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When did you first discover rock and metal
music and who were the first artists and bands that you listened to? Do you
remember what the first albums, demos and/fanzines you bought? Being from
Philadelphia what is it you like about living in a big city, and a some
things you dislike about it (any thoughts of ever moving out)?
As a kid ( as far back as I can remember ) I
first found Kiss , I grew up with 8 brothers so they were coming home with a
lot of punk and metal , so at a young age I was listening to a lot of The
Misfits, early Metallica ,Venom, Slayer, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Possessed,
Exodus, Death, Destruction, Sodom, Minor
Threat, Fugazi, The Crumbsuckers, Cromags,
Motorhead, Kreator, Ludichrist, stuff like that.
I believe the first album I bought myself was
Slayer – Haunting the chapel.
I didn’t really get into demo trading until the
90’s, before that I was just buying albums from the store, I had a really
good record store in my neighborhood and the owner would let you listen to
the albums before you bought them, so I got a good amount of music there,
also they always had great bootleg concerts on cassette, so I purchased a
whole lot of good bootlegs there.
As far as zines , I would say I probably bought
more zines from the store at first, back then they had some really killer
stuff in the store bought magazines , later on I started getting more into
the underground zines, as far as the timeline it’s a bit cloudy, I remember
getting Bathory zine, of course Canadian Assault later on, Metal Nightmare,
its been so long it all kind of blends together in my memories to be honest.
And living in Philly there’s not a whole lot
keeping me here right now, other then the food and convenience of having
everything I need right in the area, I don’t really have any good things to
say, murders and robberies are just getting worse, I sit in my backyard at
night and hear gunshots in all directions, bullshit woke ideologies plague
the city, opiates (leading to the zombie apocalypse as I call it) are
destroying a lot of areas along with homelessness, I spend a lot of time at
my drummers house in the mountains 3 hours away from the city to get away
and write new music for Namtaru, almost every weekend I’m up there, I have
no plans to move as of right now but I’m certainly not opposed to it.
What drew you to the more
extreme and evil side of metal, what was the progression for you from your
initial rock/heavy metal bands, to work your way up to the thrash, black and
death metal scenes? And what is it about these genres that has kept you in
the Underground scene over the decade's?
I always had a love for extreme metal, I found
a lot of great albums at a very young age, I was also a very morbid as a kid
and into the occult (still am that way) , so I was always looking for the
next best thing, always looking for more extreme metal, I was very into
death metal towards the late 80’s early 90’s and then the 2nd
wave of black metal hit me and I knew what I wanted to do from there, these
days I get really bored with new stuff, I can’t stand the cookie monster
death metal hahaha, I mostly listen to old 80’s thrash, black, death metal
hardcore, punk, and of course 90’s black metal, also I listen to a good
amount of old rock bands Motorhead, Black Sabbath, The Beatles, The Doors,
mostly 60’s and 70’s rock. I will always keep writing and releasing new
Namtaru songs, its something I just can’t stop doing, that old school black
metal is always coursing through my veins and it keeps me going through
thick and thin!
You started Namtaru in 1995, what gave you the
idea to start this band?
What meaning does the name have for you? Tell us about the recording process
of their debut EP “The Plagues of Namtar”? This EP came out on Gothic
Records, tell us how this deal came together? The next release was a split,
I remember this second label World War III vaguely, what can you tell us
about them?
In 1995 me and
original singer Azael ( Tim Day R.I.P.) started Namtaru as we both were
really into the 2nd wave of black metal, the band name came from some
personal experiences I had with occult rituals, at the time I was diving
deep into my occult studies and doing some really dark rituals, we then met
up with all of the Blood Storm guys at a party here in Philly in 1996 and
Teloc Coraxo ( Frank Gamble) joined us on drums, who later brought in
Shaitan (John Litchko) on 2nd lead guitar and I brought my high school
friend Chuck Sherwood in to play bass for Namtaru, we all wound up also
doing Perverseraph and Blood Storm later on, we first recorded The plagues
of Namtar EP with Azael on vocals, he then had a falling out with one of our
other band members and left, I then started doing the vocals
for Namtaru and went back to the studio and we redid the vocals and remixed
The plagues of Namtar EP and it was later picked up by Gothic records, along
with our Perverseraph EP Savage Messiah , the 2 EP’s came out right around
the same time and sold really well, the owner of Gothic records later
started WW3 records I believe around 2001 and asked us to do a remastered
split with our 2 releases on one CD , so both of those EP’s were the same
exact members the only difference was at first I wrote all Namtaru songs and
Shaitan wrote most of the Perverseraph songs.
