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Let’s start off by
telling us a little bit about the new album!?
Paulus
- Buy it!
I did, but I haven’t
listened to it yet.
Paulus
- What, did you pay for it? We don’t know the price yet.
Cheap, ten bucks!
Paulus
- Good. Canadians get it for ten.
Verminaard
- Americans have to pay fifty! (laughter all around…) …On the new one, there
is a three song trilogy. The trilogy is kind of like a prequile to the
“River…(Of Corticone)” saga. The main character in “River…”, was Amemnon;
and, the prequile is basically about how Amemnon was born, his rise to power
and everything else. The other eight songs are individual stories, in their
own right. They are not connected in any way.
Paulus
- There will be another album to come as well.
Verminaard
– Oh, definitely many more to come!
Cool, just no live shows
eh!?
Verminaard
- (Quickly snaps) Not in this town!
Paulus
- Not in this town. There will (still) be live shows.
Verminaard
- We’ll still be going on. There’s no way we are quitting. What you
witnessed tonight was, probably by far, 10 times better then the other shows
in Edmonton.
Paulus
- Edmonton is dying. This metal here is shit! People are shit! That is
what I have to say…there are true people here, some people, not many mind
you but…
Verminaard
- You can count them on one hand.
Where, do you find the
better scenes around Canada, or anywhere?
Verminaard
- For the Canadian scene, it’s not a big mystery that the Montreal area is
the place to be…(pauses)…just cause they are full of freaks…(laughter)…but,
I dunno. I talked to a lot of people around the world, and people complain
about the scene wherever they live. Like…if you live in X, the scene in
sucks in X. If you live in Y, the scene sucks in Y.
Ya, the scene sucks in
Sweden, even though they have a million bands!
Verminaard
- That’s it! I’ve talked to people from Norway that say there’s like 10
people at shows, and no one cares. And, there’s this big wealth of bands
there and still no one comes to shows.
Paulus
- There was an explosion, basically an explosion of this new scene of black
metal, that is where the new scene came fuckin’ from…(pauses) And, mind
you, I cannot talk. I haven’t been there myself, but I’ve read interviews
and so forth where they say the scene is shitty. They are happy when 50
people come…a hundred people come,. We had two hundred people here tonight!
Verminaard
- Well, basically the scene over there, where there’s a wealth of bands, is
the same kind of live scene there is here. And,
there’s no bands (in
Edmonton). Ya know, this town is getting better.
Ya, I have a lot of
death and black metal shows from Europe, and lots of the time, they only get
75 people at these shows!
Paulus
- You got that on video? I might have to write and get some stuff.
Sure…So, are you happy
with the production of the new album?
Verminaard
- Oh, yeah!
Paulus
- Yes, it blows “River…” away. Playing is much better. And production is
much better.
 Verminaard
- Ironically, it was in a technologically inferior studio then we recorded
“River…” in, but it is amazing how an engineer who understands where we are
coming from helps. The guy that recorded “River…”, he’s adequate and he
refuses to go beyond adequate, like I’m at this level and I don’t care to go
anymore. I mean, he’s got an amazing studio and he can’t use it. I mean he
just can’t! If we had the engineer, we used this time in that studio, I
shudder to think what it could have sounded like!
So, you are not of the
opinion, that certain bands such as Dark Throne, Swordmaster, and Grand
Belial’s Key need a dirty sound to play this kind of music!?
Paulus
- I like raw production myself. I don’t think our production’s clean by any
fuckin’ means! I like raw production. That is what horde metal is, raw and
nasty and fuck you in the face!
Verminaard
- Ya, like not overproduced glam/terra fucking garbage.
Morrisound, home of the
plastic sound!
Paulus
- Mind you, our music is a bit more…
Verminaard
- Extreme.
Paulus
- …Chaotic. You have to have you. Can’t have that production on our sort
of music…
Verminaard
- It would be stupid.
Paulus
- …It would be jumbled. I do like raw. I love raw production. I do my own
project, too, on a four track…pure rawness!
What’s the name of the
project?
Paulus
- Pure Beligerence. I dunno. It’s going to be like a 4 song demo. That’s
in the future.
Are there any plans, for
licensing for European distribution?
Verminaard
- Plastic Head (U.K.) have basically bought the rights to our stuff. And,
we do lots of trading with smaller labels, like Avantgarde moves an amazing
amount of our stuff. Like, who would have thought?!
Paulus
– Ya! More then anyone else, eh? (looks at Verminaard).
Verminaard
– Ya! Pretty much Avantgarde and Cold Meat Industry.
Does Plastic Head Canada
move any?
Verminaard
– Ya! Them and C.D.N. (Civilian Death Network from Ontario, Canada -Dale),
they are the biggest ones in Canada, we just basically (go) with trading…(at
this point, we are interrupted by someone dressed as a pirate, saying “You
guys seen ‘death’ (a.ka. Grim Reaper) go thru here?”)…(Verminaard glares at
him)…No! We haven’t seen anybody…(looks in the direction he wants the
pirate to quickly leave, and he does so with haste).
