A

Joe Coleman is the quintesse

detailed scenes rendered in viv
apocalypses, freak show att

He is a self-styled carnival Geek, blowing himself up with explosives after biting the heads of
mice during his courtship with performance art under the moniker of Professor Momboozo. He
has even tried his hand at rock stardom with a few friends, recording a 7 inch called JE+ ILL
and Joe Coleman released by Sympathy For the Record Industry in 1993.
His philosophy is simple- we are living in a time of Death and he is the Christ/Anti-Christ
documenting these days with his paintings. His art work has adorned book covers,
comics,records, and Hollywood movie posters. This fall, a documentary of his life will explode
across the big screen. The aptly titled Rest In Pieces will expose Joe and his work to the
wider audience it deserves. Whether the crowd can handle it or not remains to be seen. Those
who cant wait for the film should go out and buy a copy of Adam Parfreys Cosmic
Retribution, an entire book dedicated to the man and his art.
Do you consider yourself a misanthrope?
That would be accurate as far as I see the Human race. But, when I do decide to
trust someone, Im totally there for them and Ill do anything that it takes to stand
by them even if its going to cost me. Im a tribal person. I see people as
individuals. I dont believe in the United States. I dont believe in Mankind. I dont
believe in the white rice. I dont believe in the Black race. I only believe in the
people that I let into my tribe. And, those people are the family. My family. Its not
necessarily blood. But these are the people that I will defend to the death. I dont
give a fuck about anybody but me and my family. This couple spent a year saving
up enough money to buy one of my painting and that meant a lot to me. I also had
a millionaire buy one of my paintings, But to me these people are no different. I
dont judge. When you show me that youre untrustworthy, Ill cut you off from the
tribe. Until then, you show me that I can understand you and you can be part of my
tribe. But the tribe has to be small. Not like the United States- thats something I
cant understand. That means nothing to me.
When was the first time you decided to blow yourself up in your performance art?
Fire- an explosion, is passion. That has to do with my relationship with my mother.
She and I had this thing going that had nothing to do with my father. When the
performances stopped was when she died. When I put my mother to rest was the
very last performance. There was no reason to do it after that. The performance
was taboo. Like having sex with your mother is taboo. What is the price to pay?
What are you going to have to do to atone for that? It doesnt mean just me. But
how are you going to make the Universe okay?

So has Professor Momboozo been laid to rest?

Yes. Separate the word. Mom- my mother. And Boozo- my old man. Thats what they use to call him. He died
before my mother. So, Professor Momboozo is dead. So I cant do that any more.

What is your favorite medium to work with?

I like paint better than anything else. A brush, magnifying lens, and paint is what I love.

How do you pick the subjects for your paintings?

Its intuitive. Almost like whatever comes up at the time. Right now, Im working on
Albert Hicks. Its not even like a conceived idea. When I finish one painting, theres
something internal that tells to me what to paint the next time. Its not in my brain.
Its in my heart. I cant paint more than one subject at a time. I research it- I go to
the library, or bookstore, or do a book search. I go through my own collection of
books which is pretty extensive. I research the subject without any preconceived
composition. Once I start, I keep painting until the whole surface is covered and
then thats it. I cant even do research on another painting until I completely finish
the one Ive started.
The macabre is often a big element in your work.
Yeah. I only paint the things that bother me. That doesnt mean that Joe Coleman
cant enjoy a sunset or a cup of coffee. But the thing is, why should I paint that?
The stuff I feel like painting is stuff I have a problem with because I cant make
sense of it. The painting orders it, clarifies it,borders it. It puts boundaries on
something that is so overwhelming and disturbing to me.
If you had to pick a single painting as a favorite, from the moment you started the
research until you finished the piece, which one would it be?
Probably the painting that went the closest to what I was trying to get at was
"Mommy, Daddy".As a painter, I never achieve what Im after. Its a constant
struggle. Im never going to get there but I keep trying harder every time. Thats
the whole point.
That sounds similar to the Process Church of the Final Judgment.
Yes. Accept that I dont buy into their stuff. At the same time, I dont want any
followers. When I say that Im Jesus Christ, it doesnt mean that I want you to
follow me. I am Jesus but Im only my Jesus. Not yours.

Do you collect anything?

I collect human heads in formal

got Albert Fishs letter that he
rivals any pathology museum tha
Aurora monster models. I like p
Fort Apache, Ewa gema, and Gua
and painting blood on them. I do
catharsis for me. All this stuff
Gomez Adams from the Adams

I understand a person has to get on a waiting list to purchase one of your paintings.
Yes. I cant paint them fast enough. Right now, there are twelve people on the list.
But its not like Robert Williams he talks about a list of hundreds. I dont know if
thats real or not but I like having twelve. Theyve given me deposits. I paint
whatever I feel like and, if they want it, thats fine. If not, it goes to the next person
on the list.
Has living in Brooklyn affected your work?
Not at all. If I was living in New Orleans, you could look out the window and see a
Joe Coleman painting. You could go to Europe, or Italy, or Japan, any major city
youre going to see a Joe Coleman painting.
What direction is society going in?
Right now, I think its very much like the Rome Empire during the fall. But the thing
is that I feel its a privilege to be alive right now. I think that I was produced at this
time because people like me are necessary to record that part of live. The fact that
all of my pathology is necessary because nature wants a voice for death. When the
locust come and clean out the field, sometimes that goods. Nature made me this
way. Gacy and Lucas cant really do it. They can only play around with the game.
Nature produced me to articulate it and be the voice of society.
Why do you think serial killers have become popular icons in our culture?
If you think back in the 1800s, Jesse James and Karl Younger embodied a certain
type of anti-hero because they took what no one else had. Then in the early 1900s,
people like John Dillenger, Bonnie and Clyde, and Baby Face Nelson did the same
thing- they took money from the banks but they were kind of like Robin Hoods. The
whole culture coeArticle first published in EsoTerra #7, Spring/Summer 1997ntify
with them. But in the 1990s, its the end of the century. Were on the verge of
apocalypse. Dillenger, Jesse James, and Carl Younger are kind of quaint. They dont
embody this time. But who does? Albert Fish, Ed Gein, and Jeffrey Dahmer - what
is it about them that really defines are culture? They kind of embody that old
feeling of revenge. But what do they want revenge against? They dont want
money. They want revenge for being born and thats what we identify with. Thats
the bottom line. A revenge against the world.
Article first published in EsoTerra #7, Spring/Summer 1997

The Beauty of Nois

An interview with Masami Akita of Me

by Chad Hensley

------- Merzbow was born i

and Surrealism, Akita took t
architectural assemblage "T
the organic and the geomet
entrenched artistic tradition
Akita challenge the contemp
from the Futurist movement
machine civilization, but he
extreme.
------ Working in his ZDF stu
composed solely of pure, un
label, Lowest Music and Arts
description for his sound, an
recorded Noise via live perfo
with traditional instruments
the man standing before a t
------ The full extent of Merzbow's discography is probably only known to Masami himself, but
the unofficial count has now surpassed 170 releases on cassette, vinyl, and CD on a diverse
array of labels worldwide. In addition to Merzbow, Akita has performed with other Noise
entities including Masonna, Melt Banana, Discordance Axis, Gore Beyond Necropsy, and
Cock ESP. Besides creating Noise, he's authored two books on extreme culture and is a
freelance writer for Japanese pornography magazines. He has also scored Ian Kerkhof's film,
Deadman 2.
------ Tauromachine is Merzbow's latest collection of otological incendiaries. Released by
America's own Relapse, tauromachine is the sound of machinery operating on full speed in a
mad scientist's laboratory. The seven digital experiments presented run an aural gamut
between hypnotic pulsations to violent dissordance. Each track offers the listener a disturbing
journey into the deepest extremities of Noise with such 'songs' as "soft water rhinoceros",
"heads of clouds", and "wounded cycad dub".
------ Some people claim to thoroughly enjoy Akita's orchestrated cacophonies. Rest assured,
his Merzbow project is not for the weak-willed or faint-hearted; a listener must be able to
savor hissing static, grinding feedback, and almost unending distortion. Noise can be difficult
to digest even for those who are appreciative of musical extremes, but it all comes off with a
sinister ambiance that attracts as it repels. Given his commitment to and consummate
production of Noise, the sonic artwork of Masami Akita is sure to usher in the savage sounds of
the next millennium.
What first attracted you to Noise?
I was influenced by aggressive Blues Rock guitar sounds like Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed,
Robert Fripp and fuzz organ sounds such as Mike Ratledge of Soft Machine. But the most
structured Noise influence would have to be Free Jazz such as Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor,
and Frank Wright. I saw the Cecil Taylor Unit in 1973 and it was very influential. I was a
drummer for a free form Rock band in the late '70s and I became very interested in the pulse
beat of the drums within Free Jazz. I thought it was more aggressive than Rock drums. I also
became interested in electronic kinds of sounds. I started listening to more electro-acoustic
music like Pierre Henry, Stockhausen, Fancois Bayle, Gordon Mumma and Xenakis.

