Interviews - NEXUS PART ONE (2005)

INTERVIEW WITH ARGENTINE PROGROCK BAND NEXUS.

(by Erik Neuteboom)

Nexus is an acclaimed and promising band from Argentina, among other interesting bands like Amagama and Tempano. Their sound is rooted in the Seventies featuring wonderful vintage keyboards with obvious echoes from Keith Emerson, especially the Hammond organ but also the spectacular Moog synthesizer. You can enjoy that on their two studio albums “Detras Del Umbral” (1999) and “Metanoia”(2001) and the live CD from the USA Nearfest 2000. Last year I did an interview with them, they were just finishing a ‘magnum opus’ for the 3-CD “Odyssey”, a sensational international progrock project! In my opinion their tribute is the best on the “Odyssey” but that is of course very subjective and the level on that 3-CD is very high from all the nine progrock bands (from USA Glass Hammer to Swedish Simon Says).

What are the roots from Nexus?

Carlos Lucena (electric – and acoustic guitars): “The current line-up is also the original .. since day and night.. Nexus is born as an answer for four friends to the need to express themselves. At that moment it was impossible to explain, music and emotion blended in our lives.”

Lalo Huber (keyboards and vocals): “The birth of Nexus was in the early Eighties, almost three decennia ago, and started as a natural union from four friends with the same passion. As Carlos said, the current band is the same as the historical: Luis Nakamura on drums, Daniel Ianniruberto on bass, Carlos Lucena on guitars and I play the keyboards.”

Daniel Ianniruberto (bass, synthesizers and vocals): “I would like to add that Mariela Gonzalez joined Nexus in the early Nineties and with her we made our first two albums entitled “Detras Del Umbral” and “Metanoia”.

Luis Nakamura (drums, percussion and vocals): “We know each other from our childhood, in fact we do everything together in our lives.”

What was the reason for vocalist Mariela to call Nexus a day?

Lalo: “Well, that is quite simple, she wanted a bigger impact as our singer and she wanted also to sing more flexible in less complex songs. Unfortunately for her, the thing that matters in Nexus is making space for instrumental and more complex parts. That is the heart of our music.”

Which are the most important muscial influences for Nexus and which personal preferences do the members have?

Carlos: “The main influences are from the big European symphonic rock bands from the Seventies. I love to listen to The Beatles, Yes, ELP, Genesis, Deep Purple and the non-dance electronic music.”

Luis: “We believe that bands like ELP, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, PFM, UK and some other groupes in that era founded the progrock we nowadays listen to.”

Lalo: “We admire these bands and we learned a lot from them while listening to their masterworks like “Close To The Edge”, “Tarkus”, “Relayer”, “Trilogy”, “Selling England By The Pound”, “Brain Salad Surgery”, “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” and “Larks Tongues In Aspic”. But we’ve always had the intention to make progrock with slightly different harmonical and compositorial variation. We added elements from the classical music and from The Beatles.”

Daniel: “It is our intention to learn every minute and to evaluate our music although we want to keep the typical climates and mighty analogue keyboard sound from the Seventies, these are our main source of inspiration.”

Lalo: “I belief that the compositorial richness and the power of the sound from the symphonic rock in the Seventies, mainly concerning the keyboards, were superior. A perfect example is the sound from Keith Emerson his synthesizers on the album “Brain Salad Surgery, like in “Toccata”: despite the technical limitations in that era, it still sounds far superior to the digital synthesizers many progrock bands use today.”

How did the press reacted on your albums?

Carlos: “Great! More positive than we ever hoped and, to be honest, we expected. Although almost everyone has the opinion that Nexus had a lot of time to develop because we already existed as an amateur band for many years, the truth is that Nexus had spare time as a profesional band. Nonethless, we succeeded to gain succes both in Argentina as in the rest of the world.”

Luis: “The reviews and critics we got, really surprised us ... we would like to say many thanks to all progheads!”

Lalo: “Our albums received very good ratings. It satisfy us that we can count on so many good response from progrock fans from all over the world. Both “Detras Del Umbral” as “Metanoia” reached good positions in the annual progrock lists, including qualifications like “Best album of the year”. We hope that our next album entitled “Perpetuum Karma” will gain the same respons.”

How did you get in touch with the organisation from Nearfest in 2000 and did you like the festival and your performance on Nearfest 2000?

Carlos: “The invitation came from Rob La Duca, one of the people from the organisation, he loved a song from our debut-album. The whole Nearfest was an incredible experience, the enthousiasm of the crowd was amazing.”

Daniel: “That song was “Tiempo Sin Razon”, eventually this composition lead to our gig on Nearfest 2000, an unforgettable experience.”

Luis: “Het is een perfecte plek om te spelen, de organisatie en de respons van het publiek is optimaal.”

Luis: “It’s the perfect spot for a gig, the organisation and the response from the fans is excellent.”

Lalo: “Yes, the participation with the crowd on Nearfest was “absolute”!.

What is the reason of the spanning time of four years between Nexus her second (2001) and third album (2005)?

Carlos: “Nobody could imagine that the creative process to make music for our new album would harm it because the lack of time. At one point it even started to become lethal, we became victims of our agenda and it seemed that we couldn’t escape!”

Daniel: “The production of the suite “El Regreso” for the Finnish 3-CD project Odyssey from the French progrock label Musea meant that we could withdraw ourselves for the production of our new CD only a month later .. “

Lalo: “The installation of our new own recording-studio and the participation to the production of the debut-CD “Ciclotimia” from fellow Argentine band Amagrama took a lot of time, mainly for Daniel who did a lot on the technical and artistic level in the new studio that is entitled “El Umbral”.

Can you tell a little bit more about the new album “Perpetuum Karma”?

Lalo: “Our new CD is in the vein of the last two CD’s but as usual we want evolution in our music. The sound will be a litte bit more raw and features more ‘vintage keyboards’ like the Hammond organ, analogue synthesizers and of course the Mellotron.”

End of Part One.