Here at The Lair we've been fortunate to be able to bring you interviews with some of our favorite independent labels from around the globe. This is something we will be continuing, for as long as they want to answer our questions! Now, without doubt, one of my personal favorites, and Trevor's, is the French label, Kaotoxin. Their releases have featured heavily on these pages over the past few years, with one hitting my number one spot on one of our end of year lists, and they will continue to do so I am sure. Recently, Trevor had the chance to bombard Kaotoxin kingpin, Nico, with a barrage of questions, to which he duly replied with this mammoth interview. Read, enjoy and then hit up the Kaotoxin store!! - Jude.
Interview by Trevor Proctor
LoF - Hi Nico,
thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions for The Lair
of Filth – it’s very much appreciated by Jude and myself as we both understand
running a label can be a very time consuming career. Firstly, could you tell us
a little about yourself and your love of underground music?
Nico - Hi, Trevor! It’s all my pleasure,
believe me. Sure, running a label is extremely time-consuming, though when I’m
given the opportunity to answer interesting questions, I’m always in and even
more given it’s for the Lair of Filth which has been really supportive to
Kaotoxin since the very beginning!
Well, my love for underground music
started in the late 80’s when I got to listen to a Metallica “Garage Days” tape
during a trip with a friend and his older cousin who was the driver played it
in the car. It was my first encounter with Metal. Right after this trip, I went
to a local records store and asked the dude there what he would advice me to
buy and that’s how I got to listen to Slayer’s “Reign in Blood” and Napalm
Death’s “Scum” and that was it: this changed my life forever and more than 25
years after that, I’m still in it.
I have the chance to be born in Lille,
France, where I’ve always been living and that was really a great place to be
on the underground music level in the eary 90’s: we had a killer scene back
then with such killer Death Metal acts as Loudblast, Supuration and Putrid
Offal… which I got to finally sign last year! So I was all pretty much “there”
when Death Metal started to rise and it’s been my whole musical life since
then: Extreme Metal in all of its diversity.
Lille is not far from the place that
gave birth to Osmose Productions and Listenable Records which were the ones to
give bands like Immortal, Impaled Nazarene, Marduk and so many others a chance
and we also had that underground records store in Lille that released some
Death Metal stuff too. I also got to work for an underground venue where I’ve
seen legendary bands playing their first euro gigs in front of 20 people in a
cave, like At The Gates, My Dying Bride, Gorguts, Gorefest, Brutal Truth, Fear
Factory, Marduk, Blasphemy, etc. so it was quite like being at the right place
at the right time!
LoF - What was the
first metal album you bought and does it still have relevance to you today?
Nico - That was Slayer’s “Reign in Blood” and
it’s still definitely 666% relevant today, isn’t it?
LoF - I understand
the label was established in August 2010, what were your hopes and intentions
for the label on its formation and has Kaotoxin lived up to these expectations?
Nico - Well, yes and no. I was the webmaster
for Bones Brigade records back then and when we heard abut Last Days of
Humanity reforming and touring (they were signed to Bones Brigade back then), I
decided to put a festival together to support my friends’ label. It was on
August 10th, 2010 and I somehow consider this as the birth of the
“Kaotoxin” name as the festival was promoted by “Kaotoxin”, the name of my
webmastering company back then. After that, Nico of Bones Brigade offered to
work together on his 2011 releases (Total Fucking Destruction, Lycanthrophy,
Brutal Truth and Magrudergrind) and on late January of 2012, Kaotoxin released
it’s first “real” release of its own, Gronibard’s “Satanic Tuning Club Turbo!”.
So, the “birthday” of the label is quite ambiguitous, but in terms of releases,
it’s definitely January 2012, so it’s still very young.
I had no expectations and still have
none. I just want to do my job the best I can and become the more professional
I can along the way so I can offer the best to the artists that choose to work
with the label and, so far so good, it’s only been evolving the right way with
a worldwide distribution network, killer artists and cool feedback. We of
course got ripped off quite a few times and had to work with some artists that
weren’t professional or didn’t have a clue of what the industry is but for the
most part, it’s only been a pleasure and good surprises.
