Nihilio's first and only album “The Battle Has Begun” was recorded for next to nothing in a small studio off Hamline Ave in St. Paul Minnesota. It was may 2007 as we walked down the stairs to meet our soon to be good friend and producer Eric Wickstrom. We were honestly the greenest bunch a bananas and we couldn't have been more clueless as to how records got made but Eric understood and was more than patient with us.

Ryan was in the throws of a tumultuous break-up and inner band drama was veering out of control. It seemed like everyday we'd struggle just to get everyone in the van and arrive at the studio at a reasonable time without having some explosive argument. Despite the strife our spirits were high while we worked throughout the day and we usually had evenings off to ride bikes around Nate's home town and hang out.

As we neared the end of our studio time we started tracking the last song on the EP "The Mutiny". Parts of the song we had been using as live transitions and set openers but much of it was written in the studio during our down time. We felt like in some ways it was moving more in the musical direction we wanted but ultimately it suffered many of the same problems the rest of our early songs had: it was much too long and lacked real focus.

With only a couple days left to spend with Eric at the studio it became increasingly obvious that we wouldn't have enough time to finish our record. A handful of things had put us behind schedule. Nate was slow to double all of the rhythm guitars Jeremy had already played and still had to track all the planned synth parts. Justin began to track his screaming vocals and immediately we knew it would be a struggle to finish on time. Justin would get through a few takes and his voice was pretty much completely gone. We listened back to the vocals and we worried that it didn't sound like he sounded live. We had many moments like that and in the end we had no idea how things worked in the studio.

On the last day we were all exhausted and Justin's voice was completely gone. Our situation was somewhat unique because the semester had ended and everyone (except Nate and Dan) lived out of state and were leaving for home right after the show we had booked for that night. The show was awesome though and it was a great high note to cap off our time in the studio.

We had only been a band for about 6 months but we grew exponentially in that time. Most of us were 18 when we began playing together and slowly we learned how to write better music and become more adept at our instruments. Nate and Eric worked on over the summer on the last few synth parts and became close friends and roommates. The band finally reconvened in the fall of 2007 and we met up in the studio to finish the last remaining vocals.

While the EP is a good a snapshot of where we were at as a band in late 2006 we quickly outgrew a lot of the stylist choices we made on the songs. The band suffered from excess drama and ultimately the seeds of dissent within the band were sewn that summer while we were recording. Nate felt that the band should tour the entire summer before the next school year started. The rest of the band disagreed and decided to take the summer off. Finally in the fall the record was mixed and we had a release show late 2007.