Interviews: Nocturnis

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the  Black Metal band, Nocturnis, from Germany. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that?

The band name wasn't really planned. We knew, we wanted something that describes atmospheric black metal - without cheesyness or something that sounds enforced, like we have to sound like that to be a typical evil black metal band. So one day, the idea of Nocturnis came up, a slight variant of "noctis" (lat. night), which means something like night or nightly. That's also how the logo was influenced with the moon and the spiderwebs.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

In the years before the founding of Nocturnis we all started to listen more and more to Black Metal and were fascinated by this genre. In the first rehearsals we noticed through jamming together, that the music shifted more and more to Black Metal kindish riffs. After Vince joined it was clear that we wanted to make Black Metal. 

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

More or less yes. Lukas, Raphael and Chris had been together in a band before. They got to know Dirk through his activities as a booker for a local venue. Lukas got to know Vince because they both studied the same fields of study at the local university.

4. Each band member favourite band?

Raphael – Trivium

Dirk – Rammstein

Lukas – Trivium

Vince – Necrophagist

Chris – Opeth

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Pretty hard to describe what the inspiration is. Most ideas just happen while noodling around, and from that single idea a whole Song emerges. It’s difficult to call something that’s inspiring, if you just follow your gut feeling. What can be said though is, that every Song you write forms your style and paves the way of future songs. At least, that’s how we feel. We don’t want to be caught up, only playing one style, feels like not being able to move freely in a creative way. Sure, the main thing we want to do is play Black Metal. We all love blast beats and the dark atmosphere of the genre. But if there are certain aspects that sound different, so be it.

6. Where was your last gig?

The last ‘real’ gig before Covid was at the JuZ Waldshut-Tiengen in January, a rather small venue in the deepest south of Germany near the border to Switzerland. But we had a Livestream in July to present the release of our EP Aporia at the Kulturförderverein Stud in Offenburg.

7. Where would you like to act?

Long story short, we want to play everywhere because in our up to now rather short history we haven’t been able to play a lot.

8. Whom would you like to feature with?

There isn’t a specific person or band we would like to feature with. If an opportunity presents itself, we think about it and decide whether it fits or not.

9. Whom not?

Racist or homophobic people.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that?

Luckily no one of us has suffered of heavy stage fright. Our singer Raphael had some problems in the beginning but his method of overcoming this was to drink a beer before the show and to put his glasses aside so he couldn’t see the crowd properly.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

Bands we work, worked with or personally know. In that case, we really have to mention a few, namely: Fuck You And Die, Der Weg einer Freiheit, My Dying Faith, Implore, Thron, Nachtschatten and Deadborn. All of them are awesome guys! They still are a huge inspiration and helped us define our style.

12. What’s the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

Really weird things didn’t happen up to now, but we are looking forward to it. A more or less ‘weird’ thing was that a fan asked us via social media if we could send him some stickers, which was no problem but the conversation took several days until we finally got his address so we could send him the stickers. 

13. What do you think of your fans?

We think that our fans are really great! It is still unbelievable how good the response to our music was. Everyone of us was before in smaller local bands so we are happy about every new fan.

14. What do you think of our site?

We really like your site. It is really nice to see that there are people that aren’t taking music and the work behind it as granted and want to know more about it and the thoughts put into songs or artworks.

15. Something add?

Keep up the good work! And for everyone reading this: Please support all bands you like in these hard times. We are fortunate enough that we aren’t financially depending on this but there a lot of bands who need every bit of support to get through the day.