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Water Under The Bridge With NATO From BEASTWARS · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm Nato and I'm the drummer for beast Wars
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: from Wellington in New Zealand, and we've got a new
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: album coming out called The Ship the Sea.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: You having dem mate, Thanks for joining us today, Nate,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: great to be here, My pleasure to have you made. So,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: as you say, be Straars release your sixth studio album,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: The Ship the Sea very soon on November seventh. So
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: how are you feeling about it?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It's that kind of weird time between finishing the album
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and then waiting. You know, you've had it, been sitting
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: on it for six months. You just can't wait to
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: get it out, and you know there's all that in
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: between work. Mattow, singer said something really funny. Well made
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: me laugh. Anyway, we've got the final mixes and you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: know in February or something every March, and he is,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you must be so relieved.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: It's all over.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: We've done it, only just done.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: The work is just that was the fun bit recording.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It was the fund It now go on till it's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: going to be good. But yeah, it's just that all that,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: all the work that goes into into getting a record out,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it's just like never ends.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: So recording is the fund it, and then going on
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to is the fun bit. Getting people to listen to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: it and hopefully enjoying it. That's a fundit. You can
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: tell what five days out from release, I might.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Be a little bit jaded, understandable.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: All right, we'll talk about something that was interesting for you.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Then brother tell us about the album from a musical
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: point of view, and when you're going for this stufround.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Oh well, you know, as you said, we've done six records,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and I think, you know, most bands, their first album
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: probably going to be their best record, and their second
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: album is hopefully better, and then if they make a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: better second album, that means their career goes pretty well.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I think that we did that on our level.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not saying that we changed the world
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: or anything, but you know, our second album was pretty
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: good for the you know, the people who are into
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: this sort of music really liked it. And then I think, yeah,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the albums that came after that were kind of just
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: wented down in a little bit of a different path,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: getting a bit more proggy, maybe going away from the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: sound that we first created, which is much more direct less.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the recent songs had much
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: more linear sort of song structure with the start somewhere
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and that'd end up something which I really loved. But
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: this record has really gone back to what the first
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: two albums were like, just a lot more direct, heavy
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: riff faced, but still being the kind of a more
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: standard sort of song structure, and I think it's really
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: worked in to its benefit where.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know, just the songs just feel way stronger.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Speaking of the songs by you've released let It Tate,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Guardiani Fire, the Devil and the Stormers single, So are
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: they good sunny representation of the album overall or they
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: discussion surface?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I think that there is a definitely a good that
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: gives you a really strong indication about what the record is.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: The Devil is probably one of the fastest and kind
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of the most metal songs that we've we've made.
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  Speaker 3: That's I was listening to a lot of.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: We're are they from some Scandinavian band called a Ramsey
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Kazuzu anyway, they call themselves psychedelic black metal, listening to
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of them, and I was like, these guys
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: just get.
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  Speaker 3: Wonder if and then they just like pummel it and
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I want to do that when I see what that's
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: that's like.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So the Devil's probably the heaviest song on the record,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: but then we've got like songs that Guarding in a Fire,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: which are pretty doomy, Levi Tate a bit of a rocking,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: upbeat set of rocking one.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: So I think it does give a good.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Indication of the whole album and bits in between.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let Ittate's the only one you've actually got a
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  Speaker 2: music video for, and it checks all the boxes. Bro,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: You've got fast cars and graveyards and tattoos, there's mummies,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: but I still couldn't figure out what was going on, what.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Was going on in general. That was the point we
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: wanted to kind of feel like a dream.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: You know, you're like, you know what I talked about
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: this and this and this and that really makes sense,
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: but it's like, you know, I'm sure the director has
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: an idea of what the video was about, but.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we really didn't want to do any videos with
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: us and them. You know, I'm forty six, I'm the
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: youngest member of the band by about ten years.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And there was Mattur, singer is fifty four.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: He was like, I don't want to be going and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you know, pretending I'm dancing in front of my mirror
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: in my bedroom, mining along to this music.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Too old for that. I understand. I understand where it's
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: coming from.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: The fair col too. The album's called The Ship and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the Sea. So is there an underlying storied outline surrounding
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: the ocean throughout the album or is it just dead
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: in and around water?
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I was definitely.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: You know, water kind of symbolizes so much, you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, prayer of purification and rebirth
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  Speaker 1: and transformation, also the destructive chaotic.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Power of water as well. So we kind of how
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: it kind of came about was.
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  Speaker 1: That I looked at all our album covers and we'd
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: had like a I'm not some happy, happy, dippy sort
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of person, but I looked at all our album covers.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, we were the first albums
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  Speaker 1: like kind of a fire album. The second album that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: kind of really earthed, you know, it was a brown
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: desert with a giant skull on it. We've got the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the wind and ether and whatnot, and we never had
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a water.
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  Speaker 3: Album right before. And I was like, okay, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and it was all that was really subconscious.
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  Speaker 1: What I was talking about that was never never the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: theme on those other other records.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: That's just what happened. It's totally.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It's just how it worked out. And then that kind
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: of yeah, got me thinking about that. We talked to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Matt the vocalist about water as a as a theme
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: lyrically and everything that represents, and yeah, just kind of
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: went from there and then we like really got into it.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: We thought, okay, well, we're going to find a recording
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: studio which is as close to the beach as we can.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And we found this one in Mount Monganoi, which was
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: in the Bay of Plenty.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Kind of yeah top going quite north in the North.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Island of New Zealand, and the studio was about like
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: five minutes drive from the beach. Really really beautiful golden
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: sand beach is probably not quite what you got there
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in Queensland.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: No, we've got We've got to be got a few
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  Speaker 2: golden sunny beaches.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but yes, pretty pretty nice speech.
