Shaded Enmity
Interview with Joe Nurre about "Hijo Perdido" (original version)

The album offers yet again quite a lot of in-your-face aggression. What makes you so angry? Does it help playing this kind of music?

I grew up in an extremely religious family and I lived a lot of my early life in isolation, spending lots of time by myself because I was frustrated that i didn’t see things the way I was „supposed“ to see them and I couldn’t relate to anyone. Years later I find out about things that went on in the church and the very people I was supposed to have trusted were dirty liars that have no place in religion. You had married choir leaders impregnating members of the congregation and keeping children a secret. You had 13 year old boys molesting 8 year old boys; you had youth leaders fornicating with 13 year old girls. All in the church I attended.  This left me confused, and from 16-21, I had a horrible drug addiction, and I was unhappy with myself and unhappy with the way I was living life. Right before we recorded our „Thought and Remembrance“ album, I was showing up to rehearsals with Rob and Eric completely high off my gourd, and coming down hardcore. Excusing myself to go to the bathroom to vomit. I was able to write the entire „Thought and Remembrance“ album during this time despite the hold drugs had on me. I do not remember writing it at all. Rob and Eric threatened to kick me out of the band before we recorded the album and I cleaned up. After about 9 months or so, I was high again. Around the age of 21, I made it my goal to get clean, and I did.

Several years go by and things happen in life. You go through bad relationships, you make poor decisions, you have trouble with law enforcement, and all of these things become the anger that is in my music, and these are why I am angry. I think about things from my past and present when I write SHADED ENMITY songs. I can’t ever write when it is sunny outside, and quite honestly I can’t ever write songs when I am happy. These things are what have fueled „Like Prayers on Deaf Ears“ and „Hijo Perdido“. To play this music is so therapeutic for me, it feels good, I feel content inside when I am screaming into the microphone and playing my guitar.  I look forward to the practices and shows because I know I get to release the energy. Simon’s drumming adds an even angrier dimension to the music, and when everything comes together, it’s very powerful.

To me, „Prayers“ and „Hijo“ are quite similar in style. Now this is not meant as criticism at all, but how long do you think you can keep this approach interesting? How much and in which direction can the band change while still sounding like SHADED ENMITY? Have you ever considered adding new elements? How will you sound say three albums from now?

I can understand why you would consider them to be fairly similar in style seeing as both albums were written by me. I also wrote „Hijo Perdido“ about six months after I wrote „Like Prayers on Deaf Ears“. A while ago I played a couple shows with the band NEVERMORE, and I started playing seven strings a lot more after that, and I can tell you that the new SHADED ENMITY material is going to feature seven strings, and we are definitely wanting to get a little more technical as far as our music goes. However, one of our key elements is the melodic harmonies which I will always keep in our music. So despite any new material I write, I believe it will always sound like SHADED ENMITY even though one or two elements may change. Three albums from now, I would like to have developed our sound to the point where you can pop in a record and say „Oh, that’s SHADED ENMITY“, and so I will always strive to write the best music that I can while still trying to keep it as unique as possible. I would like to experiment with some synth stuff in the future, but I believe that gets over done a lot in music, but if done tastefully can add a lot.

You have promoted the album by streaming the whole thing online. Yet on the other hand the album does not seem to be available for digital purchase. While I personally don’t care to buy music as bits and bytes only, I still wonder about this contradiction and why you don’t offer the option. Is there any particular reason? I mean, there is no label telling you how to do things…

We actually offer „Like Prayers On Deaf Ears“ on the website www.bandcamp.com for digital download at a low price, and I will be putting „Hijo Perdido“ up there as well as soon as our „physical“ CD is made available here shortly. I am also going to the get albums up on iTunes as I know a lot of people don’t actually buy physical albums anymore and just want something they can throw on their iPod without ripping it from a CD. I haven’t done the best job of getting promotion stuff done for this band; I hate dealing with computers as I am not very technologically experienced.

And going into the opposite direction: Will there be a vinyl release of the new album? With 40 minutes and eight songs it certainly has ideal measures. And some people might even appreciate the little break to recover from your relentless onslaught.

You know, I would love to release this album on vinyl, but I am broke. I barely had enough money to press 100 CDs of „Hijo Perdido“. Maybe someday?

Besides Seattle grunge, Cascadian BM, and SHADED ENMITY, what are Washington’s most noteworthy contributions to guitar music? Are there any bands or projects you feel the rest of the world should be aware of? Any well-hidden secrets that would deserve some more publicity?

If there is any band that deserves some publicity it would be a band called PHALGERON. They share a practice space with SHADED ENMITY and I was just listening to some of their new album the other day (not finished yet) and I thought it sounded really good. I believe out of all the bands in Seattle right now, PHALGERON has the most potential. Their guitarist Tyler is killer and a clean player, Lane the bassist is an extremely solid and on point bass player; and drummer Ian can keep great time and has nice hand work and has the most potential out of most of the drummers in Seattle.

Also, check out a band called ATISA, more of a straight melodic death style.

That’s it for now. The last words are yours. Feel free to have another promo speech. Will you play in Europe anytime soon?

I appreciate the interview; this is the first one I have given in years. I want to thank everyone who has ordered our albums, and also to the people who have pre ordered our new album. We would love to play in Europe soon. I would like to set up a small tour their next year but I don’t know how possible that’s going to be?
Thanks again for all of your support, without www.metal.de a lot of people wouldn’t know about us.