 Who
was the dumb fuck that got your identity wrong on Encyclopedia Metallium
(both under the the name Namtar and under Axarcuth, both incorrect
separately on different band pages)!? Have you ever tried to have it
corrected? I like this site but they need to make sure the information is
correct.
I honestly don’t
know what asshole that was but have been trying to get it fixed for years,
the pic on the Namtaru page was also wrong, I’m not even in the picture it’s
Shaitan, Teloc Coraxo and Alex Boulks in that pic and like I said I really
have no clue who wrote that shit up, but if anyone knows how I can get it
fixed contact me and let me know.
Who would you say are the bands biggest influences over the years? Have they
stayed the same or has the music style changed over the years and releases?
Do you think your playing is better than the old days, and is does that even
matter for you or for what you want to create with Namtaru?
I would say my
biggest influences are Voivod, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, Kreator, Old
Darkthrone, early Emperor and Enslaved, Impaled Nazarene’s first album,
Death, early Carcass, Slayer, Satyricon, a whole lot to mention on that
subject but they are some of my influences, I don’t feel they changed much
over the years , as far as my playing goes, I feel it has gotten better with
age and the new songs we’re working on are pretty sick, we try to keep the
same sound and style, but have definitely written a few songs recently that
have some more melodic parts and some experimental parts to them, but we are
also working on some really sick old school sounding songs as well. I like
to mix it up a little these days, I like songs to be great but also fun to
play at the same time. If you aren’t having fun with what you’re doing
what’s the point?
“Strange Tales Of Uptown R'leyh” is a new Anthology release, which I believe
is all your songs from your two EP's and split releases. What gave you the
idea to do a compilation release? Do you feel like there are different eras
of the bands music, line-ups, and are you still in one of those eras with
your 2019 EP & 2020 Split releases, or do you feel like you are entering
into a new different one?
Well I have been
working with a good amount of labels all over different parts of the world,
the idea actually came from my good friend Jay from Masters of Kaos
productions in Colombia, we are actually going to do a 2nd anthology with
the demo’s before I was singing and some practices, live and unreleased
songs as well, the only release I feel is a bit different was the 4 songs we
did on the split album ( That is not dead which can eternal lie ) with Legio
Inferi from Colombia, originally we were not supposed to be on this release,
another band was supposed to do it and then dropped off, so we did a little
experiment in writing and recording and in the end it was not my proudest
work, but it still came out pretty sick, But I feel the sound is much
different then our other releases. As of the last 15 years it has been
myself and Drummer Ben ( Daimon ) Fahy also Shaitan was on some of the newer
stuff but will not be joining us anymore for future recordings. Ego’s are
not my thing, that’s all I can really say on that subject.
You kind of put Namtaru on hold at a certain
point. I believe this is when you joined Perverseraph and probably more
importantly (or am I wrong about that?) Blood Storm. What do you remember
about this time frame, were you excited to join these two bands and tell us
some thoughts or memories of the early days in those bands?
Well in the beginning we were pulling off all
three bands, after a good couple years we decided the Namtaru and
Perverseraph stuff was starting to become the same as we were all writing
for the newer stuff in Perverseraph and wanted to focus more on one band,
myself being the bigger person at the time chose to lay Namtaru to rest for
a while, after that all songs were done as Perverseraph, Blood Storm however
was it’s own entity, I was constantly touring with Blood Storm and did quite
a few releases with them over the years, I left the band in 2003ish and went
on only to play with Perverseraph until around 2007, we went through quite a
few lineups in that era of Perverseraph, many drummers and Mike Trush (ex
Deteriorate) on bass and later on drums as well. After the end of the
Perverseraph era I started playing with Ben and eventually reformed Namtaru.
