Emit creates ambient art for those off the beaten path and willing to indulge a contemplate, meditative, obscure trip through undefined sound, like a convergence of Lull, Final and Harold Budd. In addition to being musical, this project is produced by minds who have critically analyzed and chosen their path. We were lucky enough to capture this interview after being blindfolded, driven in circles in a 20-year-old Toyota Tercel, screamed at in Pashtu and Altedeutsch, and finally interrogated by Unknown I while we gobbled our rice rations of the day.

Do you believe that art requires an intention behind it?

Yes, but then all art has some sort of intention behind it. Even if the intention is purely a selfish one, like making money or seeking fame (or infamy), or taking the piss, there’s still a motive no matter how questionable. Deep down there’s a reason for every action made in this world. People complain of “mindless” vandalism but never think about why it is that an ugly steel and glass bus-shelter may seem like an affront or worthless object of derision to others. The fake surroundings we spend most of our lives in are so hideous in my eyes that it was natural to become involved with the courageous cultured barbarism of black/death metal, noise music and so on. To me, these music forms aren’t fantasy escapism but reflections and expressions of deep underlying truth and reality of existence. Most things seem to want to hide reality from you, i.e. your butchers and policemen as my old friend Joseph Conrad said, but certain art exposes inevitable death and reminds you that you’re actually alive and existing. A friend of mine used to badly cut himself on a regular basis, he said that people mainly did it (in black metal circles) because it was a brutal and “evil” thing to do to yourself, but he just did it because he liked it. I suspect that he did it because when seeing his own blood spewing everywhere and feeling the pain of it, he could taste mortality and thus found confirmation of his own existence within that. Do you truly feel that you exist until you realise that you’ll die one day? When you see what usually remains invisible (in this case, that which allows you to live; the internal organs, blood etc), the abyss between merely seeing and actually existing is crossed, said Yukio Mishima, loosely paraphrased.

If so, is art decoration? Is it propaganda? Is it communication? Please explain your choice.

All art communicates something, whether it communicates something worthwhile or not is another matter. The Greeks thought that the sheer craft of even an everyday object like a chair was art by itself, but then their furniture and so on was made by hand, not mass produced to a template by chinese industrial machinery. My own house is mostly purely functional, apart from a few choice objects here and there, the personal worth and interest of which are in my eyes therefore enhanced, or more accurately, are allowed their rightful place and not drowned out by crap. Owning and listening to too many albums, for instance, devalues the really great ones. So I don’t do it. If art doesn’t say anything to me (or if something else says it better) it’s probably useless and I’ve no time to waste on it. Propaganda is for tabloid newspaper readers and decoration as an end in itself only reflects the present culture it derives from, which in our case isn’t very good, from an aesthetic sense or any other. Ancient decorative art (from nearly all ancient cultures) glorifies all that’s great about their people, mythos and culture, truly aspiring towards and reflecting something divine and vital. The likes of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (particularly the mediaeval revivalist offshoot led by William Morris and co), attempted to inject this old ethos back into the increasingly industrialised culture of the West, and with Hammemit’s crude neo-mediaeval music I follow humbly in their footsteps. By “neo-mediaeval”, I mean taking the past and adapting it to modernity, not wearing old clothes and fighting mock battles as if pretending it was still the year 1300. I don’t want to retreat back into the past, I’d rather bring the past into the present day.

Kurt Vonnegut famously referred to art as a “canary in a coal mine”, or a warning signal for society. Other artists, notably Romantics, have claimed that art serves a necessary role in celebration of life. Still others believe it should celebrate the artist. Where, if anywhere, do these views intersect, and is it possible for art to exist as a discrete one of them and not as an intersection?

I used to talk several years ago about “anti-art”, because I considered what I did to be partly a reaction against pretension and fakery where most “artists” claimed to be so very deep and meaningful, but in actual fact their art was nothing but shallow and cheap gimmickry, or entertainment. It’s easy to pretend to say a lot if you hide behind a fog of flashy imagery and other useless bric-a-brac. It’s also surprising to me how many are taken in by it, as I thought art was supposed to go beyond the superficial.

I would have laughed when I was a teenager if someone had said to me that art like that of black metal celebrated life. But ironically, being obsessed with death and general morbidity is actually a healthy state of mind in a society where no one wants to even think of the word DEATH. I found it empowering and strangely uplifting (though it didn’t occur to me that way, back then) to be thinking of death all the time and carrying bones about in my pockets, because it’s a taboo and forbidden realm not to be mentioned in polite cunting society. So to be allied to a “cult of nature processes” ironically made me feel more alive and allowed me to breathe in the cold night air more deeply. Possibly it’s why I found (and still do find) great pleasure in simple things which others don’t find particularly remarkable at all.

Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her — powerless to leave her and powerless to enter her more deeply. Unaksed and without warning she sweeps us away in the round of her dance and dances on until we fall exhausted from her arms.
…

She has brought me here, she will lead me away.
I trust myself to her. She may do as she will with me.
She will not hate her work. It is not I who have spoken of her.
No, what is true and what is false, all this she has spoken.
Hers is the blame, hers the glory.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nature, a Fragment

Quorthon of Bathory refers to his music as “atmospheric heavy metal.” What does atmospheric offer that the world of rock music, jazz, blues or techno cannot?

“Atmospheric music” as I would understand the term offers a means of connection with the hidden world beyond, the mysterious unknown. It allows the creation of certain moods, ideas and images within the mind of the imaginative listener. Certain key passages in this kind of music can suddenly infuse you with an almost indescribable transcendence from your surroundings. There are moments like this in Graveland’s “Barbarism Returns” and Enslaved’s “Heimdallr” (the demo version more so than on the album). Simple rock music or whatever is a mere temporary distraction and serves only as a kind of audial wallpaper. Rock music may passively reflect the time in which it was created and the base preoccupations of its creators but that’s it. Atmospheric music pointedly reflects the time in which it was created and also suggests possibilities for the future, or contemplation. That’s the difference between your example of Bathory (I would say spiritual music) and one of their contemporaries like Venom (secular music). Speaking of Hammemit & Emit, I’ve always wanted to create active music for active listening, not passive background decoration, as I listen to music as an activity in itself, not for any other reason. Sometimes if I’m in the car on my own I’ll listen to music to just pass the time on tedious journeys, or boost flagging spirits. I hate martial/military music (outside of its intended context the purpose and point is lost), but I have a tape of good driving tunes by the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler which encapsulates the optimistic atmosphere of the 1930’s. It makes me smile when crawling through some faceless city at 5 mph to consider that even a 25 ton Panzer IV had a top speed of 26 mph and could easily crush to pieces the cars in front and crash through the walls of the office blocks and shops lining the road, pedestrians scattering about like rural french peasants.

When you write music, do you aim for a completed concept, or develop a fragmentary concept and see where it goes?

I’ve always had a “concept” in mind but as the years went on it became more easily expressed. The Hammemit album is my most consistent work, and conveys my intended ideas simply and without any unnecessary ornamentation. My core beliefs haven’t changed radically but my opinions have changed somewhat from experience and such. I’m too young for my opinions to have fossilised into convictions yet. In order to communicate effectively, an artistic medium like an album of music needs to take a unified approach. It should have a distinct sound, a unique voice both visually and lyrically as well as musically. And this should all come naturally, not be forced in an unnatural, dishonest way like some calculated marketing campaign. A lot of bands understand this but only grasp it on the most superficial level; they have an “image” in promo photos, they use the same font on all their releases or whatever. They miss the point completely. What I want is for someone to look at the layout/images of the Hammemit album, read the lyrics, listen to the music and intuitively take from it something useful to them. That sounds dry and dull in words, but what I mean is that I ultimately aim to create with Hammemit the means for uplifting of spirit and transcendence in the listener that occurs when absorbing great art.

Many attack ambient music, like punk, for the relative lack of musical training or instrumental ability of its progenitors. Do you see this as an important criticism?

I doubt you’ll be surprised by my answer here, but no, of course it’s not at all important. Technique is merely a means through which you can express something. Lack of technique or limited musical ability just means you’re more restricted (or perhaps freer in some cases) about what you can do. Someone lacking musical ability or training couldn’t easily write or perform music like that of Morbid Angel for instance, but then some forms of expression don’t require that level of instrumental skill. Furthermore, technical ability is absolutely worthless if lacking any idea of composition. I think someone who has no real technical ability as such, may nevertheless still have an innate (possibly an unrealised, subconscious) understanding of melody and form, and thus be able to create good music. I don’t understand why it is that low technical skill is nearly always seen as a valid criticism by those who “know about music”. It’s like with these lists you see of “100 greatest guitarists ever”, ok, but how many of them made music that you actually give a shit about? Darkthrone were quite talented musicians but their best music isn’t hard to play to say the least. I bought a new guitar recently (an ostentatious act for me, but the model is not in itself ostentatious) and tried it out in the shop beforehand. I suppose that people usually have a long, showy masturbation session in music shops when trying out new instruments, but I just wanted to see how it felt to play and so on. I’ve never really wanted to drastically improve my playing skills, not through laziness or lack of ambition but because I actually fear losing my unfettered ability of expression. Over time I’ve improved gradually anyway as is natural, but I’m fond of the lack of refinement and “first take” freshness that can be found in recordings of people like Ildjarn or old Mutiilation. It lends a certain immediacy that becomes integral to the overall effect that the song produces upon the listener. For me it’s similar to the curious power of crude woodcut illustrations, which although primitive, nevertheless convey what is intended. I’m not advocating the old punk rock ethos of “anyone can have a go”, because plainly, not everyone has what it takes to create something meaningful or worthwhile. Indulge me and allow me to quote a favourite passage from a controversial figure of 1960’s England; “practically everyone believes they could write a book or compose a song if only they put their mind to it. They believe this simply because they can easily comprehend the finished products of others. It is not until they attempt the act of creation themselves that they become aware of their own limitations, lack of imagination, abysmal powers of self-expression and how unaccustomed they are to thinking deeply about anything at all. Becoming aware of the vast gap that exists between understanding and personal creativity – and the intellectual effort required to capture and express a complex idea in simple terms – is humiliating”. Technical prowess as such doesn’t necessarily hinder the creation of (good) art, but stupidity and a lack of anything to say certainly does. Just look at the music section of myspace.
black metal and ambient music seem similar in their use of layered motifs over a drone or constant beat in which syncopation is de-emphasized.