Then I found the forum for mixing these influences into pure electronic noise. I was trying to
create an extreme form of free music. In the beginning, I had a very conceptual mind set. I
tried to quit using any instruments which related to, or were played by, the human body. It
was then that I found tape. I tried to just be the operator of the tape machine-- I'm glad that
tape is a very anonymous media. My early live performances were very dis-human and discommunicative. I was using a slide projector in a dark room at that point. I was concentrating
on studio works until 1989 then I assembled some basic equipment before I started doing live
Noise performances. Equipment included an audio mixer, contact mike, delay, distortion, ring
modulator and bowed metal instruments. Basically, my main sound was created by mixer
feedback. It was not until after 1990, on my first American tour, that I started performing live
Noise Music for presentation to audiences. The first US tour was a turning point for finding a
certain pleasure in using the body in the performance. Right now I'm using mixer feedback
with filters, ring, DOD Buzz Box, DOD Meat Box, and a Korg multi-distortion unit. I am using
more physically rooted Noise Music not as conceptually anti-instrument and anti-body as
before. If music was sex, Merzbow would be pornography.
In America, pornography is often viewed as vulgar and offensive-- especially to
women. Are you implying that Merzbow is for men?
No. I mean that pornography is the unconsciousness of sex. So, Noise is the unconsciousness
of music. It's completely misunderstood if Merzbow is music for men. Merzbow is not male or
female. Merzbow is erotic like a car crash can be related to genital intercourse. The sound of
Merzbow is like Orgone energy-- the color of shiny silver.
How did you get involved with tape trading through the mail in the early '80s?
When I started Merzbow the idea was to make cheap cassettes which could also be fetish
objects. I recorded them very cheaply and then packaged them with pornography. I got very
involved with the mail art network which included home tapers like Maurizio Bianchi, Jupitter
Larser of Haters, and Trax of Italy. Just as Dadaist Kurt Schwitters made art from objects
picked up off the street, I made sound from the scum that surrounds my life. I was very
inspired by the Surrealist idea "Everything is Erotic, Everywhere Erotic". So, for me Noise is the
most erotic form of sound. The word "noise" has been used in Western Europe since Luigi
Russolo's The Art of Noises. However, Industrial music used "noise" as a kind of technique.
Western Noise is often too conceptual and academic. Japanese Noise relishes the ecstacy of
sound itself.
You have been quoted as saying, "There are no special images of ideology behind
Merzbow"-- unlike the early Industrialists such as Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and
Whitehouse that used shocking imagery . Yet you have repeatedly used
pornography. Isn't pornography a shocking image that creates a certain ideology,
whether intended or not?
I have two directions in the use of pornography. In my early cassettes and mail art projects I
used lots of pornography. I made many collages using pornography as it was a very important
item in my mail art/mail music. I thought my cheap Noise cassettes were of the same value as
cheap mail order pornography. These activities were called "Pornoise". In this direction, I would
say that I used pornography for it's anti-social, cut-up value in information theory. I soon
started to release Merzbow vinyl which was very different from the cassettes of this same time
period. I think my vinyl works concentrated more on sound itself because I think vinyl is a
more static medium. So, Merzbow went in two separate directions in the '80s- a cassette
direction and a vinyl direction. In the '90s, these directions were mixed for one Merzbow. I
know you're thinking I'm still using porn images like bondage but these images are not porn to

me. I use bondage images only for the release of connected works like Music for Bondage
Performance I and 2 and Electroknots. My reasons for using bondage images are very clearnot for shock element but for documentary value. In fact, all bondage pictures I use are taken
by myself. I know who the models are and who tied them up. I know the exact meaning of
these bondage pictures. This is very different from people using Xeroxed bondage images from
Japanese magazines. I know that there are many bondage images associated with Merzbow
releases. But many of these releases use stupid images without my permission. I should
control all of them but it is very difficult to control all products abroad. I don't like the easy
idea of using images without the knowledge of the image itself. So, it's meaningless to create
ideology by using pornography without the correct knowledge of the image itself.
What kind of reaction did you get when you started performing in Japan?
In Japan, the Noise audience looks very normal. I think most of them are middle-class salary
men. Recently, we have more young, underground music types coming to a show. In the early
days, the reaction was nothing. People thought that the music was just too difficult and loud.
Recently, more people know how to comprehend my music. Many people have said they could
get into a trance from the music. This is a better way of understanding Merzbow. Now,
Grindcore and Techno people come to see Merzbow. It's not a very large Noise scene in Japan
but we have been getting more places allowing a performance than ever before. Fortunately,
many other people in the genre know about each other and perform together. I have also been
playing a few Techno events. Right now, the Merzbow live unit is myself, Reiko, and Bara.
Reiko is not into music nor is she a Noise player. Bara is performing Noise as his art action.
They play a very physical kind of music meaning that they always struggle with sound. It's like
the idea of playing with street noise, construction noise, ambient noise, and machine noise.
That separation creates a very static feeling and that is my intention-- I don't like to play with
musicians in Merzbow. They bother me. Last year, the three of us finished an American tour.
We played in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Cleveland.
American audiences are nice and clever. The audiences were very crowded. I met some
interesting people like Elden of Allegory Chapel, Ltd., Dwid from Integrity, the band
Smegma, and all the people who helped organize these shows. The audiences contained many
great fans
What other bands involved with Noise have you collaborated with?
Masonna, Hijokaidan, Aube, and Monde Bruits. Maso of Masonna came to see my first live
performance in Kyoto. I met Mikawa, who played in both Hijokaidan and the Incapacitants, at a
record shop and we went to have a few drinks. Alchemy Records started a CD series dedicated
to pure Noise called Good Alchemy and I played as a guest drummer with Hijokaidan. Iwasaki
of Monde Bruits organized my first Merzbow show in Osaka. Then we played together at some
point.
Tell me a little about your books Scum Culture and Bizarre Sex Moderne.
Scum Culture is a compilation of articles including such topics as bad taste art, Satanic Heavy
Metal music, scatological performances of Vienna Aktionism, music of Art Brut, Adolf Wolfli,
and work of Social Patient Kollective. After I published this book, the term "Scum Culture"
became a little bit popular in the Japanese media. Bizarre Sex Moderne is a cult study and
history of sex magazines of pre-World War II. This period was synchronized with world
modernism culture. Large chapters are dedicated to the topic of Japan's premiere sex
magazine Grotesque. There's also an article about some pioneers in Japanese sexual research
such as Hokumel Umehara, Seiu Ito, and Tetsu Takahashi

I understand that you currently write for Japanese pornography magazines.

I started writing articles about S/M and fetishism. I've been very fascinated by surrealistic
erotic literature as well as psychoanalysis. People like George Bataile, Andre Breton, Sigmund
Freud, and Kraft Ebbing. I'm also interested in Nudism culture and nude photography from the
1920s.
What are the differences between Japanese and American pornography?
The definite difference is that there is no genitals or intercourse in Japanese porno because of
our censorship laws. Of course, we have ratings as does the US. Though there are no S/M or
scatological magazines in convenience stores, our society has a tendency to make concessions
for politeness in respect to sexual violations. Most of Japan's sexual trauma is high school girls.
High school girls are a very powerful sexual icon in our society. High school girls are also very
powerful in regards to fashion and social behavior.
Mainstream Japanese culture also seems more accepting of bondage films and
women having sex with an octopus. Why?
We have no deviant sex because we have no Christianity. That is, until the end of the
Tokugawa era in the 1800s. We began to import Western scientific theory and our sexuality
began to Westernize. We also imported Western sexuality without knowledge of Christianity.
The reason for women having sex with an octopus is because of our censorship-- her genitalia
is covered. We have censorship of the genitals and no censorship of any sexual image without
genitals. In the Japanese tradition, we have lots of strange sex images such as women with
octopi. I think our present sexuality is influenced subliminally from the times before Tokugawa
sexuality. It's a kind of mental pleasure- a sense of humor in sexuality. Presently, Manga and
Owarai entertainment is also the same reconstructed traditional culture. In this culture, sex is
not a matter of politics or science as is AIDS., the Gay movement, and sexual harassment in
Western culture. Japanese sexual culture is a world of the imagination.
What is the difference between Japanese and American Pop culture?
I think that American Pop Culture has more variety. Japanese society is a television
community. The most important thing for most people is doing the same things most other
people do. No individuality exists in this society with music, fashion, and language. The
Japanese government thinks Japan is one nation of one race. But that is a lie. This same
theory applies to the Japanese media.
Has American culture had any negative effects on your country?
Yes, AIDS and coffee. For me, American Pop Culture was a stigma when I was a child in the
1950s. America won the war so maybe "U.S.A" is a symbol of power and big dreams. Japanese
culture has also had effects on America. A negative effect is the economy. A positive effect is
food.
How has growing up in Japan effected your Noise creation?
Sometimes, I would like to kill the much too noisy Japanese by my own Noise. The effects of
Japanese culture are too much noise everywhere. I want to make silence by my Noise. Maybe,
that is a fascist way of using sound.
Article first published in EsoTerra #8, 1999.

An Interview with Endura

by Chad Hensley

Endura are soundscape a

(un)healthy doses of Alei
friends that were sure th
began a journey into the
next year saw the release
Art.Endura would remain
releases. These three rele
Aesthetic Death, and Blac

Though each full length CD is unique both in style and concept, there are similarities. Those
more inclined to medieval devil worship and sabbat dancing will want to begin with Black
Eden. Those partial to oceanic depths and what lurks beneath the waves should first swim
within the dark waters of Liber Leviathan. The Dark is Light Enough will await the converted
follower on unholy ground.
The songs of the dead dreamer are carved upon the flesh of Endura. Their music dares to
breach the abyss and pull the listener feet first into bottomless gulfs somewhere at the edge of
insanity's imagination. Endura's ambient impressions take the listener to a deeper darkness
buried somewhere within the subconscious. Let us hope that all of us can crawl out in one
piece.
How did you develop your dark ritual sound?
Stephen: I would describe our music as quite dark in its origins and I would like to think that it
makes people think but I certainly don't want us to be categorized as a satanic, extremist band
because we are not. When we set up the band, our intentions were to create soundscapes to
dark themes. Dark themes being "Death" and "Mysticism" not Satanism or any of the baggage
which that label carries with it. All of the mastering is done on headphones, so we can get the
most space out of the stereo imaging, and because of this, I think it works best if the listener
is also using headphones. Let us inside your head, I'm sure you won't feel the same
afterwards. I think our recordings are getting better. Personally, I am learning more about the
programming of voice architecture on the synths and the intricacies of the sequencer, more
about panning techniques and compression. We didn't choose to play dark ritual music, that is
just the way it comes out. We play music which sounds good to us, if other people are
impressed by it then I guess that's OK. We don't sit down and say "right this is gonna be a
really slow, miserable track" that's just the way they turn out. I think it's probably a reflection
of our inner side. However, this does not reflect how we are as people. ENDURA is not just a
Dark Music set-up. We work with loads of different styles and have crossed over many

boundaries. I don't want ENDURA to be restricted to following the same set of listeners. When
we play music, we play to please ourselves.
Chris: My dreams usually take place in an internal landscape that is a distortion of a river
valley close to where I lived when I was younger, in these dreams I have swam in the river
using a strange hybrid body, flew over the river like a swallow and watched monsters emerge
from the river. Things that live in water fascinate and frighten me. I am particularly sensitive to
the image of sharks and leviathans, any large submerged shape, either animate or inanimate,
sets off very primal instincts. These are things I want to express in music and the "Dark Ritual"
genre is much more suitable. The basic idea behind a ritual is to provide an "atmosphere" that
is conducive to the facilitation of a result, this applies in every day life as much as in magic and
music. Any ritual must produce an atmosphere that the participants can use like a psychic lens
to sharpen and focus the will and ultimately to get the required job done, whether that is
contact with trans-human intelligences or getting a pay raise. The music is a sigil allowing
access to altered states. I do not think that every ENDURA song works in this way for
everybody who listens to it but for those who know the gate maybe we provide a key. I also
think it is important to remember what Stephen said, we have recorded music in a wide range
of styles, we do not limit our expression to any one style of music.

