Interviewed by Christine, Answered by Xaphan First of all I’d like to know what’s been happening in the KULT OV AZAZEL camp these last few years… Since 2008 we’ve been fairly busy. We spent the end of 2008 doing the album. We spent 2009 playing shows and then this past December we lost a founding member. Since Xul decision to leave the band I have taken over all vocals and I brought VJS who played on The World, The Flesh & The Devil back into the band to take over bass duties. We also added Armanen of the band Tenebrous as a permanent member to the band October of last year. Why did it take you nearly four years to put out a new album? After we were done touring for The World, The Flesh & The Devil in 2005 there was about a year we didn’t do much due to various reasons I will not elaborate on. This made it difficult to get together as a band to write. At the end of 2006 it had become possible to start writing so we did. We had a lot of the material written and booked studio time for the summer of 2007 but had to cancel due to a reason I can’t remember. That gave me opportunity to start nit-picking what we already had and scraping a lot of riffs I had written. We got together again December 2007 then again in January 2008 and re-worked the song arrangements after the changes I had made and then booked studio time the second time around for summer of 2008. In July 2008 I got news from Hammer that he was going to Europe for a job he had just got and that we needed to cancel and re-schedule the studio for October/November of 2008. Then after the album was pressed and printed with a release date of March the distributor pulled our release date and refused to distribute the album due to the cover. This pushed the release date to June 2009. So that is the story behind why it took us 4 years to put it out. How would you describe “Destroying the Sacred” if you had to present it, trying to be as objective as possible? The only way I know to describe it would be that the album is 34 minutes of thrashing black metal entwined with heretical ideas. Can you point out the song you think is the most representative of the album’s sound? Let me first say I think the songs presented as a whole are all representative of the album’s sound. If I had to narrow it down I would say Gutting Religious Heritage or Conquer & Decimate. In which ways has your sound changed or evolved compared to “The World, The Flesh & The Devil”? The music hasn’t changed too much really. It’s still along the lines of what we did on The World, The Flesh & The Devil just more in a stripped down form with a bit more thrash style riffing/picking going on. More refined but overall, not much has changed sound wise other than the production on the album. Which do you think are the best and which the weakest elements in the band’s sound? It is hard for me to pinpoint our strong elements. I guess it would be that we continue to evolve as musicians album to album but have always kept our edge and true to the principles the band was built upon. As for the weakest, I couldn’t tell you. You’ve also included a NUCLEAR ASSAULT cover song. Why did you select this particular song and band? Hammer and I are always kicking around ideas for cover songs. I was watching the news some years ago when the Pope was visiting America and got the idea. Both of us are fans of the Game Over album so I called him up and he was all for it. When we were recording I brought the idea up again and we just did it and put it on the album. It was spontaneous, unrehearsed and fit perfectly with the theme of the album. Which are the main topics you deal with? Are they pure Satanic blasphemous lyrics or are they metaphors-projections of our society and our way of living? Truthfully they are both. All the lyrics I have written over the years deal with satanic subject matter (i.e. Destruction to the Throne of God, Rex Infernus in Excelsis, Mark of the Devil, An Eternity With Satan, The Glorification of Evil, The Calling Forth) or nihilistic in nature (i.e. The Oracle of Annihilation: Eradicating Sanctimonious Existence, Perpetual Demise of the Bastard Son, As Temples Burn, Compelled to Die, Conquer & Decimate, Destroying the Sacred) mixed with my outlook on society (i.e. The World Is Full of Violence, Gutting Religious Heritage, Blood Death & Damnation). So on Triumph Of Fire I only wrote two songs and the lyrics for those songs and the album Oculus Infernum the lyrics were satanic. On The World, The Flesh & The Devil there was a mix of satanic and nihilistic lyrics depending on the song. The new one the lyrics are all nihilistic. OK! I don’t think your cover artwork could be more eloquent! Who made it? Why did you choose such an extreme image? Have you faced any sort of problems so far? Joshua Bowens did the cover. We have been working with him since Triumph Of Fire. He’s done all the full lengths and some of the splits we have done. He told me his vision for the cover and I knew it would reflect both the lyrics and the music perfectly. We had some slight problems that pushed the release date back like I had mentioned before but we worked it out, made a slip cover and that solved that. Other than that we haven’t had any problems. How important is this grim looking image and the use of corpse paint for a black metal band? What’s the “meaning” and purpose behind all this? The meaning behind it depends I guess on who you ask. To me putting on corpse paint signifies the death of the exterior. Once the corpse paint goes on the infernal demon within is more personalized. I do believe image is important to the music but there is a line that can be crossed where it becomes all about the image and not about the music. I believe that corpse paint is an integral part of black metal. It symbolizes the worship of death and has become a ritualistic aspect of this band. Although I think that image is needed with the music for the overall aesthetic presentation of an album or live ritual, we do not use these as gimmicks and it is more than just presenting an image. What’s the best and what’s the worst comment you’ve heard about your music? I don’t absorb the comments of other people so I don’t know what to answer. Don’t get me wrong as I have read many reviews on us over the past eleven years, seen shit online, heard it directly from others be it nice or ugly but I do not dwell on them because in the end it’s only my opinion I care about. I write music for myself first, others second. How are you supporting this release? Have you planned any live shows or even a tour? Yeah we have been doing some touring in support of the album. After it was released last year we have headlined the Hostile City Death Festival, Milwaukee Blackened Festival, played Los Angeles, CA and San Juan, Puerto Rico. This year we have headlined the Nihilistic Terror Across Texas tour, the West Texas Death Festival, the March Meal Massacre Festival and in a few weeks we will embark on dates for Nihilistic Terror Across Florida. Then in August we’ll be headlining the Michigan Deathfest. What kind of feelings and thoughts do you think your music creates to your listeners? I would hope the need to destroy, the urge to profane and the desire to annihilate. There’s been a revival in the metal scene in the U.S. but people there seem to prefer nu metal and metalcore stuff. What do you think of the current scene? Is there a place for bands like you? To be honest I don’t even follow what is happening here music wise. I stopped paying attention to the American scene many years ago. Every once in a while I will check out a band someone recommends but for the most part I don’t pay much attention to what other bands are doing. Thank you! Is there anything else you’d like to say? We’ll have a lot of different releases that will be out this year. In August a “best of” CD titled Desecrations: A Decade Of Defiling The Cross and later in the year a live DVD covering the years 1999-2010. There’s also the re-issue of our 1999 mCD Order Of The Fly with bonus tracks and a split 7” with Teratism titled In League With Satan which is a tribute to Venom coming out this year. Then come next year we hope to release the next album that is titled Violators Of The Covenant. Other than that I thank you for the interview and support. If anyone is interested in contacting us they can do so through www.kultovazazel.com.