Fear Magazine was a magazine from Sweden, written in Swedish. But here's a translated interview for you!
— The reason the MCD was so damn late was that I had enormous problems finding the right members, Blacken begins when asked why the self-titled MCD wasn't released until February, there was talk that it would have been released as early as the summer of 1999.
— The biggest problem was finding a good drummer, I played for a while with Mysteriis from SETHERIAL and things went well, but after a while he noticed that playing in both SETHERIAL and INFERNAL was too much for him. It has nothing to do with personal differences, that we would have any problems with each other or anything like that, just that playing in both SETHERIAL and INFERNAL was too much for him.
Why has it been so difficult to establish a steady line-up?
— Well, there simply aren't that many extremely good black/death metal musicians around here! And then many of those who have been involved in INFERNAL haven't been willing to really invest and put in the time needed to play in a serious band. These people are in any case "eliminated" from INFERNAL and in the future we will only be looking for people who are 100% serious. Right now we need a drummer who can grin at the speed of light, so if any extremely fast drummers are reading this, just get in touch!
After this interview was done, apparently Themgoroth who sang on the INFERNAL MCD has dropped out or been kicked out so it's possible that INFERNAL is looking for a new singer as well. But has Blackmoon ever considered using a drum machine to solve the problem with drummers?
— No, never!!! Even if you can make relatively advanced accompaniments, the real feeling never comes, so to speak. Feeling is of course something you can't program.
Even though Blackmoon has made a lot of good music in the Swedish black metal and death metal scene, I think his new band INFERNAL has received some undeserved attention. So I asked further if Blackmoon thinks that INFERNAL's position in today's scene could have been different if they had had a stable line-up from the beginning of INFERNAL's existence?
— Yes, of course. I can't deny that. But the band is still very young and will definitely grow with time. INFERNAL will and will become one of the leading Black metal bands. It's just a matter of time. If I could do it with DARK FUNERAL, I can do the same with INFERNAL.
I must say that it would be extremely strange if it doesn't work out this time too, as MCD is among the absolute best I've heard in Swedish black metal in a couple of years. No fanatic of ultra mangel should miss INFERNAL. Anyway, do you think people might think that INFERNAL is just a project because of the many member changes the band has gone through?
— Hell yeah! I can understand if people think it's more of a project band because we've had all these confusing member changes and problems getting our releases out on time. But anyway, that's more or less how it usually is at the beginning of a band's existence, until you have the right circumstances, the right people involved and some money to spend on the band. But like I said, this is just the beginning, I'll continue with INFERNAL for at least a couple of albums.
There have been some other problems with DARK FUNERAL, NECROPHOBIC and WAR/Necropolis Records too. Do you think there's a risk that people will perceive you as difficult to deal with?
— Some might think so. But that's not something I have a problem with because I know it's not true. It's a bit annoying though because there were certain reasons why all this happened. With NECROPHOBIC I simply stopped because I wasn't really interested in playing that kind of music anymore. It didn't really have much to do with the members. As for DARK FUNERAL, it was a different five, the chemistry between me and Ahriman was simply not right, I had no problems with the others. But that was then. We get along today. It's just that we might not get along in the long run if we were to play in the same band. Necropolis, well what can I say? You might have heard that other Swedish bands like NIFELHEIM, SATANIC SLAUGHTER and GUILLOTINE have had big problems with them too. NIFELHEIM, SATANIC SLAUGHTER and now also WAR have left this label for good. That should say something. It actually didn't have much to do with me personally. The whole band decided not to continue with Necropolis but since I was the contact person I personally had to take a lot of crap for this. So all this talk about me being difficult to deal with comes mostly from Necropolis, and not from anywhere else. And they should be damned happy that I'm not difficult to deal with it, because if I had been I would have sued them a long time ago, and gone over to the states with a machine gun to kill them.
Alright, time to leave the problems that have been and focus more on the music. MCD is damn fast and extreme just like good black metal should be. Is this what we need as a cure for all the lovesick bands that have appeared in black metal lately?
— Damn it!!! INFERNAL plays “Satanic Holocaust Metal” and is definitely not meant for those who are into DIMMU BORGIR or CRADLE OF FILTH. This is brutally bad from start to finish.
You apparently did those solos on MCD very quickly. Not that they are bad in any way, but do you think they would have been better if you had more time?
— Damn it, yes! I did those solos in two hours, and I only had one finished before I had to record all the solos, so I had to do them quickly. It worked in itself, but I could have done them much better. On the full-length, however, they will be some really crushing solos.
Speaking of the full-length, how much material is left before you can record it?