LoF - What was the
labels first release and how does the amount of copies produced differ from the
volume you would currently produce for a new release?
Nico - The first “real” Kaotoxin release was
Gronibard’s “Satanic Tuning Club Turbo!” so it’s a bit special as it’s a
compilation and it’s only available on LP, but to take other references to
answer your question, it’s all depending of the musical style… Grindcore
doesn’t sell as much as Avantgarde Metal or Sludgy Rock for example and it’s
also depending on the band’s fanbase. I’ve choose to give new bands a chance
and it’s way harder than buying a licence of a very well-known band from an
established label so in terms of copies it’s not really the kind of data I’m
focusing on but, in example, when we released the first EYE OF SOLITUDE album
for Kaotoxin (their second), “Sui Caedere”, I think we sold something like
10-50 copies during the first month, which was extremely few, but the band was
absolutely unknown as their debut full-length was like 20 CDr and a bedroom
recording so it was all ok. Their second album and third full-length, “Canto
III” is nearing 1000 copies in sales now, three years after, so it’s not that
bad, right? We also pressed 500 copies of the first AD PATRES full-length upon
release and we had to press 500 more within a month ‘cause it was doing extremely
good so we’ll definitely have 2000 done for the next one. We also did 1000 of
the third 6:33 album earlier this year and it got soldout within two weeks so
we had to press more of them. I think it’ll be quite the same situation with
the new OTARGOS album we’re releasing in November but, besides these numbers,
it’s also way more expansive to
release something nowadays. We have to pay for PRO-registered bands, pressing
costs, merch., advertising, etc. so while releasing an album was quite about €
1.000 at first it’s now about € 5.000 at the very least for each. Costs grow
along the way too…
LoF - How many
staff does the label employ and what’s a typical day at Kaotoxin HQ?
Nico - The staff is basically me and a
typical day is basically 18hrs a day in front of a computer or doing parcels,
but when I say “we”, it’s not about me speaking about myself like Jules Cesar,
Kaotoxin is me and some friends giving a helping hand when it’s need, like
Juliette which is now mostly taking care of orders once a week, Guillaume who’s
taking pictures at gigs, editing some videos, etc., the guys from The
Lumberjack Feedback always helping when we’re promoting some gigs or for the
annual KaotoxinFest, Radu doing the new KaosCast, the Kaotoxin Podcast, etc. so
we’re 1-10, depending on what we’re working on, but that’s basically me, the
computer and Juliette for the most part. Still, we’re not “employing” anyone:
we don’t do enough money to pay someone so it’s all about the passion.
LoF - Did you ever
imagine the label could become the significant influence on the underground
that it has become today?
Nico - I even NEVER imagined someone could
EVER tell me Kaotoxin is of any influence so it’s an extremely nice compliment,
but we’re a very very very DIY label, nowhere near small underground labels
like SelfMadeGod, Xtreem, etc., really nowhere near from that so, believe me,
I’ve never imagined that, at all! It’s a very very nice compliment from you,
but, even if we do NOT want to become the next Season of Mist and have plenty
of staff people and sign Morbid Angel or Mayhem, being able to be three or four
and work together with great artists like Listenable did with Gojira,
Incantation, Immolation, etc., it’s all we would dream of but there’s a world
to accomplish before we can even pretend to pay our first staff member, so,
well, on the artistic side, it’s an extremely nice compliment, but on the
business side, we have work on our plate for the rest of our lives before we
achieve that, believe me, and that will never happen in this life :)
LoF - I’d say
running a record label isn’t the fantasy job many fans assume it is and I’m
sure it has its challenges, have you ever felt like giving up and how do you
maintain focus during frustrating times?
