NILE's KARL SANDERS: 'Pickleball Has Restored My Faith In Humanity'

Karl Sanders from NILE recently went on Side Jams With Bryan Reesman to discuss his love for pickleball. He even revealed that he plays with a CANNIBAL CORPSE paddle.

Sanders used to play tennis regularly with original NILE drummer Pete Hammoura, but when Hammoura's hips started bothering him, Sanders contemplated an alternative. The NILE frontman's wife had given him a pickleball paddle for Christmas, and they occasionally played together, so he suggested the idea to Hammoura. The duo tried pickleball and fell in love with it.

"There's a social aspect to the game, and it somehow is a game that encourages sportsmanship and politeness with your opponents," Sanders told Side Jams. "You're pretty close to each other, especially if you're playing doubles and your partner's right next to you. So it encourages, in the most incredible way, very nice socialism between people. You'll see the best human behavior you could possibly imagine on the pickleball court. It's unbelievable. [If] you ran into that person in the parking lot at Walmart it would probably be a normal Walmart parking lot experience, you know, not necessarily the most humane thing imaginable. But put those same people on a pickleball court together, and they act like civilized human beings who care about one another. It's just the damnedest thing."

Sanders says that while he likes "the violence of tennis," he feels that pickleball has "a little more chess to it."

Beyond his love for the sport, Sanders loves the interaction on the court.

"After the pandemic, I was very disappointed in how I saw people treating each other," Sanders recalled. "I was like human beings are better than this. It is possible to be a good person and treat other human beings like human beings. Pickleball has restored my faith in humanity."

NILE's tenth album, "The Underworld Awaits Us All", was released in August via Napalm Records.

Boasting airtight technicality and unrelenting brutality, the LP pushes each member of NILE — Sanders, longtime drum master George Kollias, vocalist/guitarists Brian Kingsland and Zach Jeter, and bassist Dan Vadim Von — to their furthest extremes both in artistry and performance.

Once again produced and recorded at Sanders's own Serpent Headed Studios in Greenville, South Carolina, the band returned to "Vile Nilotic Rites" engineer Mark Lewis (CANNIBAL CORPSE, DYING FETUS, WHITECHAPEL) for mixing and mastering.

"The Underworld Awaits Us All"'s mind-bending art was once again envisioned and created by Michał "Xaay" Loranc, with reference to the cycle of life and judgment at its end.

NILE has announced its upcoming 2025 USA co-headline tour with death metal greats SIX FEET UNDER. The tour begins January 7, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee and will feature support from PSYCROPTIC and EMBRYONIC AUTOPSY.