METAL NIGHTMARE: COMANDO NUCLEAR INTERVIEW 2006

All right! Face front true believers, because there's yet another band from Brazil that you should be aware of! COMANDO NUCLEAR is a little different from other Brazilian bands I've featured in the past, because they don't fit under the categories of thrash or death metal. This quartet of drunken maniacs worship at the altar of AGENT STEEL instead. Here's Rodrigo Exciter [bass], Fillipe Lawmaker [guitar] and Ron Cygnus [vocals] to tell us all about their band and debut album, Batalhão Infernal.

Did you keep anything from your old band, or did you start off fresh for COMANDO NUCLEAR?

Rodrigo Exciter: The friendship that we developed during WARAGE was fundamental for the formation of COMANDO NUCLEAR. We have a tight friendship and an absurd velocity to write music, which naturally makes things much easier. Not to mention we´re great friends and we´re always gettin´ wasted.

Filippe Lawmaker: What we´ve kept is mostly our influences and the will to play together again. Musically, in COMANDO NUCLEAR, we now follow a more raw, speed and direct way of playing, mostly because our ex-drummer, from our previous band, couldn´t take it... he´d tire easily.

Musically, you're doing something a little different from a lot of other bands right now. Instead of playing speed/thrash metal, you've gone back a little further in metal history and are playing a sort of proto-thrash similar to AGENT STEEL. What made you decide to play in this style?

Ron Cygnus: Yeah, our influences haven´t changed much since the time in which we used to play together in WARAGE. The band formation is basically the same, only now we have Erick as our drummer. And I´d like to make it clear that COMANDO NUCLEAR is NOT a continuation of WARAGE, but a band with a posture, visual, sonority and an attitude completely different.

Rodrigo Exciter: Actually, nothing was ever "planned out"... it simply came out this way. We don´t worry about sounding like "this" or "that" band. We just create our music and our influences seem to surface. What happens is, is that most bands nowadays produce thrash metal because they only listen to thrash metal. We love old school thrash, but I happen to be a fan of NWOBHM, power/speed American metal like HELSTAR, AGENT STEEL, ABATTOIR, SAVAGE GRACE, NASTY SAVAGE, or LIEGE LORD, Belgian metal such as ACID, CROSSFIRE, OSTROGOTH and KILLER, Canadian metal like EXCITER, ANVIL, RAZOR, and metal from Japan, Russia, Brazil... So, it´s only natural that our music has different characteristics... and AGENT STEEL's early works is one of our biggest influences!

Filippe Lawmaker: We really like metal from the ´80s... and that´s enough. We even like some "modern" metal, but our real influences lie with the bands that made history years ago.

Why do you write your lyrics in Portuguese rather than English?

Ron Cygnus: We decided to write our music in Portuguese ´cuz we wanted to bring back that force, attitude and sonority that Brazilian bands had in the ´80s. We´re sick and tired of prog metal bands, melodic metal, gothic metal and black metal that´re full of shit, who abandoned the past, making those who like heavy metal unaware of how the Brazilian scene used to be huge back in the day... and still is. In other words, we value our language and nationality, that´s why we decided to raise this "flag" and bring it all back to the present. We had and still have a lot of great bands in our country.

Filippe Lawmaker: For numerous reasons. Even though we´re very influenced by outside metal, we appreciate what surged in our country and appreciate the country where we´re from and the language we speak.

Have you played many shows around Brazil? Who have you shared the stage with?

Filippe Lawmaker: We´re doing a lot of shows and we´re spreading news of the Batalhão Infernal-- Infernal Batallion. We´re sharing the stage, hilarious situations, booze and cig´s with great bands, such as FLAGELADOR, SELVAGERIA, or VINGANCA SUPREMA.

What are you doing to get the album and yourselves more known outside of Brazil?

Ron Cygnus: Any type of propaganda... Any kind of request for our album outside Brazil is always accepted. Our label, Unsilent Records, has awesome contacts and has sent a lot of our albums to various countries in Europe and also to the US. Now we´re working on promoting our band here in South America, with contacts in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay... We respond to all of those who look us up and write to us and we try to facilitate the shipment of our work. Did I mention that MySpace has helped us loads? Thanks to it, we´ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of people...

So MySpace been helpful in getting your name out? Have you found that there's a lot of bullshit on there and it's not always worth the trouble?

Rodrigo Exciter: Damn, the net is a powerful way to get your message across. If it weren´t for MySpace, we wouldn´t be responding to this interview!

Point taken.

Rodrigo Exciter: But, I´m still kinda radical, I don´t like to limit myself only to the net, you know? I dig sharing info with other bands, buying/trading vinyls and tapes... The deal is not limiting ourselves to the net, we have to see it as one of the many means of propaganda, but not the only one.

This is kind of a strange question for Filippe, you go by the name Lawmaker? Wouldn't Lawbreaker be more metal?

Filippe Lawmaker: [laughs] I´ve been known as Lawmaker since 1998. I love SABBATH and i have a friend who once said that when she heard this song-- Lawmaker from the Tyr album, she´d remember me... and she started calling me Lawmaker... then I adopted the nickname online and soon everyone was calling me by it.

Is there a chance that we'll see the album pressed on vinyl?

Rodrigo Exciter: Our vinyl is coming out soon, you´ll see!

Ron Cygnus: No shit! Mainly because it´s an idea we´ve had since we started recording our album. We didn´t do it at first ´cuz money was short... but we love the idea. It would be a contradiction to drool over the ´80s and not play around with the thought of having a vinyl done. We´re gonna get it done, there´s no doubt, it´ll take a while, but it´ll probably come with a bonus....

Have you ever considered having a two guitar attack?

Filippe Lawmaker: That´ll be an eternal question for a band with only one guitar... [laughs]. At the beginning we had two guitarists, the second dude left, we got another one, he left too... I guess he couldn´t take all the booze... but I kid you not when I say I´m an easy guy to deal with. [laughs] We´ve come to the conclusion that one guitar is enough, not to mention the four of us have created a tight relationship in COMANDO NUCLEAR, it wouldn´t be the same otherwise.

What's next for Comando Nuclear?

Rodrigo Exciter: Shows, shows, booze, shows, women and more shows! We want to keep on playing ´til the end of the year, we have alot of touring to do still. Then, we´ll hop into the studio and record the new album, which, by the way, has most of its songs written.

Ron Cygnus: Shows, marketing of our album and, naturally, the recording of our upcoming album in 2007. We hope to get at least twelve or thirteen songs, having written half already, before we start preproducing. So, await us in 2007!

Final comments are yours!

Rodrigo Exciter: Thanks for your support! It´s great to know that in the US people are still into old school metal and recognized COMANDO NUCLEAR! Keep up beating down those fuckin´posers and sticking to the tradition of heavy metal!

Filippe Lawmaker: Thanks for giving us room to stretch, to all headbangers around the world who sustain underground music and make more room for metal!

Ron Cygnus: Yeah man, thanks for the interview. We´re glad knowing that there people out there who enjoy our music, mainly ´cuz we sing in our language and not in English. We´re hoping to come up and play for you some day... we know it´s tough ´cuz we´re going against the mainstream, but with hard work, dedication a bit of passion and attitude it´s not unreachable. Thanks again for your support and keep up the good work. Peace!!