After the split with Thundermother Guernica Mancini (voc.); Emlee Johansson (dr.) and Mona Lindgren (bass, git.) didn't fall into some kind of depression but used all their emotions, time and energy to focus on a new band called The Gems. With "Phoenix" the Swedish girls released a furious debut album with really cool rock songs and caused quite the sensation in the scene. This of course was the reason enough for me to try and talk with Guernica and find out a little bit more about all that happened and the plans for the future of the band. Enjoy reading and check out the album (read my whole review here).

Michael

Hi Guernica, how are you doing?

I'm good, thank you for having me (laughs).

First of all, congratulations on your fantastic debut album "Phoenix". It has become a ass-kickin' rock album. Are you satisfied with the feedback you got so far?

Yes, I'm incredibly happy with the feedback. Most reviews I have seen are very good and very reasonable (laughs). I mean there are no like 10s but I think that if we would only get the highest score on all the ratings there would be a lot to live up to for our next album actually. I still think we got good rating; I would say like 6 or 7 out of 10 which I think is really great for a debut album.

The Thundermother split was about a year ago now. Did the wounds healed up a little bit since then?

It's a work in progress. I would say some are but I think that in a situation like that, it takes years to heal completely because the girls and I devoted our entire lives to the band and building up the brand and everything. There are always new things coming up but I'm very proud of the progress that we've made so far. We're all in a much better and happy place now and that's the most important thing.

Did you have any contact with them after the split?

No, we've been only communicating with Fillipa through our lawyer. It's been like a really bad divorce.

How hard was it to start as a quasi-new band after that? I mean, you had great supporters with The Scorpions and Whitesnake and then you had to start new.

It sucks but we're all really hard-working and I believe that we accomplished so much in Thundermother while being treated like shit for so many years so I don't see why we wouldn't be able to do the same thing now that we feel really good. But it does suck to have to go back to square one and build up everything again. I think that due to what we have done before, we have a bit of an easier time than other brand-new bands. I am fully aware of that. So certain aspects suck but at the same time, I am so excited for this new beginning. It's very exciting and I think we have done it in a way I'm very proud of.

You released "Phoenix" on Napalm Records. How did you catch their attention?

We've been in contact with Thomas (Caser; M.) the CEO of Napalm since Thundermother. Obviously, we were signed to AFM back then so that wasn't relevant for that time being but we stayed in touch. As soon as the news broke that what happened happened a lot of labels contacted us. So we decided on Napalm because it just felt like the best fit. After all the tumultuous years we felt it was important to be on a label that is stable and has been around for many years. They are professional and know what they're doing. We have huge dreams we want to accomplish and take over the world so you need to have a label that has some kind of manpower. We also want to go back to America because we did very well there on the Scorpions tour and we have a lot of fans from there already. They also have a good office over there, too. So it just felt like the right match for us.

Listening to the music, I find a lot of parallels to some 80s rock bands, is this your main influence so to speak? It is much more sleaze-rock-orientated (GNR, The Almighty, Mc Queen Street, Skid Row) than this AC/DC stuff you did with Thundermother.

None of those bands are our influence (laughs). So it's really funny that you mentioned that because everyone hears what I guess they are listening to themselves. Our influences have been more Van Halen, Queen, Led Zeppelin on this record and I guess there's a mixture of that on the album, I do like Sebastian Bach as a vocalist and Skid Row of course, too. So I guess you could say it's a little bit of Skid Row and Guns n ' Roses mixed into that. Iron Maiden and a lot more stuff…it's a mixture of everything that we love.

What about the lyrics? I don't have them and the music sounds pretty much like a party.

No, only "P.S.Y.C.H.O." is some kind of party song. The rest of the album takes you through the grief that we felt and all the feelings that we went through while dealing with all this heartache we had to deal with. If you have the time and listen to the lyrics you can basically follow through the emotional rollercoaster it was for us. We have some faster songs that we enjoy and we also had in mind while writing the album that we would be able to play them live and we wanted to have a mixture of songs. We have "Force Of Nature", "Queens" and obviously "P.S.Y.C.H.O." that could go under the umbrella of "party songs".

So this is more a "fuck off"-album to cope with the whole situation you experienced?

It's an empowering and not-giving-up album. It's a hopeful record. We go through emotions but there is always a glimpse of hope, empowerment, and self-love which has always been super important for us. It's a message that we believe in and something that we live and breathe and it came out on the album, too.

Apart from The Gems, you have a solo project. How is it currently going on with that?

It's on hold. In 2023 I wrote a lot of songs for it that I was dying to put out but everything that happened has taken a lot of time to rebuild the whole band. So my main focus was just to rebuild and have this new band up and running because I love being part of a band. But my solo career is definitely something I'm gonna work on as soon as I have time and I will keep releasing stuff just kind of randomly, no specific way for now (laughs).

I've read that you worked together with the producer from The Black Eyed Peas in 2014 because you won a song contest.

Yeah, exactly. I won a songwriting contest when I lived in America. I studied in Los Angeles at a school called Musician's Institute and while being there I had a teacher, Robin Randall, who pushed me to do my own songwriting, which I am super grateful for. She really encouraged me to write my own stuff because she saw something in me and I did write a few songs there and ended up winning the showcase and got to record an EP with Darryl Swan. I guess he's mostly famous for working with Macy Gray. He was super cool.

Cool. Did you think about collaborating with any of those bands in the future?

I mean I would love to in the future but you need to be famous enough to get a chance (laughs). I'm open to any collaboration if I like the music. I mean all of us three in The Gems like a lot of different styles of music.

I read that you had some cancer-related surgeries. Is everything fine with you again?

Thank you for asking. I had it twice. 2019 and then it came back in 2021. I was lucky because it was a tumor that was encapsulated so they could take it out. I didn't have to do any chemo or anything like that but I still go on regular checkups. After this summer I'm only gonna go two times a year which is like going towards not going there at all. You have to have a check-up for five years. It was a very tough thing to go through.

And of course just like every band you want to perform your music live – are there any plans for a tour so far? I couldn't find any information about this.

Yes! We are planning a four-week long European tour in the fall which I think we will release in a few weeks. I'm excited about that. We have to update our website, so it's always updated like our Instagram and Facebook which always are updated with the latest info. We have shows in Sweden, and some festivals - we're playing Reload in Germany and some other festivals. I'm excited for all that.

The last words are yours!

If there is anything I learned about life throughout these last couple of years, it's that there is always a second chance for everything if you believe it. There will always be a redemption arc that gives an individual this one major shot to redeem, arise like a phoenix from the ashes, and spread his or her wings. Throughout these last couple of months, I have been really trying to find something or someone so inspiring, whose story will serve as an example of pure motivation and dedication that can change or save people's lives. Seeing the famous documentary "Last Days Here", which focused a lot on the personal aspect of Pentagram's founding member and singer Bobby Liebling, almost left me in tears. It's not easy to see someone battle his demons with such hardship and fatal consequences, but to see him triumphantly return onstage like a knight in shining armor on that very evening in Webster Hall on March 6th, 2009, really made you believe that not everything is always black and there is always a helping hand that reaches out to pull you back up. The moral of the story is, to believe and pursue. Some time ago, Pentagram announced on their social media that they are finally back in the studio, working on a new album that will follow the footsteps of "Curious Volumes" from 2015. On March 18th, I had the honor to speak with none other than the man himself Bobby Liebling via Zoom, where we covered a lot of subjects starting from the band's upcoming tenth full-length album and their everlasting 5-decade legacy as a band, going all the way to the importance of knowing the music business and how live music, as a form of entertainment, always requires something that will keep people on edge and leave a strong impression. I was not ready for what awaited me because this turned out to be a very in-depth talk that truly left a big mark on me just like Pentagram's music. I must say that towards the very end, as I listened closely to Bobby's wisdom, I almost cried because I was simply without words. Please join me on this journey and I hope you'll enjoy the conversation that I had with one of the godfathers of doom metal and the soul of Pentagram, Bobby Liebling!

