Dallas Toler-Wade on Leaving Nile: “I Really Need to Be Home Right Now”

Earlier this week, Nile announced that they were parting ways with guitarist Dallas Toler-Wade, who has been in the band for nearly twenty years. Although a statement from the band said that Tolder-Wade was leaving “to focus on his own plans and recordings,” the guitarist himself was mum on the subject…

…until now. The Greenville Journal caught up with Toler-Wade following the announcement:

“The band had never really taken a break,” Toler-Wade says. “It’s tough out there on the road. It’s a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a not-so-good side to it, too. On that last tour, one night I ended up getting up into a confrontation with another artist from another band.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what happened, but that incident caused him to take a hard look at his priorities. “Everybody needs a break,” he says. “And my son’s about to graduate from school. There are a lot of other reasons, too, but mainly I really need to be home right now.”

Toler-Wade says his musical focus will now be on Narcotic Wasteland, a band which has only been a side project up until this point.

Elsewhere in the article, Karl Sanders discusses Toler-Wade’s successor, Brian Kingsland (Enthean). Sanders reveals that Kingsland came to his attention following a recommendation from Nile bassist Brad Parris, and totally aced his audition:

“We put Brian through a pretty stringent gauntlet, but he walked through it like a champion. He dug in and did his homework; he studied all the live versions of our songs. He can tell you who sang the song in which way on what tour. If ever there were any exemplary way to join a band, that would be it.”

If you for some reason still have doubts about Kingsland, well, he’s on tour with Nile right now. You can go see ‘im and hear if he’s up to your high standards. Or you can just watch this video, filmed at the band’s show in Cleveland earlier this week:

So? What u think?