Nico - It’s happening from time to time… like
when you’re putting thousands of euros in a release, it’s praised by the medias
and gets great comments on social networks and sells absolutely nothing, which
is sadly often the case when you’re not Nuclear Blast… or when you have to deal
with artists that you believed in and turn to be rip offs or totally
unprofessional, which also happens from time to time but getting the motivation
back is rather simple: just think about all the time, money, passion you spent
in what you’ve been doing since years and get back to work ‘cause you didn’t
waste your life, didn’t get holidays or even some rest for nothing: it’s all
steps forwards, even if some are fool steps. These can hurt, but all in all,
you’re still walking your way. Just get up and walk again.
LoF - Your current
roster includes a wide variation of musical styles – from progressive metal to
brutal death metal/grindcore. Is this variation a reflection of a diverse
musical taste on your behalf?
Nico - I’m very happy you’re saying that as
for some people that don’t pay much attention, we’re “a Grindcore label”
because pir four fist releases, the collaboration with Bones Brigade, were
Grindcore and since then it seems like this label is sticking to Kaotoxin even
though we’ve been releasing Death Metal and Doom / Death since 2012, Black
Metal and Deathcore since 2013 and way more diverse stuff since 2014, like
DRAWERS, 6:33, THE LUMBERJACK FEEDBACK, WE ALL DIE (laughing), etc. just to
name a few of them. It sure is a diversity in personal musical tastes and it
can still be broadened. Dark Ambient stuff, Industrial, Electro –think The
Prodigy way- could be something of interest to us and our new Rock / Metal
artists, THE ERKONAUTS (feat ex-Sybreed members) are the reflection of a kind
of artistic direction we’ve always been focusing on: quality and diversity.
LoF - How big of a
part does personal taste play in your choice of bands signed to Kaotoxin, is it
even possible for you to listen to every demo you get sent and what’s your
selection process for signing a band?
Nico - Well, the very first thing before
offering an artist a deal is this artist should not be in the exact same
artistic field than one of our currently signed bands. As long as we have EYE
OF SOLITUDE working with us, we’ll never sign a Doom / Death or Funeral Doom
band (unless My Dying Bride rings our phone, ahah!), same for all of our
artists. It’s most probably a bit obscure to some how different can be our
Death Metal bands AD PATRES, ANTROPOFAGO, DEHUMAN, NEPHREN-KA and PUTRID OFFAL,
but they for sure are all extremely different bands for who’s into Death Metal…
Same goes for our Black Metal, Doom, Sludge, etc. artists.
Then, if the band fits the first
criteria, personal taste is the next one. Third one being their ability to
understand the industry as it’s working and fourth to play as many gigs they can.
We’ve been dealing with studio projects in the past but we definitely won’t
anymore in the foreseeable future as we don’t have the necessary promotion
money to try to make them successful if they’re not touring machines but,
definitely, personal taste, which includes rational aspects, like production
quality, playing abilities, etc. is some of the most important criterias.
Fact is I’m not listening to any demo
these days as we don’t have the necessary time and money to sign any more band
at the moment, even if we still have a couple of them we’ve been signing a deal
with and have to announce, and even if we were to sign some new band, many of
our artists have really interesting side-projects we would consider inking a
deal with instead of picking some other band: we’re working well together, are
used to each other and know what we can expect one from the other, so that’d be
where we’d pick a new artist at first I think.
LoF - Well over
half of the bands currently signed to Kaotoxin are French – how healthy is the
current French Metal Underground and is there a specific reason why Kaotoxin
concentrates on home-grown bands?
