Interview with DOXOMEDON in Issue#4, 2000

DOXOMEDON's "Evanesce" EP is still one of the best produced, best performed hidden gem of the Southeast Asian Metal scene till today. It is fast approaching 10 years in age (and it's fast approaching 10 years too that we have waited for their debut full length to emerge) ! If you can prove me wrong, do it, because here I am, armed with "Evanesce" and I'm going to force-fed it into the foul mouths of the non-believers.

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You should know that I’ll always feature great, talented bands from Malaysia and Singapore scene, and I regard both countries to be in the same scenery. And it’s not hard to guess that DOXOMEDON will have the honour to be interviewed in this issue, so here you go; a great brutal death Metal band from across the shore…

First off, the “Evanesce” EP is impressive. Most particularly the sound produced. How did you managed to get those kind of sound?
Well thanks a lot for the compliment. The whole recording process was done solely in Singapore as we find it cheaper rather than do it elsewhere and we are lucky enough to have good sound engineers who really know what we want for our album. As this is just our debut, we are satisfied with the whole production although we knew it could be done better. We will improvise the quality of the recording if we had a chance to release our debut full length in the future.
The songs presented are more than strong enough, if we are to judge whether the band is able to make a full length. So why chose to release an EP instead?
Originally we wanted to release a full length album instead of EP but since we are still an alien in the underground scene, we thought that we should release an EP first. That would be a better way to introduce us in the scene. Conclusively, the music is brutal all-around, but with penetration of some keyboards passages and emotional parts… We tried not to use too many keyboards in our music ‘cos we believe that our music doesn’t really need the keyboards stuff. We might use it if we feel it’s necessary. Of course, variety in melodies is our main priority in every song we write.
The song-titles are very vague, so what are they really all about? What about the cover?
We don’t like to write something very straightforward, as it may look too plain and basic. Most of the lyrics don’t mean anything with our life or societies we live in… just from our fucking misanthropic perversion imagination. About the cover concept… it does more or less related to our songs.
It’s released by DARK ARTZ… and do you have any kind of deal with PSYCHIC SCREAM?
DARK ARTZ may sounds new to the underground scene but its existence has been around for quite some time now (I believe it’s the continuation of INTO DARKNESS distro-ed.). I don’t know much about them either. Ha! Ha! We signed with them because no other labels want us actually. I don’t know much about PSYCHIC SCREAM too.
How’s the reaction to “Evanesce”?
So far we got positive reviews from media and those who have bought or listen to our stuff. Too bad, promotion wise is very slow and lack of publicity. Should blame to whom huh?Tell us how the band composed the songs. Does surrounding has some kind of influence?
Most of the songs been composed by our lead guitarist, Sham. We got influence not by surrounding but from our friend Man D.D. He’s our unofficial mascot and our inspiration. I’m actually in the dark about the band, including those years when the band was still called ITNOS. We were formerly from ITNOS. Our 2 original members left the band due to hamstring injuries. Then left 3 of us decided to form a new band and later 2 new members joining in and here we are now… DOXOMEDON.
So why change the name to DOXOMEDON?
We have no idea.
I think the band has shed their onwards adheration towards black Metal, be it in donning war-paints and song-titles alike… Did trends back then had some effects?
ITNOS was a black Metal band and was formed by our first guitarist, Abominathroe. He was a Satanist and he’s the main guy in ITNOS. Since he left ITNOS, we decided not to play anymore black Metal music as majority of the band members are more into death/grind Metal. We still dig up some good black Metal albums and will always support the black Metal scene. People still consider us as a black Metal band although we have told them many times that we aren’t a black Metal band. The reason I think is that we kept contacts with many black Metal bands/friends all around the globe. We are too long in the scene to be in the trendy shit.
So what’s the real difference?
As I told you earlier, ITNOS was meant to be black and DOXOMEDON is purely deathgrind.
Do you ever regret your years as ITNOS?
NEVER.
Don’t you think that the musical direction changed drastically?
It’s naturally meant to be that way for all bands or musician but not drastically.
“Christ Mary Bitch” 7” EP was released by a European label (MIDIAN CREATION I think). How did you guys (ITNOS then) obtained the deal?
That foreign label was just helping us out. They are good friends of us. It’s a good way for Asian bands like us to have a decent deal with international labels. A stepping stone for worldwide recognition.
Is there any possibilities to work with foreign labels again? Will the band accept those kind of offers?
Of course we will. We hope we could get a good deal with any foreign labels but there’s a better deal from the locals, we don’t see why we can’t take up the offer.
Is it really hard for a South East Asia band to gain recognition in the international scene?
If we (the Asian bands) play good or even better than the foreign bands, I don’t see why we couldn’t make it to gain recognition.
Do you believe there really exists some kind of skepticism?
I’m not sure.
When will the new output is going to be released? Your live-sets were very impressive, so is there any plans of live shows?
We look forward to perform in Malaysia and hope we could play in other parts of the Asian region. If there’s no offer from labels to sign us up, we may release our debut full length on our own. We’ll see how it goes.

Doxomedon@operamail.com

Interview with GARDEN OF SHADOWS in Issue#4, 2000

GARDEN OF SHADOWS is one of my greatest find during the lead-up to the release of Issue#4. Much less is needed to elaborate if you listen to their massive demo "Heart of the Corona". They execute prime epic atmospheric melodic death that doesn't sound Swedish, a thing that's hard to achieve if your band is going the melodic ways back then. The band had split-up, but not before leaving us with a masterpiece of an album,"Oracle Moon" before bowing out gentleman-ly. Brian has always been a great friend too, I wish him all the best in whatever he's venturing into nowadays.

