King Diamond

This interview with King Diamond was in issue #30.

I don’t know if the Abigail 25th anniversary edition is going to be different from the recent remaster. Do you know if it will have the same bonus tracks, or the same audio processing?
That’s what I heard so far. There have been ideas thrown around. What the end result is going to be, I’m not 100% sure right now. There WAS talk about getting it remastered by a topnotch guy. Abigail falls short a little bit. That was unfortunately the one that I feel was not given the right treatment when they did remaster them. That one turned so bright that it hurts my ears to listen to it. That’s the one where I would say “Well, the older version sounds better.” Now we get the chance to do it right.

I was told that Abigail and Them came out when they were mastered for vinyl, and what that means is that the equalization favored the high end because bass makes wider grooves on the record, and that can limit space.
Well, it sounds fine on the original. What about the others from the same period of time? Right there it kind of contradicts itself. I was listening back and forth, that and the original, when I got it. There was a lot of time pressure on that. I realize that. Things HAD to be done. There was a deadline. So there was no means, time-wise, to go back and re-do it. That’s why, if they remaster, give it to a top-notch guy. If they can’t get the actual master tapes, which I doubt. Well, they might have them still. But if they can’t find them, they can definitely do a killer job just grabbing the old original CD and do it from that. They can get it up to a decent volume without jeopardizing the frequencies.

I had asked you if you had ever been tempted to go back and not just to adjust the equalization, but to actually re-mix the multi track tapes and remaster in the true sense. You told me that once you do something, you leave it, because you would never be satisfied, no matter what is changed.
Abigail I would never touch. That album has the right feel for what the album’s about, for the TIME. If I had to do that album today it would sound totally different, of course. There’s a different sound that you get today. The things you CAN do today… The Puppetmaster, and even the last live album – those have got some REALLY good sounds, in my opinion. They have a nice spectrum of top-to-bottom, clarity, and authenticity. Those, I’m very happy with, and also the old Abigail. For that time, it was exactly what it should be. Everything else – I can go in and pick shit apart – high hat too much to one side for my liking, or too crisp, or it interferes too much with the attack of the snare – there are so many things. There are certain blends of some of the choir parts that I would like to change to feature a different part in it that would probably give more of that atmosphere that I was after. So many things. I can go in and change ALL the albums, except Abigail , The Puppetmaster, and the very last live album. Everything else I could definitely go in and go nuts with, and I would probably finish up with something that I would probably, two years from now, NOT be satisfied with. (laughs) It’s a healthy thing to not be satisfied with what you do. That makes you search continuously for making things better.

Of all the King Diamond albums, did you spend the most time in post-production on Abigail, mixing everything and applying filters and such?
I don’t think so.

What about the actual recording? Was that your longest stretch in a recording studio?
No. (laughs) I can tell you, if you took a metronome and ran it with those songs, you will HEAR that it did not take that long to do. (laughs) There are passages that are speeding up, and then there are passages that suddenly drag down. You can go from a fast verse that goes faster and faster toward the end of it, then comes this heavy chorus – WHOA! – What a tempo drop! These days, we like to be in time with the songs.

You play with a click track?
Yes.

And you did not back then?
No. (laughs) You can hear that, big time. If you put it to that test, you can really hear it. Some of those things I remember from back then… Andy was usually the one who would play a cue guitar in a little booth somewhere in the studio. Mickey would have it in his headphones. Andy would probably play a little sloppy sometimes, not out of bad intent, but Mickey knew all the parts – he just needed something to show him where he was in the song. So then you don’t have to be that precise because it’s not the real guitar you’re recording. Suddenly Mickey would stop and say, “What the hell?” And Andy would say, “You’re speeding like crazy!” “I wasn’t speeding! you’re just playing sloppy now!” Those whose-fault-is-it kind of things… When we record today, there is nothing to discuss because you have to be on the beat. That’s the end of it. There is a way to set it like that so that it’s correct. So those kind of things made for it not taking any longer. It was a very LIVE feel doing it that way. But still, it was an instrument at a time. We never recorded where everybody stands together and plays. Then it would probably take longer than other album because, with that style of music, someone would make a mistake through a song. It would just take too long.

The strange this is, Abigail has been hailed by musicians. If musicians themselves are applauding that work, is that sorcery that makes them overlook what you just said? You know how anal some musicians can be when critiquing another artist.
It’s not a bad thing that it speeds. Sometimes you like that live feel. It’s the kind of feel that you have when you are in a live situation. Most songs, played live, are faster than studio albums. That’s just the extra adrenaline pumping from having an audience in your face. You totally let go. You get caught up in the mood of the whole thing. It’s not a bad thing. It just gives a different feel. The songs themselves – the writing and the performances – that’s what made that album what it is. There are also other things. It was the first of the genre where there’s a full-concept horror story with metal music. It had not been done before, ever, by anyone. A lot of bands have done a concept album, but never a horror story. The style was very unique. It was an early part of the career when people had not gotten used to that style. So the album had everything going for it much easier to make an impact with an album like that at THAT time, than twenty years when everyone knows your style. They expect you to stay in your style. I would never do a country album, of course. It’s such a trademark style. You can always tell when it’s us. Fans would not want us to go away from that. The trademark style has given us a longevity that very few bands experience. It’s still going very well, as you know. Because it’s such a unique style, we were never affected by any trends. We just plow right through on our own little road. But then, we were never right there on the bandwagon when something was very popular and able to sell a platinum album. That has meant that much to me. You also know that. The pleasure itself of playing and being able to have my hobby as a livelihood… I don’t need sixteen Ferrari’s in my garage. It would be nice, but I don’t have those kind of values. I never had. I guess I’m a lot easier to satisfy. That’s the best road for me – the longevity and still being able to have that fun. I have more fun playing those old songs live today than it was when the album came out. It’s a more enjoyable situation now because the guys that are around are the best I’ve ever played with in my life. There’s that 100% trust. They’re not going to screw up. It has to be something serious for that to happen, like an amp blowing up, but we have one of the best crews in the business – I trust them so much that I don’t even do soundchecks anymore, and I have perfect sound… well, as much as is possible. There can be rooms that are weird, like having carpets on the walls. It sucks the sound in. You feel like the whole room you’re playing in died. Nothing bounces off the walls. That’s a weird live feel. I like to feel the reverb of the room and hear a little of the P.A. and the delays it throws out. I feed a lot off that stuff. When the sound is dead, it’s so tough, and the crew can’t fix THAT. But everything is done so pro now, and that give more energy to give a party instead of concentrating and thinking about the next part that has problems. There’s not so much to worry about, like in the early days when every man was pretty much his own roadie. That means a lot. I look forward to the high passages today. I know my voice can handle it, unless I’m sick. The very high, long notes, in “Eye of the Witch” for instance. I look forward to that because I can feel like I can show off in some ways. I really do. I feel confident I can hit those notes. Five years ago, when I got to that part, I would wish that I could hear myself properly. It’s not that I can’t take the note, it’s just so that I can hear the note, so I can. A lot of those problems I eliminated now. That’s a big part of why we still want to go on the road. All other aspects, you know, I hate. It makes me want to puke to sit on a bus for eight hours,rolling thumbs. You can only do so much of one or another thing. They have only so much DVDs on a bus. And I can’t sleep on a bus when it rolls. Then there’s bad food, and sometimes no food at all. Lack of sleep. I usually get six hours every twenty-four hours, but it’s divided into two or three little go’s of an hour and a half or two hours each. Not a whole lot of time to enjoy. The only time I enjoy is that hour and forty minutes on the stage. That’s the highlight every day.

You amass quite a sleep debt. At the end of the tour, do you sleep for sixteen hours straight?
When I get home, I can tell you, I don’t want to talk to friends. I don’t want the phone to ring. I don’t have the energy to speak to a grocery clerk. I need groceries, the house is empty, and they’re always friendly. “Hey! How was the tour?” That’s the last thing I want to hear. I want to see my bed. I’m tired of sleeping in a soft bed, then a hard, bed, then a soft bed, then a bed where something sticks up in my back. I can tell you, when you get into those kinds of scenarios, you’re always sore.

Getting back to the speeding up and slowing down, maybe musicians hailed it because they considered it to be dynamic.
I think it’s the songwriting and the performances. It’s very melodic and still heavy.. It’s raw. It’s got mood. That’s why it’s one of the albums that I am most satisfied with. And The Puppetmaster too. The moods in that album are much stronger than on Abigail. But it’s an album that came so many years later, and it will NEVER be hailed among the fans as up there with Abigail. It’s a real treat for me because I know how much it takes for an album to be so high in a fan’s opinion. It means that that album has to be a lot better. That’s the pure fact of it. It’s hard to compete with something that was so unique at that time. It was a shock for a lot of people to hear that style for the first time. A lot of fans have said that to me. It’s hard to compete with yourself in that respect. The things with Abigail that were the hardest to do were not the recording stuff. You have to remember that, at that time, we were all in the same country, or pretty much. We lived so close that rehearsals were possible. We rehearsed more, together, you can say. There are better musicians now that don’t need that rehearsal time, but back then, the songs were rehearsed by the whole band before we ever went in and recorded them. With Mercy, we had even played some of the songs live before recording them. Sometimes for a year we played some of the songs that were later recorded. That’s not the case later on in the career. We’re spread out all over the world, you know. So that didn’t take as long as one might think And the mixing process didn’t take as long as you would imagine simply because we didn’t have the means for it to take long. There was no automation. We didn’t have the chance of working for two hours getting specific reverb to open up in the right way in those five words at the end of verse 2, or whatever, and program it in so that it does it itself so we don’t have to worry about it. We spent time on it, came up with ideas, and now it does it by itself. Back then, we had to do it all manually. We were all in on the mix. Everybody’s fingers were on some kind of buttons on the mixing board. That’s why we delegated in a smart way… and said, “No Mickey, you’re not going to control the snare drum. Andy, you’re not going to do your own solo.” He’d argue, “Well I know how loud..” No, no, no. Let Mickey do your solo, and you can do Mickey’s snare, and so on. There were marks. We had done test after test run. How loud should that solo be? OK, here’s the mark. Don’t go over that mark. And you can be sure that Mickey wouldn’t go over the mark, and visa versa with Andy going over Mickey’s snare. You could trust better , otherwise you would have to do it again and again and again if people weren’t kept in control.

You should never let people edit their work.
No, not in that scenario. it was 100% analog. You couldn’t start in the middle. You would have to do the whole thing again. So in that respect it was a little faster, mixing it. First of all, we didn’t have the capability to go so much in depth with every single little thing. There were not enough hands to do it. You had to do what you needed to do, on the fly. Let the thing roll. So there were limits there. Today there are piratically no limits. You could sit and spend three hours on the reverb for five words, and we did on Puppermaster.

Getting back to the timing thing, there have been Mercyful Fate songs, like when you sing “It is so much colder in here.” That was done purely by feel, not by metronome. Would you make a song like that on a future album?
It’s a different matter for me, as a vocalist. I don’t sing to a metronome. I sing by total feel, no matter. I don’t think that I have ever needed a metronome in a break. If you listen to “No More Me” it’s full of that type of stuff. Those total emotional, feeling-out breaks. It’s nothing but. Of course that song was recorded with a metronome, but for the vocalist, it’s a totally different matter because you are free. You can go over beats and this and that, and then pick it up, being on a beat later. The more precise they (the musicians) are, the more free I feel. If they started suddenly speeding up at the end of a verse, and I had to do something, it might not leave me enough space to do an emotional thing. That emotional thing, to fit, would have to be rushed, and that wouldn’t sound right. But when I have that solid tempo going, then I don’t even have to think about it. It’s almost how I feel pitch, for instance. It’s totally automatic. I found out. When Mercy was playing shows with Metallica in Europe in ‘99, there was a show in Milan where the Metallica guys invited Hank and I to go up and do the whole medley from the Garage Inc. album, all twelve minutes, or whatever, as one of the encores. At first, I was like “Doesn’t Metallica play detuned a little bit? How the hell am I going to sing that?” I had sung some of that stuff earlier that day, but in our key,and now I had to drop it half a note, or whatever it is. That scared me to death. How is that going to work out? But once we started, I didn’t even feel that I was singing it differently. It actually became a little easier, singing like a semitone lower. It’s a matter of feeling the key inside. The same thing with the beats, when they’re going. I never ever count anything. when there’s a solo going, I don’t stand there and count. “OK, that was three rounds, four rounds. Ok, now I have to start singing again here.” Never. It’s all feel. But, the guys always play the same solos, and if they were improvising half the time, good luck to me, because I would have nothing to go by. I know those solos by heart. That was one thing funny about listening to the live album. I could picture exactly where I was on stage the whole time, and then I realized certain things as we were mixing it. If Andy is playing a solo, I will usually be closer to him so I hear his solo clearest. That’s what I go by, since I don’t count. But by the end, when the verse starts, I am on the opposite side where I could hear Mike’s rhythm guitar more, or visa versa. Andy is my favorite guitar player of all time, so I am not saying anything bad about him, but he has this tendency, live, when he finishes a fast lick or whatever – he will hold a long feedback note. Listen and you will hear that. In those places, I had to get away from him. I can’t stand over there by the feedback note because I have nothing to go by. That dawned on me while we were mixing. If they, for some reason, screw up in the middle of the solo. or the amp goes out just for five seconds, I’m screwed completely. I will not know when to come in. I will not know where the other guys are. was it five or six rounds that they played? I hadn’t been paying attention to how many rounds. Suddenly it changes key and goes into the verse, and I can’t pick it up there. You just aim the mike at the crowd and the crowd starts singing. (laughs) They ALWAYS know. What do you call those… in theatres, you have this little old man sitting in a box, with a book, speaking to the actors. Whatever he is called, the audience, the first row there, they are the best of that. I’ve had to use it. I admit that. Those situations… what the hell are you going to do? Suddenly you’re two rounds in. The lyrics don’t just sit like that., like “OK, I’ll pick up from the second line.” No. I pick it up by cue words. I know the first few words of each verse. The rest is automatic. I don’t even think about what I’m singing. When the cue words are NOT there, I can’t just pick it up. It’s impossible. Then I look down at the audience, at those desperate eyes… it’s rare, but it does happen, and God,do I feel miserable afterwards! I swear, if I didn’t have that white on I would be glowing red like the reindeer’s nose. That is embarrassing. the same thing if someone is out of tune. You will hear that on bootlegs. There could be one guitar not matching. That’s very difficult for a singer. If a guy’s out of tune somewhere and I start hearing him, I follow him with that automatic pitch. I sound off, but I’m dead-on with the guy I can hear. You’re lucky in the studio. You have all the time in the world. With mercy, when we played Satan’s Fall live. Everybody’s like, “King! You’ve GOT to talk longer before Satan’s Fall! We all need time to tune perfectly.” By the end of that song, everyone’s a little off, each other. They have no time to tune for twelve minutes. That’s a problem when you play live, in a hot sweaty humid room. The guitar will slowly drift out of tune. It’s got to be dead-on in the beginning and you will not be that far in the end. At the end of it there’s a lot of single-note playing and harmonies. I have to sing to them. Oh man! That’s the real world of a musician. There are lot of things that no one knows about and can’t see unless you tell them. This is how hard it is.

