Nitebreed

Nitebreed

NiteBreed Q&A

Posted on March 29, 2012

From small suburban dreams to big city reality. Guyver, Rainn and Soniq, all from Norristown, PA. never imagined the beats and songs they made in their basement would one day be heard around the world. Now, in the process of releasing their third album, Guyver explains to me how it all began, where the journey has taken the group so far and why they can’t be compared to the contemporary R&B & Hip-Hop artist of today.

Q: How did the group NiteBreed originate and what’s the meaning behind your name

A: NiteBreed came from two separate groups. High Society and Profile. When those two groups disbanded because of creative differences a member from both groups Guyver and Rainn formed Nitebreed. Nitebreed came from an old movie (Nite Breed) where those that were different or did things differently were prosecuted by the mainstream until they fought back.

Q: Prior to becoming recognized, yourself (Guyver) and Rainn would write songs and create beats. When did you realize you had music that would attract public attention?

A: We always wrote and recorded songs in the basement as kids, but I personally realized that I may be able to do something with it when my British Literature teacher told me she wanted me to do a rap intro to the talent show. I was scared to do it because no one really heard me rap. I said I would do it if I could do it behind the curtain. About 1 line into the verse I could hear people in the audience speaking to each other, asking if it was me rapping because they recognized my voice. Everyone was cheering and I was told by everyone to pursue it, so I did.

NiteBreed. Not your Hip-Hop “norm”

Q: If anyone, who would you compare the groups music to?

A: This is a hard one because I don’t think we can compare our music to anyone else. I believe it’s different from anyone else out there. Instead of saying compare, I would say we are heavily influenced by Eminem and Jay-Z. Eminem does what he feels and feels what he does. That’s how we like to do our music. Jay-Z is incredible because he adapts. He changes with the times and stays current.

Q: Your music has been described as R&B and a classically influenced brand of Hip-Hip. I listened to your music and thought it fell into both of those categories, but with a dark twist. How would you describe your music?

A: Our music producer is classically trained and is also a Pop/R&B singer so I would say that is pretty accurate. Although, for the most part, I would like to think it could be described as hip-hop with an IQ over 80. I hate listening to songs where rap artist put words and metaphors together that make absolutely no sense. I go out of my way to fight against that new stereotype.

Q: You partly answered my next question with your last response, but what exactly made the group deter from doing contemporary Hip-Hop?

A: I don’t think we decided to go in a different direction than contemporary hip-hop, as much as being the type of artist that like to experiment. When we do a song it’s best of what we feel at that time. Our goal is to make sure each album is totally different from the one before it, even if it slightly changes the classification of the type of hip-hop.

Q: The groups first album entitled “Unleashed” was released in May 2010, and your sophomore album “Way 2 Much” followed in April 2011. How would you say the two albums differ?

A: The first album was more about finding ourselves, having a message with most of the songs, getting a feel for our new music producer and trying to create something we thought people would like. The second album was more about fun. We weren’t really concerned about what people thought of the new album. We wanted to have fun and raise up the tempo a little. The second album is louder and has more fight in it.

Q: In search of trying to create music that would gain public approval, what type of feed back have you received, since your first album release in 2010?

A: With the release of the first album we received a lot of feedback; good and constructive. It allowed us to build our fan-base. With the second album and the following we created , which was already in over 60 countries, we were better able to push the new music. We’ve heard our music helps push people through their workout in the gym. We’ve heard the music makes sense and can be listened to by mostly anyone from 8 to 80. We just started actively building the twitter fan-base at the end of January 2012. With the announcement of the third album the twitter fan-base is growing at a rate of 55.71 new fans per day. The feedback has been very positive so far.

What next?

Q:With your fan-base rapidly growing, what can we look forward to in the future from Nitebreed?

A: As of February and March of this year the song “O” has been placed in rotation in Los Angeles, CA, on a few FM radio stations like 93.3 FM Ultimate Underground with Lacey Phillips (Uncle Earl),