- 2 months ago
Guitar virtuoso Nili Brosh has just released her fourth studio album Eventide , continuing her signature style of vivid instrumental storytelling. Deeply influenced by her experience with synesthesia--a perceptual phenomenon where one sense triggers another, such as hearing sounds and seeing colors--Brosh transforms music into a rich, multisensory experience where melodies evoke color, texture, and emotion. For Eventide , Brosh teamed up with longtime collaborators, including Brendon Small--creator of Metalocalypse and frontman of Dethklok--who appears on 'Roulette,' alongside Dethklok bassist Pete Griffin on 'Lavender Mountains.' Known for her work on Michael Jackson ONE by Cirque du Soleil, and as a member of Danny Elfman's live band, she continues to bring those influences into her solo work while keeping the guitar at the forefront. Speaking of, Brosh is launching her first-ever signature guitar with her longstanding partner, Ibanez, titled 'The Answer,' set to arrive this summer. In support of Eventide , she's heading out on tour, beginning with European dates before joining Dethklok for a North American headline run. Then later this spring, she'll be performing with Dethklok as part of their The Amonklok Conquest co-headlining tour with Amon Amarth. Brosh recently sat down with LifeMinute's editor-in-chief Joann Butler to discuss the album, her new gear, and everything in between. This is a LifeMinute with Nili Brosh.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hey, this is Neely Brosh, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:06Guitar virtuoso Neely Brosh pulls no punches.
00:09When she's not shredding the axe for Danny Elfman or Death Clock,
00:13or tearing it up in the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson show 1,
00:18she's making beautiful music of her own.
00:20I caught up with her recently just before she hit the road on European tour
00:24to promote her fourth album, Eventide.
00:27This is a Life Minute with Neely Brosh.
00:30Hey! How are you?
00:32Hi, Neely. Good, how are you?
00:34Good, good to see you.
00:36Congratulations on everything you're doing.
00:38Another awesome album.
00:40Yeah, I don't know.
00:41Somehow it's my fourth album, and more new genre explorations on this one.
00:46A lot of synth stuff, a lot of retro stuff,
00:50some other flamenco influences, some Middle Eastern influences in there,
00:55a lot of different things with this one.
00:57And yeah, you know, just kind of continuing the journey with more melody.
01:01What inspired all these different genres?
01:04You know, I don't know.
01:05It always seems to end up that way.
01:08I get these melody ideas in my head,
01:11and I sing them into my voice memos on my phone,
01:15and as I kind of hear them in my head and sing them to myself,
01:18I get a bit of a better idea of what kind of sound sonic area they seem to sit in,
01:25you know?
01:25So if it sounds to me like a melody that begs to be played on a nylon string guitar
01:30and have more of that kind of arrangement around it, then so be it.
01:34You know, I kind of let the melody guide the arrangement
01:37and kind of think about what it wants me to do,
01:40what it wants to become, you know,
01:42and not to shove it into a different format, you know, where it doesn't belong.
01:46And you brought along some special guests on this one?
01:50Yeah, lots of great guests on this one.
01:52Lots of my bandmates, you know, from Death Clock,
01:55the creator of Metalocalypse, Brendan Small,
01:58who obviously plays guitar and does vocals in Death Clock
02:02and all the characters and everything.
02:04He did a guest solo on Roulette.
02:13It's a bit of like a fusion tune,
02:15and I always feel like he's such a great fusion player,
02:18but we don't get to hear that that much from him, you know,
02:22because it's so like firmly in the metal world,
02:26so I thought that would be cool.
02:27Heath Griffin from Death Clock also played bass on a bunch of these tracks,
02:31and then a lot of my Danny Elfman bandmates
02:35are on some of the other tracks,
02:36such as Elon Rubin, Sidney Hobson on percussion,
02:40Irene Kim who plays piano.
02:42So we have a lot of my personal friends and bandmates on this record.
02:53Why do you work without words?
02:56Because I don't really sing, you know,
02:58or I never really thought about singing on my stuff,
03:01and honestly, singing is not something that I'm opposed to.
03:04I just never felt like a lyricist, per se, you know what I mean?
03:08And to me, as a listener, lyrics were always,
03:13I hate to say it, but, you know, kind of secondary.
03:16Like to me, I never really cared what the lyrics are.
03:19I could love something musically,
03:21even if I felt like the lyrics were really cheesy.
03:23It's a nice bonus when they're great, you know,
03:25but my ear has always gravitated towards the music first,
03:30whether it's sung or not.
03:31And as a guitar player, you know,
03:33I kind of feel like that's my voice.
