After a string of successful singles, national exposure and winning best band in the 2003 Deadlys, Nokturnl have finally released their diverse debut album, Time Flies, to critical acclaim. James O’Toole spoke to guitarist Damien Armstrong the day before Nokturnl left for a four week tour of Germany.

O'Toole: You’re about to leave for a tour in Germany, how did that come about?

Armstrong: Contacts, having mates in the industry. We have a German sound engineer who worked for us over here. He did some work for us in Sydney and the Northern Territory. He went home and he reckons he misses us so we’re going over to visit him this time. We have nine gigs, each in a different city. Nine cities in four weeks - in Australia that’s hard work, over there it’s only a couple of hours!

O'Toole: It must be a relief to finally get your first album under your belts?

Armstrong: Yeah, we did an EP and a couple of singles and then a whole bunch of touring in between. Then there was a change of musical climate. We were doing a lot of stuff and before our material got released all that sort of stuff became really popular. By the time we put our stuff out that was going to be over. There was a little bit of redefinition in style and we came up with something different. We want to be a leader, not a follower. We have a certain pride in our musicianship as well. Craig T has played in a lot of metal bands I like the heavier side of things, but we were aiming for something with a little bit more class and precision in what we did. Stuff that sounds like now, not thirty years ago.

O'Toole: On your web site it mentions you play guitar and bass, did you start playing bass first?

Armstrong: No, I started playing guitar. Bass was just one of those things for texture. I started playing acoustic guitar; you know all of that folksy sing around a campfire type stuff that I have forgotten now (laughs). Playing bass was more of a feel thing, not technical or slapping bass. Craig T is the one with the big musical progression.

O'Toole: So Craig T plays guitar, sings and plays the drums and bass when you’re recording?

Armstrong: Yeah, originally when he was a kid he started on drums, then bass, then guitar, then LEAD guitar (laughs) and then on to being a singer. We swap lead breaks, and do harmonized solos on stage. You don’t see much of that around at the moment, but we’ve been doing it for years, even when solos were supposed to be out.

O'Toole: On the new album there are writing credits for Mark Seymour and David Bridie, how did those collaborations come about?

Armstrong: Contacts. We were striking out in new directions. I had done a bit of session bass playing with a project David Bridie was conducting. It was good having old school song writing sensibilities that we often overlook, cause we’re ‘hardcore’ and we have to have key changes and time changes, you know (laughs). These guys would be getting us to go back to basics and find the real core of a song.

O'Toole: What would you like see Nokturnl doing 12 months from now?

Armstrong: Expanding our horizons. I’m looking forward to a lot of international stuff. It was always the focus with this band to be an international act. Everybody always asks me, ‘Why are guys still based in Alice Springs?’ and I say ‘It’s four hours closer to Frankfurt than Sydney is!’ Who cares where we live? It doesn’t matter where you live; we have Internet and satellite TV. What matters is where your fans are. If you have fans in other countries, Australians shouldn’t view themselves as being so isolated, you know?

O'Toole: Your website is well designed and organised, do you think that has helped the band?

Armstrong: Definitely. I regularly contribute to our forum because it’s easy. I have been to some other band sites and found I can’t really learn anything about the bands. We have more interactive stuff coming, including one of our songs where fans can get online and do a bit of a remix, rearrange some of the sound samples.

O'Toole: There’s a comprehensive list of your playing setups on the website, are there any new additions to your gear for this tour?

Armstrong: Craig T has a Hughes and Kettner Tubeman and I had to acquire myself a fairdinkum whammy pedal, the one in my effects has a pitch shift effect but the memory doesn’t allow for good sound quality. The new one's a Digitech whammy. I also just acquired a Peavey Wolfgang guitar, it’s basically Peavey’s very, very expensive version of an Ernie Ball Music Man. It’s a fixed bridge with humbuckers.

O'Toole: Is your recording and live setup the same?

Armstrong: For recording we’ll just use whatever is around. The tube effect does have a really good direct sound. I use the direct sound live, I don’t use a cabinet.

O'Toole: You don’t use a cabinet to monitor your own sound on stage?

Armstrong: In Australia, if that’s convenient and we’re touring in the van and loading our own gear, then yeah I’ll use a cabinet to monitor my own sound on stage and then our engineer takes the live sound direct from the effects unit. It has speaker simulators and genuine tube preamp so it’s pretty hot. There’s less interference. At a lot of shows if we have to fly there or whatever then I just take the direct signal out of my effects unit and get it back through the monitors and side fills. Funny thing is at pubs with dodgy little PAs they’re unwilling to run guitar sound through stage monitors because they’re little 1o inch speakers with horns. At a festival like The Big Day Out the side fills are bigger than most pub PAs. At shows like that my guitar amp isn’t a 100-watt Marshall, it’s a 50,000-watt Australian monitor, it’s massive! (laughs). Craig uses a Peavey Ultra Plus head, but for the next round of gigs I think he’ll use his Hughes and Kettner Tubeman, so we’ll be running direct from genuine valves, so you get your real sound with a cabinet emulator. Live most people can’t tell the difference. I get a lot of purists come up and say ‘Wow, man, what kind of amp do you use?’ and I say, ‘I don’t use an amp!’ It works best on a big stage because obviously you have separation and better monitoring. If you don’t have good monitors it can be a bit of a disadvantage. I’ve often had to ‘fly blind’ some nights and read the display on my foot controller to make sure I’m on the right channel and make sure my fingers are in the right place. It’s all about being adaptable.

Article by James O'Toole