Vladimir

First of all, Bobby, a heartwarming welcome to you on behalf of MetalBite. How are you doing man?

Well, thank you so much for having me here man, I'm hanging in there. You have to forgive me, it's been one hell of a fricking day.

Tell me about it, it's Monday, it always starts off like that. It would basically be the end of the universe if any Monday started off as a normal day of the week *laughs*.

Yeah, you got that right!

So, the reason why I invited you is because I saw the recent news that Pentagram has finally entered the studio and started working on a new album. This is a pretty big thing, considering that "Curious Volumes" was released like what, 8-9 years ago?

10 plus *laughs*!

So, it is pretty big and exciting news for the Pentagram fans. How has the overall work been going so far?

We're working really hard on the stuff, unfortunately, we're having to do a lot of stuff remotely and I'm not adapted to nowadays technology like that *laughs*. So, I've been sparsely involved, but my guitar player, drummer, and bass player are sending things up and back and audio files constantly and working on things to do like a scratched demo thing of the songs. It's not really a demo, but it's just for our purposes to iron things out and get the material properly chosen, and so forth.

You mentioned the difficulties of dealing with modern technology. I presume you are one of those guys who prefers analog over digital, am I right?

Hell yes! *laughs*

Honestly, I can't blame you, we are guilty of it because we all grew up listening to a lot of albums recorded on analog technology so pretty much understandable on your end.

Yeah, I mean, I am 70 now and I didn't grow up with this kind of stuff at all, it's really wild because everything now is done on your telephone or your laptop.

Were you guys facing any particular challenges during the work on the new album? Were there any tasks that you guys wanted to accomplish when writing the new songs?

Okay well, we actually have 19 new songs, of which 4 of them are very old ones that I wrote in the very early 1971/1972/1973 era, and we're redoing and rearranging and adding parts to it and so forth because my songs were so short back then that they weren't of a nowadays culture and it would sound like a Ramones album *laughs*. And even though I love the Ramones, I can't be doing too many songs anymore. Aside from those 4 old ones, we have 15 others and altogether out of the 19 we have to narrow it down and choose 12 that we want for our new album.

Do any of those older songs include something from the "First Daze Here" compilation?

No, they don't. There is one song from First Daze Here Too, but you know, it was all basement recordings that were never really committed to studio technology and so forth, they were just recordings of our rehearsals from way back in the 70s. One of them was in the flexi disk in Decibel magazine, and another one was on the album Human Hurricane which was again basement tapes/lo-fi and the third one was on Nothing, and they are actually pretty new for the public sake of listening. And I am not sure when we're gonna do the one on First Daze Too again anyway, but the other ones are brand new, and we've just been writing them since last October and trying to piece them together. We've only had time for a couple of rehearsals because we have people in the band logistically all over the place. We rehearse in Virginia, myself and the guitar player live right out in the Philadelphia area, and our drummer currently is in Boston, so it's not easy to rehearse either.

You guys are really scattered across the states so you really gotta organize everything nowadays.

Yeah, and the problem is it costs a lot of money to do that. We haven't been touring at all since last August. Thank God for my bass player Greg Turley because he's had one hell of an outlay for training and playing in the meantime.

How are you generally involved when it comes to the songwriting process? Do you ever manage to suggest a couple of riff ideas or do you mostly focus on the lyrics?

Nowadays, I am more so focused on lyric content, although I do of course write music, I've been playing guitar and bass guitar for well over 60 years. I wrote all the old songs in the early days, I wrote the music and lyrics to 90% of them, so I have ideas for riffs since so forth and so on, but the problem is again, I don't have recording equipment and these other three guys have interfaces and things that they record at their home and send up and back. Vocal-wise, I write a lot of lyrics, just like I did an album a couple of years ago with the punk legend Sonny Vincent, and the album is by The Limit and it's called Caveman Logic and I wrote all the lyrics on that and he wrote music. But I still have many ideas and I do play guitar here at home, without an amp but it works *laughs*.

Yeah *laughs*. If it ain't broken, don't fix it, if it works it works.

Yeah exactly. I mean I wrote all of the original Pentagram songs from 'Forever My Queen' to 'Sign Of The Wolf'. All of those on a 12-dollar Silvertone acoustic guitar from Sears *laughs*.

It's interesting because I have recently revisited the "First Daze Here" compilation, 'one' and 'too', and following the band's entire evolution of sound, you really did expand from the early days. When it comes to the early days, is there any particular memory that holds a special place in your heart?

Well, there's a couple of them that were fuck-ups on my part *laughs*, or unfortunate circumstances that occurred that kind of held us up, but they are the things that stand out to me like, you know when Kiss came to see us which is in the Last Days Here, the movie about me. And the Blue Oyster Cult producers when they were going to take us up, those kinds of things. I wish those things wouldn't have happened along the way but yeah. Also, a lot of memories come from the re-emergence after I was really screwed up on lot of drugs for years and then got out of that and made a comeback in Webster Hall in New York City in 2009 because that was the birth of "Pentagram starting to finally tour after some 30 years".

Basically, if you can describe it that way, if you felt like a caterpillar for your entire life, at that point you became a butterfly.

Thank you *laughs*.

But that part with Kiss, when I watched the documentary, I basically said "Okay well, Kiss is not here at this point, the guys basically retired, but Pentagram is still here, putting out albums and Bobby is still alive". I don't wanna throw hate at those guys, but I really show a lot of respect for you guys for being particularly very passionate musicians and not businessmen or corporate minds as Kiss became in the following years when they became more popular.

Well, I can say the pros and cons of that. Pros are they tour as hell; they knew they were doing in business. And the con, for me is that I didn't, and never had until I met Pellet, I never had really kind of representation per se. He was just working for a small record company at the time, but he was a huge fan and I give him an awful lot of credit for bringing the band to national and international exposure, as far as people who were just getting to know who we were. That and technology of course, which even though I don't like it, you can talk to someone in Russia now on your phone, and I am in the US. But I've always loved Kiss, I was a Kiss fanatic. When they first came out, I saw their New York City debut when they were fifth bill and they had something special I will say that. Maybe if I had had the same kind of business savvy and a Neil Bogart behind me from Casablanca, things might have been different. But such is life, it goes on, and hopefully, we'll keep the crusade here.

You guys managed to gain a very cult following in the underground but you gained a lot more following in the 2000s when you became more popular. You guys managed to expand your sound, you became quite dynamic in your songwriting which has a lot of direction and ideas that go from catchy to something doomy and gloomy. What I wanted to ask is: is there a preferred style as to what kind of songs you like to make in Pentagram?

Myself, I am not a doom metal fan at all. I can't stand the stuff because it is pretentious, it's mostly growling and screaming for vocals. It doesn't have dynamics, and I was always into the dynamics. My biggest writing influence in history is The Bonniwell Music Machine from the 60s, because it's downer, desperate, and the "futility of things" feeling but it is not doom, because I looked it up in the dictionary and doom means dead *laughs*. And I am not dead and I don't like that terminology and I always called us heavy/hard rock as you probably know. But the late 60s bands were great influences on me: The Frost, Stray, Wishbone Ash were my favorite bands in history and I also have a punky side to me because my favorite album ever made was Raw Power by Iggy Pop. I like high-energy stuff but I like a lot of changes and ups and downs in the stuff, but the doom metal bands don't seem to have that dynamic about them. Not that it's good or bad, but it's not my cup of tea, let's put it that way.