I have great memories and some shitty memories with all 3 bands honestly ,
but don’t choose to dwell on the negative . With all 3 bands I have met and
played shows with almost every band I ever
listened to and respected. So just that in itself was pretty awesome!
Is it true you basically wrote, or at least
mostly created an entire Perverseraph album that was never fully recorded or
released? Why did this not happen, was it frustrating and/or did it feel
like you wasted your time putting in all of this effort? Did this event lead
to your departure from the band? Have you any plans to repurpose any of that
material for Namtaru, or is that material just too different from Namtaru?
The answer to that is yes unfortunately, I feel
that the lost Perverseraph album was some of the sickest stuff I ever wrote
in my whole career, all rhythm and lead guitar as well as drums were
recorded , we spent almost a year working on the album, as we were nearing
the end of the recording Shaitan said he wanted to talk and proceeded to
break up the band because he only wrote one riff on each song, I felt almost
devastated as this was some of my best writings ever and I know Mike Trush
wasn’t happy about it either. I am actually trying to get the recordings
from the studio we recorded the album in , but have faced many road blocks
as Shaitan keeps harassing the studio about rights to the recordings, so
yeah it all boils down to once again Ego’s , I just don’t get it, if you
didn’t wanna release the album because I wrote 99% of it, why put up a fight
when I’m trying to get it out there? That whole scenario makes 0% sense to
me and this was honestly a story I didn’t wish to tell, but I’m just being
honest. When I do get my hands on it, yes it will be released as Namtaru.
I should disclose something here, and that is
you and I used to hang out quite regularly at Chris Gamble’s (Blood Storm,
Goreaphobia) house many weekends from, if memory serves, from say 1999 to
2003ish. I attended some Blood Storm rehearsals, and traveled with the band
on many road excursions. So that is the long winded preamble to ask for some
event memories we share. Such as a car accident (car flipped on it’s roof in
the ditch) on the way back from a gig, a live in studio recording session at
the WNYU radio station in NYC, and the mini-tour with Sadistic Intent,
Nunslaughter and others. Go…
Yeah man, I believe you have your years right,
I remember you coming to rehearsals quite frequently, the car accident was
crazy, we played with Destroyer 666 that night along with many other great
bands, we were driving home from the show in 2 cars, unfortunately the car I
was in got sideswiped by a car doing way over 100 miles per hour, Chuck was
driving and we had my little brother and 2 other friends in the back seat,
we flipped down the highway about 200 to 300 feet and landed in some swampy
water upside down, I was drowning when I awoke, I blacked out once we
started flipping, so yeah when I came to, I was completely submerged under
water, I tried to kick the window out but couldn’t as the roof was crushed
in and I was panicking, finally I found the window controls and was able to
open the window and crawl out, I then started pulling people out of the car
and I believe your car full of people backed up and seen what happened, Vas
from Black witchery was playing drums for us that night and I remember I
couldn’t get Chuck out and he came over with a pocket knife and cut Chuck’s
seat belt off. My brother broke his back and everyone was in bad shape,
amazing as it is we all lived and as soon as everyone was safely out of the
car my adrenaline ran out and I collapsed on the side of the road next to my
brother. I couldn’t walk for 2 months and I believe and had a concussion for
almost 6 months, so yeah that was wild.
The radio station thing was really cool, we
played live on the air in New York City and then yes we played with Nun
Slaughter and Sadistic Intent along with some other great bands later that
night.
Also I remember you coming to Chris Gamble’s
house quite frequently over those years, we had our weekly parties with some
really cool people over there quite often, those were the good old days for
sure! (These gatherings were great, a lot of dedication people from the UG
scene and bands like Abazagorath, Funebrarum, Kult Of Azazel, Goreaphobia,
Black Witchery, Absu etc… - Dale)
What led to your departure from, is it fair to
say, your longest active band (in regards to rehearsing,
playing live and recording/releases) with Blood Storm? Do you miss Blood
Storm or are you happy to move on and do a band you are control of and write
the music for?