I understand the word EN

Chris: Anybody who reads a

what happened. The armies
the middle ages. One of the
mind. In the 1960s an Engl
of his patients. He found th
Montsegur in March 1244. T
all told of their death at the
was a cell of people, who ha
13th century France, and th
cranky
new ager, he was a respected psychologist, he presented documentary proof from his research
that amazed French historians with the accuracy of the detail. Reincarnation was one of the
Cathars central doctrines, in common with many quasi-Gnostic cults. They saw the world as a
veil of tears through which the soul had to progress. Obviously these people had yet to break
through it. The word "ENDURA" is taken from the name of a Cathar ritual. The ritual involved
fasting and meditation in the wilderness, just as Christ spent forty days in the wilderness and
Jonah spent four days in the belly of Leviathan. The purpose of the ritual was to test the
person, to harden him and strengthen him, mentally and physically, to ensure the candidate
was ready to take the Consolamentum, the sacrament that initiated the Cathar to the
priesthood. ENDURA is a universal word, most western European languages, with Latin
elements, have some close approximation. I am aware that people will react to the word
ENDURA differently depending on which languages they know and what they know about
Catharism. I would almost want people to know nothing about Catharism and come to their
own conclusions based on their own experiences.
Some of your work seems greatly influenced by the fiction of HP Lovecraft.
Chris: Lovecraft and the ideas that he used in his fiction have been a very useful springboard
for my own ideas, both musically and magickally. The way he created alternate realities and

secondary worlds is a very useful lesson for the magician, few artists can really dip their
fingers in the stuff of magick and myth and do it well- in literature Lovecraft was one of those
few. We can argue all day whether Lovecraft really was the involuntary medium that people
claim him to be, whether he really was a conduit for "Hidden Lore" as occultist Kenneth Grant
calls it, or whether his ideas have by some miracle of synchronisity just happened to echo the
work of occultists.
Personally I don't think the question is important, whether it was the chicken or the egg that
came first is not question, the thing to realize is that Lovecraft was able to weave subtle
mysteries into his work to evoke a Subjective Reality. Where does reality begin and fantasy
end, is there actually a hard defining border or do the two concepts blend together and blur,
producing a borderland of surreality in which the magician functions? As a person there can be
little doubt that Lovecraft was a very limited and damaged individual. He himself seemed
painfully aware of his tainted ancestry, the family history of madness and his fathers
premature death through syphilis show in many stories; the tainted blood, the hidden
offspring, the fevered mind on the verge of insanity, this was the real legacy of the Lovecraft
family. Lovecraft was a weak child, a loner and an outsider, he never really felt at home in the
twentieth century and his work was a way of escaping the tedium of life in the goldfish bowl of
the Lovecraft home. It is easy to be aware of Lovecrafts faults. His literary style often slips into
self parody and clich, his prose can choke on its own adjectives and his dialogue is always
wooden and strained. Lovecraft may not have been a masterful prose stylist but his work is
visionary in the real sense, it creates an "atmosphere".
I think the real power of Lovecraft is the constant evocation of weird atmosphere, so
successfully that stories with paper thin characters and hackneyed plots come alive through
the sheer otherness of the description. This is what I hope ENDURA also achieve in our music,
use atmosphere and ambiance to evoke a state of consciousness the listener would otherwise
not find. This is the basic theme of most of Lovecrafts work, the place of man in the cosmic
cycle and the interaction of Man with forces and energies he is constantly pitted against. It has
been suggested by Kenneth Grant that Lovecraft was an involuntary receptor for cosmic
transmissions, that he was bombarded with knowledge and visions that he was unable to
assimilate into his rational, materialist and bigoted world view. This theory can be
substantiated by looking at Lovecrafts life and work, many of his dreams were turned into
stories, he wrote that since adolescence he suffered nightmares almost every other night.
Although Lovecraft has left us some of the most outr and bizarre fiction ever written it seems
almost in spite of his personality rather than because of it, for Lovecraft the universe was vast
and cold, the Laws of Man are not the Laws of the Universe, we see time and time again a
puny, priggish humanity vainly struggling to make sense of the universe and keep out the
terror that threatens to intrude from beyond! Unlike Crowley, who actively sought traffic with
the denizens of the Void, Lovecraft was both appalled and terrified by what intruded onto his
dreamtime. The only way he could rationalize it was to turn it into fiction and exorcise what he
could not understand. Although the Necronomicon was ostensibly created by Lovecraft it does
share a common source with many other texts and grimoires. From recent research it certainly
seems as if Crowley's Liber AL Vel Legis being and Lovecraft's mad Arabian, Al Azif, share a
common source. In a letter written in February of 1937 Lovecraft said that the full name of the
Necronomicon was "The Image of the Law of the Dead", an obvious similarity to Crowley's
Book of the Law. In 1919 Crowley exhibited a portrait of an extra-terrestrial he called Lam.
This picture was shown in an exhibition called "Dead Souls". The use of the words and imagery
of death in the Necronomicon mythos is very interesting but should not be taken to mean the
mundane earthly death of man. Perhaps it would be better to see the term "death" as

interchangeable with the words "darkness" and "alien". The Necronomicon current is alien to
earth, and alien to earthly life; Lam, the strange figure who Kenneth Grant maintains is
cognate with Aiwass is essentially the same as Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, a preternatural
intelligence, has anybody noticed the similarity between the Lam portrait and the "Greys" of
modern UFO lore?
I think we should view the Lovecraft Mythos as having a subjective reality inside the psychomagickal microcosm of the Magician. In the Mauve Zone of neither-neither time, in the gaps
between the stars and the borderland between reality and surreality the entities of inner and
outer space can manifest in ways intelligible to our mundane minds, people like Howard Philips
Lovecraft took these experiences and used them in their art. We all carry the potential for our
own Necronomicon.

An Ab

Whitehouse just could be the

well. Regardless
they've maintained a unique for
rock 'n' roll whores. In fifteen

acceptable music business. Carving out a private niche for themselves, the band refuses to
deviate from their trail blazed path of relentless, uncompromising deviant noise.
Beginning in 1980 as a phantasm in the mind of Essential Logic guitarist William Bennett, it
wasn't long before an electronic project called Come mutated into Whitehouse after a few
singles. Fed up with New Wave and techno pop, William began to finally reach his goal of a
veritable "electronic maelstrom" which would leave audiences either reveling in unbridled
power or begging for mercy, depending on one's predilections. Over the years Whitehouse has
peripherally and directly involved an astounding number or underground luminaries, including
Daniel Miller (The Normal), Kevin Tomkins (Sutcliffe Jugend, and now Body Choke), Philip Best
(Consumer Electronics), Glen Wallis (Konstructivists), Stefan Jaworzyn (Skullflower), Jordi
Valls (PTV, Vagina Dentata Organ), David Tibet (PTV, Current 93), Peter Sotos (of Pure
magazine infamy, now publishing Parasite), and most recently, Jim Goodall (Medicine). On top
of this cast of players, recent Whitehouse efforts have featured the production/engineering
input of Steve Albini and the incredible artwork of Trevor Brown.
Since day one, rumors and innuendo have followed William and Whitehouse like the plague,
and many of them are still bandied about over a decade later. In an effort to set the record
straight, the following interview sheds light both on the band's history as well as it's
controversies. In spite of an often frightening reputation, William Bennett is in reality a
charming and personable fellow. Don't let that fool you though, as the sheer determination
and unswerving dedication of Whitehouse to their violent appetite, which remains unquenched
after fifteen years, should warn beyond a doubt that they will not be denied in the end...
Daniel Miller, who founded Mute Records, was on some of your early releases, right?
Yes. On the Come stuff, which was like the crossover, or the bridge between the two sounds
[leading to Whitehouse]. He recorded things like The Normal and the Silicon Teens album in a
little studio in London called IPS, and he kindly took me down there and did two or three
sessions together, and he helped me mix it. I knew nothing about that sort of thing, and he
also helped releasing it, as he'd just done The Normal single ["Warm Leatherette"] and he
gave me contacts for distribution, where to get the sleeves done, the labels, and so on...
What was the original idea behind Come Organization?
It was essentially a record label for Whitehouse. I can't really remember how the name came
about, but the 'organization' part was inspired by a pornography company called "Private
Organization", which ironically is the one that publishes the magazine called Whitehouse. So
there's two things that got together a little bit there.
And why did you choose the name for the band?
It was just the idea that there was a pornographic magazine called Whitehouse, and then of
course Mary Whitehouse, who I'm sure you're familiar with, being the anti-pornography

campaigner.
Was that a coincidence that the porno mag had the same name as the censorship
activist, or was it a deliberate effort of the publisher's to rub salt in her wounds?
That's what I'm not sure of, I don't know. But it seemed like a classic bit of irony, and I love
things with two meanings or three meanings or more...
Does Whitehouse, the magazine, still exist?
I think so, but it's a crap magazine-I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!
What fueled the ideas behind the Whitehouse releases at the outset?
Bits and pieces. It didn't really have much direction at the beginning I suppose. It was only
later, with Erector. That was the first time when I thought there was a sense of direction.
How did the obvious interest in the Marquis de Sade come about?
Initially, that went back a long way, from about 1977, when I was at University in Glasgow,
Scotland. I was very good friends with a guy called Alan, who's now the guy from Postcard
Records. At the time he wasn't involved with music directly but he put out a punk fanzine
called Chickenshit. The Marquis de Sade books were banned everywhere, but he had access to
some special library where he could get a hold of a copy in French. He used to translate a
couple of pages of it for each issue of his fanzine. And that's where I was first familiar with it,
and I really loved reading it. It was until a year or two later that I actually managed to get the
Grove Press editions, and I've just been collecting his stuff ever since.
Have you read it in the original language?
Oh yeah, I do read the stuff in French. In fact, it's much better in French. With the English,
although they're beautiful translations, there is a lot of embellishment to make it sound of the
period [18th Century]. They use a very sort of floral language, whereas in the French it's much
more simplistic, and there's a lot of humor that doesn't seem to translate. I think they're
beautiful translations, but reading it in French makes for an entirely different experience. And
he uses very simple sentences very effectively; it's a very interesting style. The books certainly
haven't lost any of the power over the last two centuries. What people forget is how much
black humor there is in it. They are serious books, but there's a lot of black humor in there.
Unfortunately they haven't translated the [Sade] biography by J. J. Pauvert, three huge
volumes that have come out in French. I don't understand why they haven't been translated
into English, because they make all the other biographies totally obsolete, as almost works of
fiction. He's had access to all the letters from the Sade family's mansion, chateaux, and some
of the revelations in there are just extraordinary.
Was there anything else that had impact on you like that of de Sade?
Anything in that genre, things like Krafft-Ebbing, Venus in Furs, and I enjoy reading things like
Naked Lunch-other books of that ilk.
So whatever was explicit in one way or another.
Yes. And then in the next year or two, having finished reading all that, I moved across to start
reading more non-fiction books. I didn't like any fiction after reading de Sade, it all seemed
really tame. And then it was biographies of murderers and a lot of stuff on the two World Wars.
True crime books must have been a lot harder to come by then, as opposed to the
glut of them today.

