I remember on the previous records you mainly wrote all the music, but that was different this time. How come and what happened?
We obviously brought in a new member with Andy Thomas who now plays guitar and sings with us. His old band, Black Crown Initiate, were good friends of ours. We come from the same town, Reading, Pennsylvania and bringing him in was a new thing. I typically used to write all the music as you said – not the lyrics or the vocals but just the music – and I would say on this record I wrote 85% of the music, but Andy and I really collaborated on a few major moments on the record. ‘The Sub-Orbital Blues’ is a song that Andy came up with, the main riff for it and then I kind of built the song around his initial idea. ‘Despair Church’ is a song that I feel we really wrote together in a pretty cool way, we just contributed, the chorus on ‘Criminals’ as well and he also added the chorus to ‘House Of Light’, so having him around was really very cool and definitely different, but we have known each other for so long. I know he has a very similar musical approach and we just kind of understand each other, so whenever I was stuck on something, he always had a kind of idea where I left off and so we kept the ball rolling. Other than that it was pretty similar to the creation of all of our other records. It was really just me, working on stuff and in my studio, sending demos to the guys and hearing their feedback and then changing things accordingly really.

Did his involvement change anything on the guitar playing for you? Is this task divided or do you just follow your gut feel?
He actually ended up playing a few guitar solos on the new record, which is new, because historically I have been the only lead guitarist in the band, but he actually played a solo in ‘House Of Light’, he played a solo in ‘Water And Time’, and he also has a guitar solo on the song called ‘Evidence’. So it was nice to have somebody who plays some guitar solos besides me for once, because I have been the guy in the band who has always done that. So for once I can kind of relax for a minute and play rhythm guitar (chuckles).

So it opened new horizons. There is also a new saxophonist. Does it mean you had to look in other scenes, because playing sax is more connected to jazz than it is to the metal scene or was it also a guy you knew for a long time?
Well, Patrick Corona, who plays saxophone on the new record, has actually been touring with us on and off for about since 2018. He did the US tour when we did the ‘Where Owls Know My Name’ tour. So we have known each other for a long time. The guy who was playing with us on the records, previously, ended up coming to a point where we wanted to try some new things and we brought in Patrick to record on this new record, knowing that he has toured with us so much, just like friend at this point. It was very easy bringing him to the fold and we are very pleased with his contributions. We would just send him songs and made suggestions about which parts maybe we heard saxophone over and he would send us back his ideas. We really did not have to make any tweaks, it was just really all him coming up with his own ideas and really adding something special to the new record I think. Even the song on the record, ‘Despair Church’, there is this kind of outro on that song, a big saxophone part and that whole thing was his idea. We actually originally did not see this song having saxophone on it at all and he was just like: ‘hey, check this out’ and we liked it so much that we kept it on the record. Having him on board was great and it felt very easy. Like I said, he has been with us for a while and we have known each other well. He understands us and we understand him, so it worked out really nicely.

Is that one of the reasons you took the band name as album title? Usually it means a new beginning or it is going back to the roots or something else. What was the reason in this case?
You are correct in what you are guessing. We do see this album as a new beginning for the band, a new chapter in the history books of Rivers Of Nihil. Our first four records were obviously with our previous vocalist and they were all part of a concept. Those four first records were occupying the spaces in these overarching concepts of the seasons. Our first record was Spring, our second record was Summer, our third was Autumn and the fourth one was Winter and now that we have done these albums, we knew it was time for a change. When the line-up shift happened, we knew that this album was going to be different and important and we thought that a self-titled moniker would be just a kind of powerful statement. Perhaps people who haven’t listened to us in a while might see the self-title and tune back in and people who haven’t got into us yet, might see the self-title and see it as a good starting point. So really yeah, it was something we discussed and it was really just a powerful way to kind of bring in the fact that we are in a new era of the band and we feel very confident about everything that has been going on with us and we are very excited about this new material. It is our best material to date. So we really wanted to come up with the most powerful statement that we could as far as the title of this record goes and what a better way to do that than name it after the band?

That is true and musically there are a lot of different impressions. You have to follow carefully to get it. Does it mean that your personal taste is also pretty wide?
Yes, it would say definitely. We all listen to a lot of different kind of music, not just metal obviously. We listen to all kinds of prog and folk music and electronic music and film scores. We are all just big fans of music in general. We don’t want to restrict ourselves to one style necessarily, so it is only natural that our band’s sound kind of reflects what we are listening to. We all have very different tastes in music and when we come together I think this diverse nature of our records is just a reflection of what it is we are all listening to at the time.

I know you don’t write the lyrics, but it should be inspired by faith?
At least my interpretation of the lyrics on the record… this album isn’t necessarily a concept album, like some of our previous albums, but it does have a kind of overall message. The songs are discussing different issues, whether it is social issues or political issues or personal issues. Every song on this record presents a different idea and then the overall theme of the record is kind of like… for years we have been asked: ‘Rivers Of Nihil, what that means’ and I don’t think we really had it answered until now and I think what Rivers of Nihil means, is a place that you don’t want to find yourself in, it is kind of the dark place in life that you can easily fall into when there is depression or paranoia or negativism or nihilism. It is really a bad place to find yourself in the rivers of nihil and I think that the song on this record means situations that we find ourselves in life, questions we ask ourselves and challenges that we are presented with and how we handle them. You can have a pretty significant outcome on how we live our life and what happens in our life, so I think that this album is really an album that is kind of hopeful. It is an album that is about trying to push the darkness away and kind of pull yourself towards the line and hold on to positivism, because this day and age it is so easy to fall victim of all the bad things that are going on in the world or all the evils in the world that pull you into that, into the rivers of nihil. You really want to try to do your best to end up not into that, so that is my interpretation of it at least, sorry that it is was long-winded.