A Dirty Dozen with XAVIER QUILES from NIGHTS OF MALICE – May 2026

Photo credit: Mike Kelly

According to a recent press release: ““Gore Nest” is the new single from New Jersey deathcore outfit NIGHTS OF MALICE. The band’s latest bruiser comes by way of their punishing Chaos Exordium full-length, set to drop on June 4th through Bleeding Art Collective and Blood Blast Distribution. With a sound that is synonymous with razor sharp technical death metal riffing, monolithic groove, and rapid-fire vocal phrasing, as is signature with acts such as Psycroptic, Whitechapel, Aborted, and Archspire, NIGHTS OF MALICE is a triumphant example of the quality of acts that have emerged from the Garden State scene.” We get guitarist Xavier to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

I’m honestly really proud of some of the guitar nuances throughout this release. I hope that people catch a new quick harmonized run or layered lead every listen. Also lyrically fans might notice some continuity. Brendan wrote “Gore Nest” about the video game Doom, which is our second song about Doom. First being “Void Bearer.” There’s a few songs inspired by horror movies too. Brendan wrote “Ex-Mortis” about Evil Dead and I wrote the lyrics to “Riches To The Conjurer”, which is about Hereditary. I hope fans read along to the songs and get stoked on the horror homages.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

So my mom, my sister, and I spent one summer living with my aunt. Her son, or my cousin, had a beat up shitty guitar in the house that he never played. I started messing around with it when I was maybe 11 or 12 and the second I held it it just felt right. I immediately asked for a guitar for Christmas and spent a lot of school nights staying up until 3am reading tabs and learning songs. I legit couldn’t put it down and that’s when I knew I wanted to be in a real band and try and make this my life.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

Yes! 100% Disasterpieces by Slipknot, Chaos Ridden Years by Children of Bodom and Killadelphia by Lamb of God . I watched those DVDs religiously. Literally almost daily. Fast forward a couple years later and The Black Dahlia Murder releases Majesty. I was obsessed. You got to really see a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and the highs/lows of being in a band on and off stage while on tour. I fell in love with that lifestyle.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

I would have loved to have featured Trevor Strnad on a song. Dude was one of my idols and still is. Brendan normally writes all of the lyrics but I occasionally tackle a song or two lyric-wise, and Trevor is our biggest influence. Both of ours. Maybe in another life. 🖤

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour?  What do you like to do to unwind?

I’m real big on video games and movies. I’ll spend all day playing or watching anything. I want to list some of my favorites but if I start I legit won’t stop. My girlfriend and I are big on going out to random breweries and restaurants too. Just always looking for new stuff and new towns to visit.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?​​​

I would say our music is…more tech-death than some traditional death metal bands, but not nearly as tech-death as bands like Archspire or Inferi. We get compared to The Black Dahlia Murder or Through The Eyes of The Dead a lot as far as pacing and structure goes. I wouldn’t say there’s a comparison that made us universally cringe, but sometimes one of us will get cringe when people call us “metalcore” and someone else will cringe when people call us “deathcore” lol I like to think we just cover all the bases.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

I almost always supply the drinks for band practice and Brendan almost always supplies them when we’re hanging at my apartment. Joe and his wife absolutely take the gold for who’s cooking. They’ve fed us all many times. Now, our version of “taking the acoustic out for a singalong” is blasting rap in the RV and rapping along to it after we played a good set and on tour and we ALL take turns initiating that ritual.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

While we were recording Sonnets of Ruin, Jake Luhrs from August Burns Red just showed up while I was tracking guitars and said hey to us and wished us luck with the release. We’ve been working with Atrium Audio forever now and so has ABR, so Jake needed to swing by to get something from Grant. It was so sudden it felt like a fever dream. I tried to play it cool but couldn’t get a word out other than “hey…hey man…big fan!”

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

My favorite part is definitely being in the studio for a couple weeks at a time and finally experiencing the vision of these songs come to life. From jamming an idea, to scratch tracks, to pre-pro and band practice, to finally hearing what we’ve been working on for so long is so rewarding. Now if I WASN’T pursuing this, I would say my dream job would be something with video editing. Cutting together movies and TV shows.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

I nerd out over literally anything so I always get stoked when an interviewer will ask me something really specific about a certain movie or  show and we can go back and forth just shooting the shit about it. Or just ask me what my favorite movie is so I can tell you it’s Everything Everywhere All At Once then go on an hour tangent as to why it’s so great. I guess the only thing I can think of regarding questions I’m tired of answering is maybe…”why don’t you like pickles?”

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

To be honest not really. I feel like maybe if I had to pick something, it would maybe be that we definitely may have dragged our feet with certain things or maybe shouldn’t have spent time working with certain people while trying to find our footing. I’m just happy it seems like we’re on the right path now and have such an incredible team working with us.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Man this one is impossible to answer! One of the first ones that comes to mind is Rareform by After The Burial. That album is the reason I started playing extended range guitars and I would’ve just loved to witness how they wrote it, not even be a part of it. Also Digital Veil by The Human Abstract. I’ve never heard metal guitar sound so elegant and classical before. I would’ve loved to have learned from, and contributed to, something that unique.

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Category: Interviews