Is this from a similar world-outlook, or is it a megatrend passing through our time to aim for atmosphere instead of discrete conclusions?

In the first place that’s a really interesting hypothesis which makes a lot of sense to me, but I’m not sure if I know the answer to your question. I don’t really think that a similar world outlook necessarily leads to similar artistic output other than in terms of meaning, so it’s possible that intelligent artists who have something to communicate gravitate towards creating music that they feel speaks to the ancient man who finds himself living in the modern world.

EMIT has emitted (forgive me that) a series of releases, seeming with each to move farther from black metal in form and closer to black metal in spirit. Is that assessment correct? What has engendered this progression?

I think you’re right. With the Hammemit album, there are no percussion elements, no distorted guitar and mostly clean vocals. In previous releases there’s been a fair amount of variation with clean and distorted guitar, but ironically, I wanted to free myself from the conventions of what I used to do by limiting myself to a bare minimum as far as possible. It focused my mind and let me get to the core or essence of what I’ve already been doing for years. I believe I’m getting closer to an ideal stylistic approach, which has taken some time to reach. Now it’s a matter of utilising the approach in the most effective way possible.

When we speak of evil in music, what is its value? Is literal evil meant, or a mockery or evil, or is the metaphor being overloaded to take on new meanings? Are they recapturing the word “evil” like hip-hop groups have recaptured racial epithets? And finally, have you encountered any music you consider “evil” in the definition of your choice?

It seems to depend on whom you speak to. The religious bands of today mean literal evil in the biblical, moralistic sense. So-called “pagan” bands use the word as if to say “christianity turned our gods into devils”, recapturing the word, as you suggest. Overtly blasphemous bands like Havohej take delight in mocking the dualism and entire concept of evil with their crudely effective lyrics and stance. I don’t think I’ve come across any music that I find actually evil, only music seeking to portray that which is generally considered evil, and that isn’t the same thing as “evil music”. I said in another recent interview how I’ve never seen death and black metal as being much concerned with blaspheming, but rather praising or aspiring towards the numinous. That’s what I’ve always endeavoured to do with Emit and will continue to do with Hammemit.

Do you believe music should be mimetic, or reflect what’s found in life, or ludic, and show a playfulness with life that encourages us to experience it in depth? Do the two ever crossover?

When I listen to Hammemit, what comes to my mind is the moors, woods, rural churches, stone circles and ancient places of England as I know it. It encapsulates what I begin to think about when visiting or visualising them, and I believe that music ultimately is an artistic manifestation of thoughts and ideas. For instance, the guy from Absurd used to say that black metal was “listenable ideology”. Taking this further, I would even say that music could be broken down to something like computer language, a series of 1’s and 0’s which look like gibberish but can be understood if you have sufficient knowledge or have trained yourself over time. If you look at guitar tablature, it’s basically a series of numbers telling you where to put your fingers on the fretboard, but when you follow this on an instrument it creates something which we can understand, much like 111110010100110001111 might be code that forms a program for a computer. So if you translate thoughts and interpretations of the world around you into music, it could be said that you’re creating a program which allows other people to experience those same ideas and thoughts. I dare say this makes the whole artistic process seem less “magical”, but I like to try to get to grips with the mechanics of how important phenomena work.

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

– F.W. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

When you create music, do you narrow your perspective to find what you seek to express in life, and then translate it back to sound? Do you feel others do this? What are the ways an artist can approach the task of making art?

I feel I’ve sort of answered this above, but certain noise music to me, sounds like the breath of woodland in a heavy wind or even birdsong, if I’m in the right frame of mind. I’m not sure I’d actually call it music as such, in all fairness, but it’s interesting to think of these mechanistic, artificial sounds interpreted back into naturalistic ones, as if being reclaimed. Trees smashing Isengard. Any artist who wants to communicate something worthwhile will choose a form which he or she thinks is most suitable (and personally enjoys themselves). Usually I’d imagine it’s pretty much intuitive, not so much a conscious choice. I don’t know how other people might go about creating music or writing or whatever, but speaking for myself, it stems from a desire to encapsulate that initial inspiration and rush of ideas and feeling. It’s “just” a matter of working out a way in which to best make it communicable. Not being unique, I suppose this must be how it is for many others, as well.

What influences from the world of ambient music were inspirational for you?

The sound of nearby church bells, rain on the rooftops and wind in the trees is perhaps the greatest ambient music I’ve heard and has influenced me more than anything else. Some have said that the Hammemit album reminded them of work by Brian Eno and he is indeed quite a visionary, though I wouldn’t agree that he was much of an inspiration to me. I like Tangerine Dream a lot, and anything that I like a lot tends to be assimilated somehow into what I do, but there’s no conscious influence from them either. My music is mainly based around the guitar, so two particularly inspirational guitarists for me would be Snorre Ruch (of Thorns) and John Dowland, the latter being a lutenist rather than guitarist but the principle is similar. I think my influences are more in terms of ethos and aesthetic than anything concrete in form.

Like many others, you were influenced by the black metal movement coming out of Norway in the early 1990s. What did you see in that movement that inspired you artistically?

I saw another movement like that of the Pre-Raphaelites for whom “the past is alive”. The music, image, ideas and actions transcended the mundane shit of day-to-day life in the modern world, touching on things deeply buried. “How beautiful life is, now when my time has come”, sounds like a line Mishima might have written. Most black metal bands of today in comparison remind me of the difference between Dead Can Dance and fucking Cocteau Twins. In other words, idiots tell me that if I like Dead Can Dance, I’ll also like these other clowns, but I DO NOT.

The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest–who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. Afterward, some beast or other, following the faint tracks over marsh and moorland, wearing them deeper; after these again some Lapp gained scent of the path, and took that way from field to field, looking to his reindeer. Thus was made the road through great Almenning — the common tracts without an owner; no-man’s land.

– Knut Hamsun, Growth of the Soil (1917)

Do you have any personal ideologies? Do these inform your approach to your music? Do they provide a groundwork for the content of your music?

I once began to distrust this word “ideology”, in black metal especially it became a word used to say whether a band was “true” or not. People began to talk about “ideological black metal”, which was used to draw a line between bands who stood for something and those newcomers or fakes who stood for nothing but making scary music to amuse themselves. But unfortunately in trying to emphasise the difference, a lot of bands started becoming overtly politically affiliated as if trying too hard to prove they had something serious and important to say. For example, the Polish bands of the mid-90s did this more and more as they saw the Norwegians becoming less interesting musically and much less radical in their statements and so on. I think it was good and necessary to start with, because the normal people refused to listen to politically-incorrect music like that of Veles or Graveland and stuck with safer bands. I gather that people even sent Veles CDs back to the record label because it had the word “aryan” printed in the booklet. It created a refreshing and stimulating, iconoclastic environment similar to that of the original outbreak. But there was a point where overt nationalism and political-incorrectness became sloganeering or even protest music and that’s where I lost interest. The point is that ideas don’t need to be expressed through some existing political party/system, or so obviously. It’s just cheap and vulgar and only appeals to idiots. To be silly for a moment, Hitler wouldn’t have listened to WAR88 but he might have given later Graveland a try. My own music says, “I would prefer to see a million people machinegunned than a forest put to the chainsaw to make room for their ugly houses”, but that isn’t the title of the album.

Do you believe objective reality exists?

Tell a class of schoolchildren to look out of the window and draw a specific tree and they’ll all draw something “treelike”. Therefore you can say that objective reality exists. But each child will probably come up with various subjective interpretations of the tree. Most will try and copy it as exactly as possible (and become frustrated when they fail to do so accurately), perhaps some will try and capture the spirit of the tree, others will not observe at all and draw a generic tree, etc. Personally, I always tried to be faithful to the object in question taking meticulous care over tiny details, usually running out of time and leaving it incomplete. Sometimes I found that when translated to paper, objects looked wrong, even though they had been accurately rendered, so I’d stop looking at what I was drawing and improvise or add what I wanted. I began to think at an early age, in the simple way that children do, that reality is something which although the same for everyone, reveals more to some than it does to others. It was hard not to feel superior when faced with the fact that those around me seemed totally blind to all but their most immediate surroundings. I find it stupid when people say their music is “inspired by nature”, because it seems to me that in nearly every case, they mean a picture postcard version of nature. They see nothing beyond the obvious, they just like the “dark atmosphere” of forests or the “inspiring” sight of distant mountains (what does it inspire them with I wonder). They might as well paint a drab watercolour picture because what they see around them has already been handily interpreted for them by TV and other mass media. We learn to interpret life vicariously through other people, so that when stood in a forest you should feel X, Y or Z, because that’s the limit of human understanding so why bother thinking any different. What’s the difference between visiting Stonehenge or a desert and watching some slickly edited footage of them on TV? I may see the same things such people do, but for all intents and purposes I’m not even on the same planet, my experience of life is not the same at all.

What consciousness if any exists to the cosmos? If one does exist, does it infuse you with a sense of purpose?