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  Speaker 1: So we hired a house right on the beach front,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: lived there together for six days in this house together,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: you know, cooked food for each other, go to the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: studio every day at nine am, come home around eight
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: pm or something. And it was just very good experience,
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  Speaker 1: and y been by the water, going for walks on
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the beach, either the first thing in the morning or
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: you know.
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  Speaker 3: One of my favorite memories was us going for a
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: midnight swim after we'd finished around. Yeah, that was that
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: was pretty cool. That will stick with me forever.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was actually gonna asked about that because
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: it sounds romantic recording by the sea, But do you
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  Speaker 2: think it actually had much impact on the finished product.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: No.
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  Speaker 1: I think the only thing that had impact about it
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was that we all left home to do it, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: we didn't, you know, because we've done ours where we've
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: gone away, Like the first two records, we went to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Neden and South Island, away from all distractions of home,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought that was really beneficial. And then other
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: albums were done here in Wellington, our hometown, and people
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: would be, Oh, I can't come in.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Because I've got to do something.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to be a bit late because
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I'm doing this, this is this, I've got to pop
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: off early because I got this on.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I just kind of didn't want to do that again.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, we could have recorded it
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: anywhere that wasn't in our home city.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: It was. It was just kind of like fitted. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I fitted the theme. And the studio was beautiful as
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: well that we went to.
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  Speaker 1: It was yeah, really nice, big wooden you know, wooden
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: studio is everything's made of wood.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: You would have been a good experience.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty good I had.
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  Speaker 2: And the album starts through the track we Don't Say Bear,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: which opened through the monologue tight piece over brooding music, Like,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: what was the thought process behind opening with that song
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: and how does it set up the rest of the album.
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  Speaker 1: I want to just create an atmosphere at the start
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of the record. We've actually taken a sample from some
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: overdub guitars from our first record, from a song called CTHU.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It was just like that has seen kind of kind
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of wind sounds of guitar, really loud ant.
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  Speaker 3: Just a while I tried to figure out what that
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: was actually. Yeah, and.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: You were just gonna want to create an atmosphere to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: go oll you know, you're entering a different world.
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  Speaker 2: But it did like to me it sounded like an
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: angry sea, you know, like the kids rolling and it
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: was yeah, there was a nice such.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Matt, Yeah, Matt was talking about doing some
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: spoken words stuff a couple of times on this record,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and I think that was the one that kind of
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: stuck and.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I came across well really well. Now the cover art
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: looks awted too, bro like give his fat hand painted?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's an oil painting. Yeah yeah.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So Nick Kellor, he's painted all our album covers, and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I just feel so lucky that we get to work
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: with It was obviously extremely.
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  Speaker 3: Talented artist, but.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: You know, we're living in this time now where it's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: just so easy for us. You know, I don't even
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: know what these AI programs are called, but I see
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: lots of bands on everything. You know, every company is
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: using AI just to cut corners and it wouldn't be
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: called it's type of sit and then you get sped
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: out of an image and you know five seconds. Time
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: just makes you feel very very grateful to Nick that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: we have his talent as part of our team. And
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like that artwork he's really he really captured
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the mood of the record because was we were singing
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: on demos from very.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Very early on in the process, Right.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Before we had got a couple of songs down in
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the jam room, we had told them that the album
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was going to be an ocean sort of water.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Theme and start kind of you start rolling that over
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: in his brain.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. Now, of course you can't drop an album
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: and not hit the road to celebrate, mate, So that
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: means Beast Wars are headed back to Australia for a
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: four date East Coast run, starting at most at a
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: clubhouse on the Trough November and hit in Brisbane, Sydney
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and Melbourne over consecutive days.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Like I Don't Forget Geelong on the Sun.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Has been added.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's on Sunday the sixteenth. That's the Rock's rehab.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Will be the third third time we've played that festival.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a great, great time, always a great
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: way to spend the Sunday.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Fantastic. That's it's actually not too far away, bro. So
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: are you packed and ready to go? Are you leaving
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: it till the last minute?
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: We are?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Speaking of packing, We've got I think we've got three
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: rehearsals left before we fly out next Wednesday. But one
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: of our rehearsals we've going to drop because we're going
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to pack up all our records to send out the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: mail order. Which is fine. You know which is good.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I'm very grateful. We've got so many records to send it.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: It's likely the only way we can do this is
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: by dropping one of our practices.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's going to be your first visit since twenty twenty, mate,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: So what has changed with Beast Wars in the last
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: five years since you've been here.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Well, we're going to new guitarist who has been a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: great energizing addition to the band. And yeah, I think
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: if anyone that has seen us like before, then it's
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: a pretty intense.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Show.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I've heard some people call it a religious or spiritual experience.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I go that far, because I'm
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: behind the drums.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I don't I know, but I see I always see
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of happy faces, see a lot of sweaty people.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: The artists can't wait to come back.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Australia has always been really good, good to us, embraced
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: us since our first.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Show was over in twenty thirteen, I think was the
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: first time we came over. And yeah, I just really
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: love these new songs.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna be playing like five or six new
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: songs and the rest is just all the greatest hits.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: None and where can people get tickets or find out
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: more information.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Beatscartel dot com has got all our all the tickets
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to all the shows. And yeah, christ you've got to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: give a shout out to Christian that beats Cartel.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: He is like put this to it together. He worked
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: so hard. I I sometimes asked him, was like, how
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: do you do all this stuff? He was like a
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: lot of spreadsheets.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Bro, I should take a leap out of his book, then.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: A ray.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks, your time has been the pleasure speaking mediot
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: the ship and this or the ship to she is
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: our November seventh. The chur kicks off at most As
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: a clubhouse on November twelfth. So thanks for your time, brother,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: and we'll see you when you get over here.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Heys you so much. Cross seven, good one. I supposed me.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Bowers on cease