We recently sent our resident troll/fantasy European band enthusiast Nat to interview Nekrogoblikon ahead of their show in Manchester. What happened when she asked them about their recent challenge to said fantasy bands? Well, you’ll have to read the interview (which also features gifs, touring in space, Nekrogoblikon butt plugs, and much more!) to find out – and you may well be surprised!
First of all, could you introduce yourselves and tell me a bit about the band?
Scorpion: Hello, I’m Scorpion, the singer of Nekrogoblikon.
Goldberg: And I’m Goldberg, the guitarist of Nekrogoblikon!
Scorpion: And we’re in Nekrogoblikon. A band about goblins.
So you’re now nearing the end of the Kerrang tour – how’s it been going?
Scorpion: It’s gone really well. It’s been a lot of fun to see the whole of the UK and play with Limp Bizkit, Crossfaith and Baby Godzilla. It’s just been a blast seeing a lot of people going nuts. Plus seeing new fans and some old fans, so it’s pretty cool.
Any interesting stories to share?
Scorpion: Yeah, there’s been some good stuff, some good hangs and such.
Goldberg: Well, what we can remember of it!
Scorpion: Yeah, a lot of it’s been a little blurry but I think that’s the fun part! I had my head wrapped up in a scarf, whilst we were driving in the van. Like, there’s six of us in the back sprinter so we all face each other around this table. And to stay warm, I just have my head wrapped up in a scarf the entire time! I haven’t really seen anywhere as we’ve been driving around, y’know.
Goldberg: We actually haven’t left one city. We’ve been playing the same place every night!
Scorpion: (laughs) Yeah, they’re like “keep him in the car for five hours and don’t say anything!” Let’s see, what else has there been? Lee, the caterer, is amazing.
Goldberg: The whole crew has been really awesome. Like, the unsung heroes.
Scorpion: We have a song about them.
Goldberg: Oh yeah, we do!
Scorpion: We’ve just been driving around, really. We took the ferry to Ireland, which was fun. It was such a fast ferry with the wind in our faces like “holy shit”!
You’ve pretty much played the length and breadth of the UK now – but is there anywhere in the world you’d like to play but haven’t yet?
Scorpion: Australia, we’d really like to play there.
Goldberg: Japan. Am I right, or am I right?
Scorpion: Yeah, we’ve got to play Japan. Where else…? Hawaii, just because. You get lots of bugs there. Arizona?
Goldberg: Seattle!
Scorpion: Yeah, Seattle, we have to go there some time. We haven’t ever really toured the US, so that’d be something to do.
Goldberg: We did an East Coast tour of the US, which is the last I remember, but that’s really the most expansive it got. We’re just keeping them waiting!
Scorpion: What about space? We should tour space, get back to our roots.
Goldberg: That’s our target demographic, actually, because there’ll be more people that will like us in space!
You could play on the NASA space station!
Scorpion: Yeah, exactly!
You recently posted a series of challenges to all fantasy European bands – how’s it going so far? Have any of them taken you up on said challenges?
Scorpion: That was our publicist’s idea!!! I just want to put that out there. But nobody’s taken us up, they pretty much just said “fuck off”!
Goldberg: Mortiis…I think he thought it was funny! He commented “piss off”, with a winking face. Like, we didn’t hear back from any of them and we all thought “oh god, did we just piss off a bunch of bands we like?” I don’t know, it seems like they’re all okay. But the funny thing was, we posted that not knowing that like a week or two later, we’d be on a boat with Finntroll! They told us at the last moment, so we were sat there writing all this stuff like “this’ll be funny, if they get offended then nothing is gonna happen” and then suddenly we found out we were going to be on a boat with them!
So how did 70000 Tons Of Metal go?
Scorpion: Drunkenly!
Did you run into Finntroll?
Goldberg: Yeah! (laughs)
Scorpion: They didn’t seem too pleased with us.
Goldberg: I’m still not sure if they liked the joke, or if they just thought we were a bunch of assholes. We did say to them, “we do really like you guys!”
Scorpion: “I swear!”
Goldberg: But, yeah. It was a good time. John Goblikon walked by their set and looked at the guitarist, and ran his finger across his throat! So it was…
(at this point, Scorpion crawls down on the floor and pops up at the camera I’m using to record the audio for the interview – see accompanying gif! The interview was conducted in a small corridor so it wasn’t possible to make it into a video interview due to the amount of people walking past and there not quite being enough space to see their faces)
You do remember this isn’t going to be a video interview, don’t you…?
Scorpion: (laughing) Oh well!
I might have to post that anyway!
Goldberg: Yeah, like with asterisks? *Scorpion moves down, then comes up!*
I could make an animated gif of it!
(both of them laugh)
Goldberg: Under the interview there’s just this repeating gif…I like it! Now that has to happen.
It will happen, I promise! If there was going to be a movie made about Nekrogoblikon, what actors would you want to play yourselves?
Scorpion: Harrison Ford for me, definitely.
Goldberg: I would want Rihanna to play me.
Scorpion: Nice! All-star cast, right there. No, actually, wait! People always say I look like Paul Rudd.
Goldberg: He does look like Paul Rudd.
Maybe you could have the earlier parts played by him, and the later parts by Harrison Ford?
Scorpion: Yeah! It could project into my future and up to the actual death of Scorpion. “And that’s when he overdosed!”
And finally – if Nekrogoblikon could put their name to any product, what would it be?
Goldberg: Hand sanitizer.
Scorpion: Yeah. Hand sanitizer, sharpies…prison food?
Goldberg: Spam.
Scorpion: Sneakers!
Goldberg: Shoelaces.
Scorpion: What else have we got?
Goldberg: Pocket vaginas?
Scorpion: Oh yeah, you know the stuff! Fleshlights! We also want to do our own line of custom plugs.
Goldberg: Mainly of the butt variety!
Scorpion: Straws, you know, like drinking straws? That’d be way cool. Nekrogoblikon drinking straws…they’d sell like hot cakes!
Goldberg: Nekrogoblikon plastic grocery bags.
Scorpion: Scarves. I’m a big scarf fan after being in the UK!
You can read our review of their excellent set at the Kerrang! Tour here.
