Earlier in February, we discovered longtime member Dallas Toler-Wade parted ways with Nile just before the kickoff of their tour with Overkill. During that time we were under the impression he left the group to focus on his own plans and recordings, making us assume he wanted his full-time project to be Narcotic Wasteland. However, in a recent article by Bravewords, it seems there’s a lot more backstory and mystery to his departure.
Narcotic Wasteland was initially formed by Toler-Wade as a side project during Nile’s downtime and last Friday the band reissued their 2014 self-titled debut album via Megaforce Records/MRI. The always productive Toler-Wade expressed:
“I left Nile for many other reasons that will remain undisclosed, not just for the reasons they detailed in their statement, which were ‘to focus on my own plans and recordings’. That quote didn’t come from me. I was already putting a lot of my time and energy into Narcotic Wasteland when Nile was not busy writing or touring. My intention was to do shows and albums with Narcotic Wasteland on the flipside, because I like to stay busy. I will continue to write and perform music on whatever level I can for as long as I can. From now on, Narcotic Wasteland will be my main musical focus.”
Narcotic Wasteland was never meant to be Toler-Wade’s first priority. We can only theorize what went down with him and Nile, but it can be traced back from the band backing down from the 70000tons of Metal cruise. A statement was made from 70000tons’ Facebook page sharing the news that bassist Brad Parris couldn’t get a visa in time. However, since that was roughly a week before Toler-Wade’s departure, maybe that’s a little closer to the real reason they didn’t play.
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