Struck A Nerve is an up-and-coming thrash band from the UK, featuring some present and ex members of Shrapnel. Their amazing self-titled debut is to be released by Listenable Records on November 28th and is one of the best releases in the genre so far this year. While you’re waiting for our review, here’s what lead guitarist Nathan Sadd had to share with Velvet Thunder.
First of all, pleasure to talk to you for the first time and on such a great occasion. Your debut album is fantastic. My review is still coming up for the Velvet Thunder website, so you are still about to read my superlatives about it.
-Cool, nice one.
Tell us how the band came into form.
-Me, Aarran and Chris used to be in a band together. I’m still in Shrapnel, but all three of us were on an album a few years back, so we have a history together. Aarran actually left that band around 2022 or 2023. Chris, our drummer, and I were still in that band together. As that band moved more towards a modern metal sound, we just started throwing some old school thrash demos at each other for a bit of a laugh. Chris and I started exchanging old school thrash demos just for fun. Then we gathered a bunch of demos and realized some of this stuff was pretty great and enjoyable. We hadn’t seen Aarran in about a year and a half. At a Carcass show in Norwich, we bumped into him again, ended up having a few beers, and then the next morning he had joined the band. It was fortuitous, random meeting and catching up. About a week later, we were working on songs with him throwing lyrics at us. That was about two years ago. Since then, we’ve been serious over the last 18 months, turning what was a bit of a laugh among friends into something much more serious. We’ve been taking it seriously, putting a lot more time into it, making it our full-time band.
Is it hard to split time between Shrapnel and Struck A Nerve?
-Sometimes. There isn’t much clashing though, and we haven’t had issues. When we make a record, we book a block of studio time, which takes about three to six months to write a record. As long as that is organized, it’s not really a problem. We haven’t extensively toured yet, so 2026 will be busy but manageable if organized. Chris, our drummer, also plays for Gama Bomb, which is a busy band, so we just make it work.
How did the deal with Listenable Records come about? It was a bit of a surprise because I thought the album was going to be released independently.
-Yes, it’s a bit of a surprise. We had intended to do everything DIY. We’ve kind of had this real DIY ethos: anything we could do in-house, we’ve been doing ourselves, be it music videos, recording, all that kind of stuff. We had every intention to just release this record on our own and see what we could do with it. We’ve built up enough of our own contacts over the years to have a really good crack at doing something on our own. However, I was actually out on tour with Chemicide. They are really good friends of ours from Costa Rica. Frankie and I have known each other for a good few years now, since the middle of COVID. We were on tour when he just said, “you should send this to Laurent at Listenable” because they’re on the same label. So, we got back from this tour, and I thought, alright, I’ll send him the album and see what he says. Ten minutes or half an hour later, he replied saying he loves it and made an offer. We took a day or so to make a decision and then decided to jump into it. So, yeah, it’s my friend Frankie from Chemicide who is to blame.
Nathan, your thrash style is influenced obviously by hardcore and even a bit of death metal in the guitar sound. Did you consciously look for a specific sound with Struck A Nerve?
-Yeah, I mean, there was definitely an ethos of trying to be as aggressive and savage with our stuff as we possibly can. In the past, especially when we’ve recorded with Aarran, we all had so many different influences. We love so much different music, from metal to 70s rock and prog or whatever else. Sometimes, in the past, we could get a bit carried away and go off on a tangent. With this album, we were really determined to keep everything nice and short, really simple, just aggressive and fun. We’ve had that ethos from the beginning. Also, Chris, especially our drummer, and I have been writing and recording music together for about 15 years, so we know each other’s style and can just send each other stuff. It is partly a deliberate effort to stay aggressive and straightforward. Also, a lot of that is what we’ve been doing for so long anyway.
It’s interesting to know how fast all the songs in the debut album came to life, because you say the songs sound pretty simple, but apart from the hard-hitting and aggressive sound, there is also a sense of structure, and the riffs and melody lines are very well elaborated. How long did it take you to flesh out the songs?
-Not too long, to be honest. We put out our first couple of singles around mid-2024, summer 2024, I think. By that point, most of the album had been written. I’m pretty sure the demos are what appears on the record – there weren’t many changes in production or anything like that. Between the end of 2023 and mid-2024, the whole album came together. So, around mid-2024 we started writing, and it was really quick. I think within six months, we had most of the record finished, with a little bit of tinkering. It’s been a really fast process. I think that’s just because we’ve all been playing together for so long, especially me and Chris, that we feed off each other and it comes together really fast.
Well, something really important for anybody who hasn’t yet heard what your music is about is the fantastic imagery of the artwork. I wanted to ask you about that, and also about the artwork of your previous singles? Tell us something about your collaboration with Wes Brown.
-Yeah, we’ve known him for years. Our mother band, Shrapnel, our guitar player Chris actually lived with Wes when I first met him, back in 2008 or 2009. I’ve known of him for years at this point, nearly 20 years. I’ve always known he was an artist, but for some reason, with my other band Shrapnel, we never ended up working with him even though we knew him fairly well. When we came to do Struck A Nerve, we really wanted to make sure we had an aesthetic that was definitely old school thrash but also quite distinctive. Wes is now professionalized and is getting more interest these days, but he’s always done it for fun and it has been more of a low-level thing for him. It’s not like he is a really well-known artist yet, but I’m sure in the next couple of years he will be. He’s someone I always wanted to work with, and the right moment came. I sent him the demos as we were writing them, and he was really interested. We were lucky because we wanted a strong aesthetic to carry through, like the Slayer run from Reign In Blood to Seasons In The Abyss. You had that distinctive look and feel perfect for the sound of those records. We really wanted that with Struck A Nerve. Hopefully, we will continue working with him. We’ve been lucky that the timing was right and he was available. It’s worked nicely. He’s done t-shirts for us, all the artwork for singles and the album, and designed the album booklet. The plan is to stick with him for the foreseeable future.
It sounds fantastic. He has done a fantastic job, and his work fits the music perfectly. He is very suitable for the band. It’s like, you know what to expect when you press play.
-Yeah, that was the hope. The plan is that if you see his artwork, you hear us in your head. Like with Slayer, you see that artwork and you can hear the squealing and screaming. He comes from a punk background, really a crossover thrash, punk, and cross-punk kind of scene, which we wanted to incorporate a bit of, combined with our general Big Four-ish thrash style. We wanted to pull in some of that crossover, some of that hardcore stuff. So yeah, he’s just perfect for it, really.
I also want to point out the fantastic production of the album. You said it was recorded very fast, but it really sounds excellent. It’s really impressive as a sound for a debut. So how did you achieve that?
-We worked with our friend Sam, Sam Turbitt. He’s based up north at Ritual Studios, and we’ve worked with him in the past. Before he joined Shrapnel, Aarran was in another band that had recorded with Sam, and we ended up doing a Shrapnel record with him. We just got on so well. He’s super easy to work with, really flexible, and super knowledgeable. He’s an amazing musician himself, so he has an incredible ear for music. He has an incredible ear for picking out mistakes or bits that could be better. We’ve known Sam since 2018 or 2019, something like that, and we’ve worked with him before, so it’s just a no-brainer. Chris, our drummer, also does a lot of session work with him, and I think they’re working on a new Gama Bomb album up there. He’s like a fifth member when he comes into a recording project and is really fun to be around. He puts a shift in. It’s not just office hours, any time of the day he’s involved in the record. He helps us through every step of the way. He was really instrumental, especially with the guitar tones on the album. He helped us shape this super aggressive HM2, kind of Swedish-inspired guitar tone. We love working with him, and if all goes to plan, we’ll continue working with him into the future.
Being from the UK, and now with Brexit, how hard is it for UK bands to play and tour in Europe these days?
We just got back from Europe not long ago with our other bands, and then Chemicide followed us over here to the UK to play with Struck A Nerve. For us, touring is just expensive as hell now, wherever you’re from. Venue costs, petrol costs, everything is insanely expensive. For us to get into Europe, it’s really not that bad. When Brexit first happened, there was a lot of uncertainty about the costs and whether you’d be able to take merch into Europe. At a low club level, like the level we’re at, playing 100 to 150 cap venues, it really hasn’t been that bad. I think it’s worse for international bands coming into Europe and then getting to the UK. It’s extremely expensive to get into the UK and then to get over to Ireland as well. For us, it’s not too bad. We’re actually planning a European run for next September. It’s just expensive, like everything else at the moment. I feel sorry for bands, more so for international bands and their fans getting into the UK because of the cost. Chemicide are talking about coming back next year, but it’s up in the air whether it’s feasible just because of the expense to get into the country, it is worse for other people than I think for us, getting out.
Finally, Nathan, can you recommend any other new up-and-coming bands from the UK, no matter the style?
– Yeah, one of my two favourites at the minute are Pest Control from Leeds. They are an incredible thrash band with crossover hardcore influences. They were just on tour with Obituary recently and are really a great band, a fresh thrash band coming out of the UK. Then probably our friends Devastator, kind of a Black and Thrash band from up north. We should be playing some shows with them next year, but they are now working on a new record. Their last one was absolutely phenomenal, and black/thrash is definitely riding high at the minute. They are really good at it, so their next album is definitely going to be one to watch. I think it will be one of the thrash albums of the year next year. Those are my favourites at the minute in the UK now.
I really wish all the best with this new band and look forward to everything coming up from the band from now on.
-Yeah, we will be starting the second record this Christmas, so we will start writing new music. It is going to be busy: we’re in the UK in February for a tour. Then we are getting over to Europe in the second half of the year. It is going to be a busy year for us.
Struck A Nerve in Facebook and in Bandcamp
Struck A Nerve is coming out on November 28th via Listenable Records and can be pre-ordered HERE
No comments! Be the first commenter?