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I’ve been listening to the demo “Heart of the Corona” ever since from the day I’ve received it until now, and I guess that it’s not that hard for all of you to guess how high I regard their demo is. It’s been a while since then, so perhaps you all could just fukk off and read this nice conversation with Brian, the guitarist.

How’re you there, Brian my friend?
I am doing fine as I hope you are as well.
And what about the band?
We are all practicing hard and getting ready to record an album!
I think we should start with the MCD release on X-RATED RECORDS, shall we?
Okay, it’s actually a re-release of the demo; with an extra bonus track “Shards of the Sphere”.
What leads to the deal? What’s the purpose then, since I think that your demo sold quite a lot?
We received the deal from X-RATED unexpectedly. We sent them our demo because we hoped they would be interested in distributing it. They were interested and they offered to release it on CD. We received offers from several labels to release it on CD, but we went with X-RATED because we had heard that they were very honest and we knew that they had done a good job promoting their first release (WITCH-HUNT “Prophecies of a Great Plague”). Our demo has sold fairly well – we only have 40 left of the original 900 – but there were several reasons for releasing it on CD. First of all, we were not very happy with the presentation of the demo, and the packaging of the CD is much better. It includes an 8-page full color booklet with all the lyrics. Another reason for releasing it on CD was so that it could have better distribution. There are a lot of distros that do not distribute demos, and we felt that the music on the demo was worth getting it out there. Also, many people prefers CDs to demos because of the convenience, durability, and improved sound quality. But the main reason for releasing it on CD was the re-mastering and the inclusion of the bonus track, “Shards of the Sphere”. In my opinion, that is the best song on the CD, and it will remain exclusive to the “Heart of the Corona” CD.
Apparently there’s some problems concerning the recording of the track “Shards of the Sphere”. Could you tell us what actually the problem is? You have to do the mixing in another studio… why don’t you use Oblivion Studios again?
We didn’t use Oblivion Studios again because we wanted to get a better quality recording and we hoped we could get that at a more expensive studio. We thought that if we were just doing one song it wouldn’t take too much time (we had to pay for the recording ourselves). We were wrong! Here is what happened: We let the engineer handle everything and we wound up really regretting that. To start with, he miked the guitars poorly and we were so unhappy with the sound that we completely scrapped the first days’ guitar tracks, re-positioned the mikes ourselves, and re-recorded them on another day. This didn’t force us to go to a second studio, but it did cost us a lot of money! On the day we mixed we were even more unhappy with the final result than we were with the first guitar tracks. The entire recording sounded very muddy and we didn’t know what to do. We called several studios and one told us that it was probably the drums and that if we went to mix with them they could add compression onto all the drum tracks to make it sound better. We went there to mix and then we realized it was the drums – you could hear the entire drum kit on every drum track! There was hardly any separation of the elements of the kit. That studio couldn’t help us either, so we went to the third studio that had automation. There they were able to help the mix by raising the levels of specific drum tracks when they were supposed to be playing and lowering them when they weren’t (for example, bring up the floor tom track when it was being played and lowering it at all other times). By doing this we were able to generate a mix we could accept.
I know that the keyboardist Scott has left the band due to musical differences, right? And there’s also the inclusion of Owen as the bassist. Could you tell us more about him, and probably more insight about Scott’s departure. So who will handle the keyboards next?
Yes, there were musical differences between us and Scott. He wanted to play in a more improvisational style and we wanted everything to be structured. After a while, he had joined another band that was more improvisational and we both agreed it would be best for him to concentrate on that band, so he left. Owen joined us a little before we recorded “Shards of the Sphere”. He was a guitar player, but he offered to buy a bass to play with us and so he became our bass player. After we recorded the cong and released the CD, our old bass player Sean, who had first joined us after we recorded the demo and left (because of his job) a little before Owen joined, rejoined us on bass. Since we did not have a keyboardist, Owen agreed to play guitar synth. We have played several shows with guitar synth, but there are a lot of limitations to the guitar synth (we didn’t want to record using it), and so we are still looking for a keyboard player. Since I don’t think we will find one in time to record, I will play keys on the recording.
It’s no secret that you’ve penned a deal with WICKED WORLD, the sub-label of EARACHE Records, and the album is scheduled for release in January 2000. Probably you could inform us a bit about this debut. What’s the working title for it?
It will be titled “Oracle Moon” and it will consist of seven new songs. Some of the song titles are “Oracle Moon”, “Citadel of Dreams”, “Desert Shadows”, “Dissolution of the Forms”, and “Continuum”. Most of the material is similar in the style of the demo, but I think it is a little heavier and more involved than what we have done before. I think that anyone who liked the demo will like our new stuff at least as much.
If you could, then tell us what might be different between it and the demo?
To start with, I hope the sound quality will be better! I think the material is more mature than the demo, but it is not a huge departure from the demo material. We are happy with our style and we have no plans to make drastic changes.