I recently unearthed a tape that I had a long time ago. It’s an interview that Ole did with you that was done before “Fatal Portrait” was released. You were actually playing guitar in that interview, giving fans a chance to hear riffs that were on the forthcoming album. It was pretty strange hearing you play guitar. Is there a secret part on any album in which you actually play guitar?
Well… (in a nonchalant tone) there’s a few places.

Ha! I knew it! It was strange to hear you play guitar. But it was also strange, sort of comical, to hear you and Ole talk to each other in such a respectful manner, as if you were perfect strangers.
(laughs) the good old days. People didn’t know us yet.

Wow. I’ve just unearthed some trivia! King has actually played guitar on the albums!
Yeah, here and there, bits and pieces. Most has been in scenarios where I had a very crooked finger position that was impossible for the other person to do. I use some very odd chords sometimes. Sometimes it’s a feel thing. Each player has different techniques. I have a very unique way that dampen the strings when I want these (vocalizes what the guitar sounds like). it has sometimes been very hard to get out. I want them sounding a certain way, fat but still very crisp. It’s not all that easy. I have my style. I play both up and down strokes. A lot of guitarists play only down strokes. It’s different techniques. There are some things that are awkward for Andy to play, with the up/down strokes, but that’s what it demands or you’re simply not going to get the right mood out of the riff. There were some places here and there where I’d do that little bridge, or this or that. One thing that was cool about The Puppetmaster is that Andy has never gotten that close to my expression of my songs, the way I play them on the demos. I have all the demos here where I play all the guitars. There’s a drum machine, and I simulate the bass by playing the guitar through an octave. Some of the keyboards turn out to be the real ones. There, you can REALLY hear my style of playing. It’s demos, so it’s not that perfect, of course, but the overall feel of everything is exactly there the way I want others to play it. Sometimes I play little pieces (on the album) where there’s certain kinds of chords, or certain kinds of structures that just doesn’t fit the other player’s technique at all. Maybe one day I should release demos where I play everything. (laughs)

I’m very upset with the security you when you record. Nothing leaks out. It’s very frustrating for a King Diamond fan
Well maybe one day I will release them. You do hear me play guitar on one those albums with the bonus stuff. For “Them,” I think. I play one of the guitars on the rehearsals because Pete Black wasn’t there at the time. That rehearsal tape, that’s Andy and me playing guitars.

Abigail, to my ears, has the most amount of choir, of all your albums.
I’m not sure you’re right. Not with the backings,and how many there are, and how layered

It sounds like that.
It’s probably the album with the most REVERB on it ever. It does make everything sound more like we recorded in a church almost.

A Satanic church.
Of course! Are you kidding? (he pauses, and then laughs) Do you know what I am saying? Some of the stuff on “Conspiracy” – there’s so much (choir) on there, and later on too. There’s lots of that stuff. You can go all the way up the albums. There’s tons of layered vocals. But everything is dryer. Even if the guitars are reverbed more than usual, they will create an atmosphere for the vocals, of course. The more swimmy the guitars are, the more swimmy the vocals will sound, even if they don’t have reverb. How you put the whole band in a certain room for the whole duration is something you determine from the early phase. What kind of room do we want to be in? Then you add more reverb to a certain snare because it has to have a special effect. I’ve gone away from using reverb on my vocals. It’s only used for specific effects. I use delay instead. There’s a delay at all times on my vocals, but you don’t hear it in the music. This is an odd thing, actually, No matter what tempo the song is in, we set the delay at 666 milliseconds. You’re probably thinking I’m lying, but I’m not. That amount of delay time fits ANY of our songs. I don’t like to have that swimming around if there’s a quiet passage, for instance where I’m talking, because then it sounds stupid. When I’m playing live, I don’t like a delay hanging on my voice when I’m between songs, “Thank you very much.. thank you very much (he mocks a repeating echo getting fainter with each cycle). That sounds so stupid in between songs. The same thing for taking parts in music. You kill that delay. But for the singing parts, that’s what’s on my vocals all the time. It’s a cool feel for how we produce the albums today. They are a LOT dryer than back then. When you’re a guitarist, and you try to make out what we’re playing on Abigail, on certain passages you will NEVER know what chords we’re using. You simply can’t hear it clear enough duplicate perfectly.

When did you start producing your own albums?
Well, it started with “Don’t Break the Oath” when we decided we had had enough of feeling like going to a dentist when recording an album. That’s what it felt like. That’s the strongest memory I had on “Melissa.” I felt like being at the dentist’s office, being called in. “Mr. Peterson?” Then you walked into the control room and were played a song. “What’s this? Where’s THIS, and where is THAT? Why are the guitars so low? Where is that harmony? This is heavy metal, not the pop you normally do!” Great producer at that time, but he was a pop producer, actually. That’s what he had done most – Danish pop music. Very good productions. Very skillful guy. We didn’t have any other names of producers. It was probably because of the studio he had. We got a little bit of that taste on the mini LP. I had all of the backing parts ready for that. Those songs were supposed to have the same style of backings as on the “Melissa” album, until I was told “You have two tracks.” You know the story with Hank. He was taking to long. It cost a lot. “I’m sorry, man. This one has got to be IT. Whatever we do now goes on tape and it goes on the album. I don’t care anymore.” Talk about pressure. (laughs) And that’s what happened. So that was the first time we felt these other people in control. And it continued on ‘tile “Don’t Break the Oath.” I had enough. “I’m going to stay here whether you like it or not! When I say turn that keyboard up, I want to hear what it’s like when you move that thing. I want to SEE you move it, not send us out and bring us back in and try to fool us without having moved anything and see if we hear it, because I DO hear it!” So during “Don’t Break the Oath” that’s finally when the band ended up in the control room. So we, of course, got a little bit more experience there. Then when Roberto came in on “Fatal Portrait” and so on, we knew a bit more and were involved the whole way. He had a lot of ideas. He was also a great link between our ideas and how to bring it to tape. That continued for many albums. It was awesome working with him. He and I would sit and play keyboards together. Some of the things on “Conspiracy” and also “On the Eye” was played four-hand, actually. It was him and I. Otherwise we didn’t have enough tracks. (pauses) I forget. Where was I?

About producing your own albums.
(we both laugh) I can’t remember if “Them” was… no, I don’t think “Them” was automated either. There was a part that Andy had forgotten to record. It was a make-or-break riff for “The Accusation Chair” I think. He was already back in Sweden, and I had to go back and get my guitar and record the part. We were losing time, and we were up against other people who stood outside waiting with all their gear, and we were still mixing the last part. Before that, we must have been mixing for twenty hours straight. I was so dead, sitting on a chair, listening next to Roberto, and suddenly blacked out and fell forward into the mixing desk and onto the floor. Roberto is like “Go take an hour on the couch!
This is no help.” Then we finished later. Some tough times.

Did anything strange ever happen in the studio the way strange things have happened in your apartment in Denmark?
I remember that I almost burned the studio down when we did “Them.” I used to have candles to see my lyrics. Just candles. Nothing else. I found ways to put them where my lyrics stand was, and it was one of those times when I was so tired that I took a break. There must have been some wind going in there, blowing the candles over towards the lyrics. They were burned! They were gone. I came in there. “It smells smokey in here.” There was a big black spot burned into the floor. I fortunately had copies. (pause) But I don’t think there was a demon in there blowing at it, or something like that. The first thing we were in the studio that I KNOW things went haywire was with “Conspiracy.” There was this female second engineer that we barely used. She was the one who was freaked out completely. She was screaming, crying, all kinds of shit, because of what was going on there. That is not a rarity. That is more the norm. SOMETHING will happen. Other people get freaked. I think it was on “House of God” when Koll Marshall was working a little overtime. We were mixing, trying to get done, and we both saw a little man in the doorway. But the weird thing was that i had seen that little man at two in the afternoon, and of course, the whole studio is dark. But I had seen him there. “Am I THAT fuckin’ tired? This is too weird.” About five hours later, we’re sitting there. Koll was at the mixing desk. It was across the room, to his left, where that doorway was. I would be sitting, usually facing the console, but from his left side. Suddenly, man, he just got pale, and he totally froze. He was looking over in that direction, and without me even turning my head, I said, “You saw him! I know you saw him!” He’s was like, “This is not REAL! You CAN’T know that!” I said, “The man over in the doorway? I know you saw him.” He was totally freaking. He usually closed up the studio by himself, but he was begging me to stay for the rest of the night. (laughs). “You don’t have to leave right now, do you?” That’s why there is a mention in the credits for that. (Ed- I swear I saw the Glitcher! King saw him too)

I had asked you prior to the Mercyful Fate reunion if you would ever re-do a song. You answered that you are always moving forward, working on new material. When you re-did “Return of the Vampire” I was suprised.
That was a unique experience.

Did it ever cross your mind to do a sort of re-visit album and do the songs from the mini LP, and songs like “Shadow Nights” and “A Dangerous Nightmare?”
Those were all chopped up into other songs, the last two. But the others – I almost said it before, when we talked about the mini LP and how that was recorded, the other vocals were prepared but never done, and I wonder how those songs would have sounded… maybe I will never know. It all comes down to time, and money too. Is it going to be interesting enough to go in and do those songs? What would it look like to other people if Mercy does another album in a year or two and we put that in there – would the fans think that we are out of ideas? I always worry, maybe too much, about those things. I worry about what people think. In that respect. I don’t want to appear pathetic.

Well maybe if I keep asking you to do it every time that I interview you.
(laughs) That’s the reason why “Abigail II” finally done. Inside, I felt there was so much more I could write about this story. Gramma is one of my all-time favorite characters. I would love to be given permission to do another album with her in it. It would be so cool. I know what the cover would look like. It’s a very passionate thing inside of me. But if we did that, how would it look? Honestly. Conspiracy, Part III , with Gramma? No matter what the story is about, it would still look like Part II to other people. It’s like, “He has to go all the way back there to get inspiration!” I don’t dare do that. It would have to be fan request, like it was with Abigail II. So many people kept asking me to do another thing that reminds of that, and has that complexity.

How many signatures do you require?
What? (laughs). Two! I really want to do it that bad! (laughs) But seriously, it is like that for me. I don’t want anyone to think that I ran of ideas. But if that were not the case, I would love to go back and give those songs the full treatment.

Maybe you won’t re-do “Burning the Cross” but is it possible for you to write down the lyrics for me to print? Would that be a pain in the as for you?
Yeah. To find them?

You wouldn’t remember them from hearing the song?
I doubt it. I don’t know how clear it is there on the actual album. (pauses) Maybe after the tour.

Keep that on your list. It will be a treat for old-timers like me.
I think I have it somewhere. I was thinking of it that way, that I wouldn’t have to sit and listen. It was very early-days, as you know.

I’ve heard earlier versions of Satan’s Fall with more aggressive lyrics. You moved away from in-your-face evil in favor of the more mysterious.
It gets old very fast. It doesn’t leave too much to the imagination. Do you like splatter movies or more psychological movies? Which one puts you deeper into a certain mood? The first one is like (makes a gore, splat sound) “That looked cool!’ The other one, you feel uncomfortable for a long time. It’s much bigger impact. To misuse the word “Satan” does not make you heavier. I think it’s so anti-tough to misuse it. I’ll still use it any day. It’s a very good word. It doesn’t matter which camp you’re in. That word has a uniform meaning to most people. It gives them immediate association, which to me is not the real meaning at all. Even I see some pictures in my head, even though I know it has nothing to do with that. Do you know what I mean by that? It’s like a label. Like picking up a bottle of Johnny Walker. It gives you something that you don’t have to think too long about. Drink it, and you will like the taste or hate the taste. It depends on the kind of person you are.

One of the things that I heard that I thought was rather shocking, having had grown accustomed to the later style of lyrics, is the an earlier version of “Satan’s Fall” in which you sing, “Satan is better than God.”
I will stand up for any lyrics, ever, because there are meanings behind those things. That thing there is very tongue-in-cheek, of course. I should have chosen better words to make it more lyrical. Well, Satan is, in many situations, a better choice than God. There would be less killing. You know that’s true. The Crusades, whatever. Even if you believed in the worst scenario of Satanism, in what I call the completely distorted fake rituals, if that was all true, it would have hurt so much less than the Crusades. When you just said that line, I immediately got the feel from back then, what I felt inside. But the words,I think, “How fuckin’ primitive!” It’ s like “Walking down the stairs to hell” or something like that. How corny.

