We caught up with guitarist Brody Uttley from Rivers Of Nihil before their set outside of Firestone Live in Orlando, FL, we talked about touring, favorite music releases and more. Rivers Of Nihil wrapped up their tour supporting DevilDriver and Whitechapel, be sure to check out any future tour announcements from the band.
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Q – You guys are on tour supporting DevilDriver and Whitechapel, how has tour been treating you so far?
Brody – Really good, these have been some of the biggest shows we’ve played as a band thus far, we’ve hit a lot of new places. I guess this is technically our first full U.S. and Canadian tour, our last one was cut short, so this has been the first full one and its been a really good experience. We’ve gotten a great response, and we’ve learned a lot to prepare for next tour
Q – “The Conscious Seed Of Light” has been out for about 8 months now, how has the overall response for it been?
Really good! We’ve managed to really surprise our label with our first week numbers on it. You know being a first time release for a really young death metal band, the label probably wasn’t expecting that much, just because we were essentially nobodies. But we worked really hard to push the release and we did really well on the first week, and it’s just been rolling ever since then. People have been buying CD’s and coming to shows and buying merch, and people are into it I think.
Q – Can you talk about the lyrical themes to the album?
Brody – I don’t actually write any of the lyrics, but basically the album is a spring themed album. It has themes that tie into rebirth, new beginnings, and other nature “hippy” kind of stuff if you want to think of it like that. The plan for the four album cycle that we’re doing with Metal Blade is a four album concept story based on the seasons. “The Conscious Seed of Light” was based on spring, the next one will be summer, then fall, and then finally winter. So with each album we’re going to try to put certain themes both lyrically and sonically that relate to those seasons.
Q – I remember first discovering you guys after seeing the artwork for the album, it had me instantly intrigued….can you talk about the thought process behind the artwork? I remember reading an interview that you guys took a good amount of time on it…
Brody – Well we had a list of guys that we wanted to go to, a list of the big death metal artists, about 8 to 10 different artists that we were interested in working with. We sent out our pitch and the one guy who really latched onto the concept of our album was Dan Seagrave, he responded to us right away, and he was really into the theme. Within a couple of days he had sent us a couple of light sketches, and I think there were maybe 3 or 4 revisions before the final product. He was just super cool and luckily he reached out to us.
Q – You guys had Erik Rutan(Hate Eternal, ex-Morbid Angel) on board to produce the album, how was it like getting to work with him on it?
Brody – It was killer! Several years ago when we were just starting out as a band, we put our first EP out and he reached out to us on myspace and sent us a message and was like, “Hey guys, I really like what you’re doing, I would like to, one day make a record with you.”, and from that day on, our primary goal was to get signed and record an album with him. He was very influential in helping us get signed and so it was really cool to make an album with him because we had talked to him for so long about it, and when we got down there, it was everything we had hoped it would be. He’s an old school guy with so much knowledge, nothing but a wealth of information and he’s super militant with the way he approaches producing, but in the end it brings out a better product that we can all be happy with.
Q – What’s the best concert that you’ve attended but did not play?
Brody – Probably Messugah, Cynic, and The Faceless back in 2009, that’s just three of my favorite bands all together in one package.
Q – What are some of your favorite releases from the past year?
Brody – I really like “Nomadic” from Fallujah. They’re good friends of ours we just did a tour with them. I’m not sure if it was in the last year, but the most recent Cattle Decapitation was really good. The Kennedy Veil on Unique Leader was awesome. Archspire from Vancouver was great, and the new Warforged which I did a guest spot on.
Q – After this tour is finished, what’s next for Rivers of Nihil?
Brody – After this tour, the plan is to go home, and bust our ass on the 2nd album. We started writing the next album almost immediately after getting out of the studio just because we had so much extra material and we had a lot of stuff that we wanted to build on right away.
