Sanders sums up the motivation behind the band’s unique identity.
“We have to have self-respect, we’re that kind of people. We have to be able to respect ourselves in the morning. As tough as it is to play a billion miles an hour, it’s not the end-all mission. I mean if you got a rocket ship that goes at warp-10, you’ve got to point it somewhere or you’re going nowhere and wasting rocket fuel.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