You seemed more confrontational back then,
You know also why. There was nothing like that back then. Attacked from all sides. Venom didn’t really do that. We were simultaneous, but they had a whole different way of talking about these things. With them, I think,it’s like watching the old Hammer horror movies. It looks cool, sounds cool, but maybe it doesn’t mean as much as was said. I think Cronos has said that himself sometimes, that you need to take things with a grain of salt and lighten up sometimes. I try to do that too. That’s why sometimes you see the band in Christmas outfits and stuff like that. You have to be able to laugh at yourself. You know there’s a lot of humor on the albums too. It might be a little twisted, but it’s there. back then, I can tell you, English was not that easy for me. I had not traveled much at that time. When we the first U.S. tour for “Don’t Break the Oath, there were lots of times when I did interviews, and I remember clearly how it was not natural for me to just say things. Like, now, I dream in English. But that’s because I’m in the environment. I only talk Danish when I talk business to Ole, or my mom, or my brother. Everything is English around me.

You are immersed.
Absolutely. But back then, if anyone asked me a question, inside my brain there was this translation going. I translated in my head to Danish. I must have seemed so slow back then because I’d come up with my Danish answer and then translate to English. To say anything took me time. That’s why there are those famous… “Sarcophagus” was “sarco-fay-gus.” Then later on it’s like “I have to sing it the wrong way.” I think about it every time we play that song.

I remember you used to introduce “Into the Coven” as “Into the koh-ven.”
Yeah, well that’s a thing that you can say either way.

If you want to hear something funny, I had never used the word “coven” unless I was mentioning your song, and whenever I said it, I said it your way, and people were yelling at me to say it right. You messed me up!
But you know what? People came up to me and said the same thing. No, no, no. you can’t be right. That must be wrong because it doesn’t sound as tough. There’s a big difference there.

Exactly. Getting back to “Burning Cross,” but not in an annoying way, for the DVD material that might be provided as a bonus, you said you had video footage of Ben Petterson playing. That’s a treat for all of us who don’t know what he looks like. Did he write “Burning the Cross?”
Yeah, with me. (pause) There should be a good possibility of that early show from ‘82 when Michael Denner is not in the band

Is this bonus video footage would go to Roadrunner and not to Metal Blade? I know you have stuff coming out on Metal Blade.
Yeah, but there’s a difference between these things. The stuff that Roadrunner is getting is stuff that some collectors had seen – maybe not a lot of the King Diamond stuff that I am intending to give them – the Mercy, a lot of collectors have seen, but not in this quality. It’s been through digital processing with a company from Sweden. It’s actually a three-camera shot of us playing a little club in Holland called “The
Dynamo” at that time, anyway. For us to give it out is where I am not living up to my (sarcastic tone) perfectionist image. There are some bombers in there that you would not believe. I have one and the band has one, and they’re big. It’s not like I have to tell you where they are. Then of course everyone just plays as if everything is normal. For King Diamond, it’s a show from Gothenburg, Sweden, on the Abigail tour. But I think is two camera angles. That one, I haven’t seen yet. Our own stuff for Metal Blade has never before been seen. we have the only master tapes. There is some killer shit. I freaked when I saw it. There is fifty minutes from a show in Amsterdam at a place called Paradisio (ed. spelling?) which used to be a church. I think that’s from ‘84, if I’m not wrong, before we did “Don’t Break the Oath.” But we did play “Come to the Sabbath.” There are more. There is this big festival in Denmark where we went on stage at 4:40 in the morning. But people stayed. You can see in the distance when the sun starts coming up. We have quite a bit. King Diamond stuff too. There was a park in Copenhagen, a gig that we did in the middle of recording “The Eye.’ We tore our gear down and then played this one show and then put it back up and continued recording. Unusual.

That would put to rest the rumor Snowy programmed a drum machine instead of playing electronic drums.
There you go. Electronic drum pads are definitely not the same as playing a drum kit, you know – an experiment that wasn’t bad but it was not what it could have been.

I’ve seen clips, after the reunion, at the Dynamo festival.
Yeah, that would have been the big open air one. MTV was there.

So MTV has the rights to that, not you?
Yeah.

Santa Scarlett
Santa Scarlett

Phyllis Eisenstein

Why have your books become out of print? You have no idea how deep was my sense of loss when I could not track down the people who had borrowed your books from me.
Thanks for liking my work so much. Writers always love to hear their work praised. There appear to be two reasons why my books are currently out of print. First, there were changes of personnel at NAL (U.S. publisher). Everyone who had any interest in my work left the company, and the one editor who was in a position to buy new fantasy work, did not want the third novel in the “Sorcerer¹s Son”/”Crystal Palace”series. When that happened, I worked very hard to get the rights to the first two books reverted to me so that I could resell them along with the third book. Although I found editors with at least one other company who did want to publish all three books, the sales people at that company said I had been out of the marketplace too long for the books to be viable. That is, I wasn¹t prolific enough. Several editors have said I should write some new books, unconnected to the old ones, and after they were published, the old books would look more attractive. So that¹s what I’m doing now – working on a new book. We¹ll see how that goes.


Would you agree that many people have a gift for writing, but very few of them actually dare to try making something of it?
Actually, I disagree. It¹s my observation that very few people have a gift for writing. I say this as a teacher who has seen a self-selected sample of people who want to be writers -in my classes – and the majority of them think they can write but they can’t. Of course, there are really two elements to writing – the ability to tell a gripping story, and the ability to write in readable prose. Some people have one ability but not the other. Relatively few have both. And the days of editors who would fix your prose if you were only a good storyteller are gone. My job as a teacher, I think, is to help my students develop both skills. As for daring to make something of it – writing well is hard work, and writing fiction is not particularly high-paying. A lot of students discover these things and go on to become middle-managers at hotel chains.

Do you make a skeletal outline first and then flesh it out, chapter by chapter?
Yes, I am an outliner. I think a 20 page outline is about right for a novel. Then I mark the chapter breaks and, starting at Chapter One, write them in sequence. I usually come up with other details as I¹m writing, and I jot them down on scraps of paper, which I tack up on my bulletin board. As I reach the points where they fit in the story, I write them into it and throw the scraps of paper away. There have usually been a lot of scraps of paper in my wastebasket by the time I’m done with a novel.

I would like to know what you consciously do to make the descriptions so vivid in my mind.
I consciously tell myself to slow down, to avoid rushing the story. When I was a teenager, I could tell almost any story in 4 pages, most of it dialog, and I¹d write it in a single sitting. It was only when I forced myself to slow down that I started selling my stories. I close my eyes and see the scene and the people I’m writing about. I try to hear the dry leaves crackling underfoot, I try to feel soft fur of an animal under my hands. I bring my own physical experiences to writing, whether that be horseback riding, swimming, running, fencing, or just climbing a flight of stairs. And I try to find some of myself in every character, so that I feel what that character is feeling – hate, anger, despair, whatever. Of course I want reader to care about and identify with my main characters, and I want them to dislike my villains. I usually make my villains paranoid or extremely self-centered, which can certainly result in heartlessness and cruelty, which are evil enough for most stories.

In “The Crystal Palace” you put my imagination in a different reality. It is as if I actually have the memory of existing in the dimensions you described. What made you dream up something so abstract?
I thought about the demon worlds of Water, Fire, and Ice for quite a long time before writing about them. As I thought about the demons themselves, trying to imagine what their personalities would be like, and what their lives would be. Weightlessness was an important aspect of the demon worlds, and I did as much research on it as I could. I also thought a lot about swimming – a kind of weightlessness- and I’ve
often had dreams about flying, so I used memories of those sensations, too. I daydreamed a lot of thought experiments about the demon worlds. I wanted them to be as different from the real, familiar world as they could be. I thought of them as surreal, like landscapes painted by Salvador Dali. Indeed, it was a challenge to write that material down in a vivid way, but I had a good time doing it.

You teach science fiction writing at Columbia College in Chicago. I wonder if you have the time to enjoy the works of writers such as Terry Goodkind.
Not as much time as I’d like. People keep recommending books to me, and there’s a stack on the dresser in my bedroom. I haven¹t read Goodkind yet.

When you wrote the six novels of the past, how much time did you spend writing each day? I am wondering if you received an advance that would allow you to do nothing else if you wished.
On those various novels, my writing time varied wildly from an hour or two a day to eight or nine. Sometimes I was writing full time, sometimes I was doing other things. The advances were never enough to live on, though sales of foreign rights sometimes added a nice cushion. Like many
writers, I’ve done a lot of things to make money.

What is your opinion about the conflict of good versus evil, or light against darkness in fantasy? Is it amateurish to create characters that are all good or all bad?
It may be amateurish, but the real problem is that it’s very easy. As a writer, you don¹t have to think much about your villain’s personality if he’s simply the incarnation of Evil. Sauron had stopped being a human being, and he is, of course, a model for many writers. I prefer more human villains, who have human motivations. Perhaps they are not mentally balanced, or they have horrible experiences in their backgrounds. Perhaps they are self-centered and greedy. There are plenty of motivations available,other than simple pure evil.

Are there some formulae in writing that cannot be avoided?

Various writers have suggested that there are a limited number of plot formulas. Marion Zimmer Bradley said there were nine plots. Robert Heinlein suggested some even smaller number. But these are all vague things, like boy meets girl/ boy loses girl/ boy gets girl. Or, as Marion put one of hers,“There’s a hell of a good universe next door.” On that level, the word “formula” doesn’t mean much. I don¹t really believe in formulas, and I certainly don’t use any on a conscious level. As for variance in structure… let’s face it, readers expect certain things in fiction. They expect to be able to understand what¹s going on. They expect the story to move from someplace to someplace else, either on a personal level or a broad, sweeping level. They expect at least one main character to have interesting and significant experiences. If fiction doesn’t deliver some of this stuff, people won’t read it. So there is a practical limit to variance in structure, based on the audience. In my own writing, I have a broad structure in mind… a route that the story will take from beginning to end, which calls for character growth and change as well as change in the situation – things are different at the end than they were at the beginning). The route has to FEEL right to me, and I judge its rightness by all the standards that I have internalized through decades of reading.

It is often thrilling to read stories that feature demons. But I think that “evil” is just a human attribute. In a physical reality, communication would perfect. So there could be no deception. There would be no ownership of anything, so there could be nothing to steal. You could not be killed or destroyed. You could not be made to suffer pain. There would be no competition for a mate because there is no mating. There is no competition for shelter because there is no weather.
You have some very interesting ideas about how nonphysical reality would work, but I disagree with all of them. Why should communication be perfect? Communication arises from the wills of individuals and is colored by their abilities and intentions. Lying seems an obvious attribute of intelligent creatures, whether they are physical or nonphysical. Ownership does not require physical objects… songs can be owned, not to mention the creatures themselves. Ownership depends, again, on the attitudes and desires of the individuals and of their society. Ownership is a concept we humans have invented, and we apply it where and to what we wish. Why should thoughts have the power to manifest themselves as temporary reality? In short, what you have here is your own set of parameters for a nonphysical reality, and if you were to write a story using them, that would be fine. But that doesn’t mean they are the ONLY parameters for such a story, and it doesn’t mean that other writers must use them. Every writer is entitled to make up one or more universes with rules that suit the writer. Of course, they should be internally consistent, but lots of combinations of elements can be mutually consistent. As for the otherworldly beings, my attitude toward them is an extension of my attitude toward villains. I envisioned demons as a race of intelligent, nonhuman creatures, not just as disembodied forces conjured up when sorcerers needed them. With that as my premise, it followed logically that they would have their own world, their own culture, their own attitudes. These are not HUMAN attitudes because the demons have their own value system and their own interests. I like the demons a great deal, partly because I see them as aliens -that’s the science fiction writer in me, and partly because they are struggling against the injustice of slavery. This struggle makes them sympathetic characters, even though they are all a little odd by human standards. I also had a lot of fun developing their individual personalities. They’re not evil, but sometimes they are forced to do evil by their masters. And sometimes they do very selfish things that could hurt humans because, to most of them, humans are not very important.

You mentioned that you had flying dreams. Those have had been my favorite type of dream. When I was in high school I had a dream in which I became completely aware that I was dreaming. I knew that I could make anything happen, and I chose to fly, although it was not so easy to shake the beliefs that kept me grounded. It was pure will that enabled me to soar. The reason why I love flying in dreams so much is because it is an experience. Whether it happens in a dream or in real life, the result is the same. All I have after it is done is the memory. But while I am flying I relish each moment. I would like to know if you have also been able to wake up in your dreams. A few years after I had the first conscious experience, I learned that the phenomenon was called “lucid dreaming” and I have learned to induce them, as I’m sure, anyone can.
I’ve had the experience of lucid dreaming a few times. For me, it has always been the result of wanting to dream about certain
things before I went to sleep. The time it worked best resulted in a series of dreams over a period of weeks that were repeats or extensions of the same scenario. Eventually, I used that series of dreams as the basis of a novelette (“Nightlife”, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction back in 1982 and nominated for the Hugo Award). But I haven’t done this, or really wanted to do it, for a long time.

Did you ever meet with rejection that almost ended your desire to write?
Once, when Lester Del Rey urged me to write a sequel to “Sorceror’s Son”, approved the outline, and then rejected the finished book. For a long time after that, I felt sick to my stomach just looking at my keyboard. But I came out of it eventually.

Witchery

This interview with Sharlee D’Angelo was conducted by Jennifer Ligierie for issue #17. Jennifer was introduced to me by her boyfriend at a show. He asked if she could be a Grimoire Girl. I told the two of them that the answer is yes, but she still has to submit the usual way (sending a roll of film that I develop. In the print-version days of the Grimoire, the high end digital cameras were not even 5 megapixels, but even if they were a million, I insisted on a roll of film that I developed, to reduce any chance of fakery. For example, a mad guy could send in pics of his ex-girlfriend. That would backfire, of course, because at least 40,000 people would see an attractive girl scantily clad and worship her. I also had to make sure that she was metal).
Jennifer called a lot, and we hung out, but there were no pictures sent. One night, she broke the friendship barrier and kissed me, and we fooled around for some time. I just kept it at the making out level because she had a boyfriend.
Due to my having made out with her, I considered it a conflict of interests to award her the Grimoire Girl status. Instead, I had her interview bands.
I had her and Sharlee take some joke pictures, and in one, they were each eating a waffle that connected their faces. That idea came from seeing a commercial for a Disney movie in which two dogs eat spaghetti, and they accidentally slurp the same noodle, which brought their faces together for a kiss. Jen and Sharlee chomped the waffle that joined their faces, and suddenly Jen and Sharlee kissed. Well, I guess I knew what her boyfriend would feel like when she told him about her and me, ha ha. Sharlee was blameless. After the initial contact, he opened his eyes in shock. He was not to blame.
Jen and I became an item after she informed her boyfriend of my immense sexiness. OK, maybe that is not what she told him. But the fling didn’t last. That is why she finally became the Grimoire Girl. When she submitted her pictures, it was no longer a conflict of interest. We stayed friends until her death. She was in a few of my movies, including Assmonster, Dirtbags, The Crucifier, and The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made/Horror Odyssey.