Yes, that's right. It's a big industry now. There was no such thing as a "true crime" section in a
bookstore 15 years ago. Certainly not of contemporary true crime. The books about someone
like Peter Kurten were very rare, but we just spent lots of time hunting around all the stores in
London, hunting for the stuff, and you got lucky.
Your interest in Nazi imagery was growing then as well.
Yes. I read a lot of books about the concentration camps and biographies of people like
Himmler, especially. It was an amazing period for that sort of thing, where there was
seemingly a license for these guys to do almost what they pleased. And the imagery itself, the
fetishistic implications of that as well...
You didn't hesitate then, to incorporate allusions to all these things in Whitehouse?
No.
You weren't worried about what kind of reaction it might provoke?
At the time there were already quite a lot of things put out which were pretty risqu,
controversial. So I wasn't frightened, I had the confidence to do just about anything, and I
certainly don't regret it now. But obviously it did cause an incredible amount of controversy. I
find that a record like New Britain, for example-there's no real political content in it at all, if
you look at it carefully. It's all imagery, really. There's no real content to the imagery. It does
appear very sinister, and Whitehouse has been more controversial than a lot of other groups,
for the music as much as anything-being very harsh, electronic, and difficult music to listen to.
But a lot of other groups have dabbled in that kind of imagery, like TG and Joy Division...
Some the latter's stuff is incredibly blatant...
Yeah, I mean the very name itself! Death in June as well, but they're rock bands so it doesn't
really matter so much. We got hammered a lot harder for two reasons: because the music was
so harsh, and people didn't really know where we were coming from-it wasn't rock music- and
secondly, we incorporated a lot of what could be called sexist imagery.
You couldn't arrive at a more unpopular combination of imagery for the liberal
humanist types!
Certainly, yeah, and especially with Rough Trade, who were responsible for a lot of our
distribution at the time.
Your distribution problems with Rough Trade were somewhat legendary.
Well, they were being totally hypocritical about it. I still don't think there's anything wrong with
that sort of imagery at all. But they banned the first Nurse With Wound album, some
Stranglers records, and I think Blondie were even banned for awhile! They were very sensitive.
The worst thing was, that while they're in their rights to stop whatever records they want, of
course, people would go into their shop in London and ask for Whitehouse records and they'd
get a fifteen minute monologue over why they shouldn't be looking for Whitehouse records!
And that's beyond reason...They should politely say, "No, sorry we don't have anything."
Where was it that they drew the line? Was it a specific album that caused it, because originally
they didn't seem to have a problem.
I know they disliked the Leibstandarte SS MB albums, and I don't they appreciated the Fr Ilse
Koch compilation, but where they drew the line was actually the Right to Kill album. They
literally picked up the box of records and threw it at me when I went down there. The legend is

that I was wearing a Nazi uniform, which was totally untrue! The other anecdote with all this is
that Doug P. from Death In June was working there at the time, and I wrote a letter to Geoff
Travis [who ran Rough Trade], who I'd been good friends with since Essential Logic (who were
a Rough Trade band), saying I think this is a bit hypocritical since you're still distributing all the
Death In June stuff. I wasn't getting at Death In June-I was happy that they did distribute their
stuff. I was just pointing out the injustice of it. But then because of that it started a feud with
Doug P., as he thought I was trying to get them into trouble.
Did a record like New Britain get any sort of reaction from extreme right wing types,
or was it too obscure or bizarre for them to even notice?
No, nothing really at all. Politically, there's nothing there at all. I've no interest really in that
sort of politics. And I certainly don't think they would have any interest in that sort of music.
Were there ever problems with anyone besides Rough Trade?
They were the only problem. The records continued to be distributed, the thing with Rough
Trade was more that they had taken a lot of them at that time, but we found other
distributors. It didn't really affect the sales, or the mail-order. I can't really think of any letters
that would come saying "This is wrong"...
Weren't there some similar difficulties in Germany on a recent tour?
The second show we did was in Nuremberg, and for some obscure reason-I think it had more
to do with Pure magazine than with anything else-something went out on the radio or there
were some flyers distributed which threatened to cause trouble at the original venue, so they
just changed the venue that night, and there was no trouble at all. There were like 150 people
there, but it probably would have been a much bigger show at the original venue, 'cause that's
where all the promotion was for.
How was the last US tour, which was the first one in many years?
It went really well, from our point of view. Very diverse kinds of places. We tried making the
songs sound like they are on record, for a change, and that worked really well.
How does that compare with what you usually do?
The songs used to sound very different live, I think, than they did in the studio-mostly because
of the equipment that we used.
Can you describe what's used to create the live sound of Whitehouse?
Last time we were in the States, which was a long time ago, we had the two Wasps
[synthesizers] and the vocals, which were treated a little bit. But this time there was no
treatment at all on the vocals and we used one Wasp and one tiny little Yamaha quasi-toy
keyboard. And it worked really well, the sound was excellent-I think the best ever.
Is it difficult to duplicate the studio sounds live?
What we do is to put the Whitehouse sounds into the toy keyboard and then the Wasp is pretty
easy to program. They are three basic sounds, which are modified occasionally.
What are the songs you choose for performance?
It's quite a varied sort of set, actually. A couple of songs from the first album, and a new song
that hasn't been released, bits and pieces-all the classics really, a bit of everything. We finished
most of the sets with "Shitfun", which seemed to work very well.

Looking at your tour itinerary here, I can't help but wonder who would turn out to
see Whitehouse in a place like Knoxville, Tennessee...
Some real weirdos! There were about 35-40 people there, in quite a small club, but every one
of them, I can guarantee, was 100% eccentric! But I've always felt that whether the audience
is one or one thousand, it's always interesting. There's a different dynamic every time, so I'm
not all that concerned about how many people are there.
Did anyone show up who'd seen you on the last tour, ten years ago?
Well, we played some cities where we hadn't played before, but in the ones we had played two
or three people came up afterward and said they'd seen us way back when. But it was weird
because they seemed like really young people anyway-so you know, you start calculating...
were they twelve when they saw the last show?!?
That's a scary thought.
Yes!
Philip Best, who played in the earlier incarnation of Whitehouse back in 1984, must have only
been about fourteen years old then, correct?
Yes. The first Whitehouse show he ever came to, which was, I think, Live Action 3 or 4, really
early on, he had to run away from home! From a city about a hundred miles away!
Were the shows fairly violent this time around?
Yeah they were, some of them. In Chicago, for example, we did "Birthdeath Experience" which
is a silent song-it's just silence and us wandering around on the stage, inciting the audience in
various ways. I couldn't see very far out into the audience but I know from speaking to people
afterwards, that three or four fights broke out. Exactly the same thing happened in London,
when we did "Birthdeath Experience" for the first time. It seems to create a lot of tension in
the crowd.
But no one in the audience has tried to attack you on stage?
Only once. It's surprising with this sort of music, I mean I remember seeing the Birthday Party
play live once and Nick Cave just seemed to be asking for trouble and he almost always got itsomebody would start hitting him or kicking him. I don't know why-maybe the music's more
intimidating-but there's never actually been direct violence towards us from the crowd, other
than throwing objects. Except for once in Newcastle...
Where the girl went berserk?
Yeah, and that was because I severely provoked her anyway!
Whitehouse disappeared for a number of years in the late 80's-can you explain what
caused this?
It was a number of things. Logistically Whitehouse became very difficult. We did Great White
Death, which came out really well, much better than I anticipated, but at the same time as
that was recorded Kevin [Tomkins], who was a very important member of Whitehouse, moved
back to the area where his parents lived. We'd just done a couple of shows in Spain, and I was
sick of living in England, in London, at the time. And I thought, this is the place to live, I loved
it so much. So I decided, more or less on the spot, to move there. A lot of other people were
moving out of London as well, like Kevin, and David Tibet, Steve Stapleton got a house in
Ireland. On top of that, after Great White Death, I felt we didn't have a lot to say anymore,
because that album seemed to encompass everything musically and otherwise.

What did Spain have that England was lacking?