Nico - This is a quite funny question because
I realised it’s the case sometimes ago but fact is it’s never really been a
real choice from our side: fact is we’re French and we’re a bit more known in
our home country so it’s obvious we’re getting a bit more offers from France
but I could tell you the story behind each deal -and some of them are quite
funny- but it’s never been about a priority being given to French bands. Fact
is we have quite a few extremely talented artists here and some of them are
signed to Kaotoxin. Still, we have VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC from Austria, DEHUMAN from
Belgium, EYE OF SOLITUDE, SIDIOUS and COLOSUS from UK, WE ALL DIE (laughing)
from (half) Bulgaria, THE ERKONAUTS from Switzerland, have dealt with TOTAL
FUCKING DESTRUCTION from the USA, ANAL PENETRATION and FAAL from the
Netherlands, TEEN PUSSY FUCKERS from Mexico so it’s not all about France
either. As you said, it’s a bit more than a half or something.
LoF - Which French
bands, not necessarily signed to Kaotoxin, do you feel deserve a wider audience
within the underground and farther afield?
Nico - Well, all of the French bands
currently signed to Kaotoxin for sure, this is the exact reason why you’re
signing a band after all, but there are quite a few among the few I know these
days that really deserve more exposure, like AGRESSOR, SUPURATION, LOUDBLAST
and obviously MERCYLESS if you’re talking old-school legendary acts, WITCHES
also for sure (the 30yo Thrash Metal band by Sybille, sister of Alex of
AGRESSOR which now features ex-INSAIN drummer, Sangli) and, for “newer” bands
like ATARA, RECUEIL MORBIDE, GRIST, BRUTAL REBIRTH, FLESHDOLL, DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTION and a bunch others.
For your readers that would be
curious, these are the French bands currently signed to Kaotoxin: INFECTED
SOCIETY, SAVAGE ANNIHILATION, AD PATRES, ANTROPOFAGO, NOLENTIA, THE LUMBERJACK
FEEDBACK, MISERABLE FAILURE, NEPHREN-KA, WE ALL DIE (laughing) (half of it Is
French, the other half is from Bulgaria), DRAWERS, 6:33, PUTRID OFFAL, THE
NEGATION, OTARGOS, CinC (ex-CARNIVAL IN COAL) and AZZIARD.
LoF - Am I correct
in assuming running the label is a full time occupation and if so, did you
leave full time work to dedicate your time to the label? If you did indeed
leave a full time job when was the moment you decided to “take the plunge” to
leave work and did you see it as a risk at the time?
Nico - You’re right: it’s a full-time job and
yes, I quit my previous job to focus on Kaotoxin. Fact is I left my previous
job for health issues so I didn’t really have the choice and once my situation,
at least on its financial aspect, got sorted, I’ve started Kaotoxin so there
wasn’t that much risk for me in doing so… my only problem are these health
issues, but when we’re being given birth, we’re being given death too, so who
cares? So, yep, it’s a full time job I actually pay to work for…
LoF - Vinyl has
become more and more popular in recent years, with many bands producing vinyl
for the first in a long time - Do you see this global resurgence in demand as a
positive or negative factor? Also, metal and underground metal music has
experienced a similar global resurgence in demand with an audience that’s
perhaps bigger that it’s ever been before. Do you see this is a good thing for
the genre and do you believe metal will have the same audience in five years’
time?
Nico - I can’t foresee the future and,
honestly, I don’t care how big Metal’s audience is as, you know the feeling,
the audience will always grow for Iron Maidens and Metallicas and we’ll always
been struggling to get a new listener because people are like this. Just check
any bill for our most important festivals here in Europe –and I believe it’s
all the same wherever you are in the world- the mainstream acts are 98% of the
bill and the underground stays underground, unless you have the necessary funds
to let people think your artists are huge through ads everywhere so they get
the curiosity to listen to them. Check how much crap bands huge labels like
Relapse, Nuclear Blast, Metal Blade and the likes signed and are everywhere
these days. Compare them to underground label’s rosters, not necessarily
Kaotoxin’s but also many others, and honestly tell me who’s better? The only
difference is the funds these labels have to let people think these artists are
great. Music is a business and it works the exact same way as any other
industry business. Nike shoes are no better than most of the other sneakers,
but people pay a lot more money for them because of the money the brand puts in
ads, that’s it.
