Interviewed by Rob & answered by Xaphan The Band formed in 1998 under the name Azazel. You guys had to change your name tell me about that? Well it started back in 1999 when we were contacted by another band in Finland that threatened to sue us and then went to name calling us in mass emails on the Internet. We kept the name despite these threats by the Finnish Azazel and after that we found out that there wasn't just two bands in the world named Azazel but more like 6, 2 of us being from America. At that point we decided fuck it time to separate ourselves from these others but we had worked hard at getting the name Azazel out in the black metal underground so we opted to add Kult ov to the name. You guys are form Florida, Is there a good scene for black metal there? Not really and I think that's because Florida has always been known for it's Death Metal. There's a great and growing scene here in Ft. Lauderdale but it's mainly Death Metal. I think the one's that are truly into extreme metal are starting to appreciate the stuff we are doing since more and more people are turning up at the shows we are playing. We have been opening for a lot of bigger Death Metal acts here and to be the opening band is not always a great spot since no one really cares about the opener. We've been getting bigger turnouts each show so I guess only time will tell. Your songs seem to have strong satanic overtones, are any of the members Satanists? Yes, we are both Satanists. I am a member of the Church of Satan while Xul is a self-practicing Satanist. Our lyrics definitely have strong satanic overtones because of our beliefs. Xul writes most of the lyrics so he would honestly be the one to answer any questions about the lyrical content of our music. From what I've heard you have had difficulty holding drummers for any length of time, is this because they are unable to cope with your Satanist beliefs? Have you found anybody suitable for the job lately? No, this is because we can't stand incompetent drummers so they don't work out very long, maybe long enough to do a recording and that's if they're lucky. We are currently using a session drummer that recorded the Mayhem cover of "Chainsaw Gutsfuck" with us and has also helped us out in the past with shows after we end up canning our drummers. He'll be doing the full length with us and then afterwards we will be searching for a full time drummer again, the quest never ends... Tell me about you releases? Didn't Blood Fire Death just re-release your first demo Order of the Fly? We have only released one CD which was 'Order of the Fly". We self released it back in August of 99 and it was limited to 200 copies. Other than that, we have had 2 promos that been widely circulated through the underground throughout the world. We have appeared or have songs that will be included on various numbers of USBM compilations as well. Blood Fire Death Records is reissuing our first mCD "Order of the Fly" to a limited 50 copies with an added live track. Depending on when this interview is out the reissue maybe be out of print again, but anyone can always contact us to find out about any merchandise we have at the time. Your music has been pressed in an extremely limited quality. Is that the intention of this band to be cult and for the elite? No, this is because all the stuff has been printed by us and it take money to do these releases. On the "Order of the Fly" we weren't making anything and barley broke even with each 50 we did. Things started getting really expensive so after 200 we said that's it. It would have stayed out of print if it weren't for Lord Imperial deciding to reissue it. The majority of your shows were played with Death Metal acts, from the promo I received it seems that some of these bands brutality has seeped into your sound. Would you say this was true? I wouldn't say that that any bands we have opened for or played with have influenced our sound. Our main influences are Venom, Bathory, Destruction, Darkthrone, and Mayhem. A lot of older thrash/speed and black metal really. I believe you are talking about the chorus riff in Destruction to the Throne of god. I wrote that "death metal" sounding riff cause we needed to slow down somewhere in the song since the rest of the song is just so fucking fast plus that riff is written around the lyrics. But I wouldn't go as far a to say that we are influenced by death metal considering neither Xul or I really listen to much death metal except for like bands like Krisiun, Angel Corpse, The Crown, etc. but they are in no way a influence on our sound. Most US Black metal acts either go for atmosphere or melody but your sound really is brutal do you feel that these bands that are atmospheric and melodic are missing an ingredient in their attack on god? I really don't know about this question. I haven't actually heard too much "atmospheric or melodic" Black Metal from the states so this is a hard question for me to answer. But I can tell you this; you will never hear keyboards or female vocals from Kult ov Azazel. We believe in keeping Black Metal raw, satanic and grim. That's the way it should be and that's the way we plan to keep things with our music. On the promo I received there was a cover of Chainsaw Gutsfuck, When you opened for Mayhem did you play that in your set? Or let them hear it? It's rather good, close to the original. They actually had a mutual friend of ours ask us to play it but we opted not to. We hadn't played it for some time and didn't want to botch it all up. Mayhem has never heard our version and probably never will since the tribute that we recorded it for folded. Any upcoming events for the band? We are just focusing on recording the new material for our first full length that should be out in January/February on Arctic Music. We go into the studio in November to begin recording and plan to do 12 songs plus a cover. The cover is undecided yet but it will be of a band that has influenced us greatly, right now we're leaning towards a Venom or Sodom cover. We might be doing a couple of shows in October but other than that our main focus is on the album. Where can people that have not heard Kult ov Azazel get a hold of your merchandise? Anyone can always obtain merchandise through us by going to http://redirect.to/kultovazazel and emailing Xul or myself. The site has a releases page that will always show what we have available. If there would be one reason to listen to Kult ov Azazel, what would it be? To further the christian holocaust!