It wasn't a small-minded country, which Britain is. The people are very tolerant, especially
because they'd just ten years before then moved from a dictatorship to a democracy. So things
like drugs were virtually legal, pornography of every kind was suddenly available, and this is
from a country that used to censor Elvis Presley songs. There was a great feeling of
libertarianism-anything could be done as long as you didn't spoil anyone else's enjoymentwhich is not like Britain at all.
And you lived in the city there?
Yes, in Barcelona for about three years. I loved the people, the climate, and lots of things, like
drink was very cheap!
Were you doing anything with Whitehouse during this period?
Well I would have, but I just didn't have any ideas left for songs. I just seemed like Great
White Death said it all, and it was pointless doing re-hashes of that record. I would go back to
London every six months for a couple of weeks, and meet people, so it wouldn't have been
difficult... But after about a year in Spain I just wound the Come Organisation down
completely. And I didn't think about it at all after that.
And Kevin Tomkins stopped doing anything?
Yeah, he got married apparently. I didn't even have his phone number or anything, and he just
disappeared.
So the entire scene around Whitehouse died at that point.
There was a big scene in London up to then, you know we'd do a show and whole crowds of
people would show up. Another person who was involved, John Murphy, went back to Australia
around then. There were a lot of people coming around to the shows at the time, like Crystal
Belle [Steven Stapleton's wife], she was called Crystal Clitoris then, and would appear
everywhere with her slaves...
Did people like Glen Wallis or Jordi Valls, who were involved with Whitehouse but
also played or worked with TG and PTV, receive a lot of flak, since Genesis was
always insulting Whitehouse publicly at the time?
No, I don't think they did personally, I mean Jordi is a very flamboyant character, so Genesis
wouldn't have had any influence on him anyway, although they always continued to be really
good friends. But I think in addition to what we've already said, there was a lot of petty
jealousy. The fact that Jordi and Glen weren't just working with Psychic TV, I think there was a
lot of that involved as well...
Did you move back to England before going to Thailand?
No, I stayed in Spain for about six years and then went straight to Thailand.
And what drew you there?
It's a weird place, because something like Playboy magazine is banned there, and yet-you can buy six year olds on the corner!
Right, to do anything or to look at anything in real time-you know, I'm referring to live sex
shows and things. So you can't look at it on the printed page, but you can participate in it. It's

a weird sort of inversion of the West, in that respect.

Was this any inspiration to star

That had already started about

three days to stay with me in B
and started talking about this id
on writing. And then luckily Pete
had already written a few more
the other stuff came out.

And what was the next incarnat

I met up with Stefan [Jaworzyn
We'd known him since '83 though, he was another one of these people who hung out in
London and came to all the shows.
Was he in Skullflower at that time?
More or less around that time I think he actually stopped playing with them. So we did Twice is
Not Enough. That was also with Dave Kenny and Glen Michael Wallis. Dave Kenny was the guy
from IPS studio, which I mentioned before, and he did Great White Death, but this was a
different studio-he works at a posher place now.
What's going on with the record label now?
As far as Susan Lawly is concerned, I'm pretty much in charge of that. I hate dealing with
money, and with CD manufacturers, but it's no problem, it's just a bit of extra work.
Will the out of print stuff be re-released?
I don't like re-issuing stuff, I've got a sort of phobia about it. To me it gives the impression that
you're cashing in on stuff. I feel it's better to use the resources that one has for new projects,
rather than spend money on re-releasing old things.
Can you explain the genesis of the name Susan Lawly?
It didn't come from anywhere, it's just that name of the record label that I came up with. A lot
of people ask if she's a mass-murderer or something, or a sadist that people don't know about.
Was it just some perversity on your part to use such a normal name?
No, there's no perverse reason but that's all part of the fun of having the name that people
assume there is a reason for it.
Some of the songs on Twice is Not Enough seemed to be based on a gambling theme. I heard
there was also a particular book that inspired some of that.
The Diceman-it's like a cult classic amongst people in England, although it's by an American
named Rheinhart. It's a classic book. The blurb on the back is quite funny because he says,
"All my decision making was by the throw of the dice", and it's written sort of semibiographically-you don't know how much is true or isn't. So he'll say, "Am I going to stay home
and watch a video or am I going to go down and rape the girl who lives downstairs? If it's a six
I'll go down and rape but if it's a three I'll stay here"... and he throws a six. It's amazing stuff!
Any other current obsessions?

There are bits to glean from all over the place, as I've said it's nothing in particular. Apart from
the three books by Brett Easton Ellis-there's a rich train of stuff in those. And then bits from
films, porno movies-I'm always on the lookout for ideas, since they don't come up when you
want them to generally.
Probably the most common complaint about Whitehouse is that it's sexist. How do you justify
the constant use of sexually violent subject matter?
It's simply what I'm interested in, and what I like I reading about and watching and
participating in, to some extent. I wouldn't do things that I wasn't interested in. It's just
personal interest, obsessions, if you like. Really nothing is sacred, as far as I'm concerned. I
wouldn't not do anything. There's no taboo that I wouldn't be quite happy to break if I thought
it would make for some good music.
And despite all the controversy and disapproval, there has always been an audience
for Whitehouse?
Yes, it sells consistently well.
To obtain the latest mail-order cataloge send an inquiry with IRC to:
Susan Lawly
P.O. Box 914
Edinburgh EH 17 8BF UK.
Article first published in EsoTerra #5, Spring/Summer 1995

Legion of the Night

An interview with Emperor
by Chad Hensley
Beneath a horned moon frosted winds wail over the ice pocked plains of Norway. Shadows pool under
an enormous ancient oak and a cloaked figure rises from the coagulating darkness. In his mortal form
he is called Ihsahn, vocalist and guitar player for the demoniac entity known as Emperor. Within his
hands he holds a volume bound in scaly, black flesh- an opus that has been aptly named In the
Nightside Eclipse.
It is their first full length release, a cacophonous liturgy of monstrous black metal. A nightmare
monument of classical keyboards honed with holocaustic guitar, hammering drum beat, and the cries of
a thousand hell spawned souls.
Ihsahn pulls down his cowl to reveal a face smeared with corpse paint and his voice hisses with the
wind- "Corpse paint is an essential mark of Black Metal. The atmosphere it creates visualizes the most
grim and macabre nature of the artist. The dark forces reflect my soul and it is within them that I learn
to create." Beyond the light of material life, Ihsahn screams for the spirit world of the "Pantheon" - a
midnight landscape of howling winter wolfs prowling the forest in great packs outside decayed castle
walls.
Many of the epitaphs etched in In the Nightside Eclipse meld the imagery of occult horror
and necromantic sorcery with concepts expressed in the fiction of Edgar Allen Poe and H.P.
Lovecraft. "The Burning Sounds of Silence", "Beyond the Great Vast Forever", and "I am the
Black Wizards" are three song on In the Nightside Eclipse that leave the listener
mesmerized by Emperors black art.
In the Nightside Eclipse is Emperors second release on Century Media. Their first was a
split CD with label mates Enslaved (another Norwegian extreme metal act) entitled Hordanes
Land. More recently, Norways Head Not Found label has just made available Wrath of the
Tyrant- a vinyl LP of the bands early recordings. But, due to the fact that Ihsahn is the only
remaining member currently not imprisoned, there may never be a follow up to legend that
has been left behind by In the Nightside Eclipse. However, Ihsahns spirit remains
undaunted. Both social Darwinist and Satanist, he continues to strive against those against
him- "Christianity is practiced by people to weak to control their own lives. The religion
represents illogical pity morals that stride against the laws of nature. It has no place in
beautiful Norway." But unlike most musical groups that lay claim to the philosophyt that "Might
is Right", Emperor has taken action. Of the four original members, guitarist Samoth has been
incarcerated for the arson of a church and drummer Faust is serving a sentence for the brutal
murder of a homosexual man who expressed feelings towards him. The third member,
keyboardist Mortiis, left the band to form his own one man nocturnal symphony and has just
released, Anden Som Gjorde Oppror, on Swedens experimental music label Cold Meat
Industry. While Ihsahn still continues to plot a future for Emperor...

When did Emperor form?

Emperor was brought to exist

Tell me about the church b

still being used? What tim
he hope to accomplish?

Skjold Church was a large wo

and preaching chair from the
historical, Christian value. So it was to be reduced to a pile of ashes. The material damages are
set to be of 13 million Norwegian Kroners. The church was still being used by a large flock of
blind followers. It became a victim for true Norwegian spirit on the 13th of September Anno
1992 during a stormy night. Witnessed by the moon, this symbolic act of anti-Christian war
enlightened the night with pagan flames. Heathen barbarism is one the rise. We will bring back
the forgotten past of strength, pride, and victory.
Why do you choose to side with the Darkness?
The dark forces reflect my soul, and it is within them that I learn to create. In darkness,
beyond the light of material life, I live out the spirit in me. In the light of my inner flame I
observe the secrets hidden from the sun, unseen by the mortal, to be found by spirits of my
kind.
Do you believe in any gods? Do you believe in Christianitys Satan or Jehovah?
Yes, I believe in gods, as personified symbols of forces that are unrecognizable to the physical
senses, and therefore must be associated through those channels the human mind is capable
of using. Satan versus Jehovah/God/Christ is a very good symbolic perspective on the contrast
between different forces. This is, of course, just another version among many other religions,
though personally I find the visual and lyrical symbolism in Satanism very appealing and
satisfactory when used for strong associations. As for Christ, I can accept that some guy called
Jesus once lived and claimed to be the son of God, being affected by a force that gave him this
strange idea. Nevertheless, believing that he was, and that he is the savior of all people , I live
this to the Christians. Heaven and Hell are also good visual symbols on the forces in contrast,
and their affects on the afterlife, but a little too simplified.
Are you religious? If so, what religion do you follow or favor?
Yes. I am religious in that I have a very spirited view on my belief. And, I am a Satanist, due
to what I explained about appealing and satisfactory symbolism.
Are you involved in the occult?
I do appreciate the magical and occult subject. This is quite a personal matter and I am not
interested in sharing my pretentious secrets.
What do you think of Asatru?
Asatru is a very essential aspect of Norwegian history, in heritage and spirit. It is also a very
interesting and intelligent faith.
Tell me about the current Black Metal scene in Norway.
In spite of several complications that occurred because of all the imprisoning and the murder
of Euronymous (guitarist and singer for Mayhem), the scene seems to be get back together.