Well I certainly believe in a consciousness to the cosmos. But I don’t believe that you need the church or any organised religion as intermediary. In meditations and in my whole life I’ve tried to understand even a tiny piece of this existence and wondered often, and thought deeply about all of creation and the point of it all. My beliefs in recent years have more or less followed ancient gnostic ones, as I felt the closer you got to the beginning, the nearer you got to the truth, in opposition to modern thought, where it’s believed that with each new technological progression you come further to the truth and some ultimate, elusive satisfaction. In modern society people believe that with each passing second the world naturally progresses in a linear way. Well, it’s not “natural” that we should have an industrial revolution at a certain time and I don’t think all progression is necessarily good, or indeed real progression at all. If there’s an alien civilisation out there somewhere, it’s unlikely that they’d have developed the same as we’ve done. Terms like “the Stone Age” are very misleading. Having contemplated life in the modern world it’s very easy to conclude that absolutely everything is stacked against the deep thinking, spiritual person. When you come to this point it’s also very easy to think about suicide and I’ve had periods (now forever in the past) where I’ve vaguely entertained the notion. When I was younger I used to go on walks and towards dusk smell the summer air, listen to the last birdsong and I felt something huge missing within. I had no idea what this “something” was nor any idea of how to discover what it was, but it gave me a direction to strive towards. People always tell me that I think about things too much, but then I’m a spiritual person and contemplation seems to be a key to understanding. The consciousness (what people used to call god) that exists within and without this cosmos (and therefore us) does indeed infuse me with a sense of purpose. I think that changing yourself even at a solely physical level is not something as insignificant as it might seem, because everything is interconnected so such a change is nothing short of altering the entire universe piece by piece. Believing in the interrelation between microcosm/macrocosm as I do, I wonder how anyone can believe that the universe and cosmos will exist indefinitely. Is there any example in nature that suggests this is likely? Every living thing is just a miniature cosmos in itself, so therefore if every living thing has to die at some point, the cosmos itself must have to “die” as well. I personally don’t believe in death as a finite and permanent thing, but as a change in existence, energy moving elsewhere or eventually returning to the source. Worshipping death and the ultimate Death of everything in the way that I describe, makes existence tolerable by virtue of considering its otherwise total worthlessness. Life would be pointless without death after all, but Death still exists without life. It is therefore, the ultimate and oldest form of existence, coming both before and after material manifestations. Energy can’t be destroyed, it has to go somewhere and originate from somewhere, so death is evidently not a total nothingness in the way we might understand the word, despite not being able to comprehend it. There isn’t a dualism between death and life, death is actually a continuation of life in a different (higher) form. I don’t mean an afterlife as such in the sense of “heaven”, but I believe in continuation in different forms, though it isn’t comprehensible to us. You can say that as you can’t remember anything from before your birth, why should after death be any different? Well I imagine it isn’t, but non-awareness only means non-existence in the form that we know. Let’s say the cosmos came into being when it first became aware that it existed. On a microcosmic level, using a biblical metaphor, the first humans became aware when tasting the forbidden fruit and thus realised they were naked. Before that they still existed but were unaware of themselves as entities in their own right. Therefore going back to the cosmos as a whole, one can tentatively suggest that the cosmos existed before it came into physical manifestation, despite there being apparently “nothing”. Zero is still a digit (and a relatively recent concept at that), and there are also minus numbers, meaning you can go further back than nought. Death is a realm separate from the material one, therefore it isn’t possible to experience it by means of the senses or even deep thought – it’s outside of humanity. But it is real.

Nihilists tend to break the world into two groups, those who are looking forward in time toward something intangible that constitutes a purpose, and those who lack any such abstract goal so are focused on the tangible, both in physical and mental construct. Have you observed anything of this nature and, if so, what is it?

When you first look around at the world that surrounds you, you’ll obviously only see the immediate – buildings, people, trees, stars etc. Once you recognise these things and begin to file them away in your mind, you start to allocate meaning to them from further associations that link them and a million other things together build up into a massive network of meanings, memories and so on. Taking everything at face value would mean that none of these things you’ve observed have any intrinsic value whatsoever, other than those which you’ve learned or been conditioned to accept. You would understand for instance, that the paper notes used for currency, or even the shiny yellow metal called “gold”, are not worth anything, apart from the value society has given them. And so-called “human rights” is a meaningless, purely politically expedient concept. You’re then faced with a very difficult dilemma. You can either create or accept an existing mythology to explain the world you find yourself struggling to understand, or believe that you’re on your own and have been left to your own devices. Strangely, following on from gnostic beliefs, I’m actually somewhere in the middle, ha ha.

One of the fundamental divisions of our society is whether or not it can accept relativity. some turn it into relativism; others deny it and insist on “objectivism,” which is a rather rigorous form of scientific Social Darwinism. What do you think unites methods of relativity in linking together phenomena, and the human desire to make life easy and tangible and have us each perceive that reality is as we desire, even if contrary data exist?

It’s true that people prefer to see things as they’d like them to be, and hide away from what they really know is out there. That’s why D E A T H is such a taboo that people give it all these innumerable euphemisms. It obviously sounds like a much easier and “fairer” life if everyone decides to agree to disagree, because it means less conflict and less of people’s feelings being hurt. Unfortunately for utopia, people have a tendency of saying “no, we’re absolutely right in our beliefs, and you are heretics/infidels/cretins/gay for believing otherwise, and now we want to kill you”. You’ll often hear politicians and their ilk talking about how everyone should be able to live in harmony, not afraid to believe in whatever they want to believe in. Although of course, these same people will later go on to say they’re declaring war on another country to fight for what’s “right”. Opposing beliefs and ideas are always going to cause tensions when confronted with another, because to admit that they’re “both right”, or that “no one is wrong” is an admission of uncertainty and lack of faith in your convictions. It’s also blatantly stupid because both parties know that in truth, either one or both of them are utterly wrong. It’s like saying you know for certain that grass is green but accepting that some people think it’s blue. I believe that falling trees make a sound in the forest even if no one’s there to hear them, and that the world exists outside of our perception. It will still be here when I die. As usual, what unites all these things is a fear of death. The world is a frightening place if you suddenly take away everything that shields you from it. That’s why people allow themselves to be led down the garden path, willingly oblivious to the forest that lurks at its carefully trimmed and cultivated edges.

Did black metal die, and if so, what killed it and, has ambient/electronic music gone through similar cycles?

Everything has to die. I feel that like the world itself, black metal could have remained something brilliant, but stupid, shallow people and commerce ruined it. Concerning black metal (but not only that), I think most people including many who “were there” only see an idealised version of reality. Basically they see a relatively brief outburst of creativity and good intentions contained as a single neverending era and not as a finite period of innovation witnessed over time, followed by noticeable decline and inevitable death. I imagine citizens of the Roman Empire in its last days felt that way. Maybe Americans feel like that. People need a sense of continuity and belonging in order to feel secure and black metal is now a boring youth subculture like any other, not an evolutionary artistic movement. It’s about clothes, symbols, scene orthodoxy and total lack of substance for the most part. It’s hard to admit that the dream is over, that something has come to the end of its lifespan. The people who refuse to recognise that are usually those with the most to gain from its continuation and such people are dangerous because they prevent real progress from being made. But those who do acknowledge it are the first to rise from the ashes and forge something new. When an old, beautiful and much loved building falls down, the average guy says “I’ll rebuild this building, it’ll not be quite as good as before but it’ll keep the spirit of the old building alive”. But a radical, visionary architect says “I’ll rebuild this building, and I’ve a few ideas of my own this time”. However there are quite a few people out there who think of themselves as doing something new and original, but who actually aren’t. Playing a saxophone or tambourine or banjo or flute in a black metal context doesn’t necessarily make you a creative genius (in fact I’m damn sure it doesn’t). To cite an example I’ve used before, Darkthrone were obviously a positive evolution from Bathory and Celtic Frost, and to continue the architectural metaphor; are the difference between doric and ionic columns. In other words you don’t need to do anything completely new to be original, you just need to look at what came before in a new light, which is easier said than done of course.

What’s the status of EMIT, and when do we hear new material? What inspired this new material?

Emit has evolved into Hammemit; modern music for mediaeval sensibilities, by which I mean intended for those desensitised to the general chaos of modern life yet retaining a certain spiritual awareness and closeness to the world. The new direction isn’t a sudden development but a gradual progression where I began to lean more towards the calmer works than the noisier ones. The more consistent approach which can be seen in the Hammemit album stems from deep and prolonged contemplation flowing over into a group of connected lyrics. These lyrics really opened the way into a new holistic conception and execution of my musical work. I hope that as many people as possible will read the lyrics and that some will feel a deep affinity with the music, because I know that other people look at the world in the same way that I do. My intention is that people should feel the way I felt when I read “The Centaur” by Algernon Blackwood – that they’d found a kindred spirit. I feel I should elucidate further as Mr. Blackwood isn’t well known anymore, though I believe he deserves to be. He used to be quite a popular figure in his time, and would read his stories on BBC radio and even appeared on the then new cursed medium of TV (when it was basically still radio but with pictures). Yet his books are mostly out of print nowadays and his best works can generally only be found in secondhand bookshops or not at all. Lovecraft was a fervent admirer of his work, though this wasn’t reciprocated and Lovecraft’s writing unfortunately is largely still seen as pulp trash while Blackwood’s is just forgotten. His one major attempt at fully explaining his worldview came with a full-length novel, the aforementioned “The Centaur”. His preferred medium was the short story and it becomes readily apparent when reading it, but despite its very occasional failings as literature, I found it interesting and even exciting reading. What he proposed was not new, but the manner in which he set about describing the idea that the world was a living being and everything living on it were part of one entity, made it sound like perfect sense. This being because I could clearly identify with the two main characters, both of whom seemed to articulate exactly what I myself thought and had constantly struggled with. Blackwood would have as a basis for many of his stories a central character who was enthralled so much with primal nature that they “risked” being consumed by it utterly. This is best seen in his short stories such as “The Trod”, “The Touch of Pan”, “The Man Whom the Trees Loved” and of course “The Centaur”, all of which I recommend reading. As I said, I hope to do with music and lyrics what Blackwood did with his writing, I feel a real calling to do so.

