hey larry,

[great_kthulu]

check out what I just dug up!
http://www.myspace.com/neurotoxinchicago

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

Yeah that gets mentioned here from time to time, unfortunately heh. Ancient history for me!

 

[great_kthulu]

come on, its not that bad, pritty good actualy!

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

I guess. I'm just so disconnected from it now, I listen back and cringe. Plus I don't think the recordings were a good representation of us at all, we sounded MUCH better than this normally.

 

[great_kthulu]

the whole reason I dug this up was because I have heard all the other band members (besides mike) planing other styles of music, and being a lead guitarist myself I really wanted to hear you playing faster, slightly more "shred" oriented stuff

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

Yeah these songs aren't really the greatest representation of that. I only play a short bit of a solo in "Truth Denied" and that's it, the other lead guitar stuff is Dan and Willie. I don't mind people checking out that stuff, don't get me wrong. I just can't help but cringe lol

 

[Novembers Paul]

Larry is being modest, because he's too close to it. NeuroToxin was ahead of their time back in the day, and the style they did didn't become popular until after they called it a day. They were certainly one of the better bands in the scene in our area, and greatly under appreciated.

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

Thanks Paul, that's much appreciated.

Like I'd mentioned before, one of the biggest issues I had was that our recordings NEVER really came out how I'd envisioned them, and they always were extremely rushed and many corners cut. I have live recordings of Neurotoxin from circa 1995-96 where I think we were pretty good, I wish we could've captured that in a studio at the time. Plus, there was always a struggle within the band over direction and sound.....I was always pushing for more of a heavier death metal-ish edge, but some of the other guys were leaning more towards a more traditional '80s speed metal sound. My vocals were always a sore spot, because I wanted to sing in more of a Carcass-meets-Entombed style (which was, and still is, what feels most natural to me) but the other guys were always pushing me to do more of the Dark Angel meets Sacred Reich vocal style (which I LOATHED, lol).

Someday I would like to record properly some of the material we had back then, though I realise it'd be more or less a vanity project. I've discussed doing this with Neuro guitarist Willie Gee (who is still my roommate to this day!) Maybe one day we'll get around to it, just for the fuck of it.

 

[Novembers Paul]

I think that was such a huge issue for all the bands at that time (except for Sindrome) was the budget. None of us cheap bastards had the funds to record properly, and we did it on shoe string budgets, so we rushed, left mistakes, and the overall sound suffered. It did have it's charm, but damn, I'd LOVE to hear Neurotoxin recorded with a nice crisp, and tight modern sound. I bet if you did it today, it could be popular.

 

[FrostGiant]

That's some cool stuff. I could definitely see how there could be arguments over sound style with all the different elements in those songs. But when I think back to what recordings sounded like from 95, that's about what it was. I think the more recent developments in computer based recording and really the affordability factor of better equipment probalby makes the smaller local studios a lot better for the price now a days. Get a computer and protools and you have a pretty good start.

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

On one hand, the variety of sound styles was intentional, and on another hand it was not, and was part of the problem. As is often the case with young bands, we had five guys all pulling in opposite directions musically. One guy wanted to be more like Faith No More, one guy wanted to pull in more of a Grunge-ish direction, another guy wanted to just sound like Sodom circa 1987, etc. We tried too hard to appease everyone's personal musical tastes and unfortunately wound up with a ridiculous mish-mash of stuff at times. I learned a valuable lesson then, that I still apply these days- everyone is entitled to their tastes and everyone can contribute their own personal "style" to the mix to a degree, but there has to be someone steering the ship down the right path, and the music has to be focused on what is right for the BAND, not for the individual. There's parts of me that would NEVER fit into the ND sound, and I am aware of that and as such I don't try to force it upon the band just to appease myself. I'm sure everyone else in the band can say the same.

Anyhow, the funny thing about Neurotoxin recording and releasing material these days is that everyone would insist we were ripping off this artist or that one, when in fact the material was written so long ago! I once played a Neuro song for an acquaintance a few years back and they said, "It sounds like you guys wanted to be Korn meets Meshuggah on that song", and I said well that's funny considering that song was written years before I'd ever heard either of them!

Unless you accused us of copping Voivod, because that would be very accurate, haha!

 

[FrostGiant]

Having never been in a band and only writing solo as a hobby, I never had to deal with that. I have had to deal with my own influence issues though. I learned guitar on Megadeth, Metallica, and Maiden songs, listened to a lot of power metal in the late 90s early 00s and then got interested in the dark metal genre when I started writing songs. Blind MegaMaiden Neverdoom doesn't really gel that well. The Agallmoonopeth sound has been working a little better for me recently.

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

Luckily the BlindMegaMaidenNeverDoom works good for us though! LOL

 

[FrostGiant]

So you guys are the ones who wrote "The Politics of Holy Wars Be They Name of the Dark Elf".

 

[FrostGiant]

BTW, the only reason you can pull it off is because you don't let Vito express his true self.

 

[Trashhead]

Because then it would be "The peace of the last journey through the dark of the Neverflame"?

 

[great_kthulu]

ya, i know what you mean about the band power strugle, i remeber one short lived project where I was pushing for a tech death direction and the vocalist would only right lyrics for sings with a "brutal" breakdown, and i cant stand deathcore!