Your music is in its totality death Metal alright, but you seem to add up lots of musical style into it…
I think it is just that we listen to a lot of different styles within death Metal and we draw on influences from everything we listen to. Death Metal as a genre seems limitless to me because it can incorporate elements from so many other areas (for example, ORPHANED LAND incorporates a middle eastern feel into their style of death Metal).
But what important is, the music contains lots of emotions…
I think it is important for music to evoke an emotional response, but it is not something we consciously think about when writing a song. We just make sure the song sounds good to us. We listen to music that we feel is emotional and that is an important element to us.
What might be different is the use of growling vocals in it. I mean, music like yours usually have that kind of screamy-type of vocals these days…
Other people have said the same thing, but I really don’t agree. I remember a time when the term ‘atmospheric death Metal’ referred to releases like SEPTIC FLESH “Mystic Places of Dawn”, or THE GATHERING “Always”. I would say these are examples of atmospheric death. Now there are many atmospheric black Metal bands… so many that a lot of people seem to think that if the music is Metal and melodic it must be black Metal influenced and have black Metal vocals. There are black Metal bands in this vein that I enjoy, like DIMMU BORGIR and DISMAL EUPHONY, but I think many of these bands could be considered atmospheric death Metal if they changed the vocals in pitch slightly! We enjoy the sounds of older bands that combine death vocals with atmospheric music and we plan to continue to do this ourselves.
You don’t seem to utilize Mary’s vocals that much though…
That is true. She will sing a little on our upcoming full-length, but it will not be too much. I think she has a great voice, and many people have asked if she could sing more, but we do not want to exploit her vocals to jump on a trend. We just use them when it feels appropriate and I do not think they would fit properly over much of our music. But for those who want to hear more, there are a few places where her vocals will fit quite nicely with our new material… but I guess I will leave that up to the listeners to decide.
Can you delve more into your lyrics? I’ve read them, of course; but it’s still pretty vague for me to understand it wholefully. I hope you could give a clearer vision on them.
Each song is an individual piece which is designed to be a poem in its own right. It is our hope that listeners will interpret the lyrics their own way. Of course we have an intended meaning when we write them, but I think that different people might take different things out of them. As for the song on the MCD, “Shards of the Sphere” deals with knowledge and uses a sphere to represent all possible knowledge in the universe. As we gain knowledge, we are collecting the pieces, or shards, of this sphere. Just one shard enables us to do so much…imagine what we could do with the entire sphere… “Heart of the Corona” deals with the paradoxical nature of the sun – its power to sustain life and to destroy it. “Lovely Cold” is a mythical tale of ancient civilizations who destroyed each other and all of their achievements were lost to time. “Apollonian Realm” is about the ancient cult of Apollo, and “Company in Solitude” deals with desperation and loneliness and takes place as an inner dialogue inside one person’s head.
I know that you have a band before this, FUNEREAL OPERA. Could you brief us about the band? And, if there are; any other band that you involved in before GARDEN OF SHADOWS?
There were no other bands I was involved in before GARDEN OF SHADOWS. When I first joined FUNEREAL OPERA, I was the only guitarist, and I had just picked up my first guitar, so it is probably not a surprise that we were terrible! Everyone in the band wanted to go in different directions and we had no real focus. We never did anything worthwhile in FUNEREAL OPERA, so believe me, you aren’t missing anything there!
I hope you could tell me something about the US scene. Don’t you feel a bit left out, as the US is renowned for the massive number of brutal bands?
It is true that the US scene has a large number of brutal bands, and there are several festivals here that are almost entirely brutal in focus, but I don’t feel left out. It seems like things are changing here. There are more melodic bands than ever before and the list keeps growing. Just a few of the American melodic black and death Metal bands include FORTY DAYS LONGING, IN RUINS, ASSISTING SORROW, SORROW BEQUEST, WITCH-HUNT, RAIN FELL WITHIN, DAWNBRINGER, EDENROT, DISINTERMENT, ESTUARY OF CALAMITY, THORNS OF THE CARRION, SCHOLOMANCE, EPOCH OF UNLIGHT, AGALLOCH, SCULPTURED, ABOMINANT, and more and more are appearing all the time. Things are changing and hopefully we will have entire festivals dedicated to extreme melodic Metal soon!
Give us your opinion, why there’re lots of bands like that in the US scene…
I really don’t know why there are so many bands of that style. The European sound has always been my preference, so I never wanted to play in a purely brutal band myself. Perhaps it is just that many of the great melodic death Metal bands didn’t have good distribution here in the USA and so more people into Metal here heard bands like CANNIBAL CORPSE and used that as their main influence.
People almost succumbed to the fact that US bands could only excel by just reproducing that kind of sound…
Well, I think if you listen to some of the bands I mentioned, you will be able to hear that it is not necessary to reproduce the same brutal sound to be an American Metal band!
Probably I’m running out of ideas, so maybe you could add up things that I’m supposed to question you Brian.
Well, I think you have done a pretty good job of thinking of questions! Seriously, this has certainly been one of the most complete interviews I have ever done. I hope you have enjoyed reading my answers. Thanks for this opportunity to be in the pages of RANDOM fanzine and for your support. KEEP THE METAL FIRES BURNING!!!

