NATE GARRETT Fights Off Personal Demons To Release SPIRIT ADRIFT's Crushing Final Studio Album, 'Infinite Illumination'

By David E. Gehlke

The April 10 surprise release of SPIRIT ADRIFT's "Infinite Illumination" studio album was accompanied by an announcement that the band was calling it a day. Guided since its 2015 inception by vocalist / guitarist / songwriter Nate Garrett, SPIRIT ADRIFT emerged as one of the better pure-metal torchbearers in recent memory, hovering somewhere between the epic doom, traditional metal and even the compatibility of "Black Album"-era METALLICA and "Blind"-era CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. The band's catalog is anchored by 2017's "Curse Of Conception", a treatise on resonant, poignant doom, as well as 2020's classic metal- powered "Enlightened In Eternity" and 2023's ambitious "Ghost At The Gallows". Through it all, Garrett has developed a reputation as a gifted songwriter with an obvious knack for hooks, of which are in abundance on "Infinite Illumination", not to mention an overpowering flank of seamless, simple, yet powerful riffage.

However, a black cloud has hovered above Garrett for the last several SPIRIT ADRIFT albums. He has struggled with sobriety, dealt with the passing of several close friends and now has an even more important fight: His wife, Nicole, is battling stage-4 stomach cancer. You'd be quick to forgive Garrett for bailing on music altogether, yet the creation of "Infinite Illumination" was of some therapy — a way to exorcise some demons before moving on to something new.

Part of Garrett's plans includes his TYPE O NEGATIVE tribute band, NEON NIGHTMARE, whose 2024 "Faded Dream" debut is perhaps the most compelling and authentic ode to Peter Steele and his crew of Brooklyn miscreants to date. (Garrett made headlines in 2025 when he openly campaigned to play the role of Steele in a possible TYPE O reunion and said the gig would need to be "pried from his cold, dead hands.")

In the short term, the release of "Infinite Illumination" was still weeks away when BLABBERMOUTH.NET caught up with Garrett, who was gracious enough to give us the scoop before he laid the band to rest.

Blabbermouth: "Infinite Illumination" is getting the surprise release treatment. What led you down this path?

Nate: "I tried to let intuition lead me even above logic and emotion. There were so many intuitive signs that this was the right way to do it. Also, just practical stuff, like, we were on Century Media for a minute. We're now back on 20 Buck Spin, which is by choice. Century Media was cool and let us out of the contract. The two guys that I was dealing with over there are gone from the label, so I got out in the nick of time. The way things worked over there — the lead time on albums is insane, between the first single and when the record comes out. In that interim, I quit giving a fuck about what I've made. How can I expect anyone to carry any kind of interest or passion for what I'm doing for that long? That was part of it.

"I watched the 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' documentary. Jimmy Page was talking about, I think at the time, I might have it backward, either FM or AM radio, I think it was FM, was way more geared toward singles and poppier shit. AM was more promoting either a whole side of a record or an entire record, and Jimmy Page was like, 'We wanted to make a record that people listened to from start to finish. We didn't want singles because we didn't want the record to be judged off of one song, and someone makes up their mind about the whole record.' I've experienced that before. It was all that kind of stuff. The push, especially from bigger labels, but in general, the zeitgeist in how people experience music is short-form now. The music industry seems not to really know what people are into anymore. I kind of want to do the opposite because I'm an album guy. I wanted it to be a long-form experience. I want everyone to hear the record from start to finish. I didn't want any singles influencing people's opinions on the record. I didn't want to have to shoot music videos because I fucking hate doing them. [Laughs]"

Blabbermouth: We are certainly in an era where at least five or six singles are released before an album comes out. It sometimes kills the buzz.

Nate: "It's brutal. TOMB MOLD, my labelmates, did a surprise drop of their album [2023's 'The Enduring Spirit']. I've been wanting to do it for the last several albums because we're in unprecedented times, and now, with the way music is being presented in this short-form, single-oriented format. Still, when I heard Jimmy Page talking about it, I was like, 'That's the world ZEPPELIN was in, so it's not unprecedented.' It takes someone doing the wrong thing for things to change. What would be considered the wrong thing nowadays is no singles, no videos, nothing. Put the album out. I'm so passionate about the album format; that's what I grew up with. If it's not me or TOMB MOLD affecting that change, at least we're doing whatever we can to push it that way."

Blabbermouth: Where did you want to go with "Infinite Illumination"? It's got more of an "arena metal" feel than its predecessor.