We have many promising new bands and projects. Of course, there are still some minor
problems with persons that are unwanted. But I believe that Norway has the strongest Black
Metal scene ever.
Who are your musical influences?
Rather, "what" are my musical influences. My belief and the total concept of Emperor. At the moment, I
am listen to quite a lot of Beethoven. Also much ambient and techno. I do like the new Immortal
Battles in the North.
Why do you wear "corpse paint"? What does this mean to you?
Corpse paint is a fundemental part of Black Metal and underlines what the music is all about.
Unfortunately, this cult symbol has been abused by the unworthy and has lost some of the power it
once had.
What does your family think of Emperor?
They have always been very supportive. The know that we are good musicians and can reach
far with what we do. They do not necessarily agree with the concept nor have they always the
greatest understanding of the totality of the music.
Has Emperor released any vinyl 7 inches?
Samoth released As the Shadows Rise on his own label Nocturnal Art Productions as a
limited edition of a 1000 copies.
Do you believe in the philosophy - Strong over the weak or Might is right?
Both of them. It is the law of nature. The strong survive. That is basically the mentality behind
my Satanism- the individual. Strong, intelligent, and powerful.
What do you think of society and the direction it is heading?
I do not like society in general as the whole world is full of masses of people that I have no
relation to nor interest for at all. Very few people compared to the extreme masses are likely
to understand and communicate with the persons of my kind. As far as the way society is
heading I see a lot of people dying because of their stupidity. I just really hope to make the
best out of it for myself and those I care for with the time I have left here.
What do you think of Anton LaVeys Church of Satan?
Anton LaVey is a very intelligent man. He, with his church, is very good at getting people into
the anti-Christian and Satanic concept. Having his ideologies nicely written out to people so
that even the simplest housewife can agree with it. Many of his ideas are very good, others I
disagree with. But an individual should think for itself.
Contact- Nocturnal Art Productions, Box 53, 3812 Akkerhaugen, Telemark, Norway.
First appeared in EsoTerra #6 1995

The Storm Before the Calm

An Interview with Blood Axis
by Wulfing One

The sound of an army marc

gothic keyboards soon acco
obvious that Blood Axis has
Blood Axis is the fascistic ro
a household word, he choos
select group of night time w
the shadow realm of extrem
Michael has always embarke
arsenal is filled

with many weapons, including publishing (under the banner of Storm Productions), music critic
(writing for such magazines as SECONDS, The Fifth Path, and ESOTERRA, of course), and art.
Thus armed, he has blazed new trails where others dare not follow. In this comprehensive
interview with ESOTERRA, Moynihan chronicles past activities, achievements, and experiences
with rare humor and singular insight, as well as revealing some of the future projects and
plans in his ongoing itenerary.
Could you give us a chronology of your musical involvement over the years?
In 1983, when I was fourteen years old, I started doing experiments with electronic
equipment. I was fascinated with the idea of electronic instruments, and I had a small kit with
which you could build oscillators and circuits that basically made white noise or frequency
noise. So I started building those, and little keyboards, and manipulating reel-to-reel tape
recorders at different speeds to make noise collage with tapes - that was the first music I did.
You began essentially as a musical alchemist?
Yes, but it was real primative - I wouldn't attach any claim of quality to it. I was sitting down in
my room in the basement of my parent's house building these things. Around that time I also
picked up on the fact that there was other music out there like this, that people actually
listened to.

How did you find out abo

I simply followed trails to th

some other music group tha
experimental, because I rea
it. Around that time I discov
well, and these were the or
disco/danceelements came
found on my own. They wou
aside for me, and I'd go dow
listening to the radio, a record shop in Boston, which I had never known about, that

supposedly specialized in this type of music. I went over there and began getting lots of things.
The owner of the store turned out to be the guy who did Sleep Chamber, and I became friends
with him. Around that time I was already doing my own music under the name Coup de Grace,
starting to record cassettes, and he was encouraging me to put the material out myself. At the
time he was releasing tons of cassettes on his record label. By then I'd gotten a synthesizer
and had some keyboards. I used to run a Casio keyboard through all these homemade effects
to distort it. The original recordings I did were more musical, but they were all electronic.
There was also a lot of noisy stuff, and it was pretty harsh overall in terms of content. I put out
a couple of cassettes that were extremely limited, but surprisingly they got over to places like
Europe, although I don't even remember at this point how anyone found out about them. They
ended up in the hands of some people called Club Moral in Belgium, who did a magazine,
called Force Mental, which covered art and music. Most of the music they liked was really
extreme electronic stuff along the lines of Whitehouse, and they printed a small, glowing
review of the first cassette I put out. They sent a copy of a magazine, and I began
corresponding with them, and at a certain point they invited me to come over there to play a
festival that they'd gotten art grants for from the Belgian government. I agreed, so they set up
what turned out to be this small European tour in the Netherlands and Germany, with the
money from the extra concerts paying for all my expenses. It was five or six shows at different
places, some of which were just factory warehouse halls: one was in an old movie theater, one
was in a nightclub in Rotterdam - different underground venues. They were very, very small
shows, but they went over well. That was where I first met Willi Stasch and Rose Kasseckert of
Cthulhu Records, who subsequently became more important. After returning to the States I
was asked to become a member of Sleep Chamber, which I did for awhile as a side project,
though I was still much more interested in continuing my own activities.
Sleep Chamber originated in Boston?
The guy was from Boston who started it, John Zewizz. It began as this very weird electronic
music that he did pretty much by himself, or with a few friends. At the time Sleep Chamber
was a lot different from what it is now. It really had a disturbing quality to it. It was much
more confrontational, and was generally hated by all of the rock crowd in Boston. Later it got
more and more accessible, and he obsessed on the sex aspect, which was there when we did
the stuff, but it hadn't become the S/M fashion show it is now. At the same time I kept doing
my stuff, and he was still running his record store. When the store went out of business, he
had different electronic groups play there in the final few weeks he was open, so there were a
couple of live shows I did there as Coup de Grace. Around that time Thomas Thorn, who does
the Electric Hellfire Club, also joined Sleep Chamber. He was an old friend of mine, and came
out to Boston and joined the band. For a brief period we were both in the band together, and
then there was a big falling out, mainly between him and John. I followed suit and quit the
band as well; Thomas and I wanted nothing further to do with it. That was the end of that. I
was much more interested in going over and spending time in Belgium, as the Club Moral
people invited me to come live there in the same wharehouse where they lived. I built a whole
apartment in the upper floor of this empty factory, and it was totally illegal to live there, so I
had to lay low. I couldn't work there and i tried to stay out of trouble. The rent was a whopping
fifteen dollars a month, which made it worth the risk.
The price was right?
Yes, but I had to do everything from installing the plumbing to wiring the room for electricity.

There was no water, no power, nothing. I taught myself all of that. I lived there for a couple of
years, off and on. Then, at that time, another musical event occurred. Thomas was doing his
own band, Slave State, that he formed when he returned to Wisconsin after he left Sleep
Chamber. It was a techno Skinhead band, for lack of a better description. He and I were still in
close contact, and he came over to Belgium to visit. He stayed with me for a few weeks, and
we decided that we should try to do a Slave State show over there. We did it in the basement
of the factory where I lived - there was a secret room that the guy from Club Moral had
discovered underneath where their garage was. It was where they parked. He was cutting a
hole in the cement floor so that he could work on his car. The saw went right through the floor
and he discovered a whole room under there, full of dirt and debris, mostly ancient Chianti
wine bottles, thousands of them. We cleaned out this whole space and had the concert in the
cellar, which turned out to be a strange event attended by about fifty people. It was extremely
dangerous, totally illegal, and a death trap, to boot, with that many people in a place that had
only a tiny metal ladder to get out of the hole.
Claustrophobic?
It was really claustrophobic! The concert itself was extremely noisy and fascistic. Quite a few
suspicious types showed up, because the propaganda for the show looked incredibly fascist.
We were both skinheads at the time. The most amazing part was that nothing bad happened
as a result. Club Moral were terrified that the police were going to come and arrest us all for
having some strange rally in a dangerous and completely illegal bunker. This hole in the
ground. Yes. We drank lots of absinthe before we played. One guy who came from Sweden had
the symbol of the band, a lightning bolt inside a triangle, carved into his arm with a carpet
knife after the concert because he was so excited by the performance. There were quite a
number of interesting repercussions; not long after that, in 1989, I decided that it was
impossible to continue living in Belgium because of the illegality of it, and for other personal
reasons. And you began to also give up on music as a medium with any great impact? MM:
Besides the Slave State thing, I wasn't interested in doing music anymore. I didn't have any
musical equipment. At that point I'd gotten rid of whatever minimal stuff I had owned. I
wanted to publish books. Around that time is when I started to work on the edition of The
Antichrist. That came out at the end of 1988, about a hundred years after it was originally
written, which was in 1888. I didn't have the means to make music in terms of how I wanted
to do it, and I thought books would have more impact at the time.
What led to your recording music again?
In 1989 after that book had come out, I was still living over in Europe, and, before I made a
final move back to America, I decided to go on a trip to all these different places I hadn't seen.
I visited the people from Cthulhu Records, in the Rhineland part of Germany, and stayed with
them for a few days, and we talked a lot about music. They were encouraging me to do
something again. They expressed a desire to put it out and convinced me there would be a lot
of people interested in it. I expained to them that I wanted to do certain things with music, but
the problem was that I didn't have the means to do it properly. They basically said: "Well,
whenever you do manage it, just let us know, and we'll release it." They really inspired me.
And this led to the two inclusions you had on "The Lamp of the Invisible Light." MM: Yes, it
basically led to Blood Axis. I already had the nascent idea for it, but their enthusiasm
convinced me that it was worthwhile to actually do it. Once the seed of the idea was firmly
planted in my mind, I knew I would figure out a way to do it in some manner or another. After