http://gardenofshadows.tripod.com/

NIGHTMARE "Demo(niac)"

NIGHTMARE "Demo(niac)"
If the band’s own description of ‘necrowicked raw symphonic black Metal’ baffles you, here I am to help things a bit. “Demo(niac)” is actually a straight eastern blackened Metal affair. The structures, the riffs; all are pointing unashamedly towards that direction. Which brings a smile to my face since I’ve thought that after all these years, there must be some ‘shifting’ going on in the local scene in terms of musical approach. Or maybe I’m wrong, being an ignorant scene onlookers I am, heh. Something proved by an offering like “Demo(niac)”, which take me down to the mid-90’s of the local scene, when releases from the local scene will almost surely guarantee you this kind of musick-ness even before you push the ‘play’ button. But hell, eastern Metal still has its own charm. Just ask those diehard ‘exotic’ Metal freaks all over the world. NIGHTMARE here produced it the usual Malaysian way. They even took ‘catchiness’ to the hilt with “Nightmare… Perjuangan 12 Tahun” here (locals, remember DARK NIRRAJIM’s “Perjanjian Syaitan”? You got a clear, mega-pixelated view there, hehe). If you’re familiar with ‘eastern’ Metal, then expect what is to be expected.
blackend_nightmare@rocketmail.com

Interview with AETERNUS in Issue#4, 2000

This interview was primarily, or perhaps solely; initiated by THAT album, "...And So The Night Became". MAGNIFICENT. PURE BRILLIANCE. I dare you to have a listen.