03:36You know, I'm the singer in this,
03:38except I just try to convey those emotions on my instrument instead.
03:46But synesthesia, you have that?
03:49I don't, you know what, it's self-diagnosed,
03:51so I don't know how much I have of like the exact dictionary definition of that,
03:57but I've always felt like I do see certain colors associated with certain key areas
04:02or certain sounds or certain vibes, you know.
04:06It's just, there has been some sort of a connection for me with that
04:10since I can remember myself.
04:12And it's maybe not like fully fleshed out and obvious, but it's there, you know.
04:17Even if it's a subtlety or even if it's not all the time,
04:20like it's something that I've just kind of noticed.
04:22And I wanted to convey that to everybody else, you know,
04:26how it kind of looks to me, especially with some of the tunes on this record.
04:29I kind of really tried to convey it in the artwork and in the color schemes
04:34and all the visuals and things like that.
04:37And even in the title of the record, you know, like as the evening hour and dusk
04:42and the purples and the blues and everything kind of falling on that,
04:46it just, it really sat in the direction in a lot of these tunes,
04:51like the title track, like Pastel Dreams and Take You On and everything.
04:55All those synths to me are so colorful
04:58and they just kind of like, that's where I see them.
05:01What happens when you're creating?
05:03Like, do you literally see these colors in your head
05:05and that's, you know, what your fingers take you to?
05:07I think it's more of a result rather than the process itself.
05:11You know, I think once the thing is done or at least shaped out
05:15and it kind of sits in a certain direction
05:17or like the sound, it has a certain sound to it,
05:21then all of a sudden I just, I start to associate it with like,
05:24oh, this tune like seems to me like this kind of cute, you know,
05:28or it sits in this color palette.
05:30And again, it's not something that I like really think about
05:33or spend too much time paying attention to.
05:35It's just kind of there.
05:39You have your first ever signature guitar.
05:43Yeah, it's coming out in the summer.
05:44From Ibanez.
05:45It's kind of crazy, yeah.
05:46And why is it called The Answer?
05:48Because to me, it's a very versatile instrument
05:50that I've been able to use for several different kinds of music
05:55and different gigs and stuff.
05:57And also the exclamation point inlays, you know,
05:59I feel like I end every statement.
06:01I mean, I'm that person that writes every statement
06:03with an exclamation point at the end, you know,
06:06whether that's texting or musical sentences,
06:10it doesn't really matter.
06:11So to me, that's kind of another play on the name of like,
06:15you know, when you have an answer for something,
06:16I probably would put an exclamation point on it.
06:19So kind of a double meaning for the instrument itself
06:21and the purpose of it, you know,
06:23being able to serve you in different kinds of music.
06:25The RG series is the type of Ibanez guitar
06:28that I think a lot of people consider synonymous
06:32when they think of Ibanez,
06:34they probably picture, you know, that series.
06:37It's a certain body type, a certain neck.
06:40And in the last several years, you know,
06:42we haven't seen a lot of the signature models
06:45coming out being RGs.
06:47You know, we've seen other model lines
06:49that Ibanez has, you know,
06:50because they have a very wide catalog.
06:52I've always been an RG player.
06:55I think people associate me with that.
06:57And I wanted to kind of put out my own take on it.
07:00I kind of took that basic model
07:03and put in the variables
07:05that I feel like were my favorites.
07:08So cool.
07:09And when does that come out?
07:10So it'll probably,
07:11I don't know exactly when they're available for pre-order,
07:14but I know they're going to start shipping in the summer.
07:16So you'll be able to buy one very soon.
07:18And how many guitars do you have?
07:20Oh, I don't know.
07:21You know, I've had so many instruments
07:24like come through the door for one gig or another.
07:28And, you know, there's always the next necessity
07:32for the next gig.
07:34And, yeah.
07:36I'm going on tour in Europe to support my new album.
07:40And then I come right back for a Death Clock tour
07:43that starts in the middle of April with the Monomart.
07:46And we're going to go all across North America.
07:48How do you juggle all of that?
07:51I don't know.
07:52That's a very good question, you know.
07:54I have every day scheduled out, you know,
07:57and a lot of lists, you know,
07:59a lot of trying to make sure that I didn't forget anything,
08:02trying to be good at time management
08:03and more or less assessing how long something takes, you know.
08:07So with all the prep things that I have to do,
08:10I'm kind of always trying to space it out.
08:13And it's tough, you know.
08:15It's just like, it's blocks of time
08:17that you have to be kind of really mindful of.
08:19But I try to remind myself that
08:21it's always harder right before you leave.