Yes, even I avoid a lot of doom metal bands because most of them really don't convey anything, they just exist and that's it.

Their songs go on and on and it's pretentious and it's for getting stoned and to me it sounds half-ass braindead a lot of the time.

This is one of the reasons why I much prefer bands like Pentagram because songs actually have a meaning, they can tell a story and each album is very different in the sense of there being different emotions that each album conveys like you can't say that "Sub-basement" is similar to let's say "Day Of Reckoning" or "Be Forewarned", each of those albums is like its own story, it really kind of makes a bit personal connection. That's one of those things that I always adored about you guys, apart from most of those bands that they call doom metal whereas they're just like "yeah we're gonna be very lazy songwriters and that's it" *laughs*.

Yeah, you can be a complete idea in despair, but not just telling you "You're going to the graveyard, baa bababa" on and on, to me that is not particularly deeply expressive, perhaps a lot of these groups do feel like it is. I was with a really dear buddy the other night, Wino from The Obsessed and we talked about this kind of stuff many times also, I did a little excerpt in the Wino documentary and it's dubbed as "heavy" and "heavy" means it's intense and desperate to me. I mean, I am into downer rock, let's face it and I like also to make sure there is a little bit of "street attitude" in there, our albums have like a metamorphosis of movies.

Yeah, I mean take for example the song "City Romance" from Show 'Em How, that is basically that "street attitude" in there.

And that's from my heart all the way, I didn't write the music to that but I definitely wrote the words and they are really neat. City Romance is probably my favorite song from Show 'Em How, which was overlooked as an album very much.

I am really sorry that I was overlooked because nowadays people adore all the albums, basically those hardcore Pentagram fans, they all find a very big personal connection, myself included.

Thank you, thank you so much, I appreciate that. When I went to see The Obsessed the other night, Wino and I were talking about these kinds of things and I happen to think their brand-new album Gilded Sorrow, I think it's the best product they've ever done. It's kick ass and it keeps an even flow of heavy almost all the way through, but they also have changes in their stuff that are oddities and not the same old run-of-the-mill stuff. I feel like, for some reason, I wanna pound my fist on the desk and go "Can't you guys think of something that makes it a little different?". You know, there are only twelve frets until you repeat on the guitar, and there are only eight notes in an octave, but you can kind of mix it up a bit, you know *laughs*.

Indeed, it doesn't have to be like one note per minute.

And plauding and on, and it gets a little quieter and then some growly vocals come in, or whatever, about dying, and then it gets loud again and it's the same lick, and it doesn't change, and then comes the guitar break which is even louder over the same lick and it just goes on and on and on for eight or nine minutes, and I am just not into that, I like changes and I like dynamics. The bands of the late 60's, it was a different time though, I realized that. I am also aware when people say that Scott (Wino) and I are like the "godfathers of doom", I know that's meant like a compliment all the way and I appreciate the hell out of that, and I am humble about it because I know people mean it with love and care. But I just like the late 60's. It was an exploratory period because it hadn't all been said and done, you know. And it has now, for the most part, it's hard to come up with something new. Our new upcoming album, I don't know if I should say it, doesn't have the originality of the older stuff, but there is not as much variation because a hundred bands have ripped it off of the early stuff we did or the early stuff of The Obsessed, Trouble and other bands from back then, and warped it into the ground, so it's hard to be original now.

Yeah, basically I don't know what else can I say about that other than…

It's a rehash!

Yeah! And it's reduced to ash! People these days basically need to look for a needle in a haystack if you wanna find anything original or attractive nowadays, so it's hard.

Yeah!

But the one thing I wanted to ask you is because you mentioned the 60's, I also noticed that your favorite color is pink and you have a unique choice of wardrobe that you wear onstage, it's a very 60s vibe to it.

It's glam. It's into the glam thing a lot. A lot of the tops I wear were worn by my mother in the late 40s, the same exact ones, when she was a cocktail lounge singer and toured with Bob Hope with the USO during the Korean War. And they are glammed out, and they are dollsy, and I like that, I like to keep people guessing, you know *laughs*. Whatever your preferences may be, it's not for me to choose or criticize, but I like giving people something to look at when they see a band. You go to see a band, the keyword is "seeing". It's not just to go and hear them when you can just listen to a record or listen to a live album or a tape or something, but when you go see something you go to see it. I want to make a spectacle up there, something you'll remember.

Speaking of things that I did actually remember is when I watched some of Pentagram's live footage that's posted on YouTube, particularly from the 80's and the 90's, I noticed that you used the main theme of Halloween 2 as the opening track before the show begins. Can you tell me a little about why you chose the Halloween 2 theme in particular, because I love the main theme and I love the movie so much, so where did the decision come from?

We liked it because it was really scary sounding and it sounded like impending doom, but not dead again like the boring and the caution flag, you know. And Halloween had like the "tin tin tin, tin tin tin, tin tin" and you were really like on edge. I like to put people on edge, I do. I always want to flip people out there, I want them to remember what they saw, it's entertainment man, and I am an entertainer, not just a singer and not just a performer, and not just a certain clothing type or certain music type, I try to consider myself as an entertainer, you know.

Yeah, you also have to leave a really big impression, because you can't just climb the stage, do the show, and then you're like "I'm off the stage" as if nothing happened.

Right, and then they forget about you in minutes. Everybody gets up now with shorts, a football jersey, a cut-off, in tennis shoes, and to me, it's like: what is there to see up there? It looks like the guy walking down the street on his off day or something, it doesn't have that flare, and music has lost a lot of its flare.

It has, but I always adore it when I see bands that really manage to surprise me. Bands that you wouldn't expect to come to happen in the 21st century, I mean here's the thing: There are many bands that influenced Pentagram, and you guys have influenced countless other bands, and the band that I am referring to right now is Lucifer from Sweden, that band really amazed me because I was like "Oh my god, this band has everything from 70's hard rock to like early heavy metal, like heavy rock basically".

Johanna is a very dear friend of mine, and I know the people in the band, I don't know if you saw but there on YouTube, I got up and did "Forever My Queen" in Omaha and in Philly, just the one song, and they were giving a tribute, and inviting me up onstage. I mean, you know, it was exciting, I had fun up there. You gotta have fun too man, as downer as the sound may be, you still gotta have fun doing it. And I really like Lucifer a lot, I think Johanna is an excellent singer and she's got amazing musicians. On the last tour, my buddy Henry Vasquez, from Saint Vitus and The Skull and so forth, he played drums for them (Lucifer) and he's a really good guy and a killer drummer. They are really good live, they are really fantastic live, if you've ever seen them.

Unfortunately, I haven't, but I would really love to see both bands, both Pentagram and Lucifer tour Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, so it would be like a "Yeah double score baby!", because both bands go hand in hand with each other because they are in the similar style, plus they are both refer to something that is occult.

Yeah, it's dark, definitely dark. I just spoke to Johanna about a month ago when they finished the satanic panic tour with Coven. I was really excited, I always wanted to meet Jinx Dawson, and I finally met up and took some pictures with  Jinx, I was really happy to meet her. They go all the way back to longer than I do, their very first album was '69 and they're still doing it, she's still doing it, whether you got the original members or not, I think people always forget like back when Last Days Here came out, the guys were talking about the fact that you never know when Bobby's gonna show up, or this or that or the other. They mentioned all the million/zillion members that have been through Pentagram through the years. What in the hell does someone expect after half a century? Do they think that the same lineup, that we'll all be together for like 6 or so years? *laughs*

That's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about. You guys have been around since the early 70s when the heavier sound was still being discovered and still on the rise, and you are one of the original heavier bands that came after Black Sabbath because it was like 1971/1972.