Blood Storm was definitely a band I did a lot
with, Chris was a great front man who I learned a lot from working with and
we were really good friends for years, I think my years with them were some
of the best for my music career, My decision to leave came from too much
control of our music by our label at the time, it was run by Chris’s ex wife
and I just wasn’t comfortable with some things that were going on, so yeah I
departed the band on some terms I wish never happened, Thankfully quite a
few years later when I was with Perverseraph we played a show in North New
Jersey with the then reformed Goreaphobia and me and Chris spoke for a while
and basically I believe we both came to a understanding on the whole thing,
we still talk here and there on Facebook and run into each other at the
supermarket every now and then. I do miss playing shows and recording with
them as we had a great thing going for many years, but I definitely like
writing my own songs now, not for the control aspect, but for being able to
work without any problems or concerns other then writing and playing new
music and also being able to release my own albums through my own label.
Are you still in contact with and/or comrades
with Blood Storm main man Chris Gamble (aka Mezzadurus) these days? How
about Chuck Sherwood (ex-Blood Storm, now Incantation), do you still talk to
or see Chuck around? Are you currently in any bands outside of Namtaru? Do
you think you would ever be open to joining another existing band?
Like I said in the previous question I do still
talk to Chris now and then, also his brother Frank ( Teloc Coraxo ) as far
as Chuck goes I haven’t spoken to him in quite
a
good amount of years now, not because I don’t want to, I have known Chuck
since high school, but I guess we have both been pretty busy and our paths
just haven’t crossed in years, I’m sure one day our paths may cross again,
our scene is only so big hahaha
As far as bands go I am only doing Namtaru now,
I don’t really care too much about touring anymore, I just wanna have fun
jamming and recording new stuff, we have quite the studio set up these days
and we’re having a blast making and recording new stuff.
 I believe not long ago you told me George (aka
Necrodemius Hammerhorde from Decieverion, ex-Crucifier) was joining the
band. How is that progressing. What is the current line-up of the band and
do you think it will last for a while?
Well I would really like for George to join up
with us, we were also going to work with his bassist Chris Chamberland, the
problem so far is where we play and record is 3 hours away in the mountains
of PA and they haven’t made their way up as of yet due to their work
schedules, but I would like if they came up and worked with us, I would be
able to play solo’s again at practice hahaha, so for now its just me and Ben
(Daimon) Fahy on drums, we’re about to record our new EP followed by a full
length that will be a concept album ,which we are both working on lyrically
and musically together. So either way we are doing what we want to be doing,
but yeah I hope those guys join us sometime in the future.
I
believe you also told me earlier this year that you are working on both a
new full length and a Mcd for Namtaru. Do you have any idea when these
releases might be out? Will they be released together or at separate times?
They will be out on Plague Demon?
So yes, we are
currently finishing up writing the EP, we have one more song to get down
perfectly and then we’ll start the recording process for that release which
yes will be released by Plague Demon, following this recording we will get
right to the full length and like I said in the previous question it will be
a concept album, we were forced to take a 2 year break as we both had some
things going on and just got back to writing in March, so I’m hoping the EP
will be done by July and the full length by the end of the year, but so far
I’m really excited about what we’re doing now and it’s just going to get
better and yes the full length will be
released on Plague Demon as well.
How long did
it take you to write the music for these upcoming releases? Is it all
new material or bits and bit and pieces you had from over the years? How
long would you say it usually takes to complete one song on average?
A few songs were
harder to get down and took a few rehearsals for us to get back in the swing
of things, now we have been getting songs down pretty quickly, our newest
song only took 1 day to get down, and yes its all new material, I’m thinking
of doing one song from the lost Perverseraph album because I feel that song
needs to see the light of day, but we’ll see what happens with that one. But
yes we are writing all new songs.