Where do you find the
biggest response coming from?
Paulus
- It seems pretty fuckin’ global to me!
Verminaard
- I get mail from all over the place. If I was to separate the envelopes
that I have into countries, I betcha it’s damned even. Like it’s all over.
Like even eastern Europe and Asia and it is kind of neat because I didn’t
even know they had any bands. But, people are writing, emailing (from
everywhere)! Some guy in Israel has our disc. Like, what?! Okay how did
you get that?
Do you ever get a chance
to really talk to the fans?
Verminaard
- We prefer not to!
Paulus
- I prefer to keep distance from everybody.
Verminaard
- We prefer solitude basically.
Paulus
– Hence, the term ‘last show ever in Edmonton’. I am sick and tired of
people trying to kiss my ass.
Verminaard
- Since the band’s inception, this is probably the 3rd live
interview we have ever done, everything is pen and paper. Like, we got off
stage and people I don’t even know, for all I know got into metal last week
or something…(Mimicking them)…”Oh wicked show, I wanna shake your hand”.
Paulus
- Fuck off!
What are some of the
bands you take your inspirations from, past and present?
Paulus
- No one, mind you…
Verminaard
- When were writing songs, we don’t sit there and go let’s do something
(like this)…
I mean, do you find
them, subconsciously, coming out?
Paulus
- I don’t know, you tell us.
Verminaard
- Truthfully, I don’t think so but, uh, but it’s bound to happen.
Paulus
- I read a lot of reviews, that say we sound like Behirit and Order From
Chaos.
Verminaard
– Ya! I have a whole whack of Order From Chaos discs, and I don’t think we
sound like them!.
I don’t either.
Paulus
- Somebody wrote you (beckoning in Verminaard’s direction), and said “How do
you, get this weird production?, I wanna do it”.
Verminaard
– Ya! I had some guy from Sweden, “Your disc sounds really weird, I’d like
to know how you did it?”. Get an inadequate
Engineer. That’s how we
did it. Hire some guy off the street.
Do you, see ‘zines as an
important part of the underground?
Verminaard
- Definitely, yeah.
Paulus
– Ya. Totally.
Verminaard
- People like me, when I see an ad or read reviews or whatever that’s the
kind of stuff I’m gonna look for first. Specially if it’s a bad review. I
think as a rule if it’s a bad review I will probably like
it…(laughter)…Like, not to knock them down, but S.O.D. that magazine every
single review “aaarrgghh fuck ten fucking skulls eerrrrr….” that’s it for
the review. That doesn’t tell me anything. When they cut it up, the guitar
sounds blah and oh the vocals sound blah, then it’s more interesting. I get
more from it. I’m like, oh I wanna check this out. Nine times out of ten,
I like it!.
Yeah, I get a kick out
of S.O.D. too. They interview an old well known band like Slayer, and “Can
you give a history of the band!?”…(laughter)… Do you do correspondence, with
any particular ‘zines at all, or not since you did only three interviews…
so not really?
Verminaard
- Umm, we do a lot of written stuff. Like I said they (‘zines) send me
questions in the mail…email. If anyone sends me an
interview in email, I do
it. I’m not gonna push people away.
How does your writing
process go? Does everyone contribute?
Verminaard
- I would say, 98% of the time lyrically is Wor. Obviously we have full
feedback. If he presents us with lyrics and there is a line or word we
don’t like…
Paulus
- I think “River…” was all written by Wor wasn’t it? (Looking at Verminaard).
Verminaard
- Yes, the entire thing (lyrically) was written by him. There’s a couple
songs I wrote on the new album. But, still it was mostly him. Musically,
it is a total band thing, Like I would say…
Everyone comes in with
their own stuff?!
Verminaard
- Yeah, definitely! Like Wor and I present riffs to each other and “so
that’s lame and that’s good”, whatever. Get it down, show it to Paulus, and
he’s like “Oh, that’s good and that’s lame”. We just throw stuff out and
just go from there. It’s a total trio.
Paulus
- If something sucks, we don’t use it.
Are you looking at
adding anyone else to the band to round it out?
Verminaard
- Well, if there’s any, how shall I word this…(pause)…worthy, worthy guitar
players, we used to have another guitar player…
Paulus
- Actually, we’ve had two different guitar players, it never seems to work,
we work very good as a three piece.
Verminaard
- We’re willing to try people who have the same kind of philosophies as us.
If we were to try somebody out, it would be a hanging out process before we
would even have them come to the rehearsal space. Just because, there are
so many people that appear to be into it (the music and the scene) and when
it comes down to it, they are full of shit!.
So, a new player
couldn’t be a fan, cause you hate the fans?!
Verminaard
- Yes, a one way ticket into our band is…(jokingly)…”I heard that new disc,
it sucked!!”, your in!.
(The guy would go) “I
can play better then that!.”
