Nitro Zeus came from a documentary called Zero Days, it was the name of a project which was designed to use sophisticated internet viruses to exploit industrial devices. In the documentary and I would encourage you to check it out Wes, these devices can cause real world destructive damage and when done in malicious ways on a large scale, it could be used as a cyber weapon - blacking out powerplants and entire cities, disrupting telecommunications, water supplies, exploding oil pipelines, crazy shit. We picked the name for probably the same reason the developers of that project did - it sounded cool.
I'm James, guitarist and one of the writers for the band. I founded a regular jam thing with our drummer Chris in 2016 and we eventually found permanent band mates in late 2017.
2.Tell us where you are based and describe the scene. How do you think where you are located influences your sound.
Hello again Wes, we are based in Brisbane Australia - straya - down under - rusty crowe adopted home, kangaroos, great barrier reef, acca dacca
The Scene is banging - lots of great bands coming through - in terms of influencing our sound - its more like being INSPIRED. It's really cool and the scene has been very welcoming to us over the last 12 months.
3.Who influences your sound that would surprise people?
Zi and JT have a lot of Japanese metal interests, I enjoy swedish death metal and Chris likes at the drive in. Is any of that a surprise? I know we all had MUSE phases, so maybe them?
4.Are you endorsed by musical companies , if so who , and if not who would you like to be endorsed by?
No endorsements, call me *winks*
5.When you started what was your ultimate goal? And how close to the goal are you now?
Our goal was to get out of Chris' bedroom and record a demo to try and get band members, get a gig and maybe record some music. We didn't have huge aspirations, we just figured if we were going to play live and we wrote something worth recording we'd need a plan. We were quite shit, extremely shit. We listened to advice and found ways to reach our goals.
Ultimately we hope to be able to produce our content, our music, videos and other creations we are working on and find ways to reach an audience. We love playing music, love the live scene and we love coming up with crazy shit and figuring out how to do things. We are very DIY.
6.In today's digital environment it takes creative strategy to keep things moving. What creative ideas do you have to keep your band relevant over time?
Content of quality, we are working on a transmedia narrative which branches from our music lyrics and concepts into our videos and even our posts. i.anomaly EP includes a graphic story - introducing the core of our multiverse story - Transcendent Dog and a host of characters played by the band members and extras.
He is present in our band page videos, he has his own page on social media and talks regularly to followers of the band.
His story and importantly the story of the characters around him will evolve over time. We have plans for transdimensional car chases, raids on moonbases, parasitic aliens which eat dicks and then become the dick living on the host, and a space dragon - she's very badass and maybe a little clumsy.
Scripts are constantly written and we plan scheduled videos with live actions VFX and animation. Our videos in 2019 will be of a higher production value with original characters and content we produce from our studio and live action filming
The music is the soundtrack to our story and is deeply engrained - it will evolve over time as the story and its imagery does.
7.We've all seen a terrible live band that is awesome on CD. Is that cool with you or do you lose respect for bands that cannot pull it off live?
It wouldnt stop me from appreciating their recorded work, a good albums a good album. Its important to be able to play a good live set though. People are showing up to see you play- help them have a good night- give them a killer set with maybe a few surprises.
8.Tell us your “core” are you Metal , Rock , Punk , Pop etc because people just have to categorize these days you know?
We really struggle with this answer. Possibly hard alternative rock with sometimes metal and other stuff? Our business card says some kind of blues, hard rock, metal, prog ABOMINATION
...Help?
9.This is a tough question but a very real reality, Is your band actually talented or just popular? Many bands make it with a cliche or publicity stunts etc. Would you accept fame even if it was just because of being the “ in” thing or is it actually important to you that you gain favor with talent?
Neither talented or popular, we are in a good position, low expectations means we create mediocre content and people often comment and say things like - the Nitro Zeus is not completely shit.
We're invested in our music, our narrative and the concepts in them. Life is interesting and if what we create, as a result of our exploration of concepts and themes, if it connects to people - that's all we could hope for.
Talent is obviously something you respect in the long term and far better than something thats just cashing in on some vapid trend.
