It's a bio harmonic resonance, but BEHERIT is back to destroy art. I had very intensive two months, by writing new songs and re-creating the spirit of the BEHERIT sound. I think it turned out to be quite okay, kind of a mixture of all previous releases. It's yet to be mastered and is missing booklet artwork... but hopefully will be released in the second quarter of 2009 by Spinefarm Records. I don't have plans to reveal any detailed information regarding the coming album, its style or maneuvers behind the concept before the release.

I wrote and composed the album by myself. I recorded a demo version in my home studio with tablatures and a few written notes about what kind of spirit I was looking for in that song. Then we went to the rehearsal room and for the next week I made some small changes in song structure that made it easier and more natural to play live. Rehearsal period was about three months. We had 60 minutes of raw material when entering the studio. Couple of tracks we didn't have time to finish.

I recently bought a new video camera and have found this hobby very compelling, the use of sound and visuals to create deep atmospheres/altered states.

I like to plan my projects in the phases of the moon. For me, there is a natural difference between the things you process on waxing or waning gibbous. Especially on nights of the full moon, it's good to pay extra attention on your karma.

I am very fascinated by the potential to experience some ueber-crossover between genres like black metal, dubstep, doom metal and ambient. There's some artists who have successfully melded electronic music to rock, but I think most of their audience is still very average type of people (whom see the music more like entertainment or a consumer product of show business). Perhaps the biggest challenge is in a composition. For a basic metal head, it could be pretty challenging to listen (much less to write) non-standard music, I mean something outside of popular radio song structure (verse/chorus/bridge...)

I know only very little of music in theory. Maybe I have learned to tune my guitar faster, but not much else. In BEHERIT, we keep things primitive.

After the initial idea, I have a riff and couple of variations. Then some words that stimulate my mind to visualize the atmosphere. Later some variation in tempo, bassline and rhythm. The last part is to rewrite some lyrical content. This may vary a lot depending on the project.

Living entities look for happiness, and to avoid suffering. This is true not only for humans, but animals as well. I think this is the very basic principle. Animals have a hard enough time getting their food and avoiding getting killed, but humans seek their happiness from materialism or very temporary states of happiness, like sex, drugs or love...

New BEHERIT songs emerge and are developed in my head. That material I try to save as quickly as possible by guitar or keys to a recorder. A year ago I invested to Ableton Live software. It did help a lot in my productivity. For a musician like me, there's a big difference with Ableton compared to older, a linear time scale based sequencer.

Back in 1993, recording studios were still mostly analog. The guitar sound was as simple as Boss Heavy Metal guitar distortion pedal through an old Marshall bass amplifier and cabinet. I don't remember what microphones were used, but everything was done in a few days. No time to remake or mix, thus the raw sound. The studio is still up and running. Very professional people there. The home of Tarot.

We didn't want to reproduce the sound of Drawing Down the Moon, but as always try look for new soundspheres.

People used to describe our bands, like "some satanic stuff", but today Black Metal has become a well known symbol for the majority, mostly because of the Internet. Most of these younger fans have pretty twisted image of the scene of old days. People didn't like black metal at all, everything was so small, you kind of know all the music makers in the scene (via flyers in tape trading scene, + fanzines) Most of the people fucking hated us BEHERIT, IMPALED NAZARENE... Drawing Down The Moon was self-funded by me and I had to sell my car, became homeless, and everything I had was that master tape and no label interested to release it, before Spinefarm. I am still thankful to 'em, because of the advance royalty.

The response to given stimulus is much about the previous experience to similar contact in sense.

Like those others have never experienced of getting wet in the rain? They would still feel the same as the one who's in the rain? Then there should be a sense contact within this tribe that can somehow communicate lower/higher states. I know this is possible, but very rare in normal conditions... we cannot "release the self" that easily, because of our fear (of dying).

We all four are big fans of BLASPHEMY, BLACK WITCHERY, IMPIETY, MANTICORE and other fast stuff. Sodomatic plays drums in punk bands and listens to industrial music. He's a vinyl collector. Abyss, the bassist is very much into Viking stuff, like BATHORY and FALKENBACH. He has also his own projects, more technical style, like he could have more riffs per song than BEHERIT on entire album. Serpent is working on Spikefarm and listens mostly to rehearsal and demo material from unsigned bands. THE LORD DIABOLUS was the biggest influence on this new album.

The fear of reptiles might be encoded in DNA -- I don't know. But when a man walks in the dark woods, fear of the unknown makes a wooden stick or a rope to appear like an image of dangerous snake. That's why we should not trust our senses.

I do understand the logic in fractality of universe, like many universes in smaller scales. The most of the cultures of our civilization is based on wrong believes of gods and myths. We simply have wrong views of life. The problem is that only very few people have seen the truth, the nature of time existence. Parents put their kids to school to teach 'em reading and mathematics, but too often they think it's enough to make those kids to survive in a modern world.

We have built our cultures to praise the bold and the beautiful; the weak and ugly easily drops out from the so-called "easy life" because of the competition (evolution). I don't care much about this, because it's somehow universal, "natural evolution." But this system leads to very problematic scenarios in the world we have built, because the weaker get many and they can get temporarily very strong by modern weapons.

From that comes "terrorism" and "the police state." And all this mostly happens because society is from the very beginning based on incorrect views. Ouch, I am getting to off topic now...Yes, the nature of the world of the senses is polycausal, indeed.

The resonance.

I have an artistic desire, but haven't thought much of connection to Romanticism. I think most of my creations are born in some sort abstract space with no human wrong or right. I don't have a personal manifesto or any political interest in my music, but this does not necessarily mean that our songs are utter headlessness. I always try to be very mindful in a work I am doing. Even with BEHERIT.

I end up liking new fake bands that turn out to be nothing but boring. I did not stop listening to metal music entirely, but I found more interesting and deeper aspects of art in noise and electronic music.

Yes, but I have yet to find people and a unique concept worth to start such a big project. Especially interested in video, together with musical performance on the front of live audience.

On various layers of soundscape. I think there will come such a crossover projects in this near future. It may not please the old school metal purist, but the next generation of audience who search for an aural experience rather than a general idol worship of rock band.

I didn't have much knowledge of making electronic music at the time of recording Electric Doom Synthesis. I composed it on the very simple sequencer of E-Mu Emax II sampler. Of course if I had to do it again now I would do some parts in a different way, but the album has a lock on time and atmosphere that I was living that time. After that my interest moved towards the other edge of music, experimental sounds, drone and minimalism, thus the release of Suuri Shamaani which were recorded without any real instruments, most of the sounds sampled from radio frequencies.

I used to listen to hours and hours of simple waveforms on evolving space, not so called music at all, more like mathematics and experience of altered states. Calculating planetary system and trying to put these parameters to sounds. I even did some gigs playing those test frequencies to large audiences, but quite soon I found myself playing on the front of max. twenty people. Soon I was kicked out from every chill out room because people complained my stuff was more like brain fuck than any chill out. I think they were right, I went way too far with that shit.

Nowadays I try to keep these things more in a balance. I am interested for some thing like a band playing metal music with no riffs or metal song structure, but it's not easy with people who lack experience of the dub of deep house, AND who also understand The Black Metal aesthetics. I'm not sure of this last word in English, but I mean understanding what is "cool" and what is not. The last one is where 99.9% of those demos fail that are otherwise potential to make a major success. Quite likely that it will happen in the industrial music scene, but it's still yet to come?

I think it's not about technique or a lack of it. For me, it's about originality and functionality.

Okay, this sounds very likely. But due the polycausal nature of life, there's always some variation in detail... I couldn't make any final conclusion. I even went through the conditional nature of sounds, acoustic waves that are frequencies like all the other objects in the universe. The sound object itself has no clear "soul," but it's fascinating to think of a scenario where the creator (composer) has a causal relation to soundwork put in a distribution, and that the listener receive the given mental sight by this kind of energy transformation, as they both (artist + listener) have same focus point... Something like used on those shamanistic journeys or people told to get a trance-like state on live concerts.