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Simply put one of the original Norwegian act, the band Aeternus has never compromised on bringing music with strong characteristics and distinguished charisma. After the demo “Walk My Path”, “Dark Sorcery” followed and received good response thus re-released in MCD format by VIEW BEYOND RECORDS, this one being very hard to find these days. It is later re-released again by HAMMERHEART RECORDS, and it’s also initially sold out by now. After the impressive debut “Beyond The Wandering Moon”, “…And So The Night Became” followed, and this interview was done prior to its release (and as usual your editor fukked things up, inevitable it seems). They’ve released “Shadows of Old” ever since, but surely this interview could still give you something…

AETERNUS has become the supporting act for DEICIDE on some of their European Tour shows not so long ago, so how was it?
In general, this was a great tour for AETERNUS. Good promotion and good inspiration. We had some shit-shows, but that happens. It’s not cool to play first out of fuckin’ 5 bands, you know… You start at 1900 and 40 people shows up. Anyways, this only happened a few times and like I said: In general a great tour for us.
How’s the crowd managed to get along with your sets? I’ve been thinking that most of your songs need to be listened in full-concentration of the senses before it finally shows up its true magnificence. AETERNUS is also known for their great live-sets, so it just makes me wonder a lot…
We argue some before we really know how we want our live-sets to be, always the same thing… It’s kind of hard (in ways) to pick songs for live shows. Especially when you got a lot of ‘long’ songs like we do. I believe we choose songs wisely every time, the crowd seems content (at least and at worst) so it’s cool. It’s true that it takes some ‘listen-to’ before the essence of our songs reveal on our albums. Some of our new material is much more to the point, so that’ll be good for our next tour (they’ve toured with CANNIBAL CORPSE for the latest album-ed.). Some songs will kick ass regardless if you know them or not.

Three-piece… also when you’re performing live?
No, we need 2 guitars live. So far, we’ve had Døden from OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT helping us out on 2 tours and a festival. On the DEICIDE tour, Mr. T. Reaper of MALIGNANT ETERNAL helped us. We’re slowly working on getting a second permanent guitarist. We’re kind of fed-up with the session-thing. So future will tell if we find someone suitable for us and what we do (and they have found one ever since-ed.)
Let’s talk about the “…And So The Night Became” album. Personally I find it not that different from your earlier offerings, but it would be better to know your opinion about it instead.
In ways, it’s different, but it’s not so different in other ways, you know?! That’s how I see it. The musical progress is clear, I think. “…And So The Night Became” has more pounding sound, better arrangement and more ‘focused’ emotion than “Beyond The Wandering Moon”. Our third CD “Shadows of Old” will be strongly different compared to the differences on our earlier releases. Guaranteed. Await in October ’99.
I find the guitars sound to be much darker and evolving…
Yes, and it will keep on being dark and pounding. We’ll have it clearer too, on our third CD. I’m work a lot on the sound for this third release as it is important because our new songs require a clearer and even more pounding sound. Developing?! Most fucking definitely!!
Your songs are usually long in its duration. Is it intended to be that way?
Usually, our songs end up lasting 6-7-8 minutes. It’s just the way it is. There’s no special reason for it, it just happens. It has never been a vital thing for us or anything, to focus on having ‘long’ songs.
I understand that AETERNUS take the lyrics seriously. Mainly what would be the main theme for all of them?
Basically, to put it down shortly, our lyrical realm speaks of dark emotions. Plain and simple.
I think the band is so obsessed by the night, and things surrounding/revolving around it. What’s the night really represents to you (and the band as a whole)?
Night time is an enchanting time, nature becomes more beautiful in ways, etc. etc. I could go on and on about what the night can give me emotionally and so forth, but I see no reason for that. The night is enchanting for those who knows and feels its bare essence and power.
Dark Metal, as what you call your music as. Tell me what sets it apart from black Metal?
Musically, AETERNUS stands between black Metal and death Metal mostly. We have our own style and the term ‘dark Metal’ suits it all perfectly, if one wants to label our music.
The members of AETERNUS also involves in various other bands, is the situation still going on till these days?
Today, we don’t play in any other bands. AETERNUS is it for us.
Lots of these new bands from Norway are exploiting their nationality to gain recognition. What’s the way it should be then?
Whatever makes people content with what they do. We focus on our thing, we don’t compete, we creat dark music and we do what we do best. Our way. Others do their thing their way, we don’t care too much.
Also, most of their materials appear to be sounding almost the same with each other.
Yeah, a lot of bands sound the same. If they can ‘see’ it, they don’t care or they want it all that way.
And what about using Norge in songs?
AETERNUS has 5 songs with Norwegian lyrics. Ain’t nothing wrong with my language, man!
Since that Morrigan is a woman, why not use her voice for your forthcoming releases, just like most of the bands these days? Or, is this ‘female-vocals’ thing is not to your liking at all?
Morrigan is a bassist, not a vocalist and I don’t think we would have used her vocals at all if she could sing ‘cause (like you say) it’s not our thing at all.
What do you think would happen to the always fascinating Norwegian scene in the future?
I have no idea. All I know is that we’ll keep on doing our thing until our destiny says otherwise.
Your music comprises of three elements: originality, beauty and darkness. So tell me where these elements could be found in the music of AETERNUS.
When/if one finds originality, beauty and darkness in AETERNUS, one will know exactly what we are about.

www.myspace.com/aeternusnor

Interview in MORTAL FLAMES#4, 1998

Here's an old interview being done by the late, sadly departed great friend Rohaizad of Mortal Flames 'zine back in 1998. One of the better interviews I've ever answered, to be honest. Some information about RANDOM is to be find here, the era is post-issue#2. Absolutely unedited, yet most of them are still eerily relevant till these days.