#NOvapid
10.Tell us what to expect from you live. Nothing is more boring than watching bands stare at the floor and bob their heads to music nobody but the band knows. What can your band offer in a live setting that people will remember?
JT's sex choker collar - thats our secret weapon - guaranteed entertainment.
Hopefully they enjoy the music, we often touch upon a few different genres & styles and we hope people find us interesting amd engaging.
Zi goes to great efforts as a performer and us guys try and move on stage in some manner to encourage others to join us. Sometimes it even works.
We would like to add more visual imagery to our shows, we've done this before with projector screens and trippy footage.
I think this will be something we do more of going forward. Depends on the venue & bill.
People come up to us often after shows and are pretty generous with their comments so thats a good sign. We get messages on social media encouraging and supporting us.
People are really lovely to us. So we take encouragement from that.
11. What releases have you put out , When will we see something new?
Released two singles in 2018
Releasing 3 more tracks on our upcoming i.anomaly EP which includes the two singles as included bonus tracks - if you get the EP you get all 5 of our current studio produced music. WHAT A BARGAIN
We also have a 6th track a secret live track we recorded at this crazy electro event called neko nation - we dressed up in costumes you see in the EP art and played some originals with a few covers like cantina band from star wars, Dragon Ball Zi, and mortal kombat - these were definitely something resembling sound. We also recorded an instrumental original which features Zi on keys and as the voice actor for our space dragon - this is one of our favourite tracks to play live because it allows us a bit of improvisation.
To access the secret track - people who have the physical copy of our EP can scan the QR code which will take them to the Nitro Zeus vault. If they can input the correct 6 digit code they get access to the secret track, a video, some artwork and some clues for future mysterys.
To crack the code people will need to piece together the clues we have left over the last 12 months.
We also have half a dozen other originals we rotate in our live set - so about 11 originals
We're currently working on 5 new tracks on top of that - these will be finalised over the course of the year
We hope to record another 5 track EP mid to late in 2019 - our merch sales and gig revenue is going straight back into the bank for the next recording costs.
12. If you have videos where can we see them?
Youtube and facebook will recieve a lot more videos over 2019 - you can see our previously released ones on our pages. Our website http://thenitrozeus.com links to the social media pages. If in doubt where to find our stuff its a good place to start.
13.Everybody has Bandcamp , ReverbNation , Soundcloud , etc Why do you think this is so important? Doesn't it seem like everyone is giving everything out for free?
I'm not really sure, its almost as if its expected that you put your music on these distribution services.
Is it just clever marketing from the distribution companies or a consumer trend? I think the music industry is still figuring out what to do with itself after digital disruption.
I really dont know enough to comment. We'll just focus on what we can do and the music and content we can produce and look for the best way to distribute our work.
The industry in 5 or 10 years may be different again. We'll have to wait and see.
If you want to support us - buy our merch, pick up our releases or come to our shows. Any money we get goes straight back into funding the recording of our next release.
14.Best moment of your career so far?
We organised a charity event for xmas with some great local bands. That was an amazing night with really cool goodwill vibes. There's been a lot of highlights in a brief amount of time really. From our first gigs, to playing at some iconic local venues, live interviews on the radio etc
I think we've worked hard and done a lot in a relatively short time.
15.Your message to the fans?
Fans? Thats plural. You mean fan. We dedicate all of our songs and our efforts to our sole dedicated fan Transcendent Dog. He's such a good boy and loves a good ear scratch!
Sometimes people show a vague flicker of disinterest in us - so thats almost something. Shout out to those fine folk also.
BONUS BONUS ROUND
Bonus Question who do you bring back Dime , Cliff , Dio , Lemmy , Randy
I assume this scenario does not allow me to bring them all back?
SHIT
Although I wish these icons had never died and particularly some so fucking young and in tragic circumstances - reality is they are gone and we are simply left with a blessing, they touched our lives and inspired so many people and continue to, even in their passing. Theres something truly special and wonderful about that.
RIP Dime , Cliff , Dio , Lemmy , Randy
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