NepalUnderground has been occasionally conducting interview of local bands / artist from Nepal. Today we did a short interview of Navin Pokhrel. For those who don’t know Navin Pokharel, he is best know in the Nepali Underground scene for being a vocalist of band Hatebook (now disbanded) and for Absorb. In this short interview we talked with Navin about his current band Absorb, future plans of bands and the differences / similarities between his old band Hatebook & Absorb.
NU: Greetings, you are known for being the vocalist on band “Hatebook”, now you are in a new band Absorb, people may not know about the Absorb lets bring this with the introduction of your current band.
Navin: ABSORB is a Death metal band as you know it, lets say 5 friends who knew each other talked and planned to do something new and thus ABSORB was born. Line up consists of me on vocals, Surya on drums, Anish & Anil on guitar and Kanchan on bass. we also had Rojan on guitar for a short time but later he decided to do something else(genre wise) and we added Anil. We are bunch of guys who loves to play death metal.
NU: How did the idea of forming new band “Absorb” came?
Navin: Surya and myself were planning to do a band for a long time, finally we talked and decided to do a band together. First I had on mind, a technical death metal band but later till the time when the final line up part was confirmed we cut the technical part and now we are a death metal band.
NU: Musically, how do you differentiate Absorb and Hatebook?
Navin: There’s obviously difference between Hatebook and Absorb, with Hatebook the music was inclined more into old school stuffs with some brutal side too.. I mean hatebook was more old school and less brutal. In other hand, with absorb we are trying different kind of stuffs..Its more brutal but the old school flavor is not missed..We have included some technical flavor also. Overall lets say both were equally good but Absorb is more fast and brutal than Hatebook.
NU: What lyrical theme do you follow in your current band Absorb and used to follow in Hatebook ? Since both bands are death metal, is the lyrical theme same on both bands or there are differences?
Navin: With Hatebook, I was new to the writing process so I used whatever came to my mind. Some songs were based on true events, some were influenced by movies also (haha), some were fictional. With absorb I am trying to be more specific theme wise..To be specific, I am writing songs about serial killers. I am fascinated by these people and think one can write a damn good lyric on them.
NU: How has your performance changed in Absorb?
Navin: Actually that’s for the audience to say weather my performance has changed or not. Either Hatebook or Absorb I always try to give my best when I am onstage. Though I think I have become a better performer now than before when Hatebook first started.
NU: What is the songwriting process in Absorb?
Navin: As usual..the guitarists bring on the riffs..then the drummer and bassist fill in there parts..finally when a song is complete I come up with the lyric and do my vocal parts..we try to add new things to the song each time we practice it until the point when we all can take a deep breath and say “now thats gonna be a kickass song”(haha).
NU: What are your future plans with Absorb? Are there any plans on hitting the studio?
Navin: Actually we have thought of that the day we started the band..but due to the study schedule of the members we are not being able to do it right now..but we will probably hit the studios after tihar..by then we will have more songs on our name and we will do an EP, I guess.
NU: Any last word you would like to say before we wrap up this interview..
Navin: As I said before you guys are doing an awesome job promoting the scene like this, again thanks to you guys. And for the audiences we are playing some gigs soon come there watch us listen to us and don’t hesitate to bang your head, keep supporting Nepali bands, last but not the least “JAI NEPAL, JAI METAL”.
Thanks for your valuable time Navin, NU team wishes you best for you and your band..
You can follow the band Absorb in their official facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/Absorb.nepal
Absorb: Live video :