Well, Pentagram was formed in '71, but I mean we were playing before that together, really with a different name, so around the same time the Black Sabbath was. They used to say that "Well Pentagram are the American answer to Black Sabbath". I mean, just look at it, Ozzy's getting older, my generation's all dying often, they are not around, but we are still doing it, I can't believe it!

It's insane to think that the band is still active 5 decades later and still putting out fresh material.

Yeah, and you're gonna go through members in that kind of time period. My god, people have lives and people don't seem to realize a lot of times that folks go their separate ways.

Yeah, it's natural progression basically.

Yeah, it's life man! After 5 decades, what do they expect? We're not sown together at the hip; I mean we're family but we're not sown together *laughs*.

The last thing I wanted to ask you is that many bands nowadays can't even last longer than 5 years, let alone a single decade. What advice would you, as an experienced musician, give to all the new coming bands out there who are still searching for their sound and their place in the world of music?

I would say, first and foremost, don't ever abandon your dream, because I've never done that and I've never been able to do that, because your dream and your aspirations can come true. Now having played before crowds of a hundred thousand people, you know I played at Hellfest, Wacken and Swede Fest and all these big places, I've been to Rockpalast and all, I never imagined this would happen for me. First of all, never abandon your dream. Second of all, you have to learn to separate business and pleasure, because you need to have fun in what you're doing and you need to always enjoy it and there's still always gotta be that spark of fire in your belly that motivates you, but you also nowadays have to be really acute, which I wasn't, to the business side, and that goes back to Kiss. They knew how to conduct business in a legal/proper fashion which is so much at a conscious level in nowadays world. So, make sure you love what you're doing, you follow your dream, you pursue what you want, and you never give up, but make sure you're careful, because everybody in the music business from back then, let's say 99% of the bands got screwed and fucked over and subsequently fell apart because of bad management, bad representation or misrepresentation, and crookery. It takes money to make money, of course, so I understand when members have another job on the side, the members and stuff like that, of course, I always just did music and unfortunately didn't have that cloud behind me from a company and companies don't give you record company support anymore these days. So, you have to know what you are doing, really be sharp and kindred to know what's going on around you in the business. And I wasn't aware of that, so I am sitting here nowadays, you know, I don't have a bonny. People google me and say "Oh Bobby Liebling's worth 300 thousand!". What? *laughs* I have a net worth of 300 thousand dollars, I feel like a rich man. But still, you gotta strive on, you gotta pursue the dream, but you gotta know what you're doing man. If somebody is in the band and they are not cutting it and they are not pulling weight in their department, sometimes people have to go and just know who's around you and know who your real friends are. Your real friends are gonna be there in the end, the few real ones you can count on one hand, so that's what I would advise. And practice! You gotta keep practicing! It takes a lot of practice man, a lot of hours, and a lot of your life, so sometimes when the groups say "I can't do this, I have to work". Well, wait a minute, what is the band? The band is a lot of work, and if you wanna have the band you gotta put in the work. So, it's like that. That's basically my two things, you gotta know what you're doing and the people you surround yourself with. Keep your head clear, because I wasn't lucid many of the times and you gotta keep sharp and pursue your dream man, never give up your dream because it can come true.  I don't have money, I don't care. I am happy for having my soul, that when I leave this world hopefully generations later, five or ten generations know that I left a mark that was enjoyable and made people happy, and I did it with pride and conscious effort, determination, and so on. That's what it is really.

Thank you so much for this interview, Bobby. Your words are very inspiring and I am very glad to have you hear I am really looking forward to hearing the new album. On the last note, I just want to say that a friend of mine from Croatia said a big "Hi!" to you and said he's been a big fan of yours ever since he discovered Relentless and both of us are hoping that we'll see Pentagram touring somewhere in the region of Eastern Europe.

I hope so, I mean all we've got this year is three American gigs in late April, and in May we're gonna play two major festivals, we're doing Desertfest and it's either Up in Smoke Festival or something like that, all I know it's in Switzerland, and then in October we have two more big festivals and there's not a whole lot plan for this year. We wanna try to get out to the West Coast in the US, we've got a hell of a fanbase out there. I love playing in Europe, and I BAD BAD most of all want to go back to all of the fans in South America. My god, it gave me the first taste of what I felt like "Gee, I feel like I am actually experiencing being a rockstar, for the first time in my life". They are great, you know. I love to travel; I love to see the world. I'll keep doing this till I drop, these festivals that are listing for this year saying "Last Performance Ever" or "Farewell Tour", I don't know why they say that because if I am standing upright then I can croak a note and shake my ass a little onstage, I'll be there. I am in for the ride; this is what I do, my profession, and my passion. So, I hope you get to see us too. Thanks for giving me the chance to do this interview. Without you guys, I am nothing, so I never forget that, not these days. Without the fans, you're zero.

"Christus Hypercubus" is the new album by Swiss death metal legends Messiah (read my review here). I talked with drummer Steve Karrer about the changes that came up with the album (of course about the tragic passing of their former member Andy Kaina) and we also did a very cool and interesting throwback into Messiah's past while we were sipping some local beers. Enjoy the interview and of course the new album. Cheers!!

Michael

Hi Steve, how are you doing?

Great. We are just rehearsing our live set for the release party on the 16th of March. This is going to be a long set with about 90 minutes playing time and the very special challenge is to rehearse the new songs together. We still have to do a little bit more but it really makes fun to play them.

Your new album "Christus Hypercubus" will be released soon. What are the most significant changes to your last album "Mont Fracmont"?

The line-up of course, you already mentioned it in your review. Andy quit (and was replaced by Marcus Seebach; M.) and died a year later which made us very concerned because we still were in contact and kept being friends. A little bit longer on board is V.O. whom I know like the back of my hands because I played with him in Gurd for 15 years and have known him since the 80s. He is an old friend who returned; 1987 he replaced Brögi for a short time and some shows. So he played practically before me in Messiah (laughs). The change probably also comes through these two guys. V.O. wrote 4 songs and Markus' voice gives the band some kind of new appearance. I think we have searched very well for a new vocalist. He should have this classic old school voice but he didn't need to sound like Andy but not too modern so that it would match to our sound. And this we accomplished very well, I guess and so we have the right person on board, also when it comes to the human aspect.

Did Marcus also participate in the songwriting process?

He did the lyrics for 'Acid Fish'. Brögi is always the hyper creative guy. He gets some kind of burst and then suddenly he shoots out these riffs and with them come some ideas for the lyrics. In some parts, also for "Fracmont", Andy matched the lyrics on himself but mainly the ides come from Brögi. Musically we did 50:50 and we have a stupid drummer who injured himself while he was skiing so that I was absent for half a year. I injured my shoulder and broke my wrist and so the whole songwriting process changed. On "Fracmont" we had Brögis ideas and met for songwriting in the rehearsal room which was pretty much like in the 90s and very old school. For the new album I wasn't able to do some sessions so the guys did work with a drum computer and did some home recording. After that we did some changes in the progress and then I went to the studio and played my drums for these tracks.

What should we imagine when hearing the very cryptic title "Christus Hypercubus"? Is it a kind of homage to Dalí's painting "Corpus Hypercubus"?

Well, Brögi did some kind of comparison to to combination of belief and Christ and this tesseract and all this is pretty weird story. He gave me some notes what to tell about: the world is getting more and more compressed because there are more and more people and because of this and an issue in the matrix of mankind's question of evolution. The quintessence is that there isn't any more space and only the void and infinitive compressed mass. It's some kind of hypothesis about to be or not to be. Because of this also the titles which were always very special with Messiah. We don't have any titles like "Kill, Hate, Eat Al, Die Something" (laughs) but they are pretty hieroglyphic and what Messiah always dealt with.