Mental objects. I was hoping to put this in action on the upcoming BEHERIT album, but it turned to be a way more complex than I first thought. I decided to make an another project for this one, conveying extrasensory perception (ESP) through the sound itself. Coil had this album Time Machine in the early nineties, one of my favorites, that included a pack of cards/ESP stickers...And I had an idea to transfer these mental symbols for listener, but in the studio I found we were running out of time, and that it would work better with more minimalistic material. Well, it's good to have some ideas + concepts for future projects.

Yes and no. Somehow it would be disappointing if humankind doesn't have a single symbol beyond this life experience, destiny. Even, this symbol of destiny that he created by himself in a past, it is yet to be experienced, in the cosmos? I know the meditators use techniques to visualize the symbol to guide the soul entity on bardo¹ states.

Most people are born in ignorance, but it is said the arahant² ones are able to recall past life experiences. The maya³ of self is generated in microseconds and is stuck in time, when the other end of the string in the cosmos, is in the dimension with no linear time scale. Therefore it's logical to have symbolism without one's own experience, but the watcher has to be on the same resonance in space where the manifestation of certain symbol is created.

We have been drowned into abuse of symbols in logos and trademarks of modern time. The Swastika is a good example of how differently people may feel when seeing it. In older cultures it's still a holy and very respected symbol painted in important buildings, but in Europe it's a bit different case. I think the way of life has change quite alot in the last century. You don't need skills to hunt or make fire, survive in the woods. Now it's about being a beauty and famous. Anyway, the very basic principles of life are still the same, thus humankind would need no new symbols.

Yes, perhaps we could call the true black metal movement a subculture, because of its extremity in narrowness. If you go deeper with other genres you will find they have quite similar group policies, but black metal has developed it very strictly and merciless, elitism? Happily I am already old enough that I don't care to belong to any groups. But for new bands, I can see how it would be serious business. How true they can be, and for how long? Is evilness restricted only to their internet communication or also to other depths?

The universe may therefore need an other parallel universe? I think everything is possible, but not necessary.

Not so long time ago, I wrote to internet forum that black metal is antichristian, but some fellows denied it totally and went to politics, racism and other weird NSBM topics that had nothing to do with black metal of old days. Nowadays everything seem to be much more complicated when kids are seeding their own beliefs and opinions to the scene, even if they are not music makers themselves. We (BEHERIT) wanted to create the most severe and bizarre sound dealing with the dark side of occultism. That's still one of my main points when writing a new song, but I don't mind if they label it black metal or not.

Yes, at least in opinion of real music lovers, but artists of today live in poverty and are likely to die in poverty. Entertainers try to maximize money making in every way. It's very rare to see any art happen in entertainment business.

It's the great wheel of artistry. Girls have their periods, sun has its spots, Chinese astrology is a cycle of twelve. Artists have been cursed by the desire of creation.

No.

I like William Gibson.

Love is a very powerful state for beings in these sense worlds. For sure it has moments in lucid oneness, beyond time, like loving kindness (metta)⁴ is a good technique for entities looking for happier abodes. But "love and loving of lovers" represented in popular culture is a broad highway to misery and sadness, endless craving in the wheel of Samsara⁵. Loving life is not a right way. My advice is to see the conditional structure of love. Go and see the mutilated, dead bodies. Go and get a part time job in a local hospital or at coroner's office.

Things we intentionally do (with a will), speak or think are wholesome or unwholesome in causal perspective of self. I am very trustworthy and generous man in my friendhood. I would not recommend strangers to come with me, if they are not pure in their hearts.

It's a perfect time to enlighten oneself. It's crazy that still, only very few people ask real questions in meaning of their existence. There's a fucking internet where one can research the occult, but they rather go see funny movie clips? I would not hesitate a second to detonate this planet to pieces⁶. Things are already pretty fucked up, but it's just a beginning of the end times. There has to become more disease and virus, that force 'em to take their precious time much more seriously.

A good point. I was thinking about other rock genres, like punk, but there even the smallest underground bands usually have a political manifesto. What about electronic music? Underground techno acts hardly never have a message, but the bigger they get the lyrics become to statements of better world. Actually I don't know much about normal music they play on the radio. Hmm...

Usually, it's enough that the man intends to create something original.

Some artists may think art is a sickness. Are they reborn entertainers?