If you were able to make an album that would be given mainstream radio airplay, would you choose to make your music closer to mass tastes but subversive, or attempt to wallop people with something very far from current mass tastes?

I wouldn’t do anything different from what I’m doing now. Why would I want to water down what I do in order to get the interest of shallow people who have nothing in common with the meaning of the music? I’d just be wasting everyone’s time. Look at Dissection and their “Reinkaos” album or Watain’s new one. Why even bother? Seeds on barren rocks. Good luck to them if they think their message will be spread further by simplifying ther music, but I’d rather not pander to the lowest common denominator. I don’t see myself as some supreme and elite being, not through modesty but through thinking about it. I aspire to better myself and to achieve certain goals, and I look at myself therefore as what a human should be like, it’s those falling under that who are below human. There’s only human and underhuman, everything else is aspiration for now. I understand the limitations of the masses and know that difficult concepts are totally beyond them, not always beyond their capacity to understand, but certainly beyond their attention span. The masses are guided by base instinct and self-interest and to make them otherwise is impossible. It’s easy to trick them into believing that something bad for them is actually good for them and vice-versa. As long as they think it serves their own interests they’ll be happy. They’re mere empty vessels who’ve allowed themselves to become corrupted and mindless, a bit like Tolkien’s orcs or the zombies from “Dawn of the Living Dead”. Their greatest and apparently only desires are to eat/consume, fuck and destroy everything beautiful. The individual I quoted earlier once said that serial killers acted the way they did because they were either consciously or unconsciously deeply aware of time passing by and wanted to take action while they could, to live each moment as much as possible and push the limits of experience. The masses are not in the least aware of time passing them by, they don’t think death will happen to them. They imagine an afterlife paradise where all their sickening desires and lusts will be fulfilled for them, so might as well sit and wait for it. A consolation for me is that they will all eventually be reclaimed, as into an amorphous jigsaw with billions of missing pieces…

DEATH DEATH

If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. And likewise, if you would know the reality of Nature, you must destroy the appearance, and the farther you go beyond the appearance, the nearer you will be to the essence.

– Meister Johannes Eckhart

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We are fortunate to have Ian Christe, metal journalist and Bazillion Points editor/publisher, to join us for an interview. He has authored literally hundreds of articles on heavy metal music and several books, covering topics from death metal to Van Halen. Much of his writing studies emerging technology and underground cultures, which makes him a fit for the interviewers as well. We were lucky to catch him at the Chatsubo bar in Chiba City, Japan, for a few words about metal and the state of journalism about it.

You’ve been involved in metal and music in multiple ways for some time. How did you get into metal, and how have you been involved — books, zines, bands — with the genre?

I was thinking about this recently — I’m only moderately old now, but because I got into metal when I was extremely young I remember all this truly ancient history. During junior high school, I lived with my mom in Germany, and when I was 11-12 years old I was using my lunch money to buy Iron Maiden singles, Accept, Motorhead, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath records. To put it in perspective, when I bought Scorpions’ Virgin Killer, with the kinky pedo cover, the high school aged girl in the photo seemed way older than me. We came back to the States in 1983, when I was 13, and I started doing radio shows at WEOS in Geneva, NY, playing Venom, Anvil, Mercyful Fate, Slayer, Voivod, and lots of lost obscure bands like Thrust, Armed Forces, and Witchkiller. That’s way upstate, but Manowar hails from there, and Metallica and Anthrax had just recorded their debut albums in that area. It was definitely a metal hotbed. I got plugged into the underground through that, bought some Nasty Savage and Hirax demos, and advertised my show in ‘zines like the great Kick*Ass Monthly.

We moved to Indiana in 1985, and it was culture shock. I had long hair, wore a bullet belt, and listened to Destruction, and suddenly I was surrounded by kids unaware of anything beyond Motley Crue and Aerosmith. So out of necessity I got into tape trading, and got into intense bands like Voor, Cryptic Slaughter, Genocide/Repulsion, and of course Death. I skipped school in the spring of 1986 to go see Metallica opening for Ozzy Osbourne, the big moment for underground metal going mainstream, and ended up spending the afternoon goofing around with Cliff, Kirk, and James from Metallica, and also everybody in Samhain except Glenn Danzig. Those two factions were a mutual admiration society, and I was supercharged to be in the middle of it all. I was inspired to start a fanzine after that, IAN Mag, which I titled after myself so I could cash the checks. That lasted through 1988.

I don’t mean to ramble on about all this archaic stuff, but everything I’m talking about is the basis for what I’m still doing as a mature, respectable, gone-legit headbanger. I was basically on a metal mission for the entire 1980s. In the 1990s, I got into different things, learned about the world, and developed as a writer by working in DC, New York, and freelancing for magazines like Wired, Spin, and so on. When it came time to write Sound of the Beast, I fused the professional side to the passion for metal. In fact, I remember my proposal for the book came with a stack of clips that started with the New York Times and ended with an old letter from Dave Mustaine.

As far as music goes, I’ve had a string of very fulfilling projects of every kind ranging from bluegrass to Glenn Branca’s guitar army. I’ve toured Europe and South America performing a kind of musique concrete with a modern dance company. So all of that came together in the crazy Dark Noerd the Beholder dark technology metal project — which sounded pretty bizarre and extreme in 1996.

What prompted your move to self-publication with Bazillion points?

Frustration in two forms. Selfishly, after working with two giant publishing houses, I was very discouraged with the corporate approach to making books. You know, it takes three months to get approval for a tiny text change on the cover, and there’s just no sensitivity for how to customize any aspect of production. With Sound of the Beast, at least I was very lucky to have an editor who was only too happy to put me in touch with the art department or promotions. He got the work off his desk, and I got to have some input, which is rare for an author. Then secondly, it’s frustrating that people like Daniel Ekeroth, Jon “Metalion” Kristiansen, or Jeff Wagner, all hugely respected in their areas of expertise, could never have a hope in hell of getting a mainstream book deal. Well, I realized I could stop complaining and do something about it. Viva Bazillion Points!

Would a DIY book publishing house such as yours have been possible 10-15 years ago?

I don’t know, I definitely wasn’t capable of figuring that out. I have to say it was possible, based on the inspiring successes in the early 90s of classic punk imprints like Henry Rollins’ 2.13.61 and Adam Parfrey’s Feral House Books. But I didn’t have the experience. And the rich earth of unpublished metal books needed time to ferment, too!

What segment of the metal audience or population in general have you seen as the most excited to read the types of books you are publishing?

I can’t answer that yet — a wider audience than you’d expect has responded to Daniel’s Swedish Death Metal book. Though the bands are pretty obscure, the experience of getting caught up in a movement he describes is universal. I couldn’t believe that Publishers Weekly gave Swedish Death Metal a starred review, and made the book its web pick of the week. In three months, Andy McCoy’s book will be out, and then I can tell you how death metal books fare compared to gypsy vagabond rock guitarist memoirs. I think the common trait of Bazillion Points books is that while they’re each very specific, they’re also very good, which is pretty exciting in itself.

Do you find metalheads to be an especially literate segment of the general population?

I don’t think metalheads consider themselves bookish, but yes I think out of necessity metalheads are rabid readers. It’s always been that way, because printed media, email, and web sites are the main lines of communication. There’s very little radio and no television exposure for metal, so metalheads end up reading countless pages of text every day to stay in touch. And metalheads can be very curious creatures — if Ulver makes a record based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a lot of fans will go read the book. So the end result is yes, so far Bazillion Points is succeeding because metalheads are thoughtful, thorough readers who appreciate high-quality books about things they care about that they can’t get anywhere else.

If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing… And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there.

– Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s (1988)

The rock biography, as it is most commonly understood, is given more to sensationalism rather than “analysis” or sometimes anything even remotely musical. You’ve taken on these types of bios with Bazillion Points, including the Van Halen book and the upcoming one featuring Hanoi Rocks. Do you feel what you are presenting differs from this description, if it even matters? Is your viewpoint more coherent with how metal music views itself, or in your eyes should be viewed?

With Van Halen I was mostly interested in deconstructing the personalities and breaking down the key events of the band’s story into manageable, human-sized events. If Van Halen in their prime in 1984 seems impossibly gigantic, I wanted to show all the tiny steps and late nights of practicing that led up to that. It’s meant to humanize guys like David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen who are usually viewed on a pedestal. Andy McCoy’s book is different because he wrote it himself, and so you get to see life through his eyes. Very entertaining. And yes, I’d say my viewpoint is pretty consistent with metal’s values at least — honesty above all, fearlessness right behind.

What makes a specific musical personality even worthy of biographical depiction in the first place?

Public fascination — but that’s a chicken or egg answer, isn’t it?

Rock music is generally written about by insiders and ignored by cultural historians, and so tends to have an insular viewpoint. Since metal came from rock, it is analyzed by the same template. How does this work to describe a genre like metal that seems to want to break away from mainstream rock?

I try to have an inside-outside approach. Writing about the nitty-gritty details from the trenches, reaching out to an audience that doesn’t even realize there’s a war going on. I believe metal has universal appeal — it’s not for everybody, but within every family, clan, or social group in the world I guarantee there are people predisposed to be drawn to the flame. It’s a kind of universal elite, I guess.

You have on several occasions lambasted the use of genre-descriptive terms. However, when we speak of genres like death metal and black metal, we could be describing artistic movements that share among themselves values and methods that differ from similar “sounding” genres. Do these subgenre terms have validity in your view, and what are the limits of this validity?

I don’t think genres should be taken too seriously, and I don’t respect bands who strive to be total slaves to a pre-existing genre and its rules. But yes, the genre descriptions themselves are extremely helpful, and I’m proud that metal has spawned and cultivated so many variants over the decades. And for instance on my Sirius Radio show Bloody Roots, I’ve been picking apart different genres every week for almost five years now, so genres are very much a part of how I think about metal. But I’ll also say that with most so-called subgenres, you’re usually talking about attempts to mimic the music of one or two extraordinary bands. Like with black metal, Bathory. With thrash, Exodus. And so on.