(Muffy Stuffoleese/Jen) Are you straight?
(Sharlee) Ah… sometimes my nose is a little crooked, but the rest of me is pretty straight, yes.

The world wants to know if the breasts of the girl who poses as a nun in your ads are real.
Yeah, they’re real… I mean, they exist.

Are they silicon?
They think, therefore they
are.

How have Americans reacted to your penis? Were women shocked by your foreskin? And how big is it?
Well, the foreskin itself is pretty huge. I mean, sometimes you get
filled by a mass of flesh. It’s a bit frightening at points… especially the foreskin… they just don’t know how to deal with it. They haven’t seen it before. It’s just like, “Why is this guy wearing a polo shirt?” That’s what they say. But other than that,it’s been OK.

Do you warn women beforehand?
No. I want it to be a surprise. If they really love me, they can deal with it. (There is a momentary pause in which Jen looks him over, her expression unreadable)

Can I see your penis? Bill never lets me see his, and I’m really curious what an uncircumcised penis looks like.
Well, the thing is, you do not want to see Bill’s.

I heard it’s pretty small.
It’s pretty obvious it’s very small. It might not be as small as you
think, but it’s not huge or anything. Well,you can see my penis, but not now.

Do you have gel in your hair?
No, I do not. Unlike Mr. Zebub, I wash my hair sometimes, and it’s not as nice and frizzy as his hair is. Doesn’t it hurt when he deep-fries his hair?

Is Witchery the #1 priority for Necropolis Records?
Negro Police? Yeah, because they don’t have any other band on Negro Police Records, or Castro Police Records as it’s known by now.

It would be pretty gay to imitate the vocals of a person who’s a flaming homosexual, wouldn’t it?
Uh… it could be, but it could also be, like, a lot of fun to do that, as happens with some bands.


Why does your singer sound like Udo sometimes? The guy is a fag and a half.
Well, the thing is, our singer never wore camouflage clothing. He painted his face black and white, so it’s not camouflage colors. But
that’s really what he wants… the camouflage colors.

Do traditional black metal bands get mad at the feminine way that Witchery wears corpsepaint?
Traditional black metal bands are very feminine, in my opinion at least. They’re from Norway. Norway is a feminine country. Just listen to the melody of the language( Sharlee sounds like Dizzy Galespi’s trumpet to illustrate the gayness of the Norwegian language). That’s so gay. No, but seriously… we never heard anything like that. We are welcoming anything that they have to say.

Are you embarrassed about the musical mistakes on the EP of cover songs? A gay magazine suggested that you were.
No I am not! We’re all perfect. Everybody should know that.
Witchery is completely perfect. There are no flaws anywhere.

But apparently there was an interview in a magazine, the editor of who looks like a gay tennis player, wherein Jensen apologized for musical errors.
Which he should not have done. He must’ve been out of his mind or something. To apologize to someone who looks like that… (Sharlee makes a pfft sound in disgust)… I mean, would you do that?

Will Witchery be doing a track on the King Diamond tribute coming out on Necropolis?
We might do that, actually, although we won’t be doing it as Witchery. We are calling ourselves The Flaming Andy LaCocks. I don’t know what song we’ll do, but we’ll see. If we find something with pink in the title. We just might do it, just as a salute to our record company boss.

(Jen laughs ) Bill fell off his chair. (Jen composes herself) How was your tour with Dismember?
It couldn’t be better. It was, like, four other fat guys from Stockholm.

Do you think that your lyrics and song titles are gay and cheesy?
No. See, it’s not cheesy. I mean, they’re, like, gay and dark… completely like down in the dungeon, if you know what dungeon I’m talking about.

Maybe. Do you perform hip movements on stage?
Absolutely. All the time. I’m a little preoccupied with playing, so sometimes I just miss doing it. If I do it, I do it right. But otherwise, always.

Any funny stories from this particular tour?
Yeah, we played at Birch Hill, and I met this guy who was wearing these god-awful shoes. It’s like, he thinks it’s hip. His hair is deep fried. He probably went down to the Village and
bought this really cool bracelet that’s, like,orange.

How old do you think he is? Like 52?
He’s probably around 38. But he
tries to be 23. The thing is, his sideburns… the handles… what can you do with that?

I don’t want to know. Did Grimoire Girl #9 pay a surprise visit to your hotel?
Not my hotel. Who’s #9?

Felicia.
Yes! She did! She scared the shit out of me. I was sitting down with my guitar player, just on the bed talking, and he mentioned Felicia called about 15 minutes ago. He says, “Speak of the devil.” I turned around and there she is, standing there all dark-looking and lovely.

Do you think she’s gorgeous?
Oh yes.

(Bill Zebub) Do you think Jen is gorgeous?
Absolutely.

(Bill Zebub) Jen, show him your tits.
(Jen launches a furious
attack) You fuckin’ prick!!!
Get a hold of yourself, Bill! You don’t say things like that! She’s a
lady!

(Jen, after she beats the shit out of Bill Zebub and makes everyone in the dressing room laugh) Are you in any other bands, or have you stopped trying to be everyone’s bass player?
(Sharlee answers while Bill keeps repeating “That didn’t hurt”) I’ve stopped that for now. I think I’ve had just about enough of bands that suck for a while. No, really, I’m basically concentrating on three bands at the moment, which is still a little bit too much.

(Jen asks while two security guards come into the room to see what all the noise was about, and they ask why the guy with the frizzy hair is holding a bloody tissue to his nose) Bass wasn’t your chosen instrument, was it? I heard that you originally played it because no one wanted to learn bass in Sweden.
Bass is obviously a loser instrument, and everybody wants to be a guitar player. Those who are left behind have to play bass. Since I couldn’t play fast enough on the lead guitar back when Yngay Malmstein was a god, I just had to settle for bass. I enjoyed it in a way, and then I had to tell myself that bass is the only instrument for a real man. So basically I am a loser and here I
am.

(Bill Zebub) When you talk to people for the first time, what country do they think you are from, you damn Polak?
They think Switzerland, or they say Sweden, the land of clocks
and cheese.

You’re definitely straight?
As I’ve said before, some parts of my body might be slightly crooked. Otherwise, I’m
straight.

Boogers of the Antichrist

Oderus Urungus and Ballsack

When I walked into the Birch Hill, a music venue in New Jersey, two of the girls who worked there told me that Dave (Oderus) asked them if Bill Zebub ever went there, and when they told him yes, he instructed them to bring me backstage if they saw me that night (GWAR was playing).
Dave/Oderus wanted to reprimand me about the magazine, but he had realized that his humor was the same as mine – it was just that I had taken a different approach. It’s easy to take something out of context, or to think that something is the enemy when you are fighting that particular type of enemy (and are on the lookout against that enemy), but I provide enough clues in my magazines, radio shows, and movies, what my intentions are. I make mistakes, often, but I am not a professional – I have no crew and no advisors. I often tell people that if I had a big budget, the biggest improvement wouldn’t be massive explosions and big special effects; it would be the hiring of experts who would let me know that my ideas don’t work (and they would show me how to make them work). I usually have to wait after I have made something for me to realize “Oh, that was a failure.” So in that sense, I am an artist, because I am the only one who decides all things. It’s not collaborative.
Dave gave me a warm welcome, and we were friends ever since. I did not ask him to be in my movies until after I had felt that I had built up my name to the point when the inclusion of a celebrity wouldn’t affect my baseline of sales. What I mean is, Peter Steele helped me in the early days when I had no name in the movie industry. I vowed to make my own waves, just as I had done with this magazine (and my radio shows). When I finally invited Dave to be in my movie JESUS: THE TOTAL DOUCHEBAG, I was of my self-sufficient status. Dave died a month after we filmed.
This interview was conducted back stage at the Birch Hill, and the things you will read might seem harsh, but it was three people hanging out, knowing that we were kindred spirits, and we trusted our fans, or our enemies, because we had established what our humor was, and what it wasn’t. Newcomers might become angry, but if they are smart, they will figure things out.
Incidentally, Peter Steele was the first one to say that when the norm was to be left, his humor was then to be right. You can hear and see him say this in one of my interviews with him.
I wonder if Pete or Dave would have said and done about the censorship, anti-intellectualism, propaganda, and blind conformity of this era. In many ways, I envy them that they died before they tasted the poison, but I am sad that these great iconoclasts are not here. The elves are leaving Middle Earth.
What will become of you when all are gone?

This interview with Oderus and Ballsack appeared in issue #28

Oderus, I’m going to give you the floor to talk about things that you’d like to take off your chest that can’t be printed in magazines like Rock hard in Germany
(Oderus) Europe can suck my dick because they don’t like our new album, they don’t like our old albums, and they don’t understand that we don’t like them either. They don’t want us over there. Well fine, we don’t want to come over there anymore and drink your beer and fuck your women, you cheese-eating, chocolate-chewing, closet-fascist fucks! If you don’t want to like our album, fine! But if you wanna like our album and not bring is over, that’s fine! But if you wanna think it’s fine to be a Nazi, that’s cool! But if you wanna not have us over there to eat your cheese, you can fuck off! But send more cheese.
(Ballsack) American cheese sucks!
(Oderus)American cheese blows, and it sucks that we’re stuck over here in America now, eating American cheese all the fucking time! Also, I don’t like the new Christine Aquilara look at all. I liked it more when she looked like she had A.I.D.S. Now she tried to put on a few pounds, but obviously they did it with surgery and liposuction or reverse-liposuction – blippoblow-tion. It’s not working, girl!

Am I to understand that GWAR loves Metal Blade now?
(Oderus) Isn’t Metal Blade that label that won’t advertise in your magazine? Well, we’re stuck there, aren’t we? And we have been, pretty much. Oh look! (Beefcake walks in). It’s Beefcake the Mighty! Absolutely different that the last beefcake the mighty that was on tour with us. We can’t keep musicians in this band.
(Ballsack) He’s got some blippoblow-tions going too.

Is Beefcake sort of like a poltergeist who inhabits different bodies?
(Oderus) Whoever the fuck can get into costume every night is basically what we’re talking about. We’re not really from outer space.

But more words on metal Blade. I heard that…
(Oderus) This is horrible – the band that is opening up for us.

Is that to be printed, or not?
(Oderus) Oh I don’t care. We won’t specifically say which band it is that sucks, but god! It’s like Sick of it All with keyboards. When GWAR does keyboards it’s not all stupid. We don’t have a keyboard player on stage with us. It’s all prerecorded. And they don’t either. That’s even worse!

But are there specific things about Metal Blade that have to be said that other magazines won’t print?
(Oderus) Are you deliberately fishing for Metal Blade dirt with me? Is that something that you are trying to do? Are you trying to get me in trouble with my label because they hate you? Is that what you’re trying to do? I’m not going to slag Metal Blade at a professional level. I will, however, on a personal one. Brian Slagel freaked me the fuck out last time I saw him, and I’ll tell you why. He walks in, and he’s like, “Hey Brockie, what’sup?” All of his hair’s gone, plus he has no eyebrows. Meanwhile, Mike Faley’s house was destroyed in an earthquake, then his wife divorced him. He used to drive around in a Firebird, now he’s got an old beat-up Toyota. But Brian Slagel’s got a brand new Corvette! Meanwhile I don’t even have a car. I don’t really need one, but I was fucking a girl on the hood of his car, and scratched it all up with my key ring. He wasn’t very happy about that. But that just came off of the royalties of our new album, which we never got anyway. We got charged for our royalties by them. It’s like we sold all these records and we made all this money, but instead of getting the money, we got a bill for the money they owed us.

That’s sort of reversed, in some way.
(Oderus) Reverse economic Antarctic racism, man. It’s like a double-reverse racism.

Slymenstra is with GWAR on this tour. Is it because people demanded her the way they demand go-go dancers?
(Oderus) No. Europe didn’t want us, and no one else in the world wanted us to come and play, we were forced into the very pathetic prospect – we couldn’t get on any festival, either – we were forced to go on tour in the United States just to pay bills. So were like, “What can we do? Slymenstra, save us!” So I had to agree to her coming out and castrating me every night on stage. A little excess baggage gone for a while. (makes sniffing motions) God, I smell! I smell like sleep!

Have you seen the movie “Monsters Inc.”
(Oderus) No. It’s animated. I’m not interested in that fake shit.

I heard that Hunter is gone from GWAR.
(Oderus) Hunter? Who’s that? Oh, Techno Destructo? Yeah, he had his final paranoid fit of delusion and he imploded on stage. His role in GWAR was limited. I mean, how many times can you go out there and eat the gray matter out of my head, especially when I don’t really have a lot of that up there to begin with. No Hunter, no Danielle, but then Hunter, then Danielle, then not.

Have you heard the band “George is Dead”?
No. Are they funny?

They’re supposed to be funny, but I don’t think that Danielle found them funny. He cuts his forehead like a pro wrestler, and he bled all over her amplifier, and she said that she caught Hepatitis C once and doesn’t want to catch it again.
(Oderus) Well, I think that once you catch it you’re got it forever.
(Ballsack) She also had a small case of the A.I.D.S.
(Oderus) Yeah, a little case of the A.I.D.S. Danielle was in here earlier – it was really funny – Slymentra was in here trying to figure out the GWAR anagram – she said, “Gay angry women against GWAR – that spells out GWAR.” No! It’s G-W-A-R!!! Gay women against rape spells GWAR.