I believe over
the years that Namtaru has played some live shows. Any memories come to mind
and do you have a fave show you have done? What bands have Namtaru shared
the stage with? Do you enjoy playing live or do you prefer creating and
working in the studio?
Namtaru as
Namtaru has done a few really small show’s in comparison to the Blood Storm
and Perverseraph years, I think one show sticks out for me personally when
Azael was still on vocals, they were good years and a good start to a long
career for me, I absolutely do enjoy playing live in the past but don’t feel
the need to do so anymore, now I just wanna write and record in our own
studio at whatever pace we see fit, playing live is awesome but I feel it’s
something I did for years and at my age I’m cool with just writing and
recording now.
Do you have
any plans to tour or play some shows in support of the new releases when
they are released? Do you think you could ever put together a tour or
mini-tour with some bands from the Plague Demon stable?
I don’t see plans
to tour for us personally, but yes I want to put a tour together for Plague
Demon at some point, we’ll see how things go, the world is a fucked up place
these days
so who knows where life is going to take us at this point.
Speaking of
Plague Demon Records. Let’s switch gears and focus on that now. How
and when did the idea of starting a record label germinate? How longer after
the idea started brewing did it become a reality? Did you start out with a
shoestring budget, or did you save up a war chest for a while first?
Plague Demon
Records became a thought around 2019, I spent a year pondering and learning
all I could before it actually started up in 2020, I had a decent budget and
had received all 500 copies of my Namtaru – Ancient Serpent -7inch due to
the demise of Afterworld records, they folded the week my 7 inch came out
and I was given all of my vinyls so selling them gave me a little more cash
to work with (That is a nice shot in the arm starting out - Dale). The
beginning was a learning process, but I soon figured most things out and
started doing well after a while.
Are you
satisfied with how things have progressed with the label over the years? Do
you foresee Plague being purely a black metal label, or are you open to
other forms of metal? How did your many years of being in bands, recording
and releasing said recordings, as well as being in a band on other people’s
record labels prepare you for running your own label?
Thing’s have gone
really well, its been about 3 and a half years now and I’m going on physical
release number 80, I’m open to all forms of metal, but am easily bored with
anything outside of black metal so it really has to stand out to me for me
to take it. The only thing I learned over the years with other labels is I
don’t ever want to lie to any bands I’m supporting, that’s not good buisness.
And if something isn’t going to work, I need to just be honest about it. I
had some personal, physical issues that made me have to slow down for a
little while , but releases will still be coming from Plague Demon every
month or 2 as I’m working on new Namtaru stuff and focusing more of my time
on that right now and have plenty of releases to sell from all 80 releases
we have done so far.
What were your
first 3 releases for Plague Demon? What did you learn with those that helped
you sharpen your label activities into what they are today? Is it difficult
to promote your releases these days? Do you try to work with bands with a
member,
or members, that you know and have been in contact with previously?
My first 3
releases were:
Alvarez – Hadad
Blaspherion –
Path of fire
Deceiverion – The
Separation
I think I pretty
much had a good grasp on how to do things, of course I did figure out more
as time went by, I don’t think its hard to promote these albums I released,
with social media, webzines and occasionally paper zines that are far and
few between, but I do pay for many adds in paper magazines , I do deal with
some bands I know and I’m usually in contact with at least one member of
each band if not the whole band, but overall I find mostly new bands that
are really good. I have made offers to some bands I’m friends with, even
Blood Storm for our Ancient Wraith of Ku release (Killer album! -Dale), I’m
constantly getting people asking where they can get that album, so I asked
Chris and apparently he gave the rights to release this album to another
label, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this rerelease when it comes
out.
I know from having co-ran a label myself,
things often do not go to plan. Do you have any stories of release delays,
pressing problems, difficult bands to deal with or fellow record label
trades and/or distribution snags? You almost exclusively release only CDs
and digital, any plans in future for other formats?