Like rock, metal can be insular. Does it have validity as an artistic movement, and what does it contribute to culture at large? Do you view it as counter-cultural, sub-cultural or counter-counter-cultural, or some mix of the above?

Well, that’s a subject for a book in itself. It’s a form of revolution that’s widely available for a few bucks at every Wal*Mart. It’s distrustful of change, but willing to take huge risks. Metal’s fascinating still. I guess I’d consider it a vast subculture, but not really a counter-culture. Like I said in Sound of the Beast, it’s “a quest for truth in a storm of folly.”

In Sound of the Beast you took on the arduous task of compiling nearly 40 years of worldwide music history into a comprehensive volume. How much have you been itching to revisit and update it since then, and what would you like to change?

I started writing in 1999, so I’d like to thicken the 1990s years tremendously, and then explore the rebirth of metal in the 2000s. I’ve also interviewed Ronnie Dio, Rob Halford, Tony Iommi, and the Scorpions about the 1950s and 1960s, and I’d like to get some of that material out. The book is still timely, and not many of my opinions have changed. But there’s so much more ground to cover now.

Was “objectivity” a concern when you were writing Sound of the Beast, or any of your other books for that matter?

Sound of the Beast was very much a work of advocacy, to grab and secure heavy metal’s place on bookstore shelves. I was very conscious of giving a voice to the millions of fans who had supported tens of thousands of bands over dozens of years. Without losing a critical edge, it was very important to me to state the case for why metal matters, and I’m humbled and honored to say that I think the book succeeded in all those aims.

The contemporary American may have failed, like his predecessors, to establish any sort of common life, but the integrating tendencies of modern industrial society have at the same time undermined his ‘isolation.’ Having surrendered most of his technical skills to the corporation, he can no longer provide for his material needs. As the family loses not only its productive functions but many of its reproductive functions as well, men and women no longer manage even to raise their children without the help of certified experts. The atrophy of older traditions of self-help has eroded everyday competence, in one area after another, and has made the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies.

Narcissism represents the psychological dimension of this dependence. Notwithstanding his occasional illusions of omnipotence, the narcissist depends on other to validate his self-esteem. He cannot live without an admiring audience, His apparent freedom from family ties and institutional constraints does not free him to stand alone or to glory in his individuality. On the contrary, it contributes to his insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his ‘grandiose self’ relfected in the attentions of others, or by attaching himself tot those who radiate celebrity, power and charisma. For the narcissist, the world is a mirror, whereas the rugged individualist saw it as an empty wilderness to be shaped to his own design.

– Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1979)

What has been the most common criticism of your writing to date, and to what degree do you take such criticism into account?

The most common criticism of Sound of the Beast is definitely that there’s too Metallica. I needed a central character for the non-initiated readers, and as the biggest metal band ever by far, they became the common thread. But it pisses me off when people falsely claim that Metallica gets a polish job in the book — their missteps are savagely underlined, and I think about halfway through it’s plainly stated that in the 1990s they were no longer a metal band, but a rock band. Plus the one single negative reaction I got from anybody covered in Sound of the Beast was an angry phone call from Jason Newsted, so I guess he wasn’t thrilled with his moment in the sun. Some critics said the book was too positive about metal, but I sure don’t care what metal haters want to see in a metal book.

What is your opinion on the books on metal (and conclusions drawn in them) written by academics/outsiders, particularly sociologists like Deena Weinstein (Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture) and Natalie Purcell (Death Metal Music: The Politics and Passion of a Subculture)?

I appreciate the process and legitimacy of Deena Weinstein’s book, but it’s impossible to create a sociological overview of heavy metal as a phenomenon. Heavy metal fans reflect their surroundings, wherever you go. In a blue collar area, you get blue collar fans. In Queens, NY, you get Asians, Latinos, and blacks at shows. In Dubai, you get rich kids. I like what Katherine Ludwig says in Sound of the Beast about these generalizations: how can you classify metalhead teens as cola-chugging NASCAR fans when that basically sounds like a description of the majority of Americans? So I say the function of metal varies by country, region, and many other factors.

You recently appeared in Time Out New York and received a pretty favorable portrayal. How much have you seen metal crossing over into the indie/art scene over the years?

In recent years, I think the indie scene has been completely infected by metal. If Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth is still any kind of bellweather, he’s lately been singing the praises of Beherit — and Daniel’s Swedish Death Metal book! Fair enough, Sonic Youth influenced Napalm Death and Entombed, after all. But yeah, that Time Out profile is extremely favorable. Another humbling indication that Bazillion Points was a good idea.

What does the common characterization of metal as “violent entertainment” (akin to comic books, horror/gore movies, and true crime novels) mean to you? Are there similarities between these genres, and does this point to artistic motivations in common?

As somebody who watches an extremely violent movie pretty much every day, I think there’s a small but important difference. Metal is fascinated with war, murder, nuclear bombs, rabid dogs, and she-demons because these are all things that no society or moral code can fully explain. So all these great metal songs are small meditations on the thrills and fears of the unknown. Movies tend to take those fears and use them against you! Again — this question is another small book in itself, and I’ve already been blabbering for an hour.

How should publishers (rather than authors) be treated where controversial or questionable works are disseminated?

Only as a publisher, I’ve come to fully appreciate how much the United States protects and values freedom of the press. I know the situation is a lot different in Britain and Germany, not to mention Iran — although my friend Mahyar Dean has written books about Death and Testament in Farsi. But so far I’m happy to say I don’t have any experience with controversy. Books with giant upsidedown crosses on the cover filled with stories of underage drinking, mayhem, and teen suicide? No problems here!

You seem to have some intimate experience with New York death metal from back in the day. Have you considered writing a book on that scene similar in scope to the Daniel Ekeroth book you recently released?

No, it’s not true, I moved to New York in 1992 and for the first couple years was more interested in seeing avant garde music like Swans, Naked City, Borbetomagus, Boredoms, Sun City Girls, and Caroliner. But starting in 1994, when metal went back underground, I saw hundreds of amazing shows in New York in tiny venues, some of my best mindblowing experiences. Still, I’ll leave the epic NYDM history for Will Rahmer to write — but I’ll definitely publish it!

The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living – are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it’s In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

– Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels (1966)

Visit Ian Christe, his books and the books he publishes at:
www.bazillionpoints.com

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Acerbus have for some time been the enigma of the Texas scene: music that takes the furthest extension of death metal extremity known to humanity, the technical deathgrind genre, and expands it with a progressive and conceptually advanced edge that leaves most typical listeners of any genre standing open-mouthed. Well-versed in conventional music, Acerbus are exploring for new ground, and we were lucky to be able to talk to guitarist Cory during a break from his rocket science experiments. “Can the man behind the mask answer a few questions?”

What do you see as the distinction between art and entertainment, if one exists?

I definitely think a dichotomy between art and entertainment exists. I believe that art is a mental expression through your physical self, releasing any number of emotions, creative ideas, or in some cases rather scientific musical ideologies based on charted biological responsive “information.” I believe that entertainment is more based around the ever-popular biological survival ticket, or the dollar. Entertainment is something that 47-year-old men sit around in boardrooms concocting trying to blend the perfect ideas to entertain the masses and rake in an easy 1.5 billion in 2 weeks. You know, prime time television shows, game shows, reality shows, family movies, blockbusters, etcetera.

Do you believe art begins as a conception independent of its medium, or is it strictly configurations within the medium that inspire an aesthetic appreciation?

I believe that this varies from individual artist to individual artist. Speaking personally it’s a mixture of the two. Without a doubt it’s more of an inspired aesthetic appreciation and vision yet independent conceptualism does play its roll in some of my song writing. As in extremely awkward things that related none what so ever, not even related percussivly to music induces a spawning of musical ideas.

Do you think it’s possible that a band make significant art with only a handful of power chords?

It all depends on your definition of “art”. It’s like a space-time continuum paradox similar to Schrodinger’s Cat or Einstein’s mouse. I mean, the most beautiful and amazing piece of art to me could be garbage to you, so it’s possible or impossible depending on your perception of what art is. Short answer Yes with a capital N and long answer No with a capital Y.

Are emotions part of the logical process of the mind in your opinion, or are they of the mind?

I think that emotions are stuck somewhere in our time-evolved mammalian primitive minds. They are thoughts that cause nothing more that problems and weakness yet they are necessary so that the human DNA strand will survive and not kill itself off. It was VERY smart and sneaky of our DNA strands to slip that anti self-destruct mechanism into our biological programming.

Are you a materialist (no other words besides this one) or do you have any forms of transcendent mystical belief?

In no way am I a materialist. I do have what I believe is a very open minded transcendent belief. A belief really consisting nothing more that knowing that there are an infinite amount of possibilities and a complete void of fact behind any of them. Even if there were “facts” remember what a very smart man once said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Marijuana seems to be a divine substance to many. So you think this is an accident of nature, something we’ve conditioned ourselves to find, or an accidental property of the substance – or another possibility?

I was actually discussing this yesterday. Once again, there are millions of scenarios containing endless amounts of speculation within each but I will tell you about an interesting theory that I had on the subject. Say the earth is a living organism. Thriving physically and possessing an extremely advanced consciousness that of which is beyond our imaginations or comprehension, i.e., growing wood on its surface for its experiment “humans” to use to build devices to help them live easier therefore longer. It distanced itself the seemingly PERFECT distance from the sun so with its what we see as annual rotation calculated its experiment could live comfortably under the climate conditions. Basically, the miracle plant is just another thing that the earth has grown for us as it watched its experiment get more and more hostile toward one another and boxed into ridiculously small reality tunnels. The growing of the plant by the earth provides its experiment with calmness, happiness, heightened physical pleasure and expanded thinking modulation to help shatter some of those miniscule sized reality tunnels that the humans that are too scared of their own existence want you to reside in forever. But hey, it actually doesn’t sound that far from the truth does it? (You know you read too much philosophy when you answer a question with a question! HA!)