Nate: "'Ghost' was the most, I don't want to say 'experimental,' but it was the most exploratory. I had moved back to the South; I grew up in the South. I was thinking about the country music I grew up on and AOR, FM rock radio, BOSTON, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, JOURNEY, Ozzy's solo stuff, and I was trying to tell a story about that, about growing up in the South and listening to the radio and listening to country and listening to metal and how that all connects. With the new record, it was more about the mission from the get-go, which was that I wanted to make the heaviest, most evil record that I could, that's still within the stylistic confines of SPIRIT ADRIFT. I think it's good to have a style as a band or as a songwriter. I didn't want to go too far out of that, but I did want to push it to the most evil, pissed-off, heavy first wave of doom-meets-first wave of thrash."

Blabbermouth: I think of new songs like the title track and "White Death". They're riff-oriented, very conventional and effective.

Nate: "Interestingly, you mention the title track, because something about that song is what you're getting at, the chorus riff kind of shows up in different forms. There are variations on a theme. I remember that it was specifically a moment of discovery rather than invention. I don't know if I'd call it a half-time, really doomed-out, slow, evil kind of thing for the chorus. Then I thought, if I tripled the tempo and put a double bass under it, you could add harmonies and different stuff. Your average person, at least on the first few listens, probably wouldn't realize it's basically the same notes. It's straightforward.

"I was talking to J. Bennett [Decibel / Bandcamp Daily]. He's played in bands and written songs and stuff like that, and we were talking about how hard it is to leave something simple. The better you get at writing music, the better you get at playing your instrument and arranging songs, you want to make things fancier or smarter or whatever. I always give in to that, at least a little bit. With this record, I was pulling myself back to, 'Keep this as heavy and rocking as possible.'"

Blabbermouth: It's a good point: A complicated riff doesn't mean it's good.

Nate: "I don't know why I keep going back to them, but ZEPPELIN is a perfect example of that. I think of the stuff that ZEPPELIN does where they fancy it up just a little bit, like the riff from 'The Ocean', where they add a sixth measure in there [hums melody] and things come in where you don't quite expect them. Kirk Hammett [METALLICA] has talked extensively about that, like, making sure it rocks. It can be clever, but it can't be boring or masturbatory."

Blabbermouth: Are you a big proponent of the verse-pre-chorus-chorus format?

Nate: "Yeah, and right now, it's an arms race. There's an ebb and flow again, but, generally speaking, it seems like there's an arms race to be the most out-there, which is cool. I like that, too. I think the last BLOOD INCANTATION [2024's 'Absolute Elsewhere'] is amazing in that regard, but if I were everyone else, I would give up. They did it. If there ever was something special about SPIRIT ADRIFT, I think 'Curse Of Conception' is the consensus of when it was coming together and working. I'm not sure I knew it at the time, but in retrospect, what I think made it cool is my earliest influences, which are the first wave of doom and the first wave of thrash, and where is the connective tissue? In high school and middle school, I was listening to [BLACK] SABBATH, PENTAGRAM and getting into TROUBLE. I didn't get into SOLITUDE AETERNUS until later, but they're a huge influence. ST. VITUS is a huge influence. METALLICA, SLAYER, TESTAMENT — I just talked to Chuck Billy today for my podcast. He's a great guy. He's one of my heroes. But one of the things that all of those bands that I mentioned have in common is they have verses, sometimes pre-chorus, choruses, kind of conventional song structures, and they'll take you for a ride, but you're going to come back to hooks."

Blabbermouth: The TROUBLE self-titled record from 1990 is a really good example of strong songwriting.

Nate: "I like the earlier stuff better as far as riffs, but the arrangements get goofy. But you're right: When they did the self-titled, they were like, 'Let's write songs. Fuck all this weird, rambling shit.'"

Blabbermouth: Speaking of 1990, you play a style of metal that, for all intents and purposes, if it were 1990, you may be filling arenas. Do you feel like you're in the wrong era sometimes?

Nate: "One hundred percent. I have 'Born Too Late' tattooed across my fucking chest. To be honest, I think everyone is having a difficult time now. I don't want to name specific names, but I was talking to one of my best buds who's in a big band, and you look at their Instagram, you look at this and that, you think, 'Oh, they're crushing it!' Not so much. [Laughs] I definitely don't feel any kind of persecution complex or anything like that. I think it is what it is, but I definitely wonder — and it's not just related to music, it's my life in general. All of my tastes, like in movies, cars, artwork, whatever, I kind of feel, 'Why the fuck was I not 30 in 1975?' My grandparents raised me, so I think that's a slight factor."

Blabbermouth: Like you're an old soul?