Verminaard
- Well, then you wouldn’t be in. We’re antimusician musicians. I hate the
term musician. Music sucks. I learn how to play and I’m going to sell my
instrument. Musicians, take all of the feeling out of it and turn it into
music. What an ugly term!.
So, what do you prefer
to call yourselves?
Verminaard
- Nothing.
Paulus
- Apocalyptic nuclear hate filled blackness. There is no denying it is pure
fucking metal!
Verminaard
- Metal way of life, live it, die it!
Have you found, your
music, has evovled a lot from the “Misanthropy” demo, to the first album, to
the new one?
Verminaard
- Yes, for sure. The writing style on the demo was a lot different. It was
a actually more technical…(Woman dressed as a cop, comes up the walkway and
yells “Stop police, give up all of your goods…(pause)…you all fucking ignore
me”)…good! (spits Verminaard).
Is that, one of the
stupid people, you are talking about?!
Verminaard
- That’s one of them!
Paulus
- These fucking rotting human beings…
Verminaard
- …(picking up where he left off)…it’s a natural procession, you play with
people long enough, we all think the same, like showing Paulus a riff or
something and he puts drums to it. Like he already knows it’s gonna go. Oh
yeah, he already knows the second part, how it’s going to go, where as like
on the demo it was a feeling out type thing, it was more mechanical, but now
it just…
Paulus
- Flows
Verminaard
- Right!
When you are recording
an album, are the songs planned out a hundred percent ahead of time, or is
it just whatever flows out as you record?
Verminaard
- No, it is all written a hundred percent.
Paulus
- People who listen who doesn’t know this music, it may sound chaotic…
Verminaard
- A lot of people say the vocals don’t seem to fit…
Paulus
- But, we do it the same everytime.
Verminaard
- We think it fits, obviously, we wouldn’t write it that way.
Paulus
- Then again, who cares what everyone fuckin’ thinks! I play metal for
myself.
Verminaard
- Anyone, who plays music for other people are scum! I kind of appreciate
how the French black metal scene (France not Quebec - Dale), is coming about
now. They are like fuck you to everybody. The Imperial Horde (black metal
circle of bands -Dale), I totally respect that. They are like on their CD’s
no contact! Fuck off! We don’t go that far, but I understand where they
are coming from and I respect that. They get total hails from me.
Do you not see that that
can potentially hurt the fan base, and people won’t care anymore?
Verminaard
- People, who are truly into it…
Paulus
- …Well, understand where we are coming from!
Verminaard
- You see a CD that says don’t write us. If you are truly into it, you will
understand… (Three dressed up partiers approach, one points to the others
costume and says “Come on, gentlemen, does he not look like the Esso tiger?
(Mascot of a large gas station chain in Canada - Dale)…(Verminaard glares at
them)…We are busy he re,
excuse us!.
Paulus
- We need a holocaust of people like that. Global holocaust now!
Verminaard
- The only way to save this world is to eliminate three quarters of all the
people. They used to say half…that’s not enough!.
Any areas you are
thinking of going to play live?
Paulus
- Anywhere but Edmonton.
Maybe, like B.C.
(Province of British Columbia) or somethin’?
Verminaard
- Tentatively, we have planned in the spring a Canadian stint. That is,
what we would like to do for now, then after that…
Paulus
- Some members have legal problems with crossing borders, into other
countries. We were offered a tour…
Verminaard
- We were offered a tour with Destroyer 666 and Dark Funeral, but a court
case is pending. I love Australian bands…just
Chaos…fellow
commonwealth (country too).
Is there a chance of
maybe going out with a band like Conqueror (a B.C. band on Evil Omen/Osmose
records, who have a member(s) from the Edmonton area, that are known to S.A.
-Dale)?
Verminaard
– Well a band ‘like’ Conqueror probably, anything is possible. Let’s say in
the past we (themselves and a member(s) of Conqueror) agreed to disagree on
issues. There is not a lot of communication between us. That may change.
Who knows?
Paulus
- I like their music. Fuckin’ great music…(The conversation, goes into band
tours and money ect…for a band to do on it’s own) …we have a very
respectable person fronting us money to do our albums. Hail Troy!.
Verminaard
- Yes, definitely! Troy from Catharsis Records (the label which released
both the bands albums, also the man who helps run Area 51, the club which
housed the show on this night, a great guy and dedicated supporter of
underground metal!!. - Dale), get’s nothing but…
Paulus
- Total gratitude from all three of us. But, there is no way he could front
that kinda cash (for touring).
Verminaard
- Who knows?! With this new CD you get a whole new wack of interest.
People are crazy man. One day I will get an email, “If I sent you the money
would you come over and play”. I would have to think about that…for about
four seconds!
Well, I think that is
about it. Some final comments and future plans?
Paulus
- Thanks for the interview. Hail everyone that is true to metal! Fuck off
to anyone who is not! Fuck off to kiss asses!
Many more albums to
come?
Paulus
– Definitely.
Verminaard
– Many! We are going to keep going until: a) either of my hands fall off,
or b) I learn how to play!
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