What would your ideal lifestyles be, if you were exempted from the problems of resource scarcity?

I would begin by eliminating 90% of the population, which would be a huge step in the right direction of an ideal lifestyle. Other than that, all I would really yearn for is to be alone in a huge building consisting of a giant music and book library, a state of the art professional studio and a musical instrument library consisting of every instrument in existence. I suppose a gigantic INSIDE pool heated to 98 degrees would be in order as well. I love water. Looking at it, being in it (when it’s clean), drinking it, and thinking about it. It’s pretty amazing to me. It’s the mystery substance!

Do you think some bands are better at aesthetics than music, and should be lauded for opening doors that musically competent descendants will explore? (Think: Venom)

My answer to that question is a rather repugnant one in that I do not approve of artists that rely strictly on aesthetics because 9 times out of 10 that reeks of gimmick. Yet as you noted bands of that illustration have opened doors for artists who have created relevant and meaningful art. Therefore, I think that the grandfather artist (ones of aesthetic dependence) should not be glorified simply due to the fact that their gimmicky “act” unbeknownst to them happened to influence an artist of substance to create something momentous.

What do you see as the ideological, musical and social roots of the death metal movement?

I think that bands such as Deicide, Suffocation, Carcass, Morbid Angel (barf), and Napalm Death fundamentally established the foundation of the death metal movement. Actually, I think almost every new band’s ideologies and “social” roots (not something I enjoy at all in the death metal world) are still somehow based and JUDGED (its VERY harsh these days) on what thoughts the revolutionaries first had. It’s as if these bands created a steel mold for the rules of the genre and all that really happens even after 10 years of existence is bands just filling that mold and ever so slightly expanding on it. That’s definitely something I try to focus on during song writing, to try something new for the genre, and by new I don’t necessarily mean undistorted jazzy fills and adagiated bridges but just in a compositional manner or how the over all conception of the endless possibilities of an instrument are conceived. I think that some people that have yet to get up and peek out of the top of that mold that they’ve been sitting in the bottom of for the last few years will be jaded by this but I think the genre will dry up, get old and fizzle out if some people don’t start having an open mind about the genre’s amazing possibilities and its future and if someone doesn’t have the gallantry to take a chance on expanding the genres limits. You know you can only eat your favorite food everyday for lunch for so many years before it become bland and uninteresting. Music needs spicing up ever so often just like food.

In your opinion, what are the primary musical differences in form between black metal and death metal?

First, touching lightly on the more prominent definitions of the metal genre, and what I would look at as somewhat stating the obvious to any competent individual, I think that DM’s energy is generally fueled more by gore and technicality and BM’s energy is usually fueled more by rage (as blind and unguided as it may be sometimes). The vocal style usually sticks out like a sore thumb as DM vocals prefer the guttural growls or pig noises and BM vocals usual prescribe to the high screechy or I just slammed my genitals in a sliding glass door vocal style. BM guitars are generally consisted of standard tunings, which goes along with the high screechy vocals, where DM bands enjoy the tuned down sound (which in my opinion has become rather ridiculous these days. ACERBUS tunes to CFA#D#GC which is two full steps down on each string and that isn’t really considered that low in comparison to some bands in modern times), once again the deep guitars are coinciding with the vocal style.

Now to get slightly more in depth with my segregation descriptions, I will try to expand more. The musical stylings that I hear in BM songs are primarily composed of mutated minor chords. Quite often I find BM bands utilizing natural minor chords, which lacks a major seventh. While “eerie” or “whiney” sounding it provides no real power or emphasis to the root note of the chord. Harmonic and Melodic minor chords are intermingled with the natural minors to provide power and still retain a “dark” sound. These Harmonic and Melodic minor chords are used to strengthen the minor keys, there for giving way for some dark powerful sounding riffing. As far as an individual riffing style I think audibly there is an obvious sound that is generally more “open” and “breathing” even a somewhat dissonant and definitely more disharmonious sound with a tendency to move in shapes and patterns based on a full note chord to a two and a half step dropped minor chord reverting to the previous full chord with a slight half step rise minor alteration then reverting back to a lower minor chord plus and uncontrolled arpeggiation to follow with implied and increased attack to end and finally execute one performance of a riff. As far as a BM orchestration goes, I think BM focuses more on long-winded repetitious movements using the vocal pattern as lead point of which to follow and adhere to, almost defined as a somewhat deranged classical definition of the term symphony.

I think that the majority of death metal band’s riffing focuses on using diatonic chords intermingled with modulated minor pentatonic single notes tremolo picked scales to provide a constantly powerful, even, and bludgeoning barrage of whole note patterns and movements. Unlike BM, DM bands are not partial to letting songs “breath” or become “dissonant”. DM bands are usual very heavily infatuated with a song structure that has no musical “holes”, or a lack of sonic intensity at anytime in anyway. Unfortunately, I think during composition a lot of DM bands lose sight of the meaning behind the word orchestration. Ive noticed that a lot of DM bands just seem like the write 50 riffs, put them into a hat and randomly pull them out in no order yet string them all together using drums fills.

Today there are plenty of modest and worthy laboreres among scholars, too, who are happy in their little nooks; and because they are happy there, they sometimes demand rather immodestly that one ought to be content with things today, generally — especially in the domain of science, where so much that is useful remains to be done. I am not denying that; the last thing I want is to destroy the pleasure these honest workers take in their craft: for I approve of their work. But that one works rigorously in the science and that there are contented workers certainly does not prove that science as a whole poesses a goal, a will, an ideal, or the passion of a great faith. The opposite is the case, to repeat: where it is not the latest expression of the ascetic ideal–and the exceptions are too rare, noble, and atypical to refute the genreal proposition–science today is a hiding place for every kind of discontent, disbelief, gnawing worm, despectio sui, bad conscience–it is the unrest of the lack of ideals, the suffering from the lack of any great love, the discontent in the face of involuntary contentment.

– F.W. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

Is there such a thing as musical novelty? (a combination of notes striking or distinctive for purely musical reasons, with no other implications) or do you attribute what is commonly identified as such as being more of a stylistic novelty?

Yes, but I don’t think it is as much a musical novelty as it is a programmed effect that has thwarted us as time and “standards” have evolved. It’s almost more of a comforting thing to the ears of the close-minded more than a stylistic redundancy. Over time people have been “programmed” to recognize what sounds “correct” and “incorrect” in music, and really all other aspects of life as well. It’s quite a shame but its true. Certain progressions of musical notes or chords have been labeled “incorrect” because to most people they sound “ugly” (minor chords, several notes played at once which are out of key with on another), while others are considered beautiful (whole note chords, several notes played in octave). They both sound beautiful to me, just different. Who are we to say that certain notes grouped together are right or wrong? My interpretation of this ridiculous dilemma is that it clearly seems as if this musical decision coincides with the rest of general human ideology. Humans are always trying to label “beautiful” or “normal” people/animals good and “ugly” or “different” people/animals bad. This reflects onto all aspects of general human thinking so why not let it bleed into music as well? We are brainwashed into thinking that what is disharmonious is “bad” and what is harmonious is “good”. Some people might think its preposterous for me to make a statement such as this but I think its preposterous for people to be trapped in a musical box which has been assembled by their “peers” and guaranteed by record labels which focus on the business of music rather than the music of music.

In ancient Greece, poetry was considered incomplete without accompanying music which united the significance of the words with the significance of certain tones and musical shapes. Is there any relevance of this idea today?

I think so. Music completes life. Certain songs complete and are appropriate for every, and any occasion. The choice of this music is, of course, up to the individual and will never be the exact same for any two people. I’m generally awake 19 or 20 hours every day and there is literally no more than two hours or so of my day, everyday, that is void of music. Working in a music store definitely contributes to my habits.

What inspired you about the deathgrind genre, or was it a culmination of other influences?

It has been countless influences, and the influences that influenced the people that influenced me. As Einstein said, you must honor the gift of evolution that is life, which has been worked on diligently for millions of years. People often tend to look that fact of existence over. I try to take the same approach to music, it seems like great men in the past have already done all of the really hard things in music for me and I think that now, anyone who picks up a musical instrument is on easy street in comparison to these previous achievements. Do you know off the top of your head who invented the first sound recording device?

I will try and stop from getting to far away from the question at hand and get back to my most prominent influences. I guess in the very beginning, 6 years ago, when I was 14 years old and had picked up a guitar for the first time, I was worshiping 3 bands. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Primus, and Deicide. I loved the sound experimentation and groundbreaking abstracting of music that Hendrix had, I loved the sense of humor and unconventuallity of Primus, and the aggression and technicality of Deicide. Those are the bands that made me want to pick up a guitar and that eventually drove me to create a band of my own that I wanted to contain all of the things that drew me to my early influences, in one single band. Now days the only thing that REALLY inspires me is avant-garde classical composers, i.e., Philip Glass, John Cage, Steve Reich, Kronos Quartet, ect.

What do you normally listen to in your time off from being death metal terrorists?

Actually, I enjoy listening to almost every genre of music. I really like Modern Psychedelic music, tons of obscure Classical composures, truck loads of Jazz and all of its sub-genres, of course Metal, Electronic music, Meditation music, Noise artists, and International (there are some really amazing eastern musicians). The list really has no end. What I’m listening to from each genre always changes but I can give you some things that are currently finding their way off the shelf into my CD player.