See how much killer reviews WE ALL DIE
(laughing), AD PATRES, 6:33, EYE OF SOLITUDE and many of our artists got. See
how much time they’ve been selected in “album of the year” lists and tell me
which one them actually played WACKEN…. None of them. See “Canto III” by EYE OF
SOLITUDE and see how much praise it got ; it’s honestly a Doom / Death classic
release by now. Now tell me why they didn’t play HELLFEST, BLOODSTOCK,
METALDAYS, etc. You got my answer… So, honestly, I can’t care less about “how
big” the audience will be in five years. All I’m caring for is that should it
be smaller or bigger, the bigger percentage from them is giving our artists a
chance in all artistic fairness.
As for vinyl, and on a smaller scale
cassette tapes, same thing: vinyl rose from 0 sales to +400% in a couple years.
But 400% of 0 is still 0 and from where it started, it’s still nothing or quite
for small labels like us. Of course, I lve the idea of having all of our
releases on all of the physical formats I can because all of them have their
qualities and their own fetish-driving feel but “vinyl surge” is for big labels
and already known bands. Sure, Mayhem, Morbid Angel, Watain and whoever as big
for sure saw a surge in sales, because vinyl fetichists will always put the few
money they have in bigger names but for Kaotoxin, it doesn’t really mean
something less or more in sales. We’re extremely small and when you’re moving
1000 copies on CD, which is already extremely rare for us, you’re only selling
50 of them on vinyl and 5 on cassette tape so, sure, when we get the chance to
have a successful release and the necessary money to release it n LP or
cassette tape, we’re doing it, but we know from day one it’ll mean loosing
money. Still, we’re doing that for vinyl fans, the ones that give our artists a
chance, I mean.
We’ve recently decided we’d now offer
vinyl and cassette tape crowdfunding campaigns along with preorders for all of
our future full-length releases so people get a chance to have them on the
physical support they prefer instead of waiting for the hypothetical day we’d
have to money to release them on these supports. We’ll start with the new
OTARGOS full-length. It’s a real fucking masterpiece of Dark Extreme Metal,
somewhere between BEHEMOTH, SEPTICFLESH and THE AMENTA, it’s a beast, believe
me, so hopefully the crowdfunding campaign will be successful… fingers crossed!
LoF - Vinyl has
always been a preferred medium within metal music yet cassettes have also
enjoyed a recent surge in demand. Have you noticed this surge in demand and do
you think this demand is being driven by die-hard metal collectors or hipsters?
Nico - I partly answered that one, somehow.
Still, as a very small and young label, a new customer, should (s)he buy CD,
LP, cassette tapes or merch, is a “surge in sales”, so we can’t really notice
physical support for physical support yet, what’s for sure is that all of them,
our customers I mean, are die-hard fans! Hipsters will focus on
MetalSucks-sponsored stuff, like TesseracT and the likes but Kaotoxin is
definitely not on the hipsters’ radar so I can only tell about our customers,
the die-hard fans, just like us.
LoF - Your
show-case festival, KaotoxinFest, had its inaugural event last year. Obviously
it was a success as I see you’ve a second event planned for this December –
could you please tell us a little about last year’s event in terms of planning,
attendance etc. and how successful it was in terms of exposure and other
factors for the bands involved?
Nico - I don’t really see it as a showcase or
even festival, even if the name says it that way. It’s more like a Christmas
family meeting to me and both the crew, artists and fans attending are part of
this family. It’s not a “politically-correct” sentence to please fans, I know it
is the way it is. As said, Kaotoxin
is extremely small and seeing people from 1.000 kms away coming to a very
small, intimate, “festival” because they love your artists like we had last
year is really like being in a family
reunion thing. I mean, you know, when I’m at a gig in my hometown and I see
lots of “friends“, some of them even asking me when I’ll sign their band, and I
don’t see them at the fest, they’re not my “friends” and for sure not my
“family”. We had so many people coming from hundreds and even a thousand
kilometers away at the fest last year, these ones are my friends and family,
even if we don’t know each other personally. It’s really all about this: a
gathering of fans and friends, artists included. Definitely not a “we want 100k
people attending” festival. We want it to be a rather VIP-like experience for
our artists fans and even if we have the chance to have a very large venue
(from 300 to 2000 people can attend) for half of it this year (the Sunday gig
with CinC, OTARGOS and PUTRID OFFAL), the KaotoxinFest will never get any
bigger than that because we want it to stay a real experience and a gathering
of die-hards rather than a “festival”.