Is anyone in GWAR a negro?
(Oderus) Mike Tyson is with us again just because the costume is really good. We thought we’d get another tour out of it.

But as far as the alien race of GWAR…
(Oderus) You know the government wants us to hire a negro. We just can’t do it. We don’t want to do it. It’s not that we don’t like negroes, but we know that if we don’t hire negroes and we continually quote Hitler, we’ll make people in Europe angry.

Why are people in Europe upset about Nazi-type lyrics when they were the ones who were Nazis? We’re just the ones who love the Nazis. They are the ones who are the Nazis.
(Oderus) I know! It’s like, you guys ARE the Nazis. How can you be upset about them?
We didn’t go around making concentration camps. They did.
(Oderus) We’re not the ones who built the concentration camps. We’re the ones who saved them. We saved their way of life. If it wasn’t for the Americans who saved Europe…

Are there any notable victims other than Mike Tyson and Goetz from Rock Hard?
(Oderus) No. We like to beat up Moslem people as well. They seem to be pretty popular as people to be hated right now. In fact, there is new legislation to make the new World Trade Center into the new World Death Center, and it’s going to be this big giant missile pointed at the sky, and if anyone fucks with us again it’s gonna blast off and destroy Mecca.

Mecca is sort if mecha-nical.
(Oderus) It’s like a Moslem MacDonald’s – like MeccDonald’s.

So if Techno Destructo were a Moslem he would put the Mecca in Mecca-nical.
(Oderus) Oh no! Bill, I’ve been doing this so long. I’m so confused. I’m so bitter. I’m so angry that my career hasn’t been more successful. I’m so sad that I don’t get to go back to Europe and fuck all those cheap whores in those crappy hotel rooms in Frankfurt and shoot up in the alley. It’s really a sad, sad thing. Oh, also I’m sad that I’m on Metal Blade still.

What do you think of the Dave Brockie band?
(Oderus) Fuckin’ great! It rules! That fucker is the hope of modern music. Actually, that project has been really cool and successful. It’s on Metal Blade, though, which is the problem. You listened to the record. You tell me. It’s awesome.

The interview is more about you and what you have to say.
(Oderus) Right, well you asked me, fucker! You asked me to say something and I threw it back at you. So there. Yes, it’s fun. It’s enabled us to get more mileage out of our flagging careers and people seem to enjoy it. The Philadelphia Eagles like it. We got called by the Philadelphia Eagles and they play the song “Masturbate” in the locker room all the time. I smell. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to wear for this interview, Bill. I wasn’t all psyched up and ready to go. But I’m ready to go now, man!

I’d like your opinions on some world affairs, since I don’t know anything about politics, and you seem to be politically-engaged.
(Oderus) Well, politicially-incorrect, at least.

What are your views on the situation with Iraq?
(Oderus) I think it’s funny. It’s like, years of strangling them with our economic policies just aren’t enough. We need to go over there and start killing them with conventional weapons. And I think that we can guarantee some pretty exciting television from it.
(Ballsack) The new cameras that the armies been working on…
(Oderus) Baby-Burning Cam!

What about the disease that you supposedly spawned?
(Oderus) I’m a little disappointed in A.I.D.S. It’s kind of slowed down. It seems like only black people are getting it now. That wasn’t the idea. I wanted everyone to die. If only black people are killed I guess we’ll have to deal with that. I’ll have to figure out some sort of white dick-cancer. The homosexuals will inherit the earth. That’s GWAR’s scripture.

What about the gay muppet on Sesame Street?
(Oderus) There should be more! They should have sex and teach children how a blowjob from a priest is the warmest wettest washcloth ever.
(Ballsack) It’s how god kisses people.
(Oderus) Ballsack doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s usually funnier than what I say?

Is there anything in American politics that catches your fancy these days?
(Oderus) Not really. That’s pretty horrible, isn’t it? I was a little disappointed the anthrax thing didn’t go any further. I liked Gore with the beard. I think he had a chance then. But then he shaved. Ted Kennedy is still fat as fuck and he’s still alive. If he’s not gonna drive off a bridge, one is going to collapse underneath his weight. Hilary runs a whorehouse in upstate New York.

Is Osama going to be on stage tonight?
(Oderus) No. He’s buried in the rubble of Tora Bora, unfortunately.
(Ballsack) The republicans swept the NBA finals.
(Oderus) No, that was the election.
(Ballsack) Well they swept something.
(Oderus) It was the World Series, dumb-ass.

Are you talking about basketball?
(Oderus) Do you know what I don’t like about basketball? It seems like a lot of black people play that. I think it’s discriminating that more white people don’t play basketball.
(Ballsack) Where are the great Asian basketball players?
(Oderus) It’s very racist that short Asian people don’t play basketball.
(Ballsack) I think they should force them to play!

Yeah, like they were forced to build our railway system.
(Ballsack) We can round them all up and put them into basketball camps, with barbed wire.
(Oderus) Little yellow fuckers!

Shouldn’t they be called Orientals?
(Oderus) Why did Hitler and the Asians get along? They were one different sides of the world and they didn’t have to see each other so much? I don’t think Hitler would have liked all the little people all that much.

I heard that Hitler thought that true Aryans were the Mongolians.
(Oderus) Wow!
(Ballsack) You really dropped a bomb on us there! We have to re-think our racism now.

Are there any human authors whom you think are worthy of praise.
(Oderus) No, not really. All the human authors who you think are worthy of praise are actually inhuman monsters, like H.P Lovecraft, Michael Jackson, Bill Zebub – uh, who else?

Are you actually writing a book?
(Oderus) Yeah, but no one cares.

Is it fiction or fact?
(Oderus) It’s factual fiction. Rollins didn’t care, and after that, my bubble was bust.

What is the soft side of Oderus like?
(Oderus) Do I have a soft side? It’s the stinky smelly smells-like-sleep-smell. It’s that rolled-up-in-a-bunk-for-twenty-hours, farting repeatedly – the blanket smells like breathing – and you’re just rolling around in your smell. That stuff will melt armor after a while. My whole flesh is just so saturated with the smell of my own ass. I’m a softee in general, until I put this shit on (points to the Oderus rubber).

Does GWAR make any kind of costumes for Spencer Gifts?
(Oderus)No, but we’re gonna do the new Skipknot outfits. Those fuckin’ Spencers – they really have their own miniature GWAR… we didn’t get a penny for that!

But they just have portions of latex, like the shoulders and the head.
(Oderus) Yeah, these people show up at our shows. That’s one more sap. This one guy shows up at a (?) show in Milwaukee dressed up like Oderus Urungus – pretty nice job, actually – but he showed up with the costume on a good four hours before the doors were open and waited around another four hours after they were opened – wore the goddamn thing for about ten hours straight – I felt complimented but I really felt embarrassed for him at the same time, and then ultimately embarrassed for myself.

Is foam rubber preferable to latex?
(Oderus) No. Foam rubber falls apart. You gotta have latex, and only latex. We inject foam into these things, but foam rubber will fall apart. You only use that for Hollywood productions that have to work once or twice. This shit has to work every single night on stage, and even then, it doesn’t.

There was a band that seemed to use GWAR stuff on stage that was on Metal Blade as well. (Haunted Garage)
(Oderus) They were doing GWAR stuff? Who cares? We act like people who invented this shit. But if it wasn’t for KISS or Alice Cooper we wouldn’t know what the fuck to do. I think bands like Slipknot and things like that is a logical progression, but instead of a logical progression forwards it’s a logical step backwards into something that’s really bad. Like, GWAR – we got it really good – we’re ready for the next DECO or something else that’s even better than us, and then we got Maralyn Manson – that was horrible! And then we got all this new metal and whiny fat-faced overly-manicured facial hair bands that suck that have aggression with no meaning. Words with no meaning. Truth with no lies! Lots more money than we do! That’s why I hate them!

Looking back, on the road behind so-to-speak, at which point…
(Oderus) Did I lose control of my career? I would have to say, as soon as I joined the band. I never had any control of it. Always told to “be here, be there, sound check then, beer here, beer (he asked me) Do you need another one? (beer)

All right. You talked me into it. You know they don’t serve beer in this club.
(Oderus) How the hell are you supposed to have a GWAR show? I hope the kids are in the parking lot, shooting up heroin. I

Is it true that Europe’s mad at you because of your heroin use?
(Oderus) I don’t use heroin. Oh it would be fun. You should try it. (pauses) What else can we say that’s funny? We can make fun of this band.
(Ballsack) We’ve done that already.

Are there any new schemes for this tour?
(Oderus) Basically, Slymenstra is pissed off at me because all I do is talk shit about her. I didn’t invite her on the last tour. I didn’t put her on the new album. I act like a jerk all the time. She chops my dick off. I beg her to get it back. I cheese it back and I blow cum on her, and a big monster comes out and beats me with a club. Then another big monster comes out and eats that big monster. Then I urinate on everyone and we stop playing, but I keep urinating. Then Slymenstra comes out and cuts my dick off, and another monster comes out and sucks it. Then I get fucked with my own dick, in the ass. I beg for it. And this is all while dancing and singing. (listens to the opening band some more) Wow, he said “Let me see your hands.”
(Ballsack) We don’t like bands that tell the crowd what to do.
(Oderus) If I’m in the audience and the guy says, “Let me see your hands” I’ll show him my feet, or my feet, or I’ll just leave. If I even think a band is going to say anything, I won’t even go to the show. I don’t like it when bands say stuff. And I don’t like it when they play music. Like, who are you to play music for me? Fuck that! I would rather stand in a parking lot! I hate these singers who make words with their mouths. It’s so limiting.
(Ballsack) Yeah, but it’s better than the ones who just sort of growl.
(Oderus) I like that – when you try to form a turd with your throat. Yeah, like that’s creative. Let me just go on right now about how creative those bands are that just go (growls) – cookie monster bands.

Cookie Monster is not a very scary monster, is he?
(Oderus) You’re not from hell. You don’t worship Satan. When you ride the bus, you don’t look like that. I do. I sleep in this shit, man! I mean, if they would just admit what a fuckin’ joke they were, then I would be able to laugh at them more freely. But if you go there and start laughing, they don’t like that.

Is Frankenberry a gay monster?
(Oderus) He’s pink, isn’t he? He’s Frankenstein, so he’s part gay. Parts of him that were used to make him are gay. I think Count Chocula, who could easily be Count Cockula, easily could be gay. He could suck blood out of your penis.

I’m detecting a homosexual theme in the Kellogs cereal line. Chocula and Hershey Highway…
(Oderus) Your finger is on the pulse of the nation’s penis.

A.I.D.S. is attributed to you. You made A.I.D.S supposedly.
(Oderus) I take credit for everything, Bill. I really haven’t done anything.

Is there a new disease on the horizon?
(Oderus) East Nile virus. That shit is sick. It’s like, you wake up and you look in the mirror and you’re Rosie O’Donald (spelling?). Game over.

That is a fate worse than death.
(To Ballsack) Can you pay some attention to this interview, please?
(Ballsack) I’m sorry. I’m just paying attention to Suzie (looking at centerfold of Grimoire #27).

Do you want this interview to be lackluster and not funny at all?
(Ballsack) It’s already been all that!

Well turn it around, Ballsack!
(Ballsack) Why don’t you bring any of these Grimoire Girls to our show? You’re not allowed to any more of our shows unless you start bringing them!

Well, you get to see her later if you have a DVD player on your bus.
(Oderus) How much more of this inane banter do we have to endure?

Just a couple of minutes. I guess this is my last question. What was your favorite mass human suffering?
(Oderus) The Trade Center. That was hilarious!

Did you believe the conspiracy theories that said that America blew up the Trade Center – that it was imploded?
(Oderus) When the Japanese construction firm that made the Trade Center first built it, they were like (imitates Japanese accent) “We love America. If you ever want to knock down Trade Center, you fly plane into it. Whole thing fall down.” Whoa! What a great idea! So when they got to the point where they were just too fuel-inefficient to run anymore – and you know how much it costs to knock one of those things over – they took out a big insurance policy and then hit the big “plane” button and everything fell down. And of course, none of the Jews went to work that day.

So there were no Jewish casualties on 9/11?
(Oderus) Yeah! (we all laugh)
(Ballsack) Do the research! It’s true.
(Oderus) I know there weren’t any Japanese people in that building either.
(Ballsack) Definitely not any Japanese because we would have heard about that.
(Oderus) I’ve got to say just one more thing about this band that opened up for us – the singer comes out there and he says, “We’ve gotta stick together.” Man! What are we doing here? How can we come up with that kind of lyrical genius?

I remember watching the Dave Brockie Experience, and there was ridicule of a band called Creed. I never heard of Creed.
(Oderus) What?

There’s no metal on the radio, so why bother?
(Oderus introduces me to Gizmack who just walked in) This is the infamous Bill Zebub.

So that’s it? No gripes? I thought you were full of gripes.
(Oderus) I thought I griped quite a lot. I made fun of Europeans, Jews, Japanese, Moslems, Americans – I ripped on Slipknot, the opening band – I made fun of Ballsack, I made fun of Slymenstra, I ridiculed myself – I admitted my career was a failure – I made fun of Metal Blade
(Ballsack, in a German accent) What about ze Germans?
(Oderus) Yeah, I ragged all over them! How much more abuse can I give you? Then I’m gonna go out there and do the show in a little while, and that’s nothing but hatred. I’m just too good-natured. Is that it?

Yeah, you’re definitely a different kind of Oderus.
(Oderus) Oh shit! I feel like I let you down somehow, Bill.

No, you haven’t let me down. You said plenty.
(Oderus) Just take the interview and re-arrange the words and have me say anything.

Who’s the brains behind all the GWAR videos, like Skullheadface?
(Oderus) Some of them were a real group effort. Some of them, one person did. I’m responsible for the lousiest ones.