Personally I think that the new album has become one of the best in your discography. The songs aren't that bulky like on the predecessor and they have a certain dynamic and freshness. Why did you decide to incorporate more catchy stuff?

We have two songwriters and V.O. stands for catchy. When he writes Gurd songs, he writes pretty easy sequences and we told him to write something fast. The result were some of these songs. What I found pretty cool was that he orientated himself at some old Messiah song, concerning the riffing and some other trademarks we incorporated into our songs back then. Brögi often sprawls in his songwriting and also with the lyrics (laughs). He is a very creative person who doesn't care about any quarters in the tact or any logic in the music and so he always says: "I am a feeling guy". So if a part only works 3 ½ times it is that way and quite often then I come along and say that this doesn't work (laughs).

So let me guess, the title track was written by Brögi?

No, this one is written by V.O..

Hm, okay. When I listened to it on the YouTube premiere I thought that it would be a very hard album if every song would sound like this one. This one is the one I don't get used to most.

I think this is one of the best songs, to be honest (laughs). It has some kind of unequal pace and I already heard comparisons like Meshuggah. So it is probably a little bit bulkier but since I understand the sequences and I can play it, it works better (laughs). I think this one really has a great impact when we perform it live. But you are right, this one is very bulky. But the opener 'Sikhote-Alin' is by Brögi though, for example.

This one is one of the tracks I wanted to talk about a little bit more in detail. What does 'Sikhote-Alin' deal with? I know that it was a meteorite that went down in Russia in 1947. When I hear such stories, I always have to think about the X-Files with the aliens and the black oil.

The inspiration was that he owns a fragment of this meteorite. So he wanted to write about that. Fortunately he gave me some info so that I can tell a little bit more about that. So he researched and it is about the origin of life on Earth. Related to mankind and the alleged ancestors, the primates, the theory of evolution by Darwin (especially selection and detection) is queried. Even the most adaptable species will not evolve continuously but the universe brings and takes back. That was with the impacts of meteorites, the disappearing of the dinosaurs and eventually also mankind (laughs). This is very philosophical again.

'Venus Baroness I and II' is split into two parts. What is this about and why did you decide to split the track?

I come back to my notes. 'The Venus Baroness I' is about the transmigration of a soul from a prevented female pharaoh named "Neith", daughter of duke Djehuti Nacht who got assassinated. The source for that comes from the Berlin-Brandenburgische Academy of Sciences. The voices in the intro come from the Saxon Academy Of Sciences according to the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptia who excerpted and edited them. Although it is not scientifically proven if the Egyptians sounded like that 2000 years ago. The topic in this song is the transmigration of souls of the deceased with the help of a sun barque which follows the equinox and leads ad astra. That was the belief of the Egyptians; that life would continue in a future world.

The second part he created by himself. Neith comes back to Earth after having traveled and becoming one with planet Venus, hoping to find a better world. She uses the soul of the mentally retarded girl Shelley. But Neith recognizes that the world hasn't turned out to be a better place than it was 4000 years ago and decides to return to Venus. Shelly dies but she sees the world like it actually is and what remains hidden to the future rulers of the world.

So you split the song into two parts because of the two different stories…

Yes and because you do this with strange music (laughs). We had this concept album Rotten Perish and he likes telling stories. This one isn't a concept album but these lyrics have something in common and so they follow in row and I think they are pretty good for the end of the album. But with the running time of them, this is a long finale (laughs).

Ah, "Rotten Perish" was my first Messiah album and I still love this one.

We had 10 months for writing that record back then. We just had released Choir Of Horrors and after that the label drew the option and told us to release another album within one year. 10 months later we were recording and this was pretty much stressful.  Considering all this, I guess the album has turned out pretty great. And we wrote some more songs because we didn't have enough stuff. In these days it was like to better have 90 minutes than 45 on an album.

Haha, I remember reading an interview where you talked about being in a boys' choir.

It was a boys choir from Berlin called Omnibus and the choir director was the vocal teacher of Nina Hagen he incidentally told us. That was pretty cool. And he was that strict to the boys – they came with 10 boys and 2 mothers and 6 were allowed to enter the studio. So he told them that everybody had three chances and if one screws it up, he is out and will be replaced. We all were a little bit perplexed how he treated the little boys. He told us that he had 40 boys in the choir and if it doesn't work this way you will founder.

Haha, since I am a teacher I know that you have to talk with the kids sometimes a little bit harsher!

Well, I think nowadays you should be careful what you're saying otherwise their parents will come to visit you. But it was an exciting thing. Also with the girl who spoke. We recorded it in the Morissound studio and she was the daughter of the cleaner of the studio. It was told to her that we need an "angel" and she said that she has an angel and put the girl into a white dress and brought her with her. The mother auditioned the lines and the girl repeated it then and so they recorded it. But everything was self-made, nothing was copied, also the melody-line was created by the chorus director himself.

Coming to the predecessor "Choir Of Horrors" – I think that the production is very weak when it comes to the vocals. This is really a pity.

Yes, that was not the best one. But check the remastered version from High Roller Records by Patrick W. Engel. There you can hear the vocals much better and it sounds like in the past like it should have been there. It has pretty much power. It is a pity that they are so faded because I think the album is my favorite one. We also play more songs from Choir Of Horrors than from Rotten Perish live and Rotten Perish is quite bulky in some parts in my opinion (laughs). But there are a lot of people who like this one and sometimes we have to respect that. We also played 'For Those Who Will Fail' but it really didn't turn out great live and never was good to play live. In contrast to the record version.

What about "Underground"? Do you still play songs from that one, haha?

No (laughs). I think for the days back then, the production was really great and musically it was a very important album for me for a long time. The song writing was really good but it was probably the "Endorama" by Messiah (laughs). You were searching for something and didn't find it: a new vocalist who wasn't allowed to shout like Andy so that poor Christofer (Johnson; M.) had to try to sing but wasn't able to and so it sounds.

Hm, yes…especially this 'Ballad Of Jesus' song was em, well….

Of this one exists also a remix CD with four or five different versions on it.

Haha, unfortunately I don't have it, haha!!

We went with the trend back then, do you know (laughs).

You're going to play your record release show with your compatriots in Commaniac and Poltergeist who aren't really newcomers. Comaniac released a superb last album a few months ago. Do you recommend some other, newer bands from Switzerland who the people should support?

Yes, Klaw is a very recommendable band. The guitarist also plays in Poltergeist and Pat from Gurd plays second guitar. It is very technical thrash metal and they have a very young vocalist who is about 20. I already heard some new recordings and it sounds pretty cool. Also Vorax, they are doing some kind of dinosaur metal (laughs)

Pardon? What do they do?

Dinosaur metal. They have a dinosaur in their logo and is a little bit like Bolt Thrower when you listen to the groove. Our bassist Patrick is playing there and that is all I have on the radar at the moment.

And the reason Comaniac are playing with us is because when I had to quit because of my injury we had to decide if we would quit PartySan and other shows or not. I asked Stefan from Comaniac  and he did a super job for the first show Marcus did but not at PartySan where I could play again. So he learned the whole stuff for just one show. I told him that he can play PartySan or we do 50/50 but he insisted that I should play if I can. So this is a part of our thank you to them and also because we like the band.

Finally a little quiz. Yesterday I was at Abbath in Dortmund and wore my old Psychomorphia shirt. There was a guy who asked me if I knew which two Death songs Messiah did cover back in 1987. Do you know that?

