Nothing More, the rock band from San Antonio, Texas, have developed a unique blend of metal, progressive, and alternative rock. Their new album, Carnal, set to release on 28th June, offers a fresh collection of songs that showcase their distinctive sound and introspective lyrics, including previously released singles such as If It Doesn’t Hurt and House On Sand, featuring I Prevail’s Eric Vanlerberghe. The album also boasts a collaboration with Disturbed’s David Draiman on Angel Song. To give us a closer look at the making of this album, bassist Daniel Oliver discussed the process in an interview with Bass Empire.
Discussing his choice of bass for Carnal, Oliver reveals, “For almost all of the ‘Carnal’ record I went with my usual Music Man Bongo 5 String double Humbucker in white. That bass can really handle just about anything. “It especially excels when distortion is dumped on it. For the song ‘Down the River,’ I used an American Fender P Bass. We wrote and recorded much of that song with [producer] Doug Showalter and he had it hanging in his studio, so I tried it out and it was perfect. ‘Down the River’ has a little bit of an acoustic/folk vibe that the P-bass was perfect for.”
“I’ve been a happy Axe-Fx user for the past two records, and really developed a lot of my sound on it.”
Regarding the equipment used to shape the sound on Carnal, Oliver mentions, “I didn’t really go into writing or recording this record too hell-bent on anything amp or effects wise. I’ve been a happy Axe-Fx user for the past two records, and really developed a lot of my sound on it; but for the recording of ‘Carnal’ we pretty much ended up using the plugins from Neural for everything. All in all, I’m really happy with all of the bass tones and effects we got in the recording.”
Oliver’s process for crafting bass lines is evidently organic and collaborative. He states, “Crafting bass lines for this record was pretty effortless. Most of the parts just flowed out when the song was fresh in the demo phase. I love when that happens. The best songs tend to be the ones that just flow out of you and write themselves; that’s how crafting the bass lines felt as well. This band is very team-focused and song-focused when it comes to the instrumentation, so I feel like a lot of my personal evolution comes when we are writing and evolving together. There’s a lot of heavy lifting I get to do to make the songs massive because there’s only one guitar, and that’s been a fun problem to solve with octave distortions and delays and playing big bass chords, etc. I think, at the end of the day, it’s led us to be a slightly different kind of heavy compared to most bands, and I like that.”
One standout moment during the recording of Carnal was particularly enjoyable for Oliver. He reflects, “I had a lot of fun bringing the groove and bass melody to the metal zone on ‘House On Sand.’ The first verse is played with a slap/pick technique that made for some cool, nasty rhythms in that section. I’m also sliding to octaves all over the place and doing crazy bends in pretty much every part of the song. It’s a ton of fun.”
In addition to the eagerly awaited album release, Nothing More have announced their upcoming tour. Oliver expresses his excitement about performing the new tracks live. “I’m excited to get comfortable playing ‘House On Sand’ live. It’s chock-full of playing that’s pretty challenging on its own, let alone while moving around and singing harmonies. It’s also really fun to feel the rejuvenated energy that the crowd has to the new material.”
Carnal by Nothing More is available for pre-order.