a final trip through Europe, I moved all my things back to America, and it was right around
that time I got in touch with Boyd Rice. I'd known about him for years previous, since 1983 or
'84 - actually, I was in England in 1984 and bought his records in London. You couldn't even
find them anywhere in America at that point. Later on, he got an invitation to go to Japan and
do NON shows there. This was in Osaka? MM: Yes. This was in the spring of 1989. he had
recently done a show in August of 1988, exactly when we had done the Slave State show. He'd
done a show that was called 8/8/88, as it was held on the eighth of August that year. He did it
with Nicholas Schreck and a bunch of other people like Zeena LaVey and Adam Parfrey. Where
was that held? MM: San Francisco. I started talking to him right around that time. It was just
after we'd done the Slave State show. Both shows were in a sense fascistic performances. In
the Slave State show we wore black uniforms, had shaved heads, and played Wagner at
volume for an hour before we went on. The show they did in San Francisco had all these
people involved, and they tried to make it a rally along fascistic lines. That was another thing
we were talking about at the time: how to successfully incorporate those elements in a
performance.
On this Japanese tour, who were some of the others involved in the show?
Initially, Boyd had been invited to go over there, and Current 93 was going to play also. The
promoter wanted Boyd just to do the noise music where he goes up with a little, black box...
And flips on the switches and walks off the stage. They wanted him to just make noise. He told
them he wasn't interested in doing that, and he wanted me to come with him. He asked me,
and I said, "Sure, if you can arrange it." He insisted to the promoters that I would come as
part of NON. the organizers were constantly trying to get him to come only by himself and do
some simple thing, because they didn't want to pay for more, but, in the end, they did get us
the tickets; and we went over there. The people from Current 93 were all there, which was at
the time the people from Death in June, Sol Invictus, and Rose McDowall (ex-Strawberry
Switchblade, who does records with Current 93 and Death in June). They were already there,
and we had planned out what we wanted to do involving drummers - a militaristic drumming
foundation for the show. I figured out the drumming parts, and we had all this regalia which I
designed and made. Boyd arranged it so those people would help perform the concerts with
us. It ended up being me, Boyd, Rose McDowall, Douglas P., and Tony Wakeford.
That turned into the TOTAL WAR performance?
Yes, that's what it became. We did three shows in Japan which worked out well, especially the
last one in Osaka: everything really came together there. Boyd has become something of a
legend as a prankster, and I know you're not averse to pranks.
Could you tell us about any pranks and the reactions you received over there in
Japan?
Japan was sort of a wonderland for playing practical jokes, because you have this society
where every single person has their place: it's all orderly, and every thing is supposed to
happen in a certain way. It makes sense to them, but not to you as an outsider! There's
nothing really out of line. People don't expect things to be out of line, and it just does not
compute when they are. They don't really know what to do because they assume that
everything is going to be orderly, and, 99% of the time, it is. Now, of course someone with a
prankish nature can see the limitless possibilities this offers for creating mayhem everywhere.

And that was what we set out to do because, unfortunately for them, we happened to have a
lot of free time. We only played three nights, but we were there for three weeks, which left us
with days where we had to amuse ourselves somehow. We did a lot of different things. In
Tokyo we stayed at a large hotel, a very nice place. And there, just like all that you witnessed
out-of-doors, everything was in its proper place, real neat and orderly. So we started doing
things like changing signs and altering things, which is a concept they couldn't fathom. No one
would ever do that over there! It would be tantamount to some sort of insanity.
A ticket to the asylum?
Yes! They had elaborate signs in the elevators telling you where to go, what was on the
different floors - all the parts of this huge hotel. So we would take these giant posters out of
their holders, rearrange them, and add things into them, these absurd elements: re-draw the
people in the illustrations into hideous-looking creatures, and put them back. We figured, the
Japanese being so orderly, they would immediately remove them, but it was almost as if they
were afraid to change anything, because it was supposed to be there for a reason.
Some higher order had placed it there?
Exactly. These absurd signs were all over, and we would burst out laughing every time we saw
them. They would stay up for days, untouched. Boyd had some newspapers from St. Louis this amazing publication called The St. Louis World Examiner, which is America's oldest black
newspaper. It pretty much catalogues crime. When you first see it, you think it's Ku Klux Klan
propaganda or something; but it's real, and is actually published by blacks. It has regular
features, like a column called "Wife Beaters and Sweetheart Mistreaters." Most of the articles
are written in this sort of rhyming, jive style, and they would have bizarre headlines like: KING
COBRA SNUFFS BILLYBOY. Some weird crime had been committed, a horrible mug shot of
some ghetto dweller underneath. So we replaced the signs in the hotel with the front pages of
these newspapers, and those stayed up for days, the full time we were there. Nobody dared
remove them.
And what was the reaction?
Who knows? We were long gone. That's the trouble with some pranks: you often don't get to
see the punchline.We did some things in Osaka, and then we did get to see the payoff when
we got back to Tokyo before we left. All the shows were over, and we were holed up in this
hotel: a tiny, narrow building that had about twenty-five stories. We were way up at the top of
this place, and each story had a balcony. This is where we really had a field day. We realized
you could do a lot of stuff from the balconies, and we went to our rooms, which were on the
twenty-fifth floor, and opened the little mini-bars which had drinks you could take. We found
that there were packages of these weird, little fish crackers, nuts, and things like that. We're
bottled up in this place with nothing to do, so we went out on the balcony at nighttime, and we
could see all these little Japanese people down on the street below. We had these crackers,
and started tossing them down, watching what would happen. They were landing near people,
and, the strange thing was, people would try to act as if they didn't notice anything had
happened. They would see this object hit the ground, but they would just ignore it because it
didn't compute. It just wasn't supposed to be that way. We kept dropping these things, and
they just were not noticing them that much, so we took this entire cannister of these nuts and
crackers, half full, with the cap on tightly, and threw it down like a bomb. It landed next to a

guy getting on his motorcycle and exploded. These crackers were everywhere, and he wouldn't
look up! He looked all around, to the sides, but nobody would dare look up toward where the
thing had obviously fallen from! It was as if they didn't want to believe these things were
coming out of the sky, and the thing they really couldn't believe was that someone would
actually throw something purposely down from a high place. At that point we realized we could
have a field day and went down to the grocery store. We started buying every slimy foodstuff
we could afford. The best were eggs. We got cartons of eggs, smuggled them back into the
hotel under our jackets, and proceeded to spend hours tossing eggs down at the people. Not
trying to hit them, but aiming so they landed several feet in front of people. It was really like
some sort of strange cross-cultural sociological experiment. There was a night construction
crew working on the corner who all had their hardhats on, so we knew we wouldn't really hurt
anyone with the eggs, which made it even better. We were throwing them down, and there's a
guy going along with a wheelbarrow. Somebody threw one as he was trying to cross the street
with the wheelbarrow, and the egg landed exactly in front of him and exploded! He stopped for
about thirty seconds - pauses, staring at the ground - and then backs up and circumnavigates
around the broken egg in front of him. He continued to his destination never even looking up
at where we were! Then we started bombarding the building across the street. We hit the glass
windows of this apartment, hid behind our balcony. The resident came out and actually did
look around, but to no avail. But then he spent firty-five minutes scouring all the windows until
they were perfectly clean, in his bathrobe, brfore going back inside. That went on all night with
the eggs.
Can we ecpect a full CD from you in the near future?
Blood Axis is finishing the recording for the full-length release, "The Gospel of Inhumanity,"
right now. We've signed with Cthulhu Records in Europe, and they are great to work with as
they support our work very sincerely. Hopefully, by the middle of the year it will come out in
Europe via Cthulhu, and then an identical version will come out via Storm in the US. What sort
of material is on the release? About half of the CD will be proper songs that are more
structured, have a melody, and more traditional song structure, and the other half will be
longer, atmospheric pieces that try to cultivate a sertain mood. Could you give us some sort of
preview of the type of things you're planning on producing in the future? I've basically turned
Storm into a record label, and I'm looking for things to release that I feel deserve more
attention. There's a bunch of material lined up at the moment. One release is a CD of a group
called Changes: it's folk music from the end of the sixties and early seventies. I initially found
out about it because it was loosely connected to the Process Church of the Final Judgment
when that was prominent. Much of the music was initially performed at a Process meeting
house, and Process members attended their other shows in Chicago. I got ahold of some
cassette tapes, and was impressed with the sound of it. The more I listened to it, the more I
felt it should be released in some form for posterity, if nothing else. A lot of the things they
were talking about in the songs were still valid, similar to ideas that bands like Sol Invictus and
even Blood Axis are trying to put forth. And this was stuff from twenty or more years ago! So I
felt this would be an excellent thing to release, especially since the music was already done. It
was a matter of collecting it all and re-mastering it to put it out in a coherent form, which is
what I'm working on at the moment.
Is there au underlying philosophy or criteria for what you will be producing?
There are a couple of criteria. One of them is whether I like the stuff, and whether or not it
would see the light of day otherwise. If there is a certain spark that resonates with me, then I

think other people should hear it. For me, this is good enough reason for a release. Things like
the Changes material no one would hear otherwise, and it would probably be consigned to
obscurity. The Changes CD is called "Fire of Life," and is a full album, sort of a best-of
compilation. It ranges from tracks done in a studio to stuff recorded in a kitchen on a really
primitive, mono reel-to-reel deck. In the latter case we had to re-create a stereo effect, and
the original tape was actually disintegrating, falling apart during the mastering process. But,
luckily, everything we wanted was saved. The Republic release will be a seven-inch with a song
called "Responsibility" on the A-side. It's centered around a speech by Harold that sounds like
a cross between Hitler and John F. Kennedy. The B-side is probably going to be a collage of
source recordings they did. Another seven-inch will contain the title track from the Changes
CD, plus an unreleased B-side. Then the Blood Axis CD will hopefully be out in the summer.
There are also plans for a CD by Peter Gilmore, who does The Black Flame... He's into music?
He's a composer of electronic music, and he's done some intros and segues for the death
metal band Acheron. He's also done the soundtrack music for the "Death Scenes" videos, and
the "Burn, Baby, Burn" riot video by Nick Bougas. Peter does his own things as well: marches
and more classically based works. He's working on his "Ragnarok Symphony," and that will be
a full CD whenever he's done with it.Another seven-inch is going to be done by David E.
Williams from Philadelphia, which will be a four song EP.
What about the Manson CD?
There is a Manson CD out which is not being put out by Storm, but which I helped to
coordinate; it was a thing which a few people worked on. It's called "Commemoration," and
has been released on White Devil Records. So you've become sort of a catalyst for various
diverse creative forces in the underground or alternative culture? Regardless of how wellknown I am, there do seem to be a lot of people coalescing on a single thought. Like, back
when we did that Slave State thing in Europe, it happened exactly when this 8/8/88
performance, utilizing some similar ideas, was occurring on another continent. There's a more
orderly, strong, and aggressive ideal coming to the forefront, instead of passivity, or wallowing
in escapism. It's opposed to so much of rock music, which degenerated into hippie pacifism. I
think you're beginning to see a lot more music coming out that is opposed to that. What are
your most current personal projects? Besides fininshing the production of the Blood Axis
album, there are lots of other plans. Storm will eb relocating to Portland, Oregon in a few
months. I am also making arrangements to do a true crime book calledBlood and Ashes about
the recent events in Norway, where a group of pagan young people committed murders and
torched a startling number of Christian churches, burning most of them to the ground. I've
been invited to write a chapter about fascist tendencies in modern music for a book called
Apocalypse Rock as well. And I'm trying to arrange for the English translation of certain works
by the Italian occultist and political philosopher Julius Evola. The list of projects goes on and
on, and there really are too many things to even recall all of them at any given moment.
Article first published in EsoTerra #5, 1995

The Voice of Generati

An interview with Marilyn Man

by Chad Hensley

-------Imagine a science project were the cells of serial killers were genetically spliced with the DNA of sex s
day marathons of Saturday morning cartoons. When they grow up, teach them how to make music and wh
freaks known as Marilyn Manson.
-------Mr. Manson appears a cross between the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's the Child Snatcher and go
Christian America on their bluff", he says proudly. Marilyn Manson stands for freak supremacy and he isn't
------- Despite their controversial approach, the band was signed to Trent Reznor's Nothing/Interscope from
American Family, Smells Like Children, and their latest dark vision, Antichrist Superstar. It should come as
appointed by Anton LaVey himself. Regarding such matters, he says "Marilyn Manson represents the ideas
all, Marilyn Manson is bigger than Satan."