So not only do you sculpt your costumes, but you also dabble in animation and computer effects.
(Oderus) Yeah. I don’t really know what I’m doing, though.

What did you use? Adobe After Effects?
(Oderus) Yeah, AfterEffects. On the new Immortal Corruptor video they used AfterEffects. They actually got a nice film look to the digital video that we used. I don’t know shit about the technical stuff, though. I just try to make up stupid ideas.

Would you ever do a non-GWAR video?
(Oderus) Sure. This next year is going to be a lot of D.B.X. stuff. Yeah, we have tons of ideas for stuff besides GWAR. But we just never get to do them because GWAR takes up so much of our time, and also because we’re pretty much lazy and drunk all the time.

I would think that you’d be most suited to the slasher sort of stuff.
(Oderus) No, no, no, no, yes. Sure! It could be anything. I think it would be more like skit humor, like Monty Pythion kind of shit with my music in the background. Yeah, there’d be a good amount of blood and poo and vomit. I don’t know if so much slashing would be going on – maybe cheese grating.

When is the next GWAR record? That was just to throw in some cliché question.
(Oderus) Could be any time within the next twenty years.

Will there be any of that death metal that you were raving about before?
(Oderus) No. I think that the next GWAR album will be exactly like the last one we did, except we’ll change the lyrics and the music around.

I guess this is toodles.
(Oderus) Well thanks, Bill, for keeping up your slovenly work and your obnoxiously good habits of annoying people that I hate.

How come negroes’ teeth are so white?
(Oderus) It’s contrast, like when the moon is closer to the horizon it looks bigger.
(Ballsack) Are you saying that when my dick is closer to the moon it will appear bigger?
(Oderus) If you moon my dick it will be bigger.

TRiumphator

This interview with Tena was conducted by metal monster for issue #19

Hello
Yes?

Is this the fat guy?
Yeah, of course.

You’re a big fat slob, and I think it’s great that there are still bands like Triumphator.
Excellent

Didn’t you go by the name Deathfucker?
Yeah.

Now you go by the girlish Tena?
Exactly

You do realize that Tena is a girl’s name?
No!

Do you consider yourself the Dom Deluise of black metal?
What?!

Do you consider yourself the Dom Deluise of black metal?
I don’t know who he is.

He is a famous fat American comedic actor.
Well, I don’t know who he is.

You bear an uncanny likeness to him.
OK.

According to christian law there is to be nothing in excess, gluttony is a sin. So I guess you are being true “evil” black metal by being a total fat ass.
Tena: yeah sure, but how do you stay slim in a wheelchair?

Is it hard to find a bullet belt in a 47-inch waist size?
What?

Is it hard to find a bullet belt for a 47-inch waist?
No, we have to buy two.

Seeing you in your corpse paint reminds me of a little chubby kid who faked an illness to stay home from school and amused himself by playing with mommies make up kit while she was out buying comic books and ice cream for her spoiled little Twinkie thief. Is the visual aspect of your band important to you?
Of course it is important. Why shouldn’t we use corpse paint?

A lot of the older bands have stop using it. They feel it has been done to death and they don’t use it anymore.
But not using corpse paint is dumb also.

I can see you are not addicted to Dexatrim.
I am addicted to Percocet.

I heard that you used to play guitar but as you gained more and more weight your fingers became too pudgy to accurately hit the guitar strings so you were forced to switch to bass because you needed an instrument with a wider fret board to accommodate your fat fingers. Is that true?
A least I don’t jerk off to pictures of Fenriz.

Do you have any comments on Fenriz?
I hate people who jerk off to pictures of him.

Have you ever…
I hate you.

I hate you too.
Yeah?

You have big floppy man tits.
Of course

Were you fat as a child?
I am not fat

Your not!?
No. I am big boned

Do you date fat chicks?
No.

Is the girl in your pictures your girlfriend?
Mmm hmmm

Is she blind?
What?

Don’t you think kool aid stains on the sides of your mouth render the visual effects of corpse paint silly?
What is this kool aid?

Did you know that Seth Putnam was a Jew?
Yeah. I guess he was. So what?

Does the black metal scene discriminate against the obese?
Against me?

I understand how hard it is being morbidly fat in the extreme music scene. The editor of the Grimoire is a big fat ass. He gained a lot of weight in the last year.
(laughs) I guess Bill Zebub is big boned also.

Lobotomy

This interview with Daniel appeared in issue #16

(Editor’s note – Daniel starts off the interview by insulting me) First of all, I guess you don’t know anything about metal.

You’ve read the Grimoire, then?
Yeah, I had to. I was at the office (ed – No Fashion office in Sweden) and they told me to read it so I wouldn’t get offended. There’s some nice chick on the front cover, so that’s OK.

Not everyone in the band is Swedish, correct?
Yeah, correct.

Is one of the band members named “Tonto?”
How do you figure? (laughs) Actually, his nickname is Smurf Tonto. He’s actually from Greenland, but he’s doing his best to play the flute, so that’s OK.

Greenland… that’s the place with the native people. You wouldn’t call them Indians.
Eskimos.

They are very famous for staring down their opponents. See how cool I am? I know everything.
Sure you do.

It seems that Grave was a big influence.
The death scene back in ‘92 was Grave, Entombed, Dismember, and stuff like that… and we had the same influences. We weren’t that influenced by Grave, but we had the same influences as they had. That’s the sound we have.

So why was Grave signed at that time, and not Lobotomy?
Because they were from Gotland, a little island outside Sweden, and the record companies thought that was a lot more cooler. We were from Stockholm. We weren’t awesome enough to release an album, but they were because they were from a tiny little island.

It seems that a band’s biography is a selling point these days. I guess that always has been the case. I noticed that you have no trouble with the English language so I am going to be speaking to thee in an older tongue.
Thou shalt suffer.. OK.

On a scale of 1-10, how gay is Insania?
(laughs) Ten! No doubt about it!

I could hardly believe what was on that CD when I put it in the stereo. I had my stereo tested for A.I.D.S.
You should put a condom on your CD player.

Is there really a demand for that style of music?
German kids.

I wonder how thou feeleth about bands like that.
They were torn from the womb too early to have the normal breastfeeding, I guess. They just want to get some money. I play good ol’ death metal because I’m a man. but I guess these are wimps or fags or whatever.

What about the alternative scene that composes bullshit music that is nowhere near as demanding as death metal like Brutality, yet they look down on metal?
I know exactly what you mean. I had trouble getting jobs just because I had long hair. I actually cut my hair two years ago just to try how it was. It was definitely much more easier to get a job then. We have our own race, the metal people, I guess.

Except we don’t have an annoying organization like the N.A.A.C.P helping us. There are no token long-hairs in the work force.
Yeah, but you had Frank Zappa and Dee Snyder helping out when Tipper Gore was after all the heavy metal albums.

I don’t think those two people should be used in the same sentence. There’s a vast difference in intellect between Zappa and Snyder.
But they had long hair. Frank Zappa was a god, and Dee Snyder was… I don’t know…

A dumb metalhead.
So are you!

The P.M.R.C. didn’t hurt metal at all. A parental advisory sticker is a sign that the album is probably very cool.
Yeah, but the problem was these artists started to emerge that just opted to have that sticker. They just started to focus on their provocative style, Like Marilyn Manson and shit like that. It started to be a fashion band instead of thinking about producing good music. I think that both helped, but it destroyed a lot of the metal mentality.

The same can be said about black metal.
Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons were there long before them.

Getting back to alternative people looking down on metal… 80’s metal helped to perpetuate the stereotype of dumb metalhead. I think that the condescending attitude is also present in bands like Insania. Those musicians look down on death metal musicians.
One thing that is true is that a lot of these so-called power metal bands are old death metal musicians who want to make a buck. At least two members of Hammerfall are old death metal musicians.

Would you change style for money?
Yeah, sure!

That haircut from two years ago is a character flaw, so changing musical loyalty would not be a surprise.
No, it was just me trying to get a job. But I failed, so I’m now back with long hair.

There is an error in the No Fashion press sheet for Lobotomy.
Yeah, we’re influenced by Blind Guardian and Helloween.

Lobotomy is described as “being in the vein of Helloween and Blind Guardian”. I think that is the equivalent of saying that the band is gay.
Yeah, exactly. Actually, I went up to the office and told them that. I don’t know how it occurred, but the promotion guy mixed us… our album was released at the same time as the Insania album. Hopefully it will say that the Insania album is influenced by Morbid Angel and Autopsy and Repulsion.

No, actually it says the same thing on the Insania press sheet. Art thou going to sue No Fashion Records?
Yeah, I hope so. When people hear the album, they won’t hear the typical Helloween influences. Instead they will hear…

A Grave rip-off.
No.


Earache is based in England. The American office of Earache has to translate the British press releases from the faggy way that the English express themselves.
Oh really?

Yes. I think that No Fashion needs an anti-gayness translator, because on their selling points for the album, thy description is “Swedish death metal in a direct, fascinating, and honest way.”
Well you should tell that to Ahriman in Dark Funeral because he’s the one who is making them.

Lord Ahriman is the god.
No, he’s the fag.

He is the one who contributes to the Grimoire.
Yeah, but he is the one that wrote that.

I will hear nothing negative about Lord Ahriman! He is a benefactor of the Grimoire!
Yeah, he is a nice guy, but… you know.

Me not speaking badly of him is the equivalent of you getting a bad haircut.
Enough about Ahriman, ok?

Has anyone from Grave ever heard Lobotomy?
We actually had Jergen, the lead singer, sing back-up on our last album. It was released in ‘97.

Did he write all of the riffs?
No. He actually gave us a tape of midi samples and we just picked them from there. He produced it instead. We had these riffs and he said, “That sounds pretty much like our sixth album.” We made it from there.

What is the likelihood of anyone from Grave telling metal journalists that Lobotomy is ripping off their songwriting?
That would be great. We would sell a lot, then Grave exists no more. These members are in Entombed and stuff like that now.

Which is the equivalent of getting a gay haircut. Is it true that Rikard from Deranged attacked thee with a sharpened drumstick?
That was a long time ago, man. I don’t want to talk about it. We were actually competing blast beats to each other. He won because I’m the lazy fucker. I’m more into doom. I actually punched him and then he started to offend me because he said he was better than me.

How dost thou feel about labels like Headfucker in Italy that have turned their backs on all trends and decided to release only brutal death metal?
To the point where it sounds like a vacuum cleaner?

I’m telling them you said that!
Ok, do that.

Have you heard Cephalic Carnage?
No.

Malignancy?
No.

Hmmm.. maybe if you did, they would be suing you for ripping them off the way Grave should.
These bands are ripping us off.

Thou art not impressed with vocals that are more of the grindcore nature?
Well the thing is, you can hear what Glen Benton is saying on the Deicide albums, correct? Is that hardcore vocals?

I would not say those are hardcore vocals.
No. You can hear what our singer, Max, is singing. Are those hardcore vocals? No. I think it’s great when you can hear what the singer is saying. It’s not great to hear that hardcore style. We’re not D.R.I.

You are not interested in bands in which the words cannot be deciphered.
I like Obituary… the old albums. To be honest with you, I buy a lot of metal albums, but when it comes to these brutal-to-the-death albums, I think they sound just the same. It’s enough with the first album from Immolation. Then the rest sounds just the same. It’s just copycats out there. These albums are good, but I don’t need the copy.

“Copycat…” how that word must be so alien to your tongue… Grave-boy.
(laughs)

So did Lobotomy start as a Grave cover band?
No. We started as a Dismember cover band. But then we heard about Grave and we started doing Grave covers. We were thinking about calling our band Coffin, but there was some hip hop band called that.

You should have stuck with the name Coffin. You should have had wheels on the bottom of a coffin that you rode on stage with. I heard that one band tried to perform something like that, but they weren’t very careful with the set-up, and the singer who rode in on the coffin with wheels was bumped by the guitar player, and the coffin zoomed off stage. Because of the great height it fell from, it had a lot of momentum that carried the coffin out of a club and down a street. It somehow entered a pharmacy and was racing through an aisle of medicine. The pharmacist asked if there was anything he could do to help, and the singer replied, “Yes, do you have anything that will stop this coffin?”
That’s very funny.


My friends want to pay me to go to a comedy club during open mike night just so they can watch the crowd boo me off the stage.
That was a good one.

I heard that Wounded Love Records in Italy wanted to sign Lobotomy, but that no one in the band would offer prolonged homosexual favors.
Yes. They offered us a butt-shaped picture disc, and that was the thing that we wanted. But then, the facial stunts we couldn’t agree with
because our bass player is married.

What is a love handle in the Swedish language? What part of the body does that refer to?
Actually, I don’t know what a love handle is. Do you mean a significant part of the body?

I am just confirming things. I know that in Japan, north and south have differences in language, as well as do east and west. So I think that in Sweden there might be different dialects.
Yes. There definitely is. We have the southern and northern dialects. There is a Stockholm dialect as well. We can compare it to the States. We have rednecks down in the south as well.

The guy Janne from…
Abba?

Hypocrite… I didn’t know he was in Abba as well. I knew he was in Hypocrisy, but I didn’t know he was in Abba. I should have asked him questions about that. Abba actually invented corpsepaint, didn’t they?
Corpsepaint?

Yeah, the girls wore it. It was blue corpsepaint, though.
Yeah, Abba co-founded black metal.

Yeah, it’s something that’s rarely discussed in interviews because of the code of secrecy. They do not want to reveal the actual forefathers. You’re very brave. You and I both have a death sentence now, I guess. Well anyway, Janne was telling me about love handles. Is there a high concentration of homosexuals in that area?
I guess they are from Stockholm. And I am from Stockholm. That’s the capitol of Sweden. We have these bars..

I heard that the band members of Necrophobic date each other and bring each other to these bars.
You’re damn right. We definitely don’t hate each other, but I can go on talking shit about them if you want that.

Continue.
They are not called Necrophobic. They are called Heterophobic.