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RANDOM is another good 'zine from Pahang. Its second issue has been released in May, committed to metal genre. Below is a chat with the editor, Shahrizwan.....

Sejahtera Shah. Would you mind to give us a retrospect of the beginning of RANDOM? What's the sense for using RANDOM as the name of your 'zine?

First of all, greetings to you and the readers. The idea of unleashing a fanzine came up in my mind in the year 1994. But there's nothing done and planned until the year 1996 when things started to happen and finally, the first humble issue was revealed to the masses in July of the same year. Nobody, except me knows exactly why RANDOM was destined to be the name of the fanzine, even if I try to explain it. So, it's pretty useless to tell more about it. Besides, I think that the name is easy to be remembered and will not make your tongue twisted in order to pronounce it, right?

I would like to felicitate you for the release of your second issue. How you see the improvement compare to the first issue? How about the selling, so far?

When you're comparing the first issue with the second issue, the improvement is very vast I think. I'm not very lucky with the first, I mean lots of unreplied interviews and so on. I even had to ask friends too to type it all. In short, lots of obstacles and problems. For the second, it's vice-versa. I've stopped selling the first issue after the number is slightly over 150 copies, and right till now, the second issue have been spreaded for about 100 copies so far. I don't care so much about how many copies have been sold actually. It's the satisfaction of the readers that counts.

What are the things you emphasize on in the making of your 'zine? Do you have any inspirational 'zine? Do name some good 'zines from your point of view.

Just like what I've been said above, it's the satisfaction of the readers that counts. I try to make the readers enjoy it as much as I do. I try to show some progress with every issue released. I think any good 'zines that I have encountered inspires me in one way or so. Some good ones might be Morticianumbskull, Fear of Life, Tales of the Macabre, Skogen, Isten, Imhotep, Voices from the Darkside, etc, etc. (ed-how about the local ones?)

You have worked the 'zine all alone. Are you really please to work alone? Does the work bother your life, study?

Yezz, I'm very pleased to work alone. And I think it will forever be me, myself and I. It's better to work this way, but of course you have to do it extra hard. You do it all by yourself too, Rohaizad, so you should know. Of course it affects my life, studies whatsoever but this is what I've chose and I'm ready to face the risk. I'm not complaining. In fact I never will.

Regarding the second issue, it has only featured one interview with local band, that is PURNAMWULAN. What's the reason for the barrenness of local features?

I only interview bands that interest me and willing to co-operate easily. There's too many big-headed, uninteresting bands in the local scene these days, but I can sense this will change soon. Besides there's too many interviews with local bands that you can read in various local 'zines. Whatever, you could always find interviews with worthy local bands in future issues. It's a must for me to support my own scene.

How you provide the interview questionnaire for bands? By the way, what would be your favourite question? Which feature do you tend to, the new rising bands or big name bands?

Of all the process in the making of the fanzine interviews is the most important aspect for me. And of course it consumes a lot of my time. I try to make it as interesting as possible. I hope that I succeed to make it that way. Every questions were carefully thought of and arranged, at least that's what I try to. I can't name any favourite question, it never came across my mind. I don't care how big or small a band is, what's important is the music that they play. I'm looking for capabilities rather than popularities.

Again on your second issue... Sorry, but I must say that the cover is not attractive enough, so does the logo. The artwork is not very convincing, people might think it's not an interesting 'zine although the contents are rather good. What do you want to say about that?

Many people told me that, and what can I say. It's their own opinion. As for the logo, I've decided to use the original one instead of the second issue's, so what do you think about it? Do check out my third issue cover soon, it might be more interesting. As for those who think that they can draw better than the guy who made that cover artwork, why don't you try to send your artwork to me? It's more than welcome. By the way, 'don't judge the book by its cover', ha!ha!

How goes with your third issue? Tell me something about its possible features.

I'm sorry. I can't reveal anything yet. It might be more interesting than the second. Just keep on waiting. Good things take time.

I'm interested to study your musical taste. What are your favourites to date?

Mostly it would be Metal, although I could say that I listen to everything that's decent enough to my distorted ears. There's too many favourites to mention, but Sweden's death and black Metal bands rarely dissapoints me.

How's your view on our local scene in general? I conclude that the people here are mostly adhered to black Metal. Don't you realised that the scene lacks of doom Metal bands? What's your opinion towards u/g commercializing?

I'm more or less agree with you. But I think it's getting better day by day. More power to the local scene. Commercializing the underground? The word 'underground' itself shows clearly that it's out of the concept. What's been 'commercialized' is not 'underground' anymore... Think about it.

I've recently been informed about the establishment of a black Metal circle in Johor. Have you noticed about that? What do you think of such movement?

Hmm... I think it's called Black Pentagram, right?(ed.-Black Penthagram Johore Club). I don't know much, so I couldn't comment more. But if it's just for fun and image... FUCK! Another example of worthless scheme. (ed.-I've read the interview in UPANISHAD #2. They are totally stupid kids who were mindlessly shocked by black Metal. I'm wondering how evil they are. Again, honest from me... FUCK!!!)

Give your personal view on IMPIETY's boycott.