Why do movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory fascinate you?
I like how they can be interpreted from an adult point of view. I think when you go back to a
lot of movies like that, and Saturday morning shows like H.R. Puffenstuff, Lidsville, and all
those other Kroft Super Shows, you'll find that they're very adult oriented. When you were
young you didn't pick up on the innuendoes and references that were being made. These ideas
were implanted in your head at an early age. I'm fascinated by that. A character like the Child
Snatcher from Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang wouldn't be acceptable by today's standards. Its too
politically incorrect for somebody to go around stealing little kids and luring them with candy.
It's unfair that they fed us these great violent cartoons with no concern for the repercussions.
Now, they've decided that it was all wrong and they want to take it back. They have to give
kids this bland, boring bullshit that tells them the proper decision to make every step of the
way. America's gone to great lengths to create Marilyn Manson and now they want to deny that
they've done so. They've failed to recognize that the monster they've made is going to eat
them. I think Marilyn Manson stands for anyone of our generation because we are a product of
the sixties and seventies. Now, everyone is concerned with every little problem in the world on
such a greater scale than they were back then. Its almost like prohibition. They want to control
guns. Control drugs. They should just open up the gates and let everybody do whatever it is
they want. Then the people who are strong enough to survive will. People too stupid to live will
be crushed under the wheels of progress.

What's your fascination with serial killers?

Do you have any favorites? My fascination is similar to that of people stopping to look at car
accidents or wanting to go to an amusement park and get on a ride that says "ride at your own
risk". People love their fear, whether they realize it or not. People are afraid of death but love
to get closer to it vicariously through serial killers, horror movies, the O.J. Simpson trial,
Lorraina Bobbit, or whatever it may be. I think that's why there is a need for Marilyn Manson in
America. America has created that demand. I've always been fascinated by cult leaders like
Charles Manson or David Koresh and their followers. The relationship between that and rock
stars and their fans. As far as serial killers, I think Jeffery Dahlmer is one of the more

interesting individuals. His story is probably the most fascinating that I've heard. The chocolate
factory aspect made it very interesting for me. Just the fact that society made him feel so
shitty for his homosexual impulses that he reacted violently. This goes back to my feelings that
the American family has become a very masochistic structure that kids are constantly made to
feel shitty for who they are. If they don't conform to conservative America's fascist agenda,
they're made to feel guilty for it. That guilt is what spawns America's serial killers and teen
suicides.
Why are you sick of politically correct America?
Because its not willing to admit its hypocrisy. People are too blind to see its phoniness. All the
political correctness now is just another reason to sell a product. I can see them starting a race
war just so they can sell a "Free Your Mind" t-shirt. They don't want the problem to go away
because then they won't have anything to complain about. People don't want to fix problems
because problems are what people thrive on.
Why do you like Anton LaVey?

I think he's probably the most powerful writer that you can find today. Probably becau
most. One of my favorite books of his is THE DEVIL'S NOTEBOOK. I like what he has t
Crowley. These guys have always been pointed out as being wrong and evil. I would e
he alludes to, the great Satanic Unconsciousness. That everyone is really a Satanist. T
of the greatest Satanists because they've managed to pull off such an amazing scam
Do you follow the philosophy "the strong over the weak"?

Most definitely. I don't think it is the strong people's responsibility to constantly be cle
that come up with statements like "everybody's created equal". I've worked for what I
wipe someone's ass. There's too many people in America. In the world. I think it's nat
diseases that are fucking everyone up. It's nature's way of saying "use some discretio
Tell me about your lunchbox collection.
It started about four years ago when I resurrected my Kiss lunchbox out of the attic. It
reminded me of the period in my life when I went to a private Christian school and I wasn't
allowed to bring it. They said it was satanic and that it would somehow corrupt the other kids.
At the time, I use to get my ass kicked by all the kids in public school. Then I got kicked out of
private school. Thinking back, I really wanted to get kicked out but I didn't realize it at the
time. The final straw was when I got caught stealing money out of girls' purses during prayer. I
think it was pretty poetic in a way. Then, when I went to public school I got my ass kicked
some more. I was the punk kid. So, I grew up not being accepted too well by the other kids. I
found later that I could relate to the kind of mentality that a lot of serial killers fall into. That
"Someday, I'll show you" attitude. I think that a lot of serial killers want to show the world.
They want to be a star. All these things inspired me to write the song, "Lunchbox" on the CD,
and with my re-interest in lunchboxes I started to collect them. Some of my favorites are Land
of the Giants, Lidsville, H.R. Puffenstuff, Land of the Lost, Bugaloos, and Dr. Doolittle. I got a
Gomer Pyle lunchbox around the time they were having all the fuss about gays in the military.
It has Jim Neighbors on the front. He's in this really suggestive pose getting sprayed in the
face by a garden hose. I thought it was really appropriate. The last lunchbox that I bought was
Lancelot Link and it cost me $75 bucks. I use to carry around my lunchbox to clubs and all
these jock guys would want to fight me. Once, I actually got into a fight and hit this guy in the
face with my lunchbox. Metal lunchboxes do come in handy. Its kind of funny, because
lunchboxes were outlawed in Florida in 1976. A kid bludgeoned another kid, not to death but

into a pulp with a metal lunchbox on the playground. We can only hope that when we make
Marilyn Manson lunchboxes that the same thing happens.
Were there any particular bands that influenced some of the remixes on Smells Like
Children?
Some of the things that we were thinking about when we recorded the three cover songs on
the CD were the Stooges, Bauhaus, and the original Screaming Jay Hawkins. The three covers
we picked were songs that I thought were very powerful and had pretty much gotten
overlooked in their time. "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics was a song that had some really
dark lyrics. I wanted to re-present that in a way so people could really focus on the words. This
song tied in together with "Dope Hat" and that's really how the birth of the Ep came about.
Both songs deal with use and abuse and how they relate. Another one of the covers, Patti
Smith's "Rock and Roll Nigger", we had been doing live for a couple of years. That song is an
anthem for the 90s- a big "fuck you" to political correctness. I think it de-mystifies the word
"nigger". The song is not about racism but about being an individual.
Tell me about some of the other songs on Smells Like Children.
"May Cause Discoloration of the Urine or Feces" was a conversation that I ease dropped on. I
thought that it really dealt with another aspect of how drugs play into people's lives. This is a
conversation between two members of my family. These are the type of people who raised me
so I thought that it might be an insight to share with our fans so that they could see where I
came from. Dave Ogilvie from Skinny Puppy did the remix "Dance of the Dope Hats". He also
did the "Kiddie Grinder" remix. Charlie Clouser, the keyboard player for Nail Inch Nails, did a
remix of "Cake and Sodomy" called "Everlasting Cock Sucker".
What is a subject that you feel strongly about?
I feel strongly about the movement of what Marilyn Manson is to be. The Antichrist is the
embodiment of people who disbelieve in Christianity. With the release of Antichrist Superstar
it's time for me to stop debating; to stop arguing about who's right and who's wrong. It's time
for me to assert myself as a leader to this generation of people who agree with what I have to
say. We are unsatisfied with being told who to be. We want to be ourselves. I think in a quite
fascist way, Antichrist Superstar needs to overwhelm America. We will create a larger and
larger group of like-minded individuals who will decide for themselves what's right and wrong.
We shouldn't feel ashamed to say "We think we are superior to the people who are too weak to
think for themselves." It's not about sexism or racism. It's about ethics, not ethnics. If you are
intelligent enough to acknowledge that you are an individual and you are your own god then
you are superior to some asshole idiot who wants to go about his everyday job being a sheep
that's too weak to stand up for himself. I think it is a perfectly acceptable ideal. If Marilyn
Manson becomes as big as I think it's going to be, America has a lot to be afraid of.
The band lived in New Orleans while you were recording Antichrist Superstar. What
was the most perverted experience that you had while living in this city?
Some of them are more extreme and the statute of limitations would prohibit me from
commenting on them. But I think many of them are very clich with regard to New Orleans.
We went on grave digging expeditions on several nights near Metairie. It was kind of like a
ghetto cemetery. I don't remember all the cemeteries but everywhere we went the ground was
so eroded that we found bones just sticking out. Twiggy got into it a lot more than I did. He
started picking out bones to put in his hair. He took it on as a hobby. As a whole though, living
in New Orleans wasn't that much different than living in Florida. So I was accustomed to the
usual idiots we would encounter on any given day. But there are a lot of one-legged people in

New Orleans. The track "Dancing With The One-Legged..." is about drug use involving the
band. When you are using certain types of drugs you are dancing with the one-legged man.
That man is the one-legged black man that's always hopping around by the interstate begging
money. There is more to the story than that but I did want to take his artificial leg. Some stuff
that happened in New Orleans may appear in a home video we are doing but I'm not sure. The
problem that we ran into was that New Orleans is a very nocturnal city. I met all of the heroin
junkie strippers that hang out in the French Quarter. It would be about 8 a.m. when we would
really get crazy. One night, on Twiggy's birthday, a bunch of events occurred. We were
performing a tribute ritual that involved the one-legged black man, an incredible amount of
cocaine, and Jack Daniels. We ended up running around our neighborhood near Terpsichore
Street at 10 a.m. completely naked wearing wigs and cowboys hats. Twiggy had a lipstick
drawn swastika on his chest and was singing an acoustic guitar songs to a homeless guy
named Joe who we gave a bottle of Vodka to. I never met any of our neighbors but I pