This is the first interview with Canadian cult Blasphemy in a LONG time.
High hails to warbrother Impurath of Black Witchery for setting up this
interview and providing the cult pictures and art. Questions are answered by
Nocturnal Grave Desecrator and Black Winds, 3 Black Hearts of Damnation and
Impurity, and Caller of the Storms via mail and phone. If you don't know who
Blasphemy is, or have never heard of them, don't read this interview. Go
beat off to your Moonfog and Nuclear Blast CD's instead. Interview by
Sulfurous of FMP.
1)Give a pre-history of Blasphemy. For example, did the members play in any
other groups or write Blasphemy material prior to the formation?
Black Winds: No original members were in any other bands before Blasphemy.
Me + Black Hearts have known each other since we were six years of age and
always talked about getting a band together. April 30th I will be 33, Black
Hearts will also be 33 May 14th. In 1984 we finally got our shit together by
finding an extremely good guitarist Storms.
2)Tell us about the formation of Blasphemy. Who founded the band and how did
the members find each other?
BW + Black Hearts: Black Winds + Black Hearts lived 1 block from each other
and Storms lived about 2 miles from us. We met him in our mid-teens.
3)Tell us about the early stages of Blasphemy. What were the first
rehearsals like and what was the chemistry like in the band?
BW: The very first rehearsals were a long learning process for us. Our first
couple of songs were our own but we scrapped them. But we mastered a few
cover songs in "86". "Blasphemer" from Sodom, "The Rites of Darkness and
Evil" Bathory, "Chemical Warfare" Slayer.
4)Which bands were you guys influenced by back then and how did you mix that
with your own sound?
BH + BW: For us 2 members it started with Black Sabbath, Venom, Discharge,
G.B.H., Hellhammer, Bathory, Razor, Possessed. That's just the music we
listened to and that's what we wanted to play when we made up our own band.
5)How did you develop your ungodly vocals? Did any other vocalists influence
your vocal style?
BW: No I just sort of used Bathory Venom Discharge blended; after a couple
of years I just sort of developed them on my own. People tell me they sound
like Doom and Possessed.
6)Do you have images in your head when unleashing your vocal attack or do
you feel more possessed? Do you do anything before you record or sing live?
BW: Smoke weed to help raunch out my voice. Maybe some sort of ritual, like
breathing out the flame of doom.
7)Why do you have the rhythm or bass guitar player sing backing vocals and
what is the purpose of using backing vocals?
BW: To overlap with death yells as I'm doing a vocal part and when Bestial
Saviour does a chorus vocal part then I will overlap certain parts, works
good on stage.
8) Do you always have the rhythm or bass guitar player sing back-ups?
BW: Yeah before it was the rhythm guitarist, Black Priest and Sodomizer, but
now we got the Bestial Saviour doing back-ups.
9)Why do you use intros and how do you decide if a song needs an intro or
not?
BW: Because they sound evil. Me and Black Hearts like them better than the
music for the most part. We just make up the intros and we figure the place
an intro is gonna sound best for whatever song we're doing.
Caller of the Storms: The intros are pretty much the same extension of the
songs, it's part of the songs. It's like melting the songs as if the album
was one song.
10) So you just decide if it..
BW: Goes good with the song or not yeah.
11) Who does the intros?
BW: Me and Storms.
12) When did the original members get their ritual names?
BW: When we performed a certain ritual for each one.
13) Around which time though?
BW: Different years for different members.
14)Tell us how you wrote material for your demo and how each member
contributed to the songwriting process.
BW: I myself or Storms would write it on the bass or guitar, show it to the
rest of the lads, and then tailor some lyrics to the song.
15)Does all your other material follow a similar pattern? Are some songs
written only by one member and others written by several members?
(same as above)
16)Do you write music and then write the lyrics or the opposite? Do you
write music to fit the lyrics or write lyrics to fit the music?
BH: Sometimes we write the lyrics first but mostly write the music first, or
write the music to fit to the blasphemous lyrics.
17)Which songs are examples of when you wrote music to fit the blasphemous
lyrics?
BW: Ritual, Blasphemous Attack, War Command, Nocturnal Slayer, Fallen Angel
of Doom.
18)When writing lyrics, is it a matter of putting your ideology to paper or
do you have to be in a certain mood before you can write?
BW+BH: Yes a certain mood does help.
19)Do the lyrics just come to you when you listen to the music or is there
more involved?
BW: There's more involved.
20)What do you try to accomplish with your lyrics?
BW+BH: To pound the world like a demon with a battering ram.
21)How do your lyrics differ from other members? Do you find it odd singing
someone else's lyrics? Are you more hateful when singing your own?
BW: No because me + Black Priest wrote the lyrics together. Here are the
lyrics to War Command written only by Black Winds:
Together proclaiming war
The worlds endings forever more
A nuclear powerplant scare
Breathing out the flame of doom
Cursing all evil on the land
Nuke metal sinning calling of war
Angels blood dripping from the sky
Hailing in the sign of Satan!
22) What inspired you to wear warpaint in the early days?
BW: I don't know that was just something...I can't remember if we'd seen any
bands wearing it or not but we just wanted to put out a full-on Black
Metal assault and that just seemed to fit the bill.
23) How does having warpaint on influence you during live gigs?
BW: I don't know it just kind of goes with the show.
24)Tell me about your first live gig. How did it feel playing your songs
live for an audience and what was their reaction to it?
BH: Our first gig was very good, it ended up turning into a riot in the
streets. After the show, and about a year later, we were blacklisted from
too many fights. Then we did some tours in Europe and got back and then we
got respect and got to do gigs again. Right now we're happy with 3 shows a
year in the summertime. This summer we're going to get Black Witchery up
here to do a couple of shows so spread the word.
25)What kind of response did you get from the underground when you released
the "Blood Upon the Altar" demo?
BH: The response we got from the demo was extremely insane, we did not
expect to get 2 boxes of fan mail. It was unreal fucking blasphemous.
26)When did writing for "Fallen Angel of Doom" begin and how did you want
the full-length to differ from the songs on the demo?
BH+BW: All those songs were very old, we had them all for a couple of years
before recording. We wanted better sound but it was not a very good
recording, but we got our message across.
27) Which of Blasphemy's recordings are you satisfied with most and which
capture your sound best?
BW: "Fallen Angel of Doom" and "Blood Upon the Alter" are my two favorite.
The quality of the recordings of everything we've done has kind of been not
very good. Like some parts the guitar needs to be louder...
28)Why did Black Priest of the 7 Satanic Blood Rituals leave the band? How
did you find The Traditional Sodomizer of the Goddess of Perversity and
decide he was worthy of playing in Blasphemy? Did he ever write ANY material
and how did he influence Blasphemy?
BW+BH: Serious girl problems! We already knew Sodomizer from doing gigs with
Witches Hammer, because he was and is a big black metal skin + he could play
really good, but no he didn't write any music. But he still hangs out with
us and was at the Blasphemy + Black Witchery + Crown of Thorns gig last
august.
29) How did you meet Goddess of Perversity?
BW: Through Sodomizer.
30) What's her part been in Blasphemy?
BW: Just to keep up the perversions I imagine.
31) Didn't Black Priest also go insane and had to be put away for some time?
BW: More or less yeah.
32)Why did you decide to re-record the tracks "Demoniac", "Ritual" and
"Weltering In Blood" for the full-length? How did you want them to be
different from the demo versions?
BW+BH: Because we knew we could make them more brutal.
33)Tell us the whole story of the desecration of Ross Bay Cemetary...
BH: Sorry but we can't reveal that, for it may be incriminating.
34)How did you get in contact with Wild Rags and tell us about the events
leading to the release of the cult "Fallen Angel of Doom".
BW: We went down to Seattle, did a gig there, and we played in San Francisco
and decided to drive down to L.A. just to check out the scenery. We had
friends down in Anaheim so we went and hooked up with them and then we went
to Wild Rags and bought a bit of stuff from there like a few CD's and tapes
to listen to. I think he already had our demo so we asked him what sort of
deal he could do us and he said that yeah I can sign you guys but he could
only pay us a dollar per copy he sold, which we never did get paid. We got
only about 2-3 $300 checks from him which didn't even pay for fucking all
the mail since we gave out tons of free promo stuff.
35)What's your opinion of Wild Rags?
BW: They're a bunch of Wild Fags as far as I'm concerned because they're a
big rip-off.
36)Tell me about the cover art for "Fallen Angel Of Doom".
BW: A girl named Conny drew it all up for us.