Again, I don't know much about it. But, as long as it doesn't involve me, who am I to interfere and shout about it? Tell me more about it, Rohaizad. IMPIETY is one of the strongest band in the regional scene, musicwise. (ed.- The boycott was evolved by their former circlemate, AS SAHAR's One Barchiel. He declared Syaithan a great hypocrite. Syaithan egoistically condemned Malaysian scene back then but when Ultra Hingax Prod. released Impiety's first album, "Asateerul Awaleen", he pretended to be kind to draw sympathy from Malaysian metallers to buy the album. Furthermore, he started to answer interviews from Malaysian 'zines. That's what I quote from the flyer. Hey, haven't you got the flyer?)

The number of the scene follower is increasing day by day. Do you see this as a positive progress? Do you really support new entries?

It has its negative and positive. I don't know whether I really support new entries or not. But it really makes me laugh when I'm reading some of their letters. Maybe we should give them more time huh?

Well Shah, we have to part now. Do leave some parting words.

Thanks to you, Rohaizad for granting me this interview. It is very much appreciated. Nothing much to say, just believe in everything that you do.

Interview with IMPALED NAZARENE in Issue#4, 2000

No words needed, everybody knows them. A simple interview being done in 1999, and at least read something about the infamous "IMPALED NAZARENE is going to play in Malaysia" rumours circulating in the local scene back then. One more thing, IMPALED NAZARENE is a 'household' name in the local scene, most will definitely agree with me on this, heh. Sir Mika Luttinen the spokeperson here.

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Please tell us your situation there in Belgium. How’s life?
Everything is normal and boring. Can’t wait to get on the road again.
Probably you’ve just finished your touring with IMPALED NAZARENE. What’s your overall assumption of those shows? Which one is the best?
Actually we have not. “Rapture” world tour ends this August (’99). We have still one big Finnish rock festival to do and in July/August we will be touring Australia and New Zealand. This world tour has taken us everywhere, to Japan, Mexico, USA, Canada, Ireland, all kind of places where we haven’t been before. For me, the best was Japan, no fucking doubt. Our shows in Tokyo were just mad. We also played in Russia and that was fantastic place as well.
Do talk something about the “Rapture” album… When will the next one out?
Well, I think it’s a good CD, perhaps there are a couple of not so strong tracks but overall I’m satisfied with it. We will be entering Astia Studio in Finland, in late August to record our 6th CD (Nihil-ed.). We are going to put it out January 2000. This year (1999) we will release a split picture 7” ep with DRILLER KILLER. This will be put out by Solardisk label, which in fact is run by our bass player Jani. It will be out either October or November, depends when DRILLER KILLER will do their side of the split.
What about the difference between it and the one before, “Latex Cult”?
“Rapture” is way more Metal record, not only production wise but also the tracks themselves. “Latex Cult” is very punky sounding plus has a couple crust style tracks. “latex Cult” was made under a big pressure etc. and I guess it shows in the end result. But I still think it kicks ass.
It might suggest that IMPALED NAZARENE has found the best suiting musical pattern…
We know basically what suits us and what doesn’t. More over we all do our songs and we all listen to different kind of music so it makes them a bit different. We just want to keep things brutal as fuck.
I see that there’s not much room left for the band to add something new in the music… or?
And there you are 100% wrong. We have added a lead guitar player to our line-up so things will change for sure. He is Alexi Laiho and comes from CHILDREN OF BODOM. You can expect killer leads, lots of double bass drumming and more black Metal than before. There’s gonna be at least a slower tracks as well.
Nuclear Metal. That’s what you call it.
I just needed some monicker and that’s it. We are like nuclear power; deadly.
Your music has a real ‘punk-like’ feel in it…
We were told since the very beginning that we have punk sound in our music which at that time we didn’t understand, as none of us listened to punk. Nowadays we listen to some but I still see us as a Metal band. We are hybrid of death, black, thrash Metal and crust. IMPALED NAZARENE has certainly comes out better of age. We could say that the band has shed (some of) its black Metal identity away.
Do you ever consider IMPALED NAZARENE as a black Metal band during those years?
Perhaps musically we differ quite a lot when compared to other black Metal bands but lyrically we are still total blasphemy. I don’t really care about this all, all this category stuff is just useless.
Do you mind the band is still associated with the black Metal scene of today?
Whatever.
Let’s go back to your back-catalogue. “Suomi Finland Perkele” is certainly one that possesses the most differences between all of them. I heard that you don’t like it that much though…
This thing has been blown out of proportion. “Suomi Finland Perkele” is my least favourite record but I don’t sit at home and think that it sucks. There’s some killer shit on it. I don’t like my vocals on it plus a couple of the songs are just pure lame.
“Ugra Karma" is the album that I think, the best. I would like to know your words about it.
It’s a great CD, what the fuck can I say. I am not very good at reviewing our back catalogue.
There’s some trouble with the cover artwork, I guess…
We got sued by Hare-Krishnas for ‘illegally’ using artwork from one of their books. The whole thing never went to court though but unfortunately that is all I can say about this as our lawyer told us to shut the fuck up. So, we had to put out a new version and to make it more interesting, we added “Satanic Masowhore” 7” ep as bonus plus included the lyrics. The cover is done by one French artist and it is just fucking magnificent!!!
Your lyrics have always been very direct.
This is the way I see it; brutal music needs brutal lyrics. I hate organized religions and I hate most people so my lyrics are reflection of that. On “Rapture”, there’s some stuff related to experiments with drugs and stuff. It’s not very clear message, it’s like double meanings if you look close enough.
Since that IMPALED NAZARENE endorses destruction and annihilation of the human race, do you have interest in politics, world conflicts?
I have absolutely no interest in politics because politics are just fucking lie. None of us belongs to any political or religious organizations because that’s for the weak minded losers. I don’t give a shit about conflicts as long as they are not involving me, my friends or my country.
There’s rumours being widely spread that IMPALED NAZARENE is going to play here in Malaysia some time ago. But it seems like it’s never going to happen. What actually is going on concerning this?
Well… we were supposed to tour Australia/New Zealand/Malaysia in December 1998. We were gonna play 21.12 there but in the end, MODERN INVASION, who at that time were ‘setting’ this whole thing up, cancelled it without any proper reason and they don’t even bother to tell us. You can imagine that we are seriously pissed off about all this as this was the second time they did this to us. Now, we are doing Australia/New Zealand but with a different touring agency. Intense touring is really great and we have to remember that MODERN INVASION is after all just a distribution label, not a real touring agency. We would love to play in Malaysia but I don’t know the promoter there. We will make it one day, you’ll see. If the promoter sees this, get in touch with us or OSMOSE and we’ll set the shit up.
You don’t change your logo(yet!) I presume. Will you do so, just like most of the bands when they’ve somewhat grow big or something like that… most of them looks ‘safer’ than the original…
We haven’t changed our logo and we will NOT because I happen to find our logo one of the best logos around. Whatever other bands (or their record labels, as it is usually them) choose to do, we do not give a shit.
Do you still have any projects? RAISM is dead, as far as I know. Is there any kind of involvements in LEGENDA?
I have no projects, IMPALED NAZARENE is my only band. Our bass player and drummer play in PLAN E and Alexi is of course in CHILDREN OF BODOM and he also plays in SINERGY. Jarno has some projects but I really don’t know too much about them. LEGENDA is a band that has one of our ex-members on it but it has nothing to do with us, not musically or lyrically.
Living in Belgium now, does it mean that you’ve nothing more to do with the Finnish Metal scene?
I get promos from time to time so I kinda know what’s going on. Finnish bands I truly like are STRATOVARIUS, ROTTEN SOUND, TERVEET KADET and CHILDREN OF BODOM.
Any plans to release a live album? I remember a live bootleg CD of IMPALED NAZARENE… what do you think about bootlegs then?
We were thinking about it as in next year we are together 10 years, but it seems everybody are doing them (including other OSMOSE acts) so I guess we won’t be doing anything yet. Most live albums suck anyway. There’s couple of IMPALED NAZARENE bootlegs and they are pretty horrible. I do collect bootlegs of SLAYER and VENOM so I cannot really condemn them. Sometimes they are just way too expensive compared to the sound quality they have so I always listen to them first before buying just blindly. It really was a big shame that we couldn’t play in Malaysia, I want to visit your country very much!

