Interview mit Prika Amaral von Nervosa

The album has a very dark and hopeless atmosphere in the lyrics. What’s your inspiration behind that?
When we decided to compose a new album, I was discussing with the girls what we would like to talk about the next album, because when I have to write lyrics for 12 to 14 songs. I need some inspiration sometimes. I always have a lot of lyrics, that I’m writing during tours or whatever moment I feel inspired. But it’s nice to have some guide. And I was talking about this with the girls and always we were reaching the same topic about how our lives nowadays are happening and all of this crazy thing about Internet and social medias and all those feelings about. How demanding is, how we feel so addicted to a cell phone. For example, if we are offline for more than an hour, we are very anxious thinking that someone sent an important message and we are not aware what’s going on and we feel out of the world and all of those feelings and all the consequences. That doesn’t mean that we should not use all of this … but it’s something that we have to talk about it, because we have to build some boundaries, where we can go and where we should stop. And there’s many things that involves all of those aspects that I’m talking about, like depression, anxiety, politics also, like how the companies are working and all of those systems around the world is the machine that we mentioned.

One does want to detect a bit of positivity on „Slave Machine“, though. Are you trying to make it clear with lines like „In Life There Is No Grace, For Those Who Love To Hate“ in „Hate“ or „Now I Stand Tall And I Walk Alone“ in „Crawling For Your Pride“ that all the negativity and hate ultimately isn’t worth it?
This talks about the haters, the people that are behind of the computer and judging, like making some comments about the bodies of the others or just like doesn’t matter how happy you are to reach something that you you always dreamed. They’re always someone to just invalidate that moment. So envy, frustration and all of this hate things. And these people are very miserable feelings and we want to provoke that people to heal that things because they are completely unhappy. So those parts are exactly for this kind of people.

Your style is generally close to old-school thrash metal. On „Slave Machine“, rather unusual death metal influences are clearly audible, especially on songs like „Slave Machine“, „Impending Doom“, and „Ghost Notes“. Was that a conscious decision or a natural progression?
It’s crazy because I don’t see death metal influence actually from the old albums of NERVOSA. The ones that have less death metal, I think, is this one. But I do agree that this album is more brutal. Maybe it came from this feeling. But actually, we brought more elements from modern bands. Modern, I mean, the bands from the 90s and from the 2000s, not like the traditional thrash from the 80s, for example. We have that in our roots. The riffs and some kind of things are very present there. But our drummer, Mikaela Naidenova, she is very crazy about the really modern metal and she brought her vision on drums completely different from the influences that me and Elena, we have as composers and everything. And that was a very nice combination that brings this more like modern thrash, old school, but modern at the same time. And also like my vocals, it’s more into death metal than thrash metal. Instrumentally, if you talk about guitars, we are a thrash metal band. If you talk about drums, we are modern metal. But if we talk about vocals and then we have death metal.

Your last album was released in 2023, and there have been many changes in the band since then. Since then, the lineup has been more stable, except for the change to Gabriela Abud on drums. How did that affect the creation of „Slave Machine“?
It didn’t affect it at all. Because actually we have exactly the same lineup from the previous album, „Jailbreak“. We just have Gabriela joining the band in between, but just for live shows. She never participated in the compositions. She was not available for that. And then we were working with Michaela. That was very easy because she already worked with us in a previous album. So everything could happen in a very comfortable zone for all of us. It was an amazing experience and it was very smooth because everybody was very experienced. We knew each other very well and we were all on the same page. The only change that we can say for this new album is we have one more bassist. But apart from that, the entire band is the same. It’s a composition, let’s say, from the previous album.

What was your biggest challenge when you took over the microphone, besides continuing to play guitar?
I think like in the beginning was many questions and security that I have in my mind. Some kind of prejudice. Maybe I will not be able to sing for the entire tour. My voice is not going to last or I will not be able to sing and play all the songs. All of these questions. Since we really started to play and go on tour and make rehearsals, all of these questions were gone. Because I did and everything was great, of course. I studied everything and I was following all the recommendations to keep my voice in a healthy way. But at the end, actually, what cost me more, like was the hardest part, was memorize the lyrics. Because playing and singing was something that I was more or less doing because I was backing vocal before. I just have to build the muscles to sing the entire show, of course. But memorize lyrics was something that I never did before. And it’s something that you really have to teach your brain how to do it. And then it cost me more. But now it’s fixed. Now I get how to do it in a faster way, let’s say.

How did that affect your stage performance?
In the beginning, I was feeling a bit blocked. Because actually I was still figuring out how to do everything. But now I don’t feel blocked at all. Because actually I feel more connected with the crowd, I have the voice, I can talk, look at the people in the face, answer and come back. This is awesome and we have a second guitarist, which is Helena. I feel super free to do everything and I really like it. Because also when we are composing, we leave some parts where we move ourselves and I come closer to the girls. We have these moments during the setlist. So, all good.

What feedback did you get from your fans regarding the lineup changes, and does that kind of feedback influence your work?
This topic about the line-up changes has been very pain in the ass, actually. Because it’s not something that we wanted. And it’s been pain in the ass. Because I cannot say everything. I cannot explain too much. Because if I explain too much, I have to go into the personal life of everybody involved. And that’s not the point. All the girls that play in this band were very respectful. And they did everything that they could. Also, I never kicked anyone out from the band. It’s always something that we always try to talk and to solve. And sometimes it’s not possible. They have millions and millions of things that I can explain here. But I don’t think it’s necessary. If you start to think, everyone has changed their job. Everyone isn’t with the first job forever. With the first relationship. We changed everything and also, women normally don’t have a chance and don’t have experience. Sometimes they think that it’s exactly what they want. When they start to see how much demanding it is, how much you have to work and how much you’re going to miss everything. Your family, friends, free time, watch a movie. You’re going to miss everything. And then they start to rethink. It’s not exactly what I want. I want to be connected with the music. I want to make music in a different way. So, this is normal. And most part is related to this. And it’s something really normal. And the most important thing. It’s like we always respect each other. Respect the history of NERVOSA. And that’s it.