'Baptized In Blood' for sure and the other one I can't remember. I saw them back then and V.O. played guitar there. But I don't know. But you can find a video for 'Baptized In Blood' on YouTube. I really have no idea. 'Scream Bloody Gore'?

No, 'Evil Dead'.

Ah,yes! 'Evil Dead', of course!

Haha, so we completed each other. Steve, thank you very much for the nice interview.

Thank you, too, Michael!

Swedish legends Necrophobic recently released their 10th full-length album "In The Twilight Grey" (check reviews here). With this new album, there are some slight changes in the approach concerning both, music and artwork. I had a very nice chat with the drummer Joakim Sterner and out came a very entertaining interview where you can find out the reasons for the changes but also about the band in general and about the diverse side-projects most of the band members are involved in. Check it on your own and enjoy!

Michael

Hey Joakim, how are you doing?

I'm okay. I have a bit of sore legs because I was skiing two days ago. It was the first time this season so the legs are a little bit tired (laughs). The ski resort is about 2 ½ hours north of Stockholm and it is the closest ones with good slopes. The smaller mountains are nearer but the slopes are pretty short. But it is so close that you can go there for just one day and then back to Stockholm again.

You are going to release the 10th Necrophobic album in March and you founded Necrophobic 35 years ago…is there anything special planned for this very anniversary?

This is a question that everybody has but I can honestly say that there is nothing that we planned. The album was written and recorded and going to be released this year and as a coincidence the band is turning 35 years old. So there will be no anniversary shows for being 35 years old. There will be shows to support the new album. The band is so old now, every year there is something that is having an anniversary so you cannot track everything (laughs). I have to set reminders that this year that album is going to be so and so old…. Last year The Nocturnal Silence, the debut album turned out to be 30 years old so we had one special show in Stockholm and the album is soon coming out so there will be no more of these special "Nocturnal Silence" shows. It was not just only the songs from that album but we decided to do some from the three first ones we released during the 90s.

Again you evoke some kings of hell like in 'Clavis Inferni' and bring darkness over the Earth. Is the apocalypse coming closer when you look at the real world today?

I try not to think in those terms. I live for the good things in life that I can do. I can play the music still, I can record the music still, I can go skiing still. The political stuff I don't have time to dig deep into those questions. I've never been interested in that. I just try to enjoy my time.

Also, the cover is very hopeless and devastating in comparison to your past covers. It is very bleak and with fewer details than before. Why didn't you continue the church cover story but decided to go this way? And did you change the cover artist this time?

Yes, we changed the artist. The other two albums Dawn Of The Damned and Mark Of The Necrogram came out very close to each other. It was just a two-year gap between them and the songwriting process was more combined even though they had nothing in common. They were quite similar from a certain songwriting point. When we did Mark Of The Necrogram we said that we wanted to use Kristian Wåhlin once again and Sebastian came up with the idea: "Have you ever thought about what happens beyond that council in the middle?". He started to brainstorm ideas as concepts for the artwork and then Dawn Of The Damned was, as I said, not connected in the story but connected in the songwriting process. We looked if we could do even one more cover of the same theme so to speak. However this time, everything was reset more or less, the song-writing process had nothing to do with anything from the pasts song-writing processes. We worked a lot with the photographer Jens Rydén, once the singer in Naglfar. Him and I have been close friends for many many years; we went to the same art school and stuff. So I think Sebastian went to his homepage and saw an art piece. I don't know if it was ready but Jens put it up there. Sebastian saw it and he felt that if we could tweak this art, it should really be for the new album. We asked Jens if we could have that art but he could redo it to make it look more Necrophobic-style. He did that and also we wanted to continue the art on the backside of the album. It is something we wanted to have for a long time but Kristian always forgot to paint the backside (laughs). He was asked for both, Mark Of The Necrogram and Dawn Of The Damned to make the widescreen painting; he never did it (laughs). So this time we had it and it's inspired from an album that came out in the middle of the 80s. The art is really connected to the new album. So Jens did the artwork. We took his art piece and he did the re-arrangements and the layout together with me. He did the main design and I made him some suggestions and he also took the photos.

When I first listened to "In The Twilight Grey" my first thoughts were that you were more Bathory-influenced this time, for example in the title track, so you go more into black metal than on the previous albums. Would you agree with me?

I cannot say what's wrong or right to think. I was not thinking the way you were thinking. I think it flirts with our past and the music has found a new path. There are more heavy metal parts in this album than we ever had before. Of course, it has this black metal feeling, also. It's a very wide album, still the same band but it's dynamic.

Well, it's just in some nuances. I know that you guys are fully into 80s stuff like W.A.S.P. and Maiden and so on and it is true when you say that it is more classic metal especially when it comes to Sebastians' riffs. But in some riffs, there is also this certain black metal feeling…

I understand now more what you mean when you put it that way. I can agree and still, I think a song like 'Stormcrow' is more death metal than black metal. 'As Stars Collide' is more heavy metal than anything we have done before but still with that melody and dark feeling over it.

It also isn't as catchy as the two last albums. It's more bulky and there are more levels to get access to it. I mean, not like "Womb Of Lilithu" which was a very difficult album but it doesn't grip me right from the start.

I can understand what you are thinking. I can agree that it's not like Mark Of The Necrogram where you got hooked right away. It was a quite straightforward album, very catchy. This one will take a few more listens and then it will grow on you because you find stuff that you didn't hear first you didn't hear maybe because you were searching for that catchy stuff (laughs). This one is going to be a bigger album the more listens you give it.

Are there some connections, except darkness, between the songs?

This is not a concept album like Dawn Of The Damned. Every song has its own lyrics and story.

Where did you get the lyrics for 'Clavis Inferni' from? I googled it up and found some demons from hell concerning the names but nothing else.

I didn't write any words on this album. The music actually started with our new bass player sending us a demo tape with ten or twelve songs he had written and didn't put in Grave or the other bands he is involved in. This kick-started Sebastian to write the new album. I can't remember every song on that demo but Tobias has co-written songs now because Sebastian gave them that Necrophobic sound. In that particular song, I cannot say from where he got the inspiration to write the lyrics. Maybe they wrote it together and talked about it and the lyrics came up. I cannot really explain the lyrics on this album because I haven't read all the lyrics yet. I don't like to explain lyrics. It's up to you to read them and make your own opinion about what it means to you. It meant something to Sebastian when he wrote it but when we look at the same painting, you and I can see different things.

(I asked Sebastian about the lyrics and he told me that it is a classic South, North, East, West-spell. There exists a painting called "Clavis Inferni" which illustrates the beasts of the directions and is an homage to the old black metal lyrics of Venom, Possessed, Slayer, or Hellhammer.)

Link to this painting :https://www.openculture.com/2022/08/discover-the-key-of-hell-an-illustrated-18th-century-guide-to-black-magic-1775.html?fbclid=IwAR1m004nrcrpeSW7gC8RxWtufWiGea7vvyEad_Y0FSRekqPB3YGCH87-P2w)

With 'Ascension (Episode Four)' you have another instrumental that is connected to the first three episodes that are to be found on "Darkside". Is it some kind of tribute to your past?

Yes, it is a continuation and also a tribute to what we did back then. We didn't have instrumentals on all albums I think….or do we (laughs)? Anyhow, this was a flirt with Darkside, and one of the songs, 'Stormcrow', you can really think it's 1994 when you hear it.

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to see you live yet. I spoke with your manager lately and told him that you have to come to Dortmund or at least somewhere in the Ruhr Area – are there any concrete plans yet for some shows? I guess touring will be difficult since you all have families and jobs….