www.campnazarene.com

Interview with GOD DETHRONED in Issue#4, 2000

Here's another interview from Issue#4, this time with the Dutch superblasphemers GOD DETHRONED. Conducted shortly after the release of their second album "Bloody Blasphemy", yet focusing more on their grandiose debut "The Grand Grimoire", an album that's highly regarded by me even to these days. Put a spin in any given day, "The Grand Grimoire" is a bloody brilliant opus indeed.
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Blistering death Metal with always something else to spice it up… Nobody can do it as excellent as the way Holland’s GOD DETHRONED executes it. Blown away by “The Grand Grimoire”, I was forced to make an interview with them, and now their “Bloody Blasphemy” is already out. Dated? Whatever… GOD DETHRONED fukking rules!

Reveal us the band’s situation at the very moment…
At the moment we have some time for ourselves, because we had a very busy time doing a tour and live shows. In May we did a tour with IMMORTAL through Europe, this was great because we just had the new album out and for us this was the chance to see and hear some reactions from the fan. And I must say that the reactions on “Bloody Blasphemy” were really good. We noticed that after “The Grand Grimoire” a lot of people took notice of us, and already did know about the new album. We also did a few festivals, one of them was the Dynamo Festival in Holland. This was really great for us, to do a show for so many people in your own country, I believe there was 10,000 people watching the show, we will never forget this. Further we did some festivals in German, and shows in Holland. And now we finally have some time left to relax a little, but this is only in the evenings because we all have our jobs and studies to take care of.
“The Grand Grimoire” turns out to be really ‘grand’ in some ways. I mean, people (mostly) only noticed the existence of GOD DETHRONED by this album. Tell us what do you think about this and also the album?
I think most people heard of GOD DETHRONED after the release of “The Grand Grimoire”. And this is not very strange because when the album “The Christ Hunt” was released in ’92 there’s hardly no promotion was done. This album was released on a small German label that did no good to the band at all. After recording “The Grand Grimoire” in ’96 we got signed with METAL BLADE, and they released the album worldwide, and did good promotion for it. We are very satisfied with “The Grand Grimoire”, after all this is the album that gave us the chance to do tours and things like that. A lot of song from the album are really good to play live, based on the reactions we get from the audience. Only if we look back the production could have been a little better maybe, but you need to have something to improve on the next album.
And what about the first, “The Christ Hunt”? It’s being re-released now…
Yes, Henri started his own label called Cold Blood Industries (anything to do with Cold Meat Industries?-ed.), and decided to re-release “The Christ Hunt” himself, and this time with the original cover, a slaughtered rat that stands symbol for all that is Christian. And that the album was way ahead of its time shows in sales and reactions, people still like it because it’s very brutal in every way.
I guess the success of “The Grand Grimoire” gave you the opportunity to do that…
This has nothing to do with the success of “The Grand Grimoire”, Henri only wanted to re-release it because the label then fucked up his album. I cannot deny that our success now helps selling “The Christ Hunt”
Being compared, what could you make up about those two?
You have to know that GOD DETHRONED is a totally different band now, than that it was during “The Christ Hunt” era. Henri is the only original band member, when he started writing “The Christ Hunt” GOD DETHRONED had only two members, Henri and a drummer. So all the music is from his hand, “The Christ Hunt” is a death Metal album with a very brutal Swedish sound, in the style of the first GRAVE album. It is a totally different album than “The Grand Grimoire”, the best thing to compare the two albums are the melodic parts that both albums have. But everyone who likes our music now should listen to “The Christ Hunt” sometime because it’s really heavy stuff. What I like about “The Grand Grimoire” is the mix of different styles; thrash, black and death Metal. But this was not done with a reason, we just came up with a lot of riffs and started writing songs and those came out as a result.
Signing with METAL BLADE seems to be a right decision. How’s the relationship?
The relationship between us and METAL BLADE is very good. We are satisfied with the things they do for us, like the promotion they make and the way we can record the albums and everything. We are totally free to write what we want and when we want to. And they already got us to do three tours, so we can’t complain.
The song “Somberness of Winter” appeared in the “Smell Like Team Spirit II” compilation of DISPLEASED RECORDS. How did it get there?
We were ready to sign a contract with them, almost everything was taken care of and suddenly METAL BLADE showed up with a contract. So we decided to compare the contracts, but I think it was already clear what the choice would be. Of course DISPLEASED was not very pleased with this, but that’s life.
In “The Grand Grimoire”, you seem to cram everything of the genre ‘extreme Metal’ into one, complete package. I would like to know the sound-direction of the band, whatever you might call it…
I don’t know what do you mean with sound direction, but I guess that you mean how we call our music (sorta…-ed.). It is very difficult to give a name to your own music, but we still call it death Metal. I don’t deny some parts sound black or thrashy, but you can call it what you want.
What is “The Grand Grimoire” then, as proposed by the album…
The lyrics are based on a film called “Warlock”, in this film the warlock is searching for a book named “The Grand Grimoire” which is a witches’ bible. In this bible hid the real name of god, and if you say this name backwards the world will end. The word ‘grimoire’ is a different word for witches’ bible.
You’re using mostly simple, direct words in your lyrics.
Yes that is true, sometimes you read some lyrics from bands and you will think “what is this crap”, “what do they mean by this”. We don’t like those bullshit, with our way everyone can understand our lyrics, we say what we want to say and that is it. I think when you hear our new album “Bloody Blasphemy” you’ll notice that the lyrics are even more to the point, that’s the way we like to say things.
The pictures of the band members in the album (TGG) was not being done in the usual way. Tell us something about it…
Henri came up with the idea of putting our heads on paintings of early kings and noblemen. And this turned out to be perfect, we get a lot of reactions on this, everybody seems to like it. For example we placed Roel’s head on the painting of William van Oranje, this is the man who lead the revolution against the Spanish some 400 years ago, and created the republic what later is called Holland.
GOD DETHRONED seems to indulge in past, forgotten era…
Yes, we write about Dutch history and things like that. The song “Somberness of Winter” is about Willem Barentsz who was a Dutch explorer. He tried to find a short route to India by sailing north instead of south which was the usual route in those days. But he had bad luck and his ship was crushed by ice on the island Nova Zembla, and he and his crew died a horrible death. We like these old stories, it is part of our background and none of the other Dutch bands seem to use these subjects for their lyrics. On “Bloody Blasphemy” there are two other songs with lyrics like that.
What do GOD DETHRONED think about the present days then?
I can’t speak for the other guys in the band, but I think it’s sucks. There is war everywhere, and by this I mean dirty wars where the battle is decided by the one who has the biggest budget, and not who has the most courage. And people that kill each other because they think that the god they believe in is the only true god; how stupid they are, they must know that there is no god. Life must have been so much better when the world was not so crowded, like 1,000 or 5,000 years ago. I can't wait till the time arrives that a disaster will strike us and half of us or more will die.

I don't think that GOD DETHRONED is a black Metal-orientated band, but I find that the band is far more 'meaner' than most of them (musically or lyric-wise).
I don't know if this is true, this is the way you look at it but there are some bands that are far more brutal than we are. A band like MARDUK I think are far more extreme than us.
And what do you think, is the definite way for a band to express their intentions in both aspects?
Yes this is true because, what would you think of a satanic jazz band. This is only a joke of course but when your lyrics are brutal I think that the only way to give this some more is the extreme music. When you write depressing lyrics the music can support this feeling and make it stronger.
I found out that Henri is a capable producer himself. Could you tell us a bit about his works? Will he produce GOD DETHRONED's albums by himself after this?
No I don't think so, I know we will always work like what we did on "The Grand Grimoire" and on "Bloody Blasphemy". And sorry I can't tell you more about Henri's works becuse I don't know what you mean with 'Henri's works' (I'm referring to his works as producer and engineer on some recordings-ed.)
Some people are mumbling that your band's name is pretty cliche, you know...
Let them mumble, I feel sorry for them, the stupid bastards. I will meet them in Hell and they will suffer.
I hope to hear more of GOD DETHRONED soon, what it might probably be?
Ok, I told you we have a new album out already, called "Bloody Blasphemy". For us this album is another step in the right direction, because we are much more satisfied about the production compared to that of "The Grand Grimoire". we also wrote shorter songs because we think this gives some more speed to our live shows. The only thing I further can say about it is go out and listen to it somewhere and hear for yourself.

http://www.goddethroned.com/