I am not sure of a benefit; it probably depends on the person and the social network around them? This is an area which should be studied: two steps beyond nibbana⁸, in hallucination of self existence. We are all doomed!

I have spent a lot of time in South-East Asia. I see young people are in general pretty much same, but for example their lack of (Western) music culture, their understanding in extreme music usually fall down to those major bands shown on MTV. But then on the other hand, there's real underground vibes, especially in punk scene, f.ex. Bangkok Alcohol and those young punks are well aware of their original roots. The Black Metal scene is much smaller, but I know the guys from Surrender Of Divinity, and they are cool. There's no much need to antichristian movement here. Hahaha!

In the very beginning, under the name of PSEUDOCHRIST, we rehearsed with cover songs from bands like DEATH, SODOM and SLAYER. Later that summer of 1989, I started to trade vinyls from Brazil and Cogumelo Records. Those bands were so primitive and brutal in a style of music we didn't know existed. They had this unique sound of underground metal.

We changed our name to BEHERIT, started to paint our faces and radically simplify our songs and playing technique. No more pussycat rock mentality with dreams of large audience or positive feedback, and understanding from society.

I remember the day we got BLASPHEMY Blood Upon The Altar cassette in postal package. We kept listening that tape over and over again on our rehearsal room. We all three came to the conclusion that it was the most fucking severe black metal ever made, and it's still true after 20 years. We recorded our second demo to honor these Canadian godz of brutality. Three months later we went to the studio for Dawn Of Satan's Millennium, which had a bit more of our own sound. SARCOFAGO and BLASPHEMY, together with BATHORY have been the greatest influences in the history of BEHERIT. No doubt.

Electric guitar was my first instrument. I was 13 years old.

Sure. I did produce an ambient radio station for five years, so I have a quite nice ambient music collection. Kraftwerk and Autechre I have seen playing live and they were cool. About influences, not much on this new album.

That winter I listened often to the discography of BATHORY, and read books on Odinism and Asatru. We held pagan rituals. I hardly had any contact to normal society. In the door of my apartment, it read on big letters: EMBASSY OF EVIL.

Hahaha! Goat Vulva was only a booze project. I recorded those demos on normal C-cassette recorder by putting a piece of tape over the eraser head. I don't remember how many so-called demos were released, but they came in very limited quantities, perhaps 10 or 20 copies of each. Messe Des Morts was recorded in same studios where Erotic Worship was, but otherwise, it was very much a project of its own.

I don't mind outsiders. I see them in busses and walking on the city streets, but I never talk to 'em nor do they come talk to me, and even more rarely do we discuss music.

If you are in a metal band, that nobody -- of the people who you think should -- takes seriously, there's something wrong with your music, image or both. Make the difference, make the art happen. I don't mean to murder or burn the church, but use your imagination and live in it. The mind is the strongest weapon.

I am on a long journey. Now in Thailand, but leaving next week down to Malaysia and then to Oceania. At first, I will meet the people from PORTAL in Brisbane. They have a new project called OLDE GUARDE. Nomad life, traveling with a notebook + ultramobile music studio.

• ¹Bardo states: transitional states of consciousness that correspond to stages of life or the development of awareness.
• ²Arahant: a spiritual initiate who has realized nirvana and so no longer needs to be be reincarnated into the karmic cycle
• ³Maya: the illusion that people and objects exist independently from a continuum of interacting, inter-related and contiguous causes
• ⁴Metta: "love without attachment," meaning a benevolent kindness toward the world that also accepts the chaotic nature of existence and so does not seek the perpetuation of its object
• ⁵Samsara: the karmic cycle of reincarnation and death in which individuals attempt to move "up" a karmic ladder toward higher states of consciousness
• ⁶Because I don't have children, otherwise I would use a human logic and say the anger is a symbol. "Because, I just fucking hate this world."
• ⁷Leitmotif: a musical phrase symbolically associated with a character or idea that is reintroduced in a narrative piece whenever that object is referenced.
• ⁸Nibbana or nirvana: a psychological state of being free from attachment to earthly resentments, namely anger, greed, craving and television

Return to Metal Interviews