Nate: "Yeah. I went through a lot of trauma at a young age that matures you at warp speed. I don't worry about it too much nowadays, especially because I'm really proud of this new record. I think probably for the first time, I'm one hundred percent satisfied with it, which has never happened before. It's easy not to be, 'What if this?' Or, 'What if that?' Or, 'Why is it this way?' I'm a fucking musician at the end of the day. That's what I care about, and this thing that I made, I'm really happy with it. Anything else, I'm like, 'Whatever.' If it came out in 1989, I'd be on tour with PANTERA five years later."

Blabbermouth: You were on a run of releasing an album every year, but "Infinite" comes three years after "Gallows". Where were you, headspace-wise?

Nate: "I was in a worse spot than before. [Laughs] Way darker. I didn't think it could get darker, but literally everything did. Not just me, again, but the world in general. There's so much negativity. Even going back to 'Divided By Darkness', I was talking about how fucking mean everyone is. People are negative, and it feels like every day is a psyop to hate your neighbor and hate yourself and hate everybody else. Most SPIRIT ADRIFT albums, I acknowledge that, but I try to resist it. This record has the microscopic iota of, I wouldn't even call it 'positivity,' but what's the word? 'Resistance' or 'defiance.' It still has a little bit of defiance to it, but it's pure self-hatred, misanthropy, internal and external spiritual warfare. I don't know if you'd call it, but the 'narrator' of the album is a more extreme version of what I was feeling in real life. The narrator of the album hates himself, but he hates everyone else on earth so much more that he just wants everyone to die. I had to put it somewhere."

Blabbermouth: On a more positive note, the NEON NIGHTMARE record you put out in 2024 was fantastic. You've also put out the word that if a TYPE O reunion were to happen, nothing would stop you from being there. That's such a bold thing to say. Did you get any feedback from it?

Nate: "I've learned a lot from pro wrestlers and politicians. [Laughs] You just dial your own personality a little bit and say shit like that. Yeah, I never read comments, and I said that on my podcast, and I had no idea it was going to get turned into a news story, which has happened to me a few times. The PRP got it first, then Metal Injection, then everyone else. I don't ever read comments, but I almost cried reading some of those comments because people were backing me up. Ninety-nine percent of them were like, 'This is the guy! Don't get some fucking more famous person who's not as equipped.' I could not believe it. I was blown away. I said something, and when I was doing interviews for NEON NIGHTMARE, I was in character. I wanted to be spiritually in-synch with what TYPE O NEGATIVE was, which was a bunch of assholes. [Laughs] Then I do something like that almost in character, and people were into it. It was beautiful. Breaking character, I was really moved that people are into it. I've joked with my wife, 'If I were to show up at TYPE O NEGATIVE auditions, my opening line when I open the door would be, 'Is this the Narcotics Anonymous meeting?' [Laughs] We'll see."

Blabbermouth: It's possible you received so many positive comments because the NEON NIGHTMARE album is so legitimate.

Nate: "You know who did it better before me? PALLBEARER. It was just a cover [of 'Love You To Death'], but I think that might have been the first seed that they were so, and I know those guys like brothers, we're family, essentially, and I know how meticulous and obsessive and semi- and I say this seriously, but semi-on the spectrum with the obsession with detail when it comes to sound, when they did their 'Love You To Death' cover, I was like, 'Holy shit!' I heard that song so many times. I was like, 'Fuck! They even got that little sound in there.' That approach to it, there's two different approaches to cover: Making it your own, which can be great or can really be awful. The PANTERA cover approach is to play the song exactly how it was written and recorded, but it sounds like PANTERA because we're PANTERA. I like that. I started thinking, 'Man, almost every band ever that people like has been ripped off hard to the point of semi-tribute band,' except for TYPE O. I'm like, 'How many more times can I listen to these TYPE O records. I should try to make one.'"

Blabbermouth: Let's say if those auditions happen in Brooklyn or Austin or wherever, and Josh Silver (keyboards) is there, is Nate Garrett showing up?

Nate: "I'm there, dude. If Josh Silver is there, I'm showing up. We have plenty of mutual friends; I'd like to think they are aware of me at this point. I'm pretty sure they are. I'll find the motherfuckers, whatever. [Laughs] Whatever I have to do!"

Blabbermouth: What is the rest of the year looking like for you?

Nate: "I have no idea. My wife has stage-4 cancer, so when you're in that situation, that's kind of the fucking headline of everyday life. She's fucking tough and badass. I love her so much. I don't know, that's kind of my focus. I'm pretty sure this is the last SPIRIT ADRIFT record. I think so, which doesn't mean I'm not making music. I have plenty of other shit I need to do. I have to make a proper solo record for my wife. I definitely plan to make a second NEON NIGHTMARE record. But when you're in this situation, it's literally one day at a time."