Nuclear Oath is a badass name for a metal band, and they ARE a badass metal band! They are five guys from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, and they play metal; thrash/death/nu-metal/hardcore/melodic metal to be more specific. WAIL took the opportunity to chat with Nathanael Blaine Bohnet, Bassist for Nuclear Oath:
With just EP's and singles released, did you guys play out live a lot on just those songs? I'm wondering how the 2016 Calgary Beer Award for best Thrash/Metal/Grind award came about. How did you get the exposure? And congratulations!
“Thank you very much! Honestly, once I joined the band and filled out the lineup we just hit the road and played a few shows locally. After that I proposed that we should record a few songs for a demo. I think we had 7 or 8 at that time. The guys wanted to do all the songs, and I didn't want to take on such a large project right away, so instead I proposed that we each pick a song that we felt we should record, and that was the EP. The two singles were actually brand new songs that we wrote shortly after the EP was released. We finished ‘Ambushed.’ and wanted to get something new out there, and we wanted to test a few things out, recording wise. Then with ‘Razor Blade Regrets’ we tested that one out a few Calgary shows, and people really dug it, so we decided that that should be the next single. As for the Calgary Beer Core award, I don’t know what else to say other than we have been blessed to play for some amazing people in the Calgary scene, and the award was voted on the fans that go out to the shows and support the bands in Calgary. So, we are extremely honored that the people that support the scene support us enough to help us win that award!"
Is summer 2017 still a good tentative date for Toxic Playground's release? Besides it being a full album, what can fans expect that is different from the EPs/singles?
“We have a release date [that is] set in stone, and we aim to stick by it. So, mark it done, we will be dropping "Toxic Playground" on June 9th, 2017. You can expect songs like ‘Ambushed’ and ‘Razor Blade Regrets’ obviously, but we have also added some songs with brutal riffs, melodic riffs, and groovy riffs! Everything we could bring to the table we did.”
You have a show coming up in April. Can you give me a description on the intensity of your live shows?
“We actually have two shows coming up in April, pending on when this article gets released, the second one may have also been announced. As for our intensity live, I don’t know what else to say other than the only thing keeping us on stage is the fact that none of us have wireless setups yet. We don’t stop moving if we can help it! We love to interact with our crowd, we feed off the energy they give us, so the more we can give them on stage the better! We are usually always drenched in sweat midway through the set.”
Nuclear Oath is a bad ass name for a metal band. How did you decide on it?
“I can’t recall how the band name came to be. I know the band used to be called Born Hero before Pete and I joined. Then, when Pete joined, I think they decided to change the band name and picked Nuclear Oath simply because it sounded badass.”
You are self-classified as thrash, death, nu-metal, hardcore, and melodic metal. If you were forced to pick just one classification, which would it be? And I'm personally curious, with the hardcore element to Nuclear Oath, do you have the crazy fans that do the windmill moshing in the pit like we do down here?
“When it comes to genres, if I had to go with one label aside from all others to classify our music, it would have to be ‘Metal.” That's it. I feel too many people get hung up on the sub-genre thing now-a-days. It’s all distorted music. It’s all our own personal forms of expression. Let’s be honest; everything has been done already, so we are at a point where we are borrowing from each other musically when it comes to what can be done regarding aggressive music." So, whether it’s melodic, progressive, death, technical, groove, thrash, black, post-hard core, whatever you want to call it, in the end it’s all Metal, and we all do the same thing, just a little differently. As for the hardcore element, I think it’s just in some of our riffs and how we come across in our music. I won’t bash hardcore dancing, but I do not like the whole going around wind milling when people are around in close proximity, or doing a spin kick while standing next to someone. If you make your space and know you won’t hit someone, then whatever…do your thing, express yourself! But if you’re going to just throw kicks and punches to hurt someone at a show while they are trying to enjoy a band, please stop, that's not needed, we want everyone to enjoy themselves."
What is with the red X's on band members’ photos on your Facebook page?
“Essentially it is just an LP recording progress picture. The guys that are X'd out are completely done with their tracking, the other two still have some backing vocals/solos to finish, but are done with their main instruments tracking; Pete still has some vocal tracking to do so he is "on the run." Sort of like a hit list, drummer and rhythm have been taken out, the other two have been captured and are awaiting trial, and Pete is still on the run.”
Summer, 2017, is expected to see the release of their first full release, “Toxic Playground.” Until that time, check out their debut EP “Ashes of the Unborn” (2016), “Ambushed” (2016), and “There goes the Neighborhood” (2015). Catch them live at one of the April 2017 dates, and definitely keep your eye on these guys; they are definitely going places.
Susan Dusse - WAIL Music Magazine.