We obviously lost a lot of money last
year but we had such great times that we decided we would loose even more this
year, ahah! There were something like 100 persons last yaar, which can be seen
as being really few, but it was a total success for us as everyone, from the
crew to the artists and, obviously the fans, seemed to enjoy it. This year is a
bit different though because we have two different venues, a small boat where
DYING FETUS and SHINING played lately, and a very large venue (where BEHEMOTH
and TESTAMENT played recently) so we hope we’ll get the boat soldout and 300
people for the large venue so we fill it in its “club” configuration and both
venues will be into doing it again next year but so far so good, it’s all been
a success in terms of pleasure and passion. I hope the artists and fans had as
much pleasure being there we had welcoming them there.
LoF - Last year’s
event was most likely a massive learning curve for you - is there much you’ll
change for this year’s event based on learnings from Kaotoxin Fest ’15?
Nico - Yes and no, in fact. We’ve been
putting together about 100 festivals and gigs in Lille during 2011-2012 so it
was like a no-brainer to organize on the logistics side of things for we’re now
a quite efficient team on that aspect and this year is more all about promoting
it so there’s no real learning curve anymore nowadays. It’s all about making it
as successful on the attendance and pleasure aspects so both the venues,
artists and fans alike are pleased with the experience and the very exceptional
bill we have should definitely help as this is most likely FAAL’s very first
gig in Lille, WE ALL DIE (laughing) will perform their first and more surely
only gig before a long while, MISERABLE FAILURE will perform their very first
gig, CARNIVAL IN COAL, or better said CinC, will play in Lille for the first
time since their inception in 1998 and PUTRID OFFAL will play their first
hometown gig in more than 20 years so it all should be quite something for the
fans!
LoF - Many Kaotoxin
artists tend to play in Europe, do any of them have plans for touring farther
afield and how difficult is this in terms of financial and logistic constraints
for both band and label?
Nico - The only problem in termes of
logistics for the label is to get the necessary contacts to promote the tours
the way they should and, sadly, the necessary money to pay for the ads for
that. DEHUMAN had plans to tour Brasil recently, THE ERKONAUTS played China,
Japan and, I think, Singapore (or was it Hong-Kong?), PUTRID OFFAL have plans
to play on other continents, OTARGOS toured South America, VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC
played Mid-Eastern Asia and have plans to play on other contients too,
GRONIBARD played the USA once, etc. so it’s all about the artists networking
enough to make things happen and, with the time, Kaotoxin will hopefully
develop the necessary contacts with booking agencies so we can offer more tours
to our artists. Fingers crossed again.
LoF - Do you have
the time to attend many gigs in France and what were the last few you attended?
Nico - I honestly don’t and the only ones I’m
trying to attend are the ones our artists are playing nearby ‘cause meeting in person
is also important. The last gigs I went to were THE ERKONAUTS in Lille, Fall of
Summer Festival in Paris where PUTRID OFFAL played and a festival near Paris
where CinC headlined. I hope I could attend more of them, but I honestly have
way too much work…
LoF - Many labels
have already started making announcements for 2016 releases; have you many
planned that you can share details of and what does the rest of 2015 have in
store for Kaotoxin?