37)Did you have any input on what it would look like?
BW: We kind of explained it. We just said we want something brutal,
something in the lines of a bit of goatery, some demonry and that's what she
came up with.
38) Why did you decide to change the logo for the full-length?
BW: We were just fucking around seeing what might look better. We like both
designs and we're gonna stick with the one that's on Fallen Angel of Doom.
39)What was the response to the full-length?
Storms: It surprised me, I thought it was pretty amazing anyhow. It was
pretty positive.
40)Why did Sodomizer leave the band and how did you find Ace Gustapo
Necrosleezer and Vaginal Commands?
BH+BW: Sodomizer's job was taking up too much of his rehearsal time, so he
parted from the band but is still a very good friend. Just phoned here at
Black Winds' 1/2 hour ago. So we got Ace Gustapo to play with us. He lived
close to our rehearsal place at Black Winds' house and came to lots of our
rehearsals.
41)Did writing for "Gods of War" begin before or after Necrosleezer joined
the band?
BW: Before.
42) How did you want to progress from "Fallen.." when you began writing
"Gods of War"?
BW: Just to be more brutal and heavier.
Storms: There wasn't any kind of a plan really, it was just a collection of
leftover songs and a few newer ones that Black Winds wrote on his own. I
think maybe Black Priest had to do with some of them too but he didn't stay
in the group that much longer when he came back.
43)How did Ace Gustapo contribute to the music/lyrics and did you find it
odd writing material with a new member? Did he influence Blasphemy in any
way?
BW: No he never wrote nothing. No music, no lyrics.
44) So besides the demo tracks, the "Gods of War" lyrics are all written by
you?
BW: Yeah.
45)How did you get in contact with Herve and decide to release it on Osmose?
How did he "make it all possible" like it says in the "Gods of War" credits?
BW: I really can't remember. I think he sent us like $5000 to go record
with, so that's one way he made it possible.
46)Why did you decide to re-record the demo tracks "Blasphemy", "Blasphemous
Attack", "Nocturnal Slayer" and "War Command"?
BW: Because we knew we could make them more brutal.
47)Why did you decide to concentrate on war for this album? Tell us how war
and satanism blend together perfectly...
BH+BW: We think it's the perfect combination!
48) Tell me what the cover is supposed to represent.
BW: Just BLACK METAL. Although the cover itself wasn't quite as ballistic as
we wanted it, we like the symbols though. On the CD it says artwork done by
bell illustrations or something so I don't know what the fuck that was about
since all that artwork was done from a friend of ours from Victoria.
49)Tell me about the occult symbols on the "Gods of War" cover.
BW: Those were made up by a guy from the Black Pentagram Cult in Victoria.
50) Why did Necrosleezer leave the band?
BW: He was kicked out. Well, asked to leave anyway, because he wasn't a true
black metallist. You should've heard some of the other bands he was
in...like really lightweight thrash metal.
51)Tell me about your involvement with the occult...
BW+BH: We rarely talk about our rituals etc...
52)Tell me about your satanism...
BW+BH: That's another thing we can't discuss, maybe if we were in person
sorry.
53) What do you think about the Necronomicon?
BW: There's better. I prefer Crowley and stuff myself. I don't know, the
Necronomicon is not that bad. It's got its parts to it.
54) Who are your favorite occult authors and books?
BW: Aleister Crowley for one. Definitely number one. A bit of Anton LaVey.
Both those two authors and all the Equinoxes from Crowley.
55) Some morons think you have to believe in god to be a Satanist and that
if you say you're a Satanist but don't believe in god you're a hypocrite.
What do you think about that?
BW: I think that's a bunch of rubbish.
56) What do you think of bands who claim to be Black Metal but are only
Anti-christians?
BW: I prefer the more hardcore satanist black metal bands if it's going to
be black metal.
57) What do you think of "black metal" bands who say they're not satanists
but are only Anti-christians or misanthropists and shit like that?
BW: That's just an excuse.
58)Can you tell us about all your tattos? What do they depict?
BH+BW: They are nuclear explosions, demons, lots of different goats like:
sabbatic, Mendez, etc...Black Winds, Black Hearts, "Ryan Conqueror" Warlord
all have the desecrator demon from the back of Fallen Angel of Doom.
59) What does the goat represent to you?