Overall most things go to plan, like I was
saying earlier I had some physical issues that made a few things hard for me
to do at the time it was supposed to be done, I let all bands know what was
happening and one band I was working with didn’t have a care that I was
injured and stopped talking to me because the release wasn’t done on time, I
would have gotten the release out if they just waited until I healed up, but
they showed me their true colors and honestly they have tried to get money
they weren’t owed many times, one time I was asked for 4,000 dollars and
really didn’t appreciate the lies I was told when trying to get that money
from me, but I believe there has only been 2 bands out of 80 releases that
pulled some shady stuff and I dropped from the roster, as far as distro and
all of that I really never had any issues.
Also I do mostly CD and digital releases, I do
plan on getting vinyls out in the near future, I know cassette releases are
big these days but I don’t see that lasting, us older guys remember the
horrible issues you have with cassette tapes getting eaten by the tape deck
and having to wind the tape back in with a pencil, so I feel that fad will
disappear soon, but who am I to say, I just know I’m not releasing
cassettes, but I do carry other bands cassette releases.
With Plague Demon, I am not sure if it is every
release, but many of your releases have been co-released by Chuck and his
label Blasphemous Creations Of Hell from Florida. How did this alliance come
about? Do you two sign your own bands or do you come to a consensus on what
releases to do, and when? Do you ever disagree on a release and go it on
your own due to that?
Me and Chuck met over 20 years ago at The
sacrifice of the Nazarene child festival in San Antonio Texas and we wound
up at first just giving each other pointers for running our labels, in the
beginning we did co-releases here and there together and later on we
partnered up for 99% of releases. We did send submissions back and forth and
if we both liked the band we would sign them, if one of us liked a release
and the other one didn’t we would scrap it most of the time. There were a
few we didn’t do together because one of us liked it and the other didn’t,
but that was very rare. Unfortunately Chuck just folded his label as he was
not selling enough and loosing money which really sucks because we had a
great partnership, fortunately he is still doing the Blasphemous plagues of
hell radio show, so he is still giving recognition to many bands and has the
best black metal show out there. You can tune in every Wednesday at 7 PM
EST. So let’s give Chuck all the support we can and listen in each week.
Also if you’re a black metal band looking to be played on air contact Chuck
Manganiello on FB or messenger and send your submission to him.
Do you mainly take on
releases where the band already has something recorded (or do you get
involved prior to the recording)? Do you ever do multiple release agreements
ahead of time (i.e. - essentially a contract verbally or on paper)? What are
the current releases that you have available, from say the last year you
would like promote and recommend to the readers? What are some of the
upcoming releases that the readers should keep a eye out for?
I take new releases, sometimes rereleases,
I have had multiple bands do quite a few releases with me but hold no band
hostage, if you release with me and want to work with another label for your
next release I’m always ok with that, or if you want to do a cassette/ vinyl
of the same release I’m doing as long as you let me know I’m also cool with
that. This year I have done multiple Niohoggr releases as well as Amock, I
have rereleased Cranial Impalement’s first album as I’m great friends with
Caezar ( Yaotzin ) he also does Blaspherion/ Moribundus Christus/and Ritual
Possession, also I just rereleased George from Deceiverion’s old band
Invasive Command, as well as my own own Namtaru Anthology 1, next up to be
released is the A.K.U. / False Faith split, my Anthology 2 for Namtaru,which
by the way will be titled Strange tales of long lost worlds, followed by my
new Namtaru EP which I have not titled yet but have many names in the works
to choose from.
We have finally come to
the end my old friend and metal brother, on behalf of Patrick and myself I
would like to thank for your time and energy filling this thing out! I don’t
think we can interrogate you any further, to inform our readers on you, I
mean short of a Colonoscopy Haha. Please end with anything you want and
throw some contacts and links at us. Cheers.
I would like to say thank you to you and
Patrick both for all you do to support both Namtaru and Plague Demon
Records, I also want to thank all of my friends, family, supporters and fans
without you I would have nothing, hails to all of you!
Here's some links to find anything you’re
looking for both for Plague Demon Records and Namtaru:
https://plaguedemonrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://plaguedemonrecords.storenvy.com/
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