Yes, we don't do full tours anymore. We go to festivals and we go to clubs. I think Germany is going to be pretty much compared to the last album. But I cannot remember which towns and which festivals (laughs). But you can find them on Facebook. (And on the page of their booking agency: https://district-19.com/portfolio-item/necrophobic/)

You probably remember that I reviewed your Unhallow demo back in 22. Since that, it has become quite quiet around that band. Are you currently working on some new stuff?

Yes, but Dismember and Necrophobic always come first. Our plans were to record the other songs we had later that year but then Dismember started again. The Dismember circus is back (laughs). I was skiing with Robert (Sennebäck; M.) last week and the week before he had his birthday party and we discussed the Unhallow situation. I hate to make promises I cannot keep but we said to each other that we should go into the studio later this year to make the full-length.

Not only you but also Sebastian and Johan have another band going on with In Aphelion – was this some kind of stress test for Necrophobic when you all started these other bands?

Me and Robert had a band, Souldevourer, in 2005 together. So this is our new 2005 band (laughs). Unhallow was not the band that we had in 2005 because most of those riffs are now maybe used in upcoming Dismember stuff, I don't know. For Sebastian, he had a lot of time during Covid and he wanted to do something that didn't have any limits so that he could decide everything for himself. That was the goal with that band but I think that none of our side-bands interfered with Necrophobic. But I was pretty surprised when I heard his band because I thought that he would do a heavy metal band and In Aphelion sounds a lot like Necrophobic but there were no hard feelings and nothing.

I always thought that you look a little bit like the twin of Kerry King – did you already hear his new song and check the cover?

Haha, I heard that before. Yes, I checked the song and I wasn't feeling so happy about that. I didn't have any expectations really but what I was afraid of was that it sounded like the Slayer period I don't like and it sounded like the period that I don't like. I mean the song is not bad but I wait until I hear the entire album. I think Mark's voice is very aggressive and cool but I don't like Paul Bostaph's style of playing. I am more the Dave Lombardo-type because he has more feeling. Paul is more machine and the sound is not so cool on his drums. It sounds like when you bounce a basketball.

And as we all know now, Dave Lombardo is dead for him!

Yeah (laughs). And there was something else, I think he threw something at Tom Araya as well. And also maybe the media is talking and trying to make a drama out of nothing.

So did you also see the cover?

Yeah, I've been noticing that it looks like Deicide. I wonder how it happened.

Probably AI.

Yes, maybe they've used the same words (laughs).

Baphomet, Devil…

Haha!!

What are the albums you're looking forward to in 24?

I don't know. I keep looking for albums that I didn't get in the 80s, haha. But which bands are going to release new albums? Do you know?

Well, I hope Mercyful Fate….

I can tell you what I am looking forward to in 24. I am looking forward to Columbia and Mexico in April. Columbia we haven't played before and we're going to play with Emperor who, as far as I have heard, haven't played in Columbia before either. That will be interesting!

I think so! Maybe even more interesting than the new Mercyful Fate, haha!

Haha. And we're going to play a show where Anthrax is headlining and I saw that we're going to play at a stadium (laughs). That will be interesting, too!

The final words are yours!

I hope that you all will enjoy the new album like you said, maybe you don't like it as much on the first listen but it grows on you. I still think it sounds very much Necrophobic so you shouldn't be afraid!

Master's Call isn't a newcomer in the real sense of the meaning but after a couple of years of dwelling in the British underground they have released a superb debut album called "A Journey For The Damned" last year (read review here). Although they clearly orient themselves on bands like Necrophobic and such they still found a very unique way to present their music and because this was one of my highlights in '23, I had to have a talk with the guys. So James Williams (drums) and Dave Powell (guitar) and I had a very relaxed chat via Zoom on a cold Friday evening with some drinks and a lot of fun.

Michael

Hey, thanks for taking the time to do an interview – how are you guys doing?

J: We're doing very well, thank you! It's a little bit chilly but it's all good!

D: We've been busy, I mean we're always busy and we're getting ready for things to come. And it's freezing and cold, but all fine!

Master's Call has existed for over ten years already but you just released an EP called "Morbid Black Trinity" back in 2019 and your debut album "A Journey For The Damned" last November. Maybe you can introduce the band a little bit more to us all?

D: We started in, erm….. we don't even know when we officially started… I think Metal Archives decided that (laughs)…

2013, I think…

D: Yeah, okay, that's when we started then (laughs). I don't necessarily remember that. It started off with me and John (vocals) forming the band. We didn't even really form it as a band, we just sort of sat in a bedroom and started writing songs. We used to be in a previous band together called 'Necrotize' until we ended up at one point not being in the same band. Then later on we wanted to be in the same band again but we wanted to do our own thing as a side thing. That's how it started. Just a two man-project to write some riffs, write some stuff. We liked what we came up with and we thought to keep going and make it a band. I think it was 2016 when James joined on drums.

J: Yeah, that's correct cause what happened was that John basically posted on Facebook that they're looking for a drummer for Master's Call. I'd never heard of Master's Call ever, so I carried on scrolling by. I was trying to start my own band with no success because of the same issues with line-up problems, people leaving. A few weeks later I remembered the post from John as I knew him from 'Funeral Throne' so I decided to message him and ask if he was still looking for a drummer. He PM'ed me and we arranged from there that I had to learn a couple of songs and that was the beginning for me.

D: And from there we got a bassist - at the time, that was Adam - John knew him and then we looked for a vocalist. The vocalist at the time was attending a gig with John's other band and he talked to him there. So it went on from there. Eventually we were writing a lot of songs and most of them were thrown away (laughs). The very first song we worked on was 'The Spire Cranes' which is on the debut EP. We initially didn't think to do that kind of chorusy-thing, it was just like "let's just write the most extreme black/death metal thing and make it evil" but then we had that chorus "in the name of the father….." and I think we initially thought it was "wrong" to do that but we liked this kind of vibe (laughs). And then we thought to do more of that. But that one has been a hard song to top because of that chorus and was why we threw so many songs away. They sounded good but not as good as this one. Over time we got a few songs that we liked and we decided to record an EP. But the three tracks on the EP didn't include some of the songs that we'd already written because we were saving them for the album. There are a few tracks on this album that we'd written at the very beginning. So from our point of view they're old and we think of them as being the "old" songs. Even though they've only been out a few months now, they've actually been around for like 10 years (laughs). It's a bit of a mix of us writing everything we had ideas for but then ending up with a family of songs that worked better on the EP and a family of songs that worked better on the album.

J: At least two of the songs on the album we've been playing live pretty much since our first gig anyway. 'All Hope In Fire' and 'Pathways'.

D: Yeah, 'All Hope In Fire' was the first song we played live and that was in 2017. It's a strange one to not release it for that long. And from our point of view we were getting sick of this song, but most people are hearing it for the first time now. It's weird but it does reinvigorate it for us when people react and comment on the song.

You were signed by the aspiring German label Fireflash Records where many other pretty well-known bands are signed, too. Did they stumble over you or did you send them a demo so they got aware of you?

We didn't actually send a demo. We were actually suggested to him by an associate and he messaged us. It was kind of unexpected. We even did not want to release it on a label but rather self-release it. But there were obviously things that were a bit out of our reach for us that the label was able to offer. So it made sense and it was the right thing at that time. I mean, it's expensive to put stuff on vinyl and that was definitely something we really wanted to do. It was pretty much an avenue for that and more. So we never sent a demo ourselves which was interesting in that it was the result of a recommendation.

I think it's pretty cool that you were signed by them. For example Schizophrenia from Belgium, they are doing all their stuff independently and have a lot of issues distributing all their stuff on their own.