Nico - Well, 2015 will bring you the sixth
studio album, “Xeno Kaos” by OTARGOS and it’s a massive masterpiece, really,
then we may elease a split flexi EP (spoiler!) by MISERABLE FAILURE, C.O.A.G
and a third band for real die-hards for the KaotoxinFest#II in December and we
also have the PUTRID OFFAL full-length, “Mature Necropsy” coming on LP on
November.
2016 will mostly depend on what our
artists are coming with, but we already have THE LUMBERJACK FEEDBACK’s debut
full-length in the planning for January and we should have new releases by
GRONIBARD, VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC, DEHUMAN, AD PATRES, NOLENTIA, INFECTED SOCIETY,
EYE OF SOLITUDE, MISERABLE FAILURE, NEPHREN-KA, 6:33, PUTRID OFFAL and, of
course our new signings, CinC (ex-CARNIVAL IN COAL), THE ERKONAUTS and AZZIARD.
You can actually hear new stuff by OTARGOS, NOLENTIA, C.O.A.G., MISERABLE
FAILURE, CinC, THE ERKONAUTS and AZZIARD on our brand new free label sampler,
“Weapons of Self-Destruction, volume 2”, which is released these days on our
BandCamp page and as a 5000 copies limited edition CD version given away for
free with all orders at the Kaotoxin Shop (Kaotoxin.com/shop).
LoF - Running a
label and being a lifelong fan of extreme music / metal you’re bound to have
quite an extensive music collection, what “guilty pleasures” does your
collection hold? Also, what are your top five most prized possessions within
same collection?
Nico - Well, fact is I had to sell of all my
actual collection to fund the label and my apartment is so small and I have to
stock so many stuff for the Kaotoxin stock there that there’s hardly enough
room left for the dog to sleep so I don’t have such a collection anymore, sadly
so, definitely no real “guilty pleasure” anymore, even though I’ve been having
quite a few ABBA releases in the past, ahah :)
The priceless items in what is left
from what was my collection is, of course, the 1991 LP version of the PUTRID
OFFAL & EXULCERATION split, 7” EP version of their split with AGATHOCLES
and a unique test press copy of a 7” EP SUPURATION did release back in the
early 90’s on Seraphic Decay. The test press is 3 tracks while the actual EP is
only two so it’s quite unique and it has that old-school cover which was made
to be Xeroxed and is just the original drawing cut and past on a sheet on one
side and a Polaroid picture along with typewriter text glued on the other side
so the label could photocopy it when released. Something you never see anymore
these days with type-processors, Photoshop and the likes, ahah :)
LoF - Between
running Kaotoxin as a label and organising KaotoxinFest your leisure time is
bound to be fairly restricted – what do you do to unwind when you manage to
salvage some spare time from your hectic schedule?
Nico - I honestly don’t have any spare time.
I’m even doing business over the phone while peeing, ahah! My days are all
about 18hrs of work, 1 or 2 hours for showering, eating and whatever
body-related (ahem…) and 4 or 5 hours of sleep. I’m trying to save a bit of
time on Sundays for my girlfriend because she’s letting me doing all of the
work and she’s helping when I need her to and she’s taking care of everything else.
Without her, this label wouldn’t exist, so I try to take care of her the best I
can and when we have a bit of free time, we’re having dinners with friends but
sadly for her, it’s most often with Juliette and Guillaume who are working with
me so she’s hearing the word “Kaotoxin” a million times in the evening even
when we’re not working. I don’t know how she’s doing, but she’s respecting that
and she deserve all of my consideration and love!
LoF - The current
year has been very prolific with a seemingly endless stream of quality music
being released, what have your highlights been so far and what releases are you
looking forward to most during the rest of 2015?
Nico - I sadly don’t have that much time to
listen to other music than the one we’re releasing and I can’t really tell you
besides Kaotoxin artists honestly but, well, as a fan since 25 years, I can’t
wait for the new Slayer for sure!
Thanks for the intie, Trevor. As said
earlier, it’s a real pleasure, even more since it’s for the Lair of Filth! All Jude, hail Trevor and long live TLoF!
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