BW: Kind of our mascot, hard to say. It's just right up there with
demonology...I don't know how to answer that one.
60)Tell us about the tours you guys have done. What kind of hell did you
raise on tour? Did a lot of people get fucked up on those tours?
BW+BH: Well a bunch of guys in Frieburg Germany slit their arms open as soon
as we played Ritual. They also picked up Black Winds and carried him
throughout the crowd. Another guy committed suicide at the Black Cat in
Germany.
61)Who have you liked playing with most and where are your most violent
crowds? What are the most violent things your audience has done?
BW+BH: Black Witchery, Marduk, most violent crowds have been in Vanc.
believe it or not. Even a couple of full on riots. We were blacklisted to
play gigs here after that for a while.
62)Tell me more about your live performances. What do you try to accomplish
in every show?
BH+BW: We try to accomplish desecration + war! With pyrotechnics.
63)Why did Blasphemy stop playing shows and putting out new material?
BH: We stopped playing shows cause I started a riot on the plane, punched
out a cop and had to do some time. But we're back in full force now HAIL
SATAN!
BW: That's a good question. We were all just kind of tired and we needed a
bit of a break. I don't know, I can't say for everybody but that's kind of
the way I felt.
64)What have you guys been up to for the past 8 years?
BW: We all still get together and go to gigs and go out drinking. We've just
been keeping up with all the new black metal and stuff coming out.
65) Are you guys still in contact with most of the people you were friends
with back in the old days?
BW: Not really cause we've kind of been out of circuit since '93.
66)How did you get in contact with Black Witchery and decide to play live
again?
BH: Black Witchery gave Black Winds a call and I answered the phone and I
asked them to shoot out to Vancouver and we set up a show at the Columbia
hotel, got them on the bill. Our first show in 7 years with the original
line-up and with new guitar player Ryan from Conqueror and the
show..everybody was packed in like sardines, 300 people and 100 Black Metal
freaks trying to get in on the outside. The last song Ritual, rockets went
off and blew the roof off the place. I couldn't believe it, first gig in 7
years and we blew the fucking roof off the place. Not 1 fight just someone
broke a leg slamming, how is that for a comeback? 1/2 the roof landed on the
thunder machine.
67)Tell us how it felt playing in front of an audience again. How was the
crowd?
BH: Felt evil just like any other show and the crowd was one of the evilest
I've ever seen in years HAIL SATAN.
68)Do you look forward to playing more live shows in the future and do you
have any planned? How will they be different from your older shows?
BH+BW: Yes we look forward to playing with Black Witchery in July or August.
Be different in 1 way only: pyrotechnics.
69)Tell us about the new material you've been writing.
BW: It's in the vein of songs like Goddess of Perversity, Fallen Angel of
Doom and The Desolate One. That's what the new songs are like.
70) How many songs have you written so far?
BW: We've got three and I think part of a fourth.
71) Are you going to release the new album on Osmose again?
BW: That's hard to say because we're getting tons of different deals from
labels.
72) I heard you were going to re-record "Fallen Angel Of Doom", is this
going to happen?
BW: I think that was the plan. We were going to record it but I'm not sure
what's going on now about it.
73) How often are you rehearsing?
BW: We just got back about 10 minutes ago from a rehearsal. Pretty much
about four days a week. We got a bus strike right now in our city so we're
having a little bit of difficulty now and then getting out there.
74) What is the current line-up for Blasphemy?
BW: Caller of the Storms, 3 Black Hearts of Damnation and Impurity, me,
Bestial Saviour of the Undead Legions, and Warlord of the Arcane Rites of
Bloodlust.
75) When did Bestial Saviour join the band and what has he contributed to
Blasphemy?
BW: He was in it a few years ago so now he's rejoined and today he was
writing a new song.
76)Overall, would you say Blasphemy is Black Metal, Black/Death or something
else?
BH+BW: Only Black Metal.
77)What do you think your greatest strengths as a band are?
Storms: Fuck, I don't know. I just like to play fast and aggressive. In the
beginning we kinda even held back to kind of fit in with what people expect.
We don't have to hold back anymore.
78)Is there anything else you'd like to say or talk about?
BW: Thanks for doing this interview. Look out for the new assault...it's
coming. It'll be a Black Metal holocaust. Hail to all Black Metal Elitists
and Black Metal Skinheads everywhere.