J: Yeah, I think that's part of the benefit of the label because there are some certain things and a certain reach they have, connections they have. Doing it independently it's a lot harder to achieve.

I like the brutal but very melodic approach that you have in your music. I think it is a challenging tightrope walk to combine both black and death metal elements so that it doesn't appear to be too artificial. What's your formula to be real?

D: Well, we listen to a lot of real bands I suppose (laughs). We write what we like listening to. You can say that it makes us probably not original but that was sort of the thing we like. We like black metal, we like death metal and we also like old school stuff such as Judas Priest and Sabbath as well because we are from that area. We are always trying to put a little bit of that in there like a nod to the old school - whether that's in a solo or something like that. I mean it combines a sound that is just very natural, we don't feel that we're forcing anything. In the beginning when we threw a lot of our songs away, it wasn't that they were bad songs but they didn't have that special 'thing'. We needed some more influences. We were just writing like the previous bands we were in basically, so we wanted to come to have more of our own kind of sound. For me personally writing a lot of the guitar stuff on the melodies is one of the things that evolved over the time. I don't really know why, perhaps in 10 years stuff just has evolved and I listen to other bands I didn't listen to ten years ago. It's a constant evolution.

J: I mean I've come from a background of bands like old school thrash, melodic death metal to black metal. So all those influences were there within the band in some way.

This leads to my next question. In my review I wrote that some of the guitar solos might be written by Sebastian Ramstedt / Necrophobic. Are they some kind of role model for you and what other musical inspirations do you have? Concerning the vocals I'd guess out of the blue that Cronos and Athenar (Midnight) might be some…

D: Vocals obviously is Johns' department. With vocals it's one of those things because that's kind of your own sound anyways. I know John does like those bands but I wouldn't say that necessarily gave him the vocal tone he has, that's just how he sounds. He's got quite a good range, he can go high and low and his natural voice is in the middle somewhere. We all like Necrophobic, that's for sure and I can definitely say there is some influence in the leads I've written and John has written. Believe it or not, John wrote some parts on guitar because he was a guitarist at one point in this band, and still is. Just for live he is the vocalist. So yeah we all like Necrophobic but some of that kind of style feels kind of natural to write for us anyway. It's not like we're intentionally trying to do it, but when you put it all together it can sound like them in places. People have pointed out a lot of bands we sound like and they are all correct. I mean, some people have even said that it's all Behemoth - well, it's not all Behemoth (laughs), or all Necrophobic. Some of it is but not all of it. It's just funny some of the reviews or comments where someone's saying this is completely Dimmu Borgir or this is completely Behemoth or Watain etc. Cuz those bands don't really sound alike so how can we be 100% any of those bands (laughs)? But sure they are all definitely there, I guess you hear what's most prominently recognizable to you.

Lyrically you deal with hopelessness, darkness and you also use some occult symbols. What is the philosophy or religion behind this?

D: Well, again most of that is in John's lyric writing and he takes his inspiration from the world, spiritually and physically. But not in the necessarily religious type of point of view. We certainly play into it but we're not a religion-type-of-thing ourselves. It is more of a commentary on those aspects. John does have that symbol on his mask which is a modified sulphur symbol, and I believe his intention there was to be symbolic of the fire coming out of his mouth in the lyrics. There's a lot of anger and fire in them. But I guess he would be the better one to answer that question!

J: Lyrically I guess it is like darkness and chaos on a kind of human level in such a way, and not so much of the microcosm over the macrocosm. It's a bit of misanthropic maybe, we're just talking about the darkness of humanity and the chaos that ensues with all that.

D: Obviously there is a bit of the spiritual aspect to it. 'The Serpent's Rise' is about the serpent poisoning the world and you've got those spiritual aspects like in 'Blood On The Altar' sacrificing yourself for some higher power. Well, it's a lot of journeying through a world of chaos towards death at the end. So, it's grim (laughs).

I watched behind the scenes of 'Damnation's Black Winds' on YouTube. What the hell went wrong there, haha?

D + J: Haha!!!!

That was filmed in this countryside place in the UK. It was like an abandoned quarry. It looks like it was asking for us to do a video there. It was public land as well so it wasn't like we had to trespass or anything like that. Not that we wouldn't have necessarily not done that (laughs). So we had to pick a cold month to do it, obviously. We'd only done two videos and the third one was scheduled for release so we had to get on with it. It was very windy which didn't help with our concept of using fire. And there was a lot of sheep shit everywhere. It was really everywhere, it was ridiculous.

J: Sheep shit, dog walkers, people looking at what the hell was going on here (laughs).

D: Especially when we were playing the drums in the middle of this open field.

J: Yeah there wasn't backing music played out loud, it was just in my ear phones. So I was just playing drums, the other parts that people couldn't hear- just the live drums. They can't hear any of the music or anything.

D: While I was going back to the car to get stuff out, you could just hear these toms from miles away (laughs). It was like some kind of ritual was going on over there. There definitely was a ritual going on by the end of it with burning bibles and stuff in the fire (laughs).

You appear to be pretty much old-school, especially when I took a look at the booklet of the album. And then I saw these QR codes on the last page of it for Spotify, Bandcamp and AppleMusic, haha! That was kind of contrary. Do you think it is necessary at least as a newcomer to work with the new digital platforms to survive?

D: I think so, it's a necessary evil. I mean we know that Spotify doesn't really pay anyone underground. Anybody trying to make money on Spotify, especially in metal you're definitely going down the wrong avenue, but it's a good discovery tool. It's a good way to get people to listen to you. A lot of the time people will somehow listen to your music before they buy it. I think that's generally how it is nowadays, they wanna try before they buy it. People just wanna listen to it right now for free. If I support you, I'll buy the CD. That's generally how it goes. I'm probably the least old school one in the band cause I do listen primarily to my music on Spotify and that way I have discovered so many bands I would never have heard of in my life. I can't even tell you the names of all the bands I've found over time because it's just…. I like a song, so I hit the "like" button. I have also been to gigs of the bands I probably would have never known about, or checked them out at some festivals because they were on my "like" list. I mean live is another way how people discover you but that's a little bit more inconvenient, I suppose (laughs). So, yes, digital is a necessary evil even if it ruins the artwork of your album inlay (laughs).

J: I mean, the thing is, I think it's the world we're living nowadays, like it or not. A lot of "true" black metal bands go "we release our albums on tape, that's it!". So if you have a tape player, you have it and you can listen to the band. But like Dave said, if you want to reach some more people, you should embrace the modern digital era.

Next month you are going on tour with Power From Hell. Do you know the guys already and what are you hoping for on this tour?

Well, we didn't know them personally before this tour came to us. But when we played Oberhausen "Odyssey To Blasphemy" in '22 we played as a three-piece with two missing members. It was me, James and John, the other two had passport problems or something like that. We had one guitar, one drums and the vocalist was playing bass. We tried to make it work and it did. It was fine, we went Motörhead style, it was pure rock n'roll and we got on with the organizer Ana. And Power From Hell played the same festival the following year, and then later on they wanted to do a tour and asked Ana if they can recommend someone who would make a tour work with them. She recommended us. Obviously we must have done a decent enough job and must have been reliable enough to have still made it into Europe. So that's how that happened, it's a bit of a DIY thing because Ana had not really booked a full tour before. We don't really know what to expect because we're all doing this kind of thing for the first time. Power From Hell has obviously toured the EU before but from our point of view, we don't really know what to expect. We know the venue list and we know where we play. I don't know, I guess we do what we did before. We just turn up and go rock n'roll and see what happens.

J: My expectation is a bit of exposure. We are in countries we haven't played before so if there's only one or two people that pick up on something and they have got the right connections, it can only be a good thing.