I know that they did not like black people in Stockholm. They don’t like the immigration of black people into Sweden because they take advantage of the welfare system. They said that it is unlawful to sing the Swedish national anthem in school because it would offend the black people.
No, that was just some scared principal who told the kids to shut up. I mean, I wouldn’t be offended if I was in Africa and they sang their national anthem. Why should I?

If I were in Africa, I would be an American African.
Wearing those baggy clothes, right?

Dost thou think that Necrophobic should actually be called Niggerphobic?
Yeah. Why not?

So tell me more about Negrophobic.
They used to be picking on us all the time. But I haven’t heard them lately. I think they kind of bent over for the black metal style. They used to play death metal, and suddenly their second album was black metal.

I agree 100%
It’s cool to bend over.

It’s the equivalent of getting a haircut. In a photograph, two of the members of Necrophobic looked like girls. Do they look like girls in real life?
Yeah, the singer is using make-up.

Gothic style?
Yeah.

See, I think Sweden could benefit from queerbashing. Can’t Sweden summon the rednecks from the south to go to these bars?
To be honest with you, I am not homophobic really. But when I go to bars, and I look from behind and want to squeeze something and I find out it’s a guy, that’s not that funny. I get pretty angry, actually.

I see something wrong here. You are the sort of person who would grab a girl you don’t know, in a tender location?
Sure. Anything to get beat up.

But in all seriousness, would you? Or were you just being metal when you were talking?
No, I wouldn’t.

How do you hold your cigarette? That can tell a lot about you.
Well I use my fist and I hold it with my whole hand.

Is there a bottle that the band always carries around?
Containing what?

I heard that there’s a bottle that’s very special to the band. If I take that bottle away from you, would you rather have that bottle in front of me, or a frontal lobotomy?
I can’t say no more to that, actually. That stand-up stuff, you know…

I am not actually known for printing the correct band photos in interviews.
So I have noticed. There are some different members.

But if I publish your photo, I will have to do some image correction. Two of the members have very gay hair styles. Are they part time in a Metallica cover band?
No.

One of those guys has a tribal tattoo on the forearm. That wouldn’t be you, would it?
It is. But that picture was taken a year ago.

Did you have it removed with laser surgery?
No, I put Saint Vitus on the other arm.

OK, because in America it is extremely gay to have a tribal tattoo. It’s like a sign. Before tribal tattoos, you used to wonder who the fag was. But this is instant I.D.
I know I look pretty faggy. People told me I look like some glam rocker. I don’t know how to explain it.

You should have asked the Eskimo in the band to give you an authentic tribal tattoo, using sharpened wood. I am sure he would have helped you if he was a true primitive. Isn’t it funny how Greenland is icy and Iceland is green?
Yeah, it is.

I somehow wound up at a frat party once, and I can’t count the times people came up to me to tell me that they used to have long hair until they had to go to court. There seems to be some need of people with gay haircuts to try to become accepted into the long-hair coolness society by concocting tales of former manes. I go to court all the time but I never cut my hair. When someone tells me about a court-related haircut, I think that the person is a jackass.
To me, I don’t care how long your hair is.

No, I am applying the same thing to you.
Fuck you!

I don’t know if you were anticipating that I would get to your hairdo.
It’s fluffy and wonderful.

So you are sure that your hair grew since that picture?
Sure, it was a year ago.

You wouldn’t be mad if I called up Ahriman and asked him how recent that photo is?
You can call him now.

Have you been interviewed in some other magazines?
Yeah.

Have they talked about your hairstyle?
Yeah, that’s a common theme.

Are you sure the hairdo is not just a strategy to appeal to every kind of music lover? The race-traitors will love the Eskimo in your band. The Nazi’s will love the Arian in the band. Fags will like that one queer. And alternative people will like the Metallica look that you have… with the tribal tattoo to complete it. I am beginning to think that Lobotomy is a corporate invention now. I think that when you know that you are going to do a metal interview, you should pretend to have gotten a haircut because you needed a job. But if you are interviewed by a fag mag, you probably brag about your barber.
We are on the label No Fashion because we have no fashion. Just a bunch of mixed up fuck heads.

I guess your drummer is happy that it is no longer legal to capture Eskimos and take their hands off as souvenirs.
There’s one thing that I haven’t told you. To tell you the truth, I think our label sucks, promotional-wise. We haven’t done any tours. Our album has not been that great promoted. We haven’t got any ads. We haven’t got any free t-shirts. I have complained a lot to them. Sales-wise, it’s important for us to stay in shape. if we don’t sell any records, we can’t continue. We want to continue because we want to get offended by the Grimoire.

Even though it is unlawful to maim an Eskimo, the prejudice still exists in Sweden. No Fashion is a traditional Swedish label. So maybe if you got rid of the Eskimo, you would find that the label support increases.
Actually, he’s from Chile.

You liar! You lied to me!
Of course! He moved here when he was 12 years old.

Did his parents move to Sweden to take advantage of the welfare system?
No, to get away from the dictator.

Holocaust Cannibal gets Re-edited

Hypocrite

This interview with singer/bassist Johan Haller appeared in issue #16

I don’t have a band photo of Hypocrite, so I have to ask… is anyone in the band gay-looking?
Ah yes… all of us is really good-looking for boys.

Any short-haired members?
Yeah. One of us is really short-haired. We put him in the middle of the photo.

What happened?
I don’t know, really. He lost all of his hair.. preparing to be a big dick. It worked out really fine.

Is “Johan” the Swedish way of saying “Peter”?
Yeah.

You don’t have Abyss Studios?
No, that’s Hypocrisy, not Hypocrite. Hypocrite is another Swedish band.

Peter, from Hypocrisy, was not available for interview, so I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind to pretend to be Peter.
Yeah, no problem for me. I can tell you anything you want to know about Hypocrisy as well.

Is it true that you had a girly little cat fight with Andy Laroque about t who is the better producer?
Yes, of course. We always have these small minor fights. But, as everybody knows, he’s a real fuck-up when it comes to producing. So the Abyss Studios is ten times better.

Has the band Hypocrite recorded in Abyss Studios?
No, they recorded in another studio called “Das Boot”, and Fred from Dismember is also now trying to be a producer. So they went there and fucked me up.

Entombed decided to play gay music. Dismember sounded like them when they were death metal, and continued sounding like them after the gayness transformation. What is this web of gayness over there?
Ah, you know, Swedes are big gays… all of us. We’re very into that right now. During the weekends we go out and fight with the gays. But during normal weekdays, we are the gays. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we are the big killers of gays. Monday through Wednesday… Thursday is day off… but Monday through Wednesday we are all the time fucking each other in the ass.

It is like the Oriental concept of yin and yang, except in Sweden it’s yin and wang.
(laughs) Yeah, I couldn’t say it better.

You still have to pretend to be in Hypocrisy, for this next question.
Sure.

I would like to talk about the new self-titled album… Hypocrisy…. Why are the vocals like Rod Stewart?
It was the best thing that we can come up with, and I tried to sound exactly like the Rod himself, because he always gets the pretty girls… so I was wondering if I can get some small boys.

Wasn’t Rod Stewart homosexual?
I don’t know, really. I hope. I want to meet him, though.

All right, Peter. If The Final Chapter was left as the last Hypocrisy album, it would have been a glorious ending.
Yeah, it would have been, but we get lots of big checks from the label. I was wondering if we open up a shop only for gays when we receive the money for the new one. Why not? It’s a good opportunity to open up my biggest dream in the world.

If The Final Chapter would have been the last album, it would have been the band’s choice to end. But this new album, which is total garbage, has killed the band.
Yeah, but could you find a better way than to destroy with a bad album? We get rid of the record deal, and everything is very good. Nobody wants to touch us anymore.

OK, you can become Bjorne again… sort of like a Bjorne-again christian… or are you a born-against christian?
No. I bury christianity into me. I love, like, god. Jesus is my best friend. You know.

Are you attracted to Jesus?
Yeah, very… long hair, and he drinks lots of wine.

Are you the kind of person who blames homosexual tendencies on drug effects… like Ecstasy?
Yeah, it’s exactly gay thing. All the drugs are especially for gays.

They enhance the gay experience?
Yeah. When you take something like Ecstasy, you become a really big gay because you want to fuck everything that moves… only in the ass, of course.

Who is the idiot who told Dan Swano that he could sing?
Maybe Black Mark.

Have you heard Dan Swano when he’s trying to sing with clean vocals?
No. I don’t want to. Maybe I have done it before when he has solo project. But just looking at the covers makes me sick. So fuck that.

Is Dan Swano a big celebrity over there in Sweden?
Maybe in the gay business. He’s the gayest guy around. He’s the gayest guy on earth, maybe.

Dan Swano butchered the Mercyful Fate song Melissa on a tribute album by Still Dead Productions.
Yeah, Mercyful Fate will play here on Friday. And he have these love handles on his…. how do you say it?

Hips?
No. On the face… how do you say? Like, gay handles… you know, when you can hold on to the mustache…

In America, the love handles are on the hips.
Y
eah, but over here it’s when you can hold onto the hair on the cheek, for pushing backward and forward on the face.

Swedish women don’t have too much facial hair. But there’s a lot of immigration from third world countries into Sweden. Do you think that might change the hairlessness?
Yeah, from Poland especially. We give them money and we can do them all night long.

I had no idea.
You should come here.

I don’t want to. I think I interviewed too many black metal bands. I don’t think I will survive over there. The Swedish band Deranged played in Poland, and they said that the women were very friendly.
Friendly? Of course they were. If they get laid, maybe they can take them to Sweden for free. Of course they were friendly.

More friendly than Swedish women?
Yeah, because a Swedish woman probably understands what you say.

Is blonde hair in Sweden as common as Americans are led to believe?
Yeah, it’s very common. But the polar bears you can also forget about. That is totally bullshit. We don’t have any polar bears at all.

Would you agree that Dan Swano and Peter from Hypocrisy would make a very cute couple?
No. No way. They are no the same. They wouldn’t be so good together.

You don’t think they would make a good album together?
Yeah, but it should be released on some techno label that only produce French gay techno. That would be nice. Then they can tour all the French, spreading the disease.

What is the pop music in Sweden like? Is it dance oriented, or is it commercial rock ‘n roll?
It depends what the releases are. The KISS album went #1 for like 6-7 weeks. But then we also have this band that’s like Back Street Boys. It’s all kinds, but mostly dance.

The reason I am asking about that is because I am curious why styles like Dan Swano’s solo work have come into existence. It seems that they reflect some sort of trend somewhere.
Yeah, they try to do something to earn some money. To earn any money on Edge of Sanity is really impossible. So he tries to do his best on some normal kind of shit.

I think that there are small places that aren’t in contact with the outside world that never seem to break away from the 80’s. So I was trying to discover the #1 area of the world where this gay kind of metal still thrives.
He lives in a town called Oreero. But this 80’s kind of metal, like Hammerfall… that’s from Gothenburg.

Hammerfall… one of the people in the band has a long leather coat, and the sleeves were cut off and replaced by bracelets that are connected by little chains, and it looks like a woman’s nightgown. Does this person think he looks tough in that?
I guess he thinks he looks very cute.

There is a person who works at Nuclear Blast whose identity I must keep secret. He told me that he made a valiant effort to try to appreciate Hammerfall because the band is on his label, but the lyrics were just so unbelievably stupid that it ruined every attempt to enjoy the albums. What would make a Swedish band write such ridiculous words?
They really want these ridiculous lyrics. That’s the big problem. Everybody buys the fucking album. Big problem.

But they are keeping certain stereotypes alive, namely that of stupid metalhead. The lyrics of Hammerfall just prove that the stereotype is true.
Yeah, but the truth is, this type of music… ‘80s metal, was born in Germany… and have you ever seen one German band write good lyrics? No, never. So that’s probably why. They invented the power metal scene with bad lyrics.. sometimes good music, but, you know.

The English love to ignore a lot of letters in words too. Only a total fag would think that the letter “r” can sometimes be silent. No wonder New England is called “New England”. It has the same gay language tendencies. Didn’t England christianize Scandinavia?
I don’t know.

I think that Scandinavia should take revenge against the humiliation.
Yeah, but we take it out on other things, like sports, music… which they really fuck up, especially black metal.

There seems to be a misconception that Americans have about Sweden because of all the bands that are signed from Sweden. We are led to believe that there is a thriving metal community there.
Yeah, they go to buy the records, but they don’t go to see. In Denmark is the other way… everybody goes to see the show but they don’t buy the records. That’s why all the bands go to Christiania to play.

A very ironic name for a place that has metal.
That is a free state for smoking pot in Denmark.

Is it not ironic that America tries to tell the world that it is the most moral nation, yet the greatest advances in humanistic thinking occur in Europe? Does not Norway have that vacation from prison program?
Yeah. We had one right now… this vacation, he robbed a bank, shoot two policemans, and go to Costa Rica. Now he’s back in jail.

Well I’m not saying that humanism works. I am just saying that America pretends to be humanistic, but humanism is only found outside of this country.
They want to be the worldwide biggest cop. If anybody fights, they come into the country and say, “Hello, what’s this?”

I heard from some bands that there is resentment toward foreigners in Sweden.
Yes, in some parts we have skinheads and nazi’s. But it’s not that big.

Did you know that some of the stories of the bible have changed over time?
Yes.

The Jews were going to stone a whore. But Jesus intervened and picked up a stone and offered it to the crowd, saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Everyone dropped their rocks. The bible story ends there, but the part that was censored out was that Jesus smiled wickedly to himself and said, “I am without sin” and he wailed the stone into the bitch’s face. The church decided that the additional information was too uninteresting to leave in the story. What do you know about crucifixion?
Really nothing. Just nail into the cross.

Did you know that dogs were not permitted in the crucifixion area?
Nope.

It appears that dogs are unable to resist the lure of upright objects. To them, it is a sign of a bathroom. It causes quite a stench, which could be a problem. Crucifixion was a big tourist attraction. Dog urine odors could very well turn away business. Vendors sold little crucifixion dolls and other mementos. Does Hypocrite sell any odd merchandise?
Maybe we do some cats. I don’t know. Cats or butterflies. Butterflies would be nice, with a big “H” on the back.

I don’t have any more questions. To be honest with you, I don’t know what Hypocrite sounds like. I don’t know what happened to the album.
It sounds like In Flames and At The Gates. If you need any more interviews, just tell me, because as you probably know, I can do the interview for Hypocrisy. I can do the interview for In Flames. It doesn’t matter. Just give me a call. It is no problem

Exploitation

Cannibal Corpse

This interview with George Corpsegrinder was in issue #29

Why are you doing the interviews for the new album?
I’m not the only one doing the interviews for this new album.

But why are you doing interviews for this album? Don’t you think that’s wrong?
What do you mean?

Didn’t Glen Benton do the vocals?
On this album?

Yeah! What the hell?! Did he say that you can speak on his behalf?
He’s doing vocals on this album? That’s news to me!

What are your influences?
Vocally?

Dude, I’m kidding.
Hey man, you never know, coming from you!

Did anybody ask you that, by the way? I know you’ve been doing phoners all day with cliché’ people.
I almost couldn’t believe that you asked me that. It’s like, you should get a prize for being the millionth person to ask that question. But you never know with you.

Did you squash that war you had with Dark Funeral?
What war? I don’t have a war.

You’ve got to read up on the press. I’ve got evidence that they don’t like you.
What’s that?

You posed for some pictures with them.
No. (pause) I might have.


I took them! You were smiling so innocently, and they gave you the finger.
You probably just made it look like that. You doctored it up!

I swear I didn’t.
You know what their nickname is for me?

Stupid American?
No – it’s gaygrinder. Ahriman calls me that.

What does the singer call you – you know, the guy who looks like a fat alcoholic housewife?
They all call me Gaygrinder.

I can’t believe that you went around in the press and called him the fat Bo Derek.
Me? I didn’t say that.

Yeah you did, when he got those gay braids in his hair like Bo Derek, and the flowers. You said that the only way he would be a “10” is if the scale is from 10 to 2 billion.
Look man, I’m not taking none of this seriously. You know I didn’t say that.

I made it up, actually. But I was serious about them calling me Gaygrinder. You’re gonna interview them again, right?

No. They’re washed up.
Washed up?

Does the world really need another mediocre black metal album?
Dark Funeral rules!

Rules what? You don’t even like black metal! What are you talking about?
I love Dark Funeral!

You love them as people. You’ve got to draw the line, George.
Of what?

See, I like your personality, and I also like Cannibal Corpse. If I didn’t like Cannibal Corpse, I would tell you. You have to be a man.
No, no, no – I like Dark Funeral!

I saw the way Pat manhandled you. You’re just afraid of big tall metal people.
I am not! I’ll kick all their asses!

Are you afraid of me?
I am. Can you hear me shaking? But seriously, dude, this is the truth – if you ever talk to Lord Ahriman, ask him about the song he’s writing about me.

Get out of here!
I’m serious.

Michael Jackson must be kicking himself in the head because he had surgery to make himself look white so that he could sell albums, but these days you have to look black. Are you planning to get your nose flattened?
My nose is already big, but it’s not flat. It points out.

Do you have a black ass?
I have a big booty.

Have you been practicing?
Practicing what?

Mary Had a Little Lamb. Do you know it by now?
I was ready to do it at the L’Amours show, but you didn’t show up!

There’s always a problem. I swear! This is the curse of the lamb! Every time that you actually sing it, either the tape magically stops recording, the batteries die, or something even more bizarre happens! I’ll get you on tape one of these days!
Come to any show on this tour. I’ll do it.

Will you wear a costume?
What kind of costume?

Mary?
The blessed virgin?

I guess she would be the Mary, since she had a lamb, and they are mindless followers. If you could go back in time to when Mary was pregnant with Jesus, how would you talk her into getting an abortion?
Well, as his head came out, I would push it back in.

For the second coming out of the closet of Jesus, what would his new boyfriend be like?
One of those queer eye for a…

One of the Dark Funeral guys?
No! It’s that show, Queer Eye for a Straight Guy! You know what I’m talking about!

I had no idea that Dark Funeral has a television show.
It’s some show!

Some show? You seem to know quite a lot about it.
Ah! I’m gonna get hung for this!

Actually, “queerbashed” is the punishment for being gay. Hanging is for black people. Fags just get queerbashed, they don’t get hung.
I’m not queer!

Then why do you watch that show?
I don’t! My wife watches it!

Your wife is a guy?
No! My wife watches the show!

You’re still married, huh?
Yeah.

Even after your tour activities?
What tour activities?

Weren’t you going to put out a video of Cannibal Corpse groupies?
No, but there’s nothing wrong with tits.

I would never put tits in a video, personally.
Yeah, like you don’t have any tits in your movies! I’ve seen them!

So what’s the secret of the long-term relationship? How do you keep your sex life alive? Do you pretend she’s somebody else?
No.

When you are having sex, do you ever call out Ahriman’s name?
No. (Indecipherable)

Do you ever use the Oyster as an aphrodisiac?
Don’t fuck with the Oyster!

Have you ever performed anal?
With Ahriman?

No, with the female wife.
(Indecipherable)

I’m just curious because you’re a role model. So what’s the most bizarre sexual position you ever performed with your female wife?
Missionary. It’s totally different now that I did all that other stuff.

What was the reason why you punched Warrel Dane in the face? I heard that Nevermore couldn’t play that night!
We just saw those guys.

Really? Did he forgive you?
I didn’t see him.

So getting back to how your parents escaped the concentration camp, you have a song about the Nuremberg trials on the new album.
Which song?

Blunt Force Castration.
That’s not about that.


I read in David Duke’s book, “My Awakening” that the Nazi war criminals, if the term “war criminal” really makes any sense, especially since the Allies committed atrocities too… anyway, I heard the Nazi’s were forced to confess, and many of them had their testicles smashed beyond repair. I just think that it’s bold to side with a guy like David Duke. Most metalheads just want to keep their white supremacy ideas a secret. You are the first to come out of the closet.
Come on! I don’t have anything to do with any of that shit!

Are you really mad at Sharlee D’Angelo and Peter Steele because they are considered to be more handsome than you?
Look at me! I rock!

Yeah, but you’re married. Girls don’t like that, or are you after the naughty house-wrecking girls?
(Indecipherable)

Have you ever had a stalker?
Uh…

Did you have to get a restraining order against Chris Barnes?
(Indecipherable)

Is he like a girl who got dumped and wants to know all about the new girl? Does he play that same game with you? Does he want to know what you have that he doesn’t have?
Who knows what he wants?

Maybe he wants to be black. He’s almost there with those dreadlocks. Are you going to do any Cannibal Corpse covers?
(Indecipherable, but I remember him specifying the kind of songs that Cannibal Corpse would NEVER cover)

Will you perform Mary Had a Little Lamb when you play in Brooklyn, just for me?
Absolutely not! I wanted to tell you, people have been asking me about that!

See? Are you aware of my influence?
Yeah! When I first did it, I didn’t think much of it, but then people started asking me to do it.

Would you do it if the front row chants it?
The rest of the guys don’t know it.

Would you do it when you hear that I am dead, as a tribute to me?
I would drink a beer and piss in your name.

Chris Barnes

This interview with Chris Barnes appeared in issue #4

Wasn’t Alan West criticized for coming up with weak riffs?
I don’t listen to what people think, man. I think that he writes all the best Obituary riffs, first off. I listen to the music first. I don’t listen to peoples’ opinions because it just taints your whole vision of things. I just like his sound. and have always been a fan of the songs he writes. He reminds me of one of my favorites that write in the vein of Judas Priest where it’s verse/chorus, verse/chorus. It’s stuff that I had never been able to write to, but this is just really a neat thing to do for me.

Art thou happy with he drums?
Very! Very happy! I think Greg kicks the beats out fuckin’ excellent. Seeing all this come together in the way that it does was very cool for me. Can’t be any better than this, especially because all out attitudes are along the same lines.

Terry was part of the whole “Chuck” conspiracy. James Murphy told me that when he was in Death, Chuck told him the band wasn’t allowed to wear certain t-shirts on stage. In interviews, they weren’t allowed to say that they liked certain bands that Chuck blacklisted. Was Terry just following orders, or was he an eager participant?
I have not even asked him, but from my whole experience, maybe Chuck’s just a very difficult person to fuckin’ work with.

After hanging out with Terry, dost thou not perceive a certain attitude?
Not with Terry. I don’t see how this guy could every have a bad thing to say about anyone, man/ He is the most mellowest.. the most laid-back person. I personally know from hanging out with Chuck, he’s far from being laid-back. He’s always got something to worry about.

When thou were writing lyrics, wert thou trying to stay away from the Cannibal Corpse tendencies?
No. Not really trying to. I know that these songs bring out a different feeling. Just listening to the music first, as I always do, I just kind of react from the vibe I get. Maybe some of the stories I had thought up in the past – they weren’t appropriate for Cannibal Corpse.

What comprises they musical diet?
Lots and lots of Lynard Skynard.

So thou art a hick.
No. I ain’t a hick. I’ve always liked Skynard even when I was a Yankee. I’m a fuckin’ reborn southern boy. I can relate to a lot of fuckin’ rock bands’ lyrics. I just get a personal feeling when I listen to his words. His voice is fuckin’ amazing. I wish I could accomplish as much as he could in that short amount of time, and be remembered like that band is remembered.

Dost thou think that a lot of people who have seen Ace Ventura know who thou art, or do they think that the band is just a group of hired actors?
I think that maybe they might think that, like lot of mainstream older people. It’s happened a few hundred times where I’ve been in a store and someone says, “Oh, you’re in a band?” These people just have no idea that death metal even exists. I might as well throw in the Ace Ventura question. “Do you remember that part? That’s me.” It’s a surprise to people that this is an actual band.

Was it a big goof for thee?
Yeah! It was totally cool. It was nerve-racking because I was traveling with a half ounce of the best pot, down my pants, and a dog came walking up about ten feet next to me in an airport – a fuckin’ police dog! So I almost didn’t make it down there because I was shaking, man. The dog didn’t come up and sniff at me. I would’ve been in fuckin’ jail. I try not to do that anymore.

Dogs sniff groins anyway, so it would not have been unusual.
That’s my ploy, but I don’t think it’ll work. I’m getting a little paranoid in my old age.

If thou ever wert a dinosaur for a children’s’ show named “Barnesy” what color wouldst thou be?
Puke green.

Emperor

This interview with Samoth appeared in issue #12

Thy band refers to itself as intelligent black metal. I hope that it is not too cliche for me to ask thee to explain this term.
It is an attack on people, black metal or not, who either look upon black metal as something pathetic, or black metal people who often tend to make the genre look pathetic. We want to distance ourselves from the pseudo-evil, non-musical, and non-artistic side of black metal. We demand a certain standard and insight.

The Laveyans say that Satan has been the best friend the christians ever had because he has kept them in business. Cannot the church burnings also be the best advertisement that the christians ever had?
Yes! It can! It’s obvious that christians feel they have to keep strong together after such tragic events.. Anyway, the church burning was, in my point of view, more of a statement rather than a real attempt to destroy christianity. I mean, it takes more than burning a few churches to get rid of the whole belief system.

In the past, black metal bands were ridiculing commercial death metal, but now, I hear black metal bands are cannibalizing their scene, directing criticism upon their own kind. What is thy assessment of the scene that thou hast helped to create? Dost thou think that a wrong message was sent by the forefathers when they insulted commercial death metal without making the distinction that true death metal was in no way life metal?
I think people got bored with the death metal trend, and that led to black metal getting back again with full extremity. A lot of those death metal bands got away from the real death metal concept, and certain people in the black metal scene made it an image to mock such bands, and by doing so, also making black metal more extreme. Anyway, black metal has now gotten just as popular as death metal, and has kind of topped itself with a lot of moronic bands offering nothing but bad music quality and, in many ways, an infantile attitude. I think that’s why a lot of people are getting influenced by death metal again. I think metalheads rather should stay together rather than spending unnecessary energy on putting sticks in each other’s wheels.

The extreme pride in Norse heritage inspired similar loyalties across continents. In America, a land without culture, confused people became attracted to Odinism even though they have no Scandinavian blood. Dost thou see this as weakness?
It should be natural for Scandinavian people to honor their past history, because it’s our heritage, but I feel it’s rather ridiculous when bands, let’s say, from Italy, write lyrics in ancient Norse, especially when they have such a rich cultural history themselves. Well, I guess some American people can actually link their blood to the Scandinavian heritage, as their past family might have emigrated from the north… anyway, we see a lot of stupid people claiming to be this or that, and it makes no sense.

It was rumored that Emperor could not play the Metalfest because a certain felonious church-burner was not granted a visa. I know that the reaction to thee at the Metalfest would be one of worship.
I am still not granted any visa, simply because I did not apply for one. Nothing has been straightened out, actually. We’re taking the risk of being refused to get in. The people who booked us are aware of that. Worst case scenario is that Emperor will not play because some fucker at the airport causes trouble. Yeah, it seems everybody is waiting for Emperor to arrive in the States. We feel, of course, a little pressure, because people have such great expectation. When people have great expectations, it’s easy to be disappointed. It is impossible to deliver the same atmosphere as on the CD in a live situation. We also hope for a good audience who shows that they like the music. Emperor are not in favor of the I’m-too-evil-to-headbang attitude.

Obviously, thy albums are produced with particular preferences. I am wondering why the guitar is so low in the mix, and why the instruments seem too tightly compressed. There is a feeling that there is no space between notes.
Are you referring to the Anthems album? I do not agree with you. The guitars are not that low in the mix. I do not think the Anthems production is perfect… neither are Nightside. You learn as you live. Next time we’ll definitely try to get a clearer sound with more fine balance between all instruments.

Is it true that spandex is worn on stage?
No. That was one of Kerrang’s attempts to mock us after our live appearance in London. Ihsahn had black tights on. They might have been cheesy-looking, but it was not pink spandex, as the fucker wrote.