Kronos Quartet – “Black Angels”
Tan Dun – “Ghost Opera”
Suffocation – “Peirced from Within” and “Effigy of the Forgotten”
Jonas Hellborg/Shawn Lane/Jim Sipe – “Personae” and “Zenhouse”
Uncle Moe’s Space Ranch – “self-titled”
Clinic – “Walking with Thee”
Godspeed You Black Emperor – “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”
Philip Glass “Glassworks”
John Cage “The Seasons” (Margaret Leng Tan’s toy piano piece is amazing!)
Flaming Lips – “Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”
Autechre – “Gantz Graf” and “Tri Repeatae”
Gyorgy Ligeti – “Ligeti Project II”
Medeski Martin and Wood – “The Dropper” and “Uninvisible”
John Zorn/Mike Patton – “Hemophiliac”
Pat Martino – “Live at Yoshi’s”
John Adams “Naive and Sentimental Music”
Primus “Pork Soda” and “Sailing the Seas of Cheese”
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – “Body and Soul”
Anoushka Shankar – “self-titled”

That’s what ive listened to heavily this week, but like I said the list is ever changing and I have a ton of CDs or so, so I’m always listening to something different.

Is there such a thing as political ideas expressed in art, or do you see there being a necessary connection between political ideas -> social ideas -> perceptive concepts?

There are political ideas expressed in art and rightfully so. Political ideas need expressing so why not use one of the most affective methods of convoying ideas as your medium?

I know you bastards read philosophy; what are your favorites? What did they express that was not seen articulated elsewhere?

Yes indeed. I guess a few favorites are Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (if you can make it through this book, read it again and ponder each line he writes, as each sentence holds at least a paragraph’s worth of metaphorical ideology. I own the Cambridge edition, it is abridged appropriately and edited in a way which makes the text easier {well I should say possible for most people to understand} for those who haven’t taken a Kantian philosophy course.), and while it is sort of a culmination of such topics as physics, philosophy, non-Aristotelian logic and semantics, I enjoy Alfred Korzybski’s “Science and Sanity.” I enjoy most titles by Robert Anton Wilson dealing with philosophy/consciousness expanding. While I believe most of his books are nothing more than other peoples’ ideas funneled down and regurgitated so people with “lesser intellectuality” can understand them and begin the process of consciousness expanding. Normally I would disagree with this method of funneling information/writing but he actually notes when he is taking from someone else’s thoughts or literature so that makes it valid in my eyes. His books are fun to read, he makes good points and has a great sense of humor. Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time” is good for the most part. I could go on forever here but I will list another good one, Carl Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.” To answer your second part to this question would be a whole other interview. The ideas expressed in these books that were not articulated elsewhere are so deep, vast and lengthy that a summarization of all of these individual ideas within a few pathetic sentences typed by myself, to me, would be an insult to the writers who I look at as some of the intellectual iron men of writing. Although, I believe a quick summary to someone who is interested and has never read or heard of any of these books is due. As basic and stripped down as it can be put, the over all point of all of these books is to force the reader to look at life in a different light. Metaphorically speaking, your mind is like a parachute. Closed you will die, open it will save your life and you will float above as you watch the others hit the ground screaming.

In spiritual practice, which is more important: coherence with natural schema of patterning, or symbolic adherence to human desires?

I think both are equally unimportant. Both are nothing more than a subconscious choice that is made of how a person perceives and interprets his/her own reality based on how their brain programs cropped and filed away the information of spirituality that has been directed to them and imprinted in their brains based on what experiences and information (or misinformation, really) they happen to come in contact with during their life that has consequently shaped their perception and beliefs according to these random events.

What do you think about Falun Gong?

From what I have read or been told about falun gong it’s really nothing more than Chinese yoga for people whose reality is based on pseudoscience. I know it involves physical postures accompanied by mediation which will supposedly promote mental/spiritual well being. I read an article in a magazine once with the “leader” stating by mastering falun gong you can obtain such metaphysical abilities as levitation and other supernatural powers. In my eyes, falun gong is as ridiculous as any other type or brand of a spiritual salvation that is defined by one living person (on an upside, at least their “leader” isn’t fictitious). Master Li, the “leader”, is the only person who can define the ways of F.G. therefore the ideology immediately causes me to burst into laughter and look at F.G. as nothing more than another man (Li) who is probably semi-intellectual who uses shills to control the minds of the mentally weak and needy. To me, the idea that a carbon based life form is to be looked at as a bringer of salvation is hilarious, pathetic and simultaneously horrifying in the fact that there are about 2 million people in the world that prescribe to the theory of falun gong. It’s a shame our species has bred beings that believe one of their own kind could be their bringer of salvation and are so mentally weak and distorted that they are sucked into a thin, as in lacking of content and containing no scientific relevance, vision of salvation in hopes of obtaining “supernatural” powers for no more than time and a likely weekly fee. I think the first step in demystifying any method that promises to bring salvation is if biological survival tickets (money) fit into the equation. I would imagine that a being that brings salvation would not be of biological content therefore would have an absent need for our (note the first word after the parenthesis) biological survival tickets.

Do you have any opinions of pornography? Do you feel it turns humans into symbolic structures in the same way religion does?

I think pornography is humorous. Not really from the point of view of the female who is baring her hide but from the male’s perspective. I think guys and women alike who enjoy pornography are either not aware of certain aspects of their existence or the worse scenario, are aware yet don’t care. Males tend to drool, stew, fantasize and obsess over pictures of naked females and critique their body in comparison to their personal preferences. Here is where the humor comes in. What males don’t realize whilst they enjoy porno is all they are doing is acting as the primates that they are, filled with a genetic structure that does not want to die out therefore possesses the constant need and want to reproduce. For example, when a guy says, “that bitch is hot”, unbeknownst to him he is thinking “the fat distribution and reproductive organs of the opposite sex in my sight seem extremely healthy and from what I’m perceiving visually has the ability to provide extremely healthy children for me.” When a guy looks at a pair of naked breasts he quivers, when in actuality that thought of lust running through his mind is nothing more that his deeply rooted and distilled thought that these mammary glands (plump breasts) will provide perfect sustenance for his offspring therefore promoting the longevity of his DNA strand, which is the most important aspect of a living organism. Apply this ideology to all other focuses of lust and there is a similar truth such as above behind each one. Peacocks spread their feathers to show the females the array of colors and the amount and fullness that their feathers possess which is a trait of a healthy male that in turn attracts the female, just as the human male works out, combs his hair, and wears becoming clothing etcetera, to attract the female. Unfortunately cars, money and so on are signs of power and well being which also attracts the human female. This is where the humor in pornography lies for me. When some pathetic male is gawking at or masturbating to a photo of a naked women he has no idea he is simply bleeding for his master, the DNA strand that is programmed to reproduce at all costs. Just as it is stereotypical for a male to feel and act “Zen-like” and feel necessary to reminisce of his previous nights copulative affairs with other males. He is satisfied physically that he has fulfilled his biological purpose in life and must tell the other males in his “tribe” of his affairs to gain a top dog status. Watching or hearing of these events provide me with endless laughter and entertainment; therefore the idea of pornography is extraordinarily humorous to me.

Another counsel of prudence and self-defense is to react as rarely as possible, and to avoid situations and relationships that would condemn one to suspend, as it were, one’s “freedom” and initiative and to become a mere reagent. As a parable I choose asociation with books. Scholars who at bottom do little nowadays but thumb books–philologists, at a moderate estimate, about 200 a day–ultimately lose entirely their capacity to think for themselves. When they don’t thumb, they don’t think. They respond to a stimulus (a thought they have read) whenever they think–in the end, they do not but react. Scholars spend all of their energies on Yes and NO, on criticism of what others have thought–they themselves no longer think.

The instinct of self-defense has become worn-out in them; otherwise they would resist books. The scholar –a decadent.

I have seen this with my own eyes: gifted natures with a generous and free disposition, “read to ruin” in their thirties — merely matches that one has to strike to make them emit sparks — “thoughts.”

Early in the morning, when day breaks, when all is fresh, in the dawn of one’s strength — to read a book at such a time is simply depraved!

– F.W. Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

What activities do you have outside of music?

I don’t do a lot that doesn’t relate to music in some way. I enjoy drawing, writing text in a style I call “metaphilosophtry”, which is a mixture of metaphor, philosophy and poetry. I love reading philosophy, physics, and psychology books and really enjoy psychotropic experiences. Not sleeping much and drinking lots of coffee fits in there. I rarely go “out” as I hate loud noises (yes I know its sort of contradictory to being in a band but loud music is the only loud noises that are enjoyable to me) or being around people. Other than that there isn’t much I do that doesn’t have to do with music in some way or another.

What do you do to relax and have fun?

Well, there is the obvious, I play in Acerbus, I write music at my home and record various guitar or keyboard pieces on my digital studio. I try and have an intellectually stimulating conversation with someone every now and then. I’m quite the hermit and often refer to myself as a “misanthropic nihilistic introvert”. I love studying and thinking about the psychology involved with musical notes and progressions and I suppose the previous question will answer the rest.

If music is a language, what distinguishes certain pieces as impressive relates to the poetic content they express. Is there a difference between content and form in music?

I definitely think that certain progressions or orchestrations in musical notes, patterns of notes or chords will draw out certain emotions or trigger thought patterns that are unique to each listener. This is where my main interest in music lies. With every piece of music I write I keep in mind how it (the piece) will affect the listener on individual levels as well as in cohesion with the rest of the composed piece. I hope this is subconsciously apparent to people who listen to Acerbus. When people come to me after our shows they will tell me that we just sound “different” and that they cant quite place their finger on what it is but we just sound “different” to them. Hopefully this is a result of my psychological study of music at play since I write music utilizing certain aspects and attacking the listener’s ear in such a way that their brain cant help but to register these sounds on their musical spectrum as “new”, hence people telling me Acerbus just sounds “different” to them. Hopefully this method is at play but one can never be absolutely sure.

What’s wrong with humanity?

Do you want me to write a 2000 page essay here? I’ll give it to you as stripped down as possible. Humans have “evolved” to a biological life form that holds horrible traits called narcissism, ego, deceitfulness and personal dogma. America has arrived at a point where everything is based on biological survival tickets (money) and milking and flexing the primitive aspects of humans for all that their worth. Everyone in America (99%) has the mindset as follows: me first, I’m right you’re wrong, I am not successful without loads of money, I must outdo everyone else in the world on every level to retain top dog status, I’m the most important being on the face of this planet that would shrivel and die if I were to cease to exist. It’s sad really because life would be grand if everyone would drop all of this self important hogwash and read a book about, or at least an introduction to non-Aristotelian thought. Unfortunately, this will never happen so I say it would be in our best interests as a species to destroy all existing political and social parties and try to start over again with an actual democracy instead of one that spoon feeds its residents the illusion of freedom, the illusion of choice and the illusion of safety.

if you could be one non-human species (imagine reincarnation or other “magical” occurrence) what would it be?

I’d settle on being a viperfish. There are amazing and undiscovered things in the deep sea that would provide an infinite amount of eye candy for me as I enjoy looking at things and pondering on them. Having photophores that cause light to emanate from your body using bioluminescence would be amazingly amusing. Knowing reality as an air breathing life form would make living underwater very interesting. As an added bonus viperfish are extremely gnarly looking so that is a definite plus for me as well.

Which book would you most likely have written, not being already given to a career in musicianship?

Without a doubt I would have written, “Prometheus Rising” by Robert Anton Wilson. It’s a great book that anyone on any intellectual level can understand that will help him or her expand his or her reality tunnel resulting in higher intelligence, understanding of their self and others and awareness of one’s own biological nature and an introduction to the ways brain programs work. All things I think humanity could use sorely at this current time.

What do you think of the Austin scene? Do you think a city’s collective attitude determines what music will emerge?

I’ve gotten asked this question EVERY interview I have ever done since Austin has the reputation for being the “live music capitol of the world”, which is total bullshit (there is probably at least 200 bands that play in clubs all over Austin every night, it doesn’t mean that they have any real musical substance to them), so forgive me for not elaborating in great lengths one this one. Let me say this, we play a lot of out of town shows and most of the people that are into underground metal in Austin are in bands. I think the attitude of a city has little effect on what bands will emerge. I see where bands from certain areas have certain “sounds” but I think that is probably just a factor due to a psychosomatic suggestion that bands from certain cities hold a certain sound that must be emulated. I’m sure bands from the same areas experienced the same influences and I would imagine that would have something to do with it as well.

Do you see yourselves as expressing the ideas of your environment, or reacting to those ideas? (not to be confused with reactionary opposition, or an emotional/irrational response of rejection)

I guess I create music based on my influences, perceptions of what I think is musically divine, my own thoughts and on what ways I think that music can and needs to evolve.

Do you plan to have a family and “normal” life, if the opportunity rises?

No. An American “normal” life is nothing more than the lowest common denominator.

When you are playing, do you visualize the difference between the shapes you are touching/pressing on the fretboard, or do you have another method of preparing for the radical sweeping fretruns that seem to be easy for you?

This is a hard question to answer, but I will do my best. I hope my response remains coherent to everyone because I know exactly what I’m talking about but it’s difficult to put certain brain/body functions in to text form. When playing I visualize geometric patterns on the fretboard that are segregated in a grid-like pattern (as in each fret contains 6 lines which can be looked at in cohesion with all others as a giant piece of graph paper, each line holds a tone and is programmed into my brain accordingly) with the boundaries for each possible note change being each fret and string. This method of playing is extremely critical during my four fingered tapping solos. Most times when I play I do it in a sort of subconscious manner, I just kind of let me hands go to work. The best comparison is typing on a computer keyboard; each key is assigned a certain character just as each string is assigned a different note. Certain words you type, after typing them a few times become natural and this allows you to type in a fluid and fast way. This is just like how I play guitar. After I write a guitar riff the hand movements that are necessary to create the sound of the riff become like a stamp. Once it’s forged all you have to do is apply it and its there in perfect relief. The assemblage of many riffs, rhythm, transitional or lead, form together as one giant hand pattern or in other words about 40 different “riffs” or stamps compiled will create one giant “stamp” or song. I think that is the best I can explain it. I hope it made sense.

When you interact with normal people, how much do you self-censor what you’re going to say?

Unfortunately I do. I don’t censor what is considered “foul” language but I majorly censor what I would like to say intellectually. While people are talking they generally want their opinion to be heard and they don’t want to feel inferior. If I say something to someone that is what I consider a slightly deep thought, people will most times not understand you and think your just trying to be a “know it all”. So whilst in conversation with people whether it is friends or strangers I just strip down what I’m thinking so everyone understands and no one feels left out forcing them to lie their way through a topic since humans can’t stand admitting to not knowing something. I consider doing this a social Valium, but I never said I had the best social skills.

If you make people feel that they know something, they will adore you, if you make people realize they know nothing, they will loathe you.

What does Acerbus do to prepare for a concert?

We all stretch our muscles, tune our instruments, and arrive at a mentally self-confident state of readiness. Larry prescribes to the athletic abstinence of all physical indulgences theory for several weeks before any show or recording. I suppose that is all.

Have any labels woken up and signed you yet?

No. I have sent promotional packages to countless labels but every response I have gotten has been that we are too “extreme” or “out there” to bring in a large quantity of sales therefore the labels are unwilling to take a chance. I guess I’m out of touch with the metal community because I thought in the early nineties when Suffocation, Carcass and Deicide were breaking new ground being as extreme as possible was the name of the game. I don’t mean this in an egotistical way at all but I’m not worried: I know we will get signed eventually its just a matter of when and who is willing to take a chance.

What do you see as the primary differences between classical music and jazz?

Another essay style answer is in order here but I’ll try and keep it to a few sentences. This will probably only be funny to 1 out of 10,000 people but here it goes… I’ll try and be “the minimalist” while answering this question about classical music. HAHAHA! Man that’s funny in a cheesy way! Anyway, most Classical music is very refined and often referred to as “educated” music that is based on theory and what is “correct” (except for my favorites), while jazz is a style of music, while still well refined, is characterized by improvisation and experimentation. Hopefully everyone reading this already knows this fact but the alternate definition to the word “jazz” is miscellaneous or unspecified things. There we go, short and sweet and without speculation as promised.

What are the most significant musical innovations in the last fifty years, in your opinion?

This is another hard question to answer, but I’ll give you the most prominent things that stick out in my mind. The invention of several instruments (electronic and others) has done music well. The fact that in the last 20 years musical genres seem to have been mixed up a lot more. Unfortunately, this genre mixing has not been good all the way around but it has produced a few gems. It’s like mixing paint colors together, if you do it right you get vibrant unique colors. If you do it wrong you get brown. I can tell you some artists that I think have really pushed the limits of music as a whole in the last 50 years. Philip Glass (whom I happen to be listening to as I answer this interview), Steve Reich, Jimi Hendrix, John Cage, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, John Zorn, Primus, John Coltrane, Black Sabbath, Thelonious Monk and the Kronos Quartet. These are just a few but I think that they have all have had a profound impact on music over the last 50 years.

Do you feel ambient music brings any theoretical change or alterations in form to popular music, and, if so, what do they signify in the mental processes of artists in this time?

Slightly, and by that I mean everything has an effect on everything. Any slight alteration or event will affect an infinite number of reactions that will cause change throughout the world. Introducing new musical ideas or genres will work in an identical fashion.

Is history cyclic, linear, or linear within cyclic? Please explain.

The thought of history being cyclic is not feasible to me. Charting reoccurring events and loosely comparing them to more recent events suggesting the idea that history is cyclic is very similar to people who believe in psychics or faith healers. Weak-mindedness and deluding myself into believing coinciding similar facts cause factual relevance in certain events is not something I’m a fan of. Believing that history is linear within cyclic patterns sounds like someone who is one the edge a cliff preparing to jump off but just can’t quite do it yet. I think history is linear and I think people that believe history is cyclic could probably be diagnosed with infophobia and need to get hobbies, try pseudoscience it will be right up your alley.

How do you reconcile the view that art is a matter of individual interpretation (#2) with the idea that all listeners are affected similarly by certain musical combinations (#1)?

A sense of relief falls upon me to discover that the perceiver asks for further information on questions that have what could be seen as contradictorily answers. I will attempt an explanation using metaphor with promises that my answer remains coherent. Imagine bottles of paint and a mixing palette. Each base color in the each bottle (red, green, blue, yellow) is pure and unaltered such as an un-interpreted message to your brain. Any disturbance to this pure thought or “pure color” (which represents and un-interpreted brain message) will cause the same amount of change to the final interpreted message (“mixed primary paint colors” or a thought that has been altered by your minds own personal perception. ) in the outcome. So, the fact that I stated that “art is a matter of individual interpretation”, resembles how everyone’s “final perception” or, a thought that has gone through your brain programs thus the outcome will vary based upon each individual’s “reality tunnel” or, the way they perceive reality. Now, when I say “all listeners are affected similarly by certain musical combinations” I mean that if I can find musical combinations that actually change the original unperceived signal (which is the same for everyone), then the outcome will be slightly different, yet different in the same way for everyone. I will explain again in a different manner to promote the illumination of my point. Imagine having 10 painters that are all using the same paint bottles. You tell them to mix the colors on their own palettes and to each paint a landscape. Therefore, each painter s final picture will be different based upon his or her perception of a landscape. Now to change each painter’s painting without changing their interpretation of the landscape we would change the base colors from red, blue, yellow and green to black, purple, orange and brown which would cause the same change to each painters painting without changing their perception of their landscape.

There’s too much to talk about, and I’ll keep asking questions forever. Is there anything else you’d like to add for benefit of broadcast to the world?

Thank you for reading the entire interview, I’m glad you made it all the way through! Thanks to SRP for writing an interview that owns questions of substance and once again I appreciate anyone spending the time to read this. Anyone should feel free to contact me if they wish: Acerbus@angelfire.com

Thanks Again for your time!

Cory

-ACERBUS-

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