— I've done about half of it so far. But I have a lot of ideas so it won't be a problem to get it finished by the time we record. I'm aiming to record it this winter, the problem of finding a drummer remains though so good drummers please get in touch. Either way, the full-length will be in the style of the MCD, it will definitely not be less brutal in any way, maybe a little more varied.
If I remember correctly, you said before the MCD that it wasn't sure if you could use the name INFERNAL because there were a couple of other bands with that name, including a techno band from Denmark. Will you be able to keep the name?
— Yes, I can keep the name. As far as I know, there are at least two bands called INFERNAL. One is from Denmark and they play techno as you said, and the other is an American power metal band. Neither of these bands has anything to do with dark and evil music so I really can't understand why they name their band something that is usually associated with dark and evil forces. Anyway, I was smart and registered the name last year so I have every right to use the name. It's not registered in the US though so at worst I'll have to call the band INFERNAL 666 or something like that. I don't think that's going to happen though.
It's been pretty quiet about WAR lately, so what's going on on the WAR front at the moment?
— Not much. Me and All have just started composing new material for the next complete one and it's going to be a hell of a mess from start to finish… We have a few songs finished, but about half of it still needs to be done. It will be more like “Total WAR” but with better sound, it will not be like “We Are WAR”, which for me is not a real WAR album…
The INFERNAL-MCD was released through your own label Hellspawn Records, what are the advantages of releasing albums through your own label?
— Actually more advantages than many probably think. First of all, I obviously earn more from it and have more control. And secondly, it is good to learn how the business part works. We can also do more promotion. This may sound a bit contradictory but it is actually true. Instead of promoting ten bands at the same time, we only focus on one or maybe two. Take Century Media as an example, when they promote their release, they have maybe 10 small pictures of the albums on an ad. This does not catch the buyer’s attention in any way. When Hellspawn advertises, we have one or two album covers on the same page and it catches the reader’s attention in any case in a better way. Of course there are still things that need to be improved. Right now we are looking for new satanic blood to release on Hellspawn. However, we will not only concentrate on black metal, we are also looking for brutal death metal in the style of MORBID ANGEL/ANGEL CORPSE.
Don't you think it will be difficult to find new bands? The few new bands that are quite good sign to bigger labels, then there will be mostly crap left...
— Well, it will probably be damned difficult, but not completely impossible. Of course we have no chance to compete with bigger labels like Osmose or Nuclear Blast, but we will be able to do a pretty good job for the bands in the beginning. Anyway, we will see what happens. There are a lot of bands so sooner or later I will probably get hold of something really good. And if we don't find anything worth releasing, I will just release my own bands and projects. I don't need to release a lot of records, there are hundreds released every week anyway. I'd rather release two good records a year than ten or fifteen of poor quality.
How good is Hellspawn Records' distribution?
— We use House Of Kicks so it covers most of Europe. Necropolis and other American distros imports.
I've also sent some records to Canada. In other parts of the world, unfortunately, we don't have distribution.
You've been working with Hellspawn for a few years now, but you still haven't released many records. Why is that? And how did you come up with the idea of starting a record label?
— Hellspawn was started when we released the first DARK FUNERAL-MCD in 1994. The biggest reason why there haven't been many records through Hellspawn is that it's simply just been something I've done with the side of the bands. This is changing now, however. Then I simply haven't found that many good bands either. As I said before, it has to be something really good for us to release it at all. Of course, we could have done something like Necropolis, signed a million project bands, but I don't see much point in that. Then the lack of money has also contributed a little.
— The first DARK FUNERAL MCD is the one that has sold the most so far, about 11,000 copies. We have now reissued it with two bonus tracks and new packaging.
There was a bit of a mess with the BATHORY tribute you released a while ago. Black Mark tried to sue you for some strange reason…
— Shit, it's fucking annoying to have to go through it again… it's fucking pointless. According to Black Mark, the main reason for the lawsuit was that we used the goat that BATHORY has as the cover on the first album. This goat is fucking taken from a horror magazine from the early 80s so Black Mark has fucking no copyright on it either. The reason we used the goat as the cover was simply because they wouldn't let us use the picture from Metal Force Magazine, where Quorthron is breathing fire, which we originally intended to have as the cover. Incredibly, they also said that we weren't allowed to use the name BATHORY on the cover. Damn it… If the tribute hadn’t been called “In Conspiracy With Satan — A Tribute To BATHORY” no one would have understood which band we were doing the tribute to. What the hell would we have called it — “A Tribute To SLAYER”?
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| The cover of the magazine! |
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