What experiences led you to bring Martin Furia (DESTRUCTION) on board as producer again?
He is a guy that was working as a sound guy in the beginning. And he knows very well how the bands sound. Live concerts, what our sound is and also, it’s a person that is not trying to change what the band is. Not trying to put it in a different direction or something. But he’s doing like putting the cherry on the cake. We always bring the songs ready and everything composed. And he is working with the details. That makes what we did bigger and that is the real production that some producers don’t do exactly. He knows how to take the best from us. Like to improve ourselves. And always pushing us to try and go out of the box, I love this. So, that’s why we always decided to work with him and if something is working, why we have to change, right?

Many bands nowadays use features with other bands, which you don’t. Did you actively decide against it, or did it just not happen?
Yeah, like from the previous albums, we always did participation from other musicians and everything. But this album, everything happens really in the last minutes, we were struggling and very close to the deadline. We decided to skip this time. Just because we could not make this happen, really. Maybe we could make it happen. But not in a perfect way. The quality in the end could be damaged. So, we said that’s not necessary. We have a lot of albums to do it. We’re going to have another opportunity. So, let’s continue with everything that we construct. The way that it is.

Women in metal have become increasingly established in recent years. How have you perceived this development, and has it influenced you?
I think grow is something natural. Like every tour, every album, we never stop as well and we always try to challenge ourselves every album. That’s why we like the diversity. Like we have the trash metal as a roof. But we are not blocked in there. We always can bring and make some changes. And make music, make art. It’s be free. I don’t like when they put rules. You know, like trash metal band has to do this and that. I don’t like this. Because it kills your inspiration. Sometimes you have a very nice idea and it just leaves behind. Because you have to follow that stupid rule and music, it’s art, it’s freedom. And I like to keep that in mind. When we are composing an album, we try to give a guide more or less. Just to organize a bit the process. Otherwise it also can be a mess. And we can get lost as well. But if we decide in the middle of the way to change. Because we see the directions going to a different. We are always open. I think it’s always important to talk. Like because it’s not one person. It’s a group. And we really need to know. Like if everybody is on the page. If it’s the time for that. If we should wait. But, well, if it’s something happening between, for example, someone has a problem in their lives and they cannot participate. And then we sit down and we say, should we continue? Or should we stop and wait? Always there is this talk and then we continue the NERVOSA machine.

Following up on the previous question, do you specifically support smaller bands in your home country of Brazil, particularly those with female members?
Yes. Brazil is full of female artists in metal in general. And I think Latin America. Because our metal crowd is younger. Like there is a new generation coming. And I think every year we have more women as an example. Because I remember when I started to be in metal and play guitar, I took it some years to know women in metal. They were always there. But it was not reaching me at that time. Because I didn’t have an internet. And then the internet was not popular back in time. So, I was always waiting for my friends to bring me something. And also, I was in Brazil. The access was a bit harder as well. Some stuff was not arriving that much. But, yeah. Now we have more examples. And then we can inspire more and more girls.

Following the release of your new album, three festival dates have been announced for this summer. Can we expect a tour later this year, including dates in Germany?
Yes, of course. Germany, I think, is the country in the world that we most played. More than Brazil, for sure. So far, very easy. And, yeah, for sure, we have some tours coming later. We’re going to announce very soon. We are working for something really nice. Unfortunately, I cannot talk about it. But stay tuned because we’re going to release. We’re going to go everywhere. Everywhere with this new album. The good thing about releasing an album is that we have an excuse to come back. So, yes, we’re going to be there for sure.

What are you most looking forward to about touring – and what are the things that bother you most?
I can’t wait to start to play the new songs for sure. We are practicing a lot. There is a big challenge for me because I’m going to use different vocal technique. And this involves preparation, like a lot of rehearsing. The song „Slave Machine“ is the hardest song to play and sing for me. Because I have to basically play a solo with one hand and sing something completely different from my hand. That is very hard. But I managed. It’s already in the pocket, let’s say. But it took me a lot of time to reach that point. It’s the hardest song. But I’m super happy with this challenge. I needed that and, yes, we are making some changes in our equipment and sound and performance and on stage. There are a lot of things. That’s why we are waiting. And we have this kind of break now because we are preparing something and we’re going to be really nice.

Do you have a musical guilty pleasure you’d like to share with us?
I’m crazy about the 70s music. Completely crazy. And one of my favorite bands is GRAND FUNK RAILROAD. And also I love JIMI HENDRIX, BUFFALO, RARE EARTH, all of these bands from the 70s. I’m crazy about. I listen to this kind of music almost every day.

Thank you for your time and this great album. Finally, here’s our Metal1 brainstorming session:
Inspiration: Music!
Home: Where I can sleep. (laughs) Because I’m on the road all the time.
Tattoos: I have some and I would like to have more.
Hope: Hope is energy.
Equality: It’s ideal, but unfortunately don’t exist.

Publiziert am 17. April 2026 von Michael Schurig

Fotos von: Afra Gethöffer-Grütz