08:23There's always more to juggle,
08:25even when I don't have an album coming out
08:26and interviews to do.
08:27But, you know, when you're home,
08:28you're taking care of the home.
08:30You're, you know, you're doing other things.
08:31But you forget that as soon as you leave,
08:34existence is much simpler on tour.
08:36It's not to say it's easy.
08:38Traveling is hard and playing every night
08:40has its own set of emotions to it.
08:42But in general, it's a lot simpler, you know.
08:44You don't have a million things to take care of.
08:47You're really just worrying about the show.
08:49So it's just trying to get to that point.
08:51It's always crazy right before you leave
08:53and you're just like,
08:54how am I going to keep doing this?
08:56But then you leave and then you're like,
08:57oh, wait, today really all I have
08:59it's sound check and that show.
09:01I'm not doing a million other things usually.
09:04You're also in Danny Elfman's band
09:06and you also do Cirque du Soleil,
09:09the Michael Jackson one show.
09:11Yeah.
09:12We'll be doing a lot more live stuff
09:14later on this year as well, you know.
09:17So I'm kind of grateful that right now
09:19it's one set of music at a time, sort of.
09:21At least it's not.
09:22We will have some crossover where I'm doing
09:24Duff Clock and Danny on the same day
09:26at the same festival.
09:28But for the most part,
09:30it's one set of music at a time, kind of.
09:32Do you ever like wake up
09:33and not know like where you are?
09:35Yeah, I mean, but you know what?
09:37Like sometimes I kind of feel like that at home
09:39because it's like, I know I'm home,
09:40but again, it's just like you wake up here
09:42and you still have all the list of things to do.
09:45If I wake up on tour
09:47and I just don't remember which state I'm in,
09:51it's not that big of a difference.
09:52It's like, oh, here's another hotel room.
09:54I feel like that to me is less disorienting.
09:57Do you have to get into like a different mindset
09:59whether you're on your own tour
10:01or Danny tour or, you know,
10:03A little bit, yeah.
10:05I mean, I'd like to think
10:06it does feel like a little less responsibility
10:08when it's not your tour
10:09and you're not, you know, like,
10:11it's all on you
10:12and you're the one that's calling every decision
10:16and, you know,
10:17it's theoretically a lot easier
10:18when you're in somebody else's band
10:20and playing their music
10:21and providing for them
10:22and doing a good job.
10:23At the same time,
10:25I'm a perfectionist wherever I go
10:27and I'm going to put the same amount of care
10:29into the show.
10:30So at the end of the day,
10:31it's, I guess it's not actually different
10:34whether I wrote the music or not, you know,
10:36but it's just,
10:37it's just a feeling of like
10:39a responsibility
10:40that is maybe just a feeling.
10:48What's Danny Elfman like?
10:50He's the best.
10:51He treats us so well
10:53and he's so open
10:55and collaborative musically
10:56and very clear
10:58in communicating what he needs
11:00from us musically
11:01and chill, you know,
11:03like no one's stressed out over there.
11:05It's a very chill pace of working
11:07and kind of no stress.
11:09It's really the best.
11:12So tell us about your show.
11:13What are fans going to get
11:14when they see your show?
11:16A lot of stuff from the new album.
11:18A lot of stuff from previous albums.
11:21I have a power trio from Europe
11:24with Andrew Scott
11:25and Werner Erklunds.
11:27Hard-hitting live performance.
11:29We definitely plan to throw down,
11:32you know,
11:33and I'm going to do my best
11:36to emote these tunes
11:37as well as I can.
11:39So I think it's going to be
11:41a really fun bunch of shows.
11:43Do you find a difference
11:44like between playing live
11:45and playing on your albums?
11:47Yeah, I mean,
11:47live is always
11:48a little bit different
11:49just, you know,
11:50from the energy
11:51of it being in front of people
11:53and moments
11:54that you're not going to get back
11:55type of thing,
11:56you know,
11:56where in the studio
11:57you can always do another take.
11:59You know,
11:59everything is controlled
12:00and comfortable
12:01and all the environmental factors
12:03are, again, controlled.
12:06So on stage,
12:07you know,
12:08it's just a different animal.
12:09It's live.
12:10It's spontaneous.
12:11Awesome.
12:12And Micah's been wanting
12:13to say hello
12:14this whole time, I guess.
12:16Pooking his head.
12:17Oh, sweet.
12:18Well, God,
12:19you're the coolest.
12:20Congratulations on your album.
12:23To hear more of this interview,
12:24visit our podcast,
12:25Life Minute TV
12:26on iTunes
12:26and all streaming podcast platforms.
Comments