My Fallen Garden

The first album I ever played on. 

I joined N.I.D. in late 1995, at the age of 15. I was playing bass for about 3 years and was, after playing in a school band and another short-lived band which I had started with friends, looking for a metal band I could join. Friends from the Wuppertal metal scene introduced me to the guys, who needed a bassist. I liked the music and was especially fond of the musical abilities of drummer Marco Mastrochicco, who is the same age as myself and had groove and some serious skills. After playing at home by myself for quite some time, I was really happy to join. 

So we started rehearsing and pretty quickly also playing local shows. After some time in 1996, it was about time to do a recording in order to be able to promote the band and organize shows. I was able to convince Karsten “Kasi” Heyn, who was back then the bassist of Wuppertal based metal band “Contradiction” and also a recording engineer, to help us out.

So he found a local studio which was not expensive and where we could work with no time limits. As for the recording itself, I remember that it was really exciting, recording in an old-school way with a tape machine, and doing things like creating fade-outs by having all men at the mixing board trying to get it together simultaneously. Bass-wise I remember that I wanted to get rid of the pick and play with my fingers, but was not really able to do so yet, so I stayed with the pick.

While we were mixing and mastering, my father Dino Alic contributed the album front cover, band logo and artwork, and did a photo session with us. From there it took some more time until all was set, and at some point in 1997 it finally was released. The band played many shows in Germany around the release, and even one at a metal festival in Belgium.

For me, it was a really crucial time, since making music with the band was a lot of fun and I realized that it suits me to me to hook up with people, organise things and realise ideas.

In 2022, the album got featured in the book

Doom Metal Lexicanum 2

by Russian Doom Metal expert Aleksey Evdokimov, for which I contributed an interview and we were able to find some old pictures we could send to Aleksey. 

You can listen to the whole album in the video below.

Line-Up: Christian Wolf – vocals, guitar – Evangelos Brestas – guitar – Armin Alic – bass – Marco Mastrochicco – drums

Equipment used: Vester 4string lefthand bass (lent to me by my friend Daniel Gerling) – Warwick 1 x 15 combo (lent to me by my friend Mark Friedrichs)