Florida's Kult ov Azazel are quickly becoming leaders in the USBM movement. They unleashed their third album and the first for Arctic Music, "Triumph of Fire", which is being hailed by many as the best black metal to come out of America. The September 11th attacks had just occurred when I conducted this interview so I figured it was a good time to hear what practicing Satanist and Kult ov azazel frontman Xaphan woul dhave to say. Interviewed by Brett. What are your thoughts on Triumph of Fire? I think it’s our best material to date. I am very pleased with the way it came out. What you get on “Triumph of Fire” is the true musical identity of this band. We took our time on it and didn’t rush like in past recordings and I think it really paid off. How has the band been doing since this disc was released? Are you satisfied with the promotion, etc? The promotion for it was done pretty well I think. Arctic did a great job in promoting it and all but our US distributor basically fucked us and what it came down to was the label dropping them. What happened was that the distributor here in the US refused to push it because of our lyrical content and buried us in the catalog. So the problem that created was that most places couldn’t get it here. So basically Arctic decided to recall all the CD’s and look for a new distributor. They have since picked up a new distributor for North America and gained other distributors over in Europe that will be covering the countries not already covered by the European distributor. But yes, I am pleased with the promotion and attention that Arctic has given to this band and I’m confident that in the future they’ll continue to do a good job if not better. What are you currently up to? What can we expect from KOA in the near future? When do you see yourselves recording again? At the moment not too much. We are beginning to write new material that will be used for the next CD that will be out by the summer of 2002. We’re also working on releasing a live CD for this winter. We added a permanent drummer from New York into the band back in June. His name is Goss, we’ve done a few rehearsals with him, and everything worked out fine. So right now we’re basically just focusing on writing new material and working on the layout for the live release. What personal philosophies do you feel are important to you? Not following anyone and thinking for yourself. Those are the two most important personal philosophies I have. In a previous interview with KOA, it was stated that Satanism is an individual idea, what are your personal ideals that relate to Satanism? Well to me Satanism is the attainment of the will through knowledge, self-preservation, ritual and elitist ideals. All these attributes come into play everyday at some point when it comes to my personal life. What were your thoughts on the terrorist attacks? Let’s just say this, they want a religious war then a war is what they will get! I don’t think they really thought through what they would be up against. I’m all for depopulation and death so the act of people dying in these attacks doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not the fact that people die it’s the fact that they choose to wage a “holy war” on the soil I live on. So in return I say bomb the fuck out of Afghanistan and any other country that has a problem with that decision. The thought of bombs dropping and religious zealots scattered about in pieces definitely brings a smirk to my face. In Wormgear, you stated "black metal to me is the embodiment of hatred, destruction, and blasphemy in musical form"- a great statement, but do you live your life outside of music with these emotions and if so, how? I live my life the same way I have for years. The music I create and our lyrics deal with the feelings that we harbor or the ideologies that we align ourselves with. So yes it comes out in my everyday life. A lot of people that know me can vouch for that. I don’t go out of my way to freak people out or anything because I’m not a fucking kid anymore if that’s what you’re asking. I live by my beliefs and ideals and that’s all I can really say, you would just really have to know me personally to understand this. I feel it is pathetic that millions of people say this is a time for prayer (as if that will help fight terrorism!), how does it make you feel to see these people turning to "God" for support and help? According to your beliefs, what should they do instead? Praying for things to get better will get you nowhere. I agree with you that it is very pathetic. But this is the mentality of the herd and the funny thing is people actually believe that praying is actually going to accomplish something or get them some place in life. But what it really comes down to is if you want something done then do it yourself. Waiting for a “miracle from god” or “god to intervene and deliver justice” isn’t going to happen. Praying is what weak people do. According to my beliefs I would have been carpet bombing Afghanistan since September 12th and continued to do so for duration of 6 weeks. After that I would send in ground troops to wipe out anything that remained living or even remotely looked alive. Once that was done and all ground troops were out I’d drop 2 baby nukes on the country just to assure that nothing survived. If you want to destroy your enemies then do it right and effectively the first time. First rule of waging war on your enemies is in war nobody survives! As a teenager, what drew you to the Church of Satan? If I didn’t say the imagery I would be lying. It wasn’t really anything the Church of Satan did that drew me in. It was more like the bands that I was listening to at that time in my life. I had discovered Venom, Possessed, and Destruction… I’m sure you know the bands and time frame I am talking about. But to clarify it was 1984, the imagery of the aforementioned bands really identified with myself, and in return I sought out other sources that I could learn and draw knowledge of the things I had strong feelings towards. In the process I ran across the Satanic Bible and remember reading it and thinking to myself that I harbored the same thoughts and feelings. It wasn’t until many years later that these feelings and thoughts developed into more of an understanding as well as into my own philosophy on life. Thanks so much for your time and effort, do you have any final comments or is there anything you would like to comment on that we missed? Many hails for the interview. Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew, the eradication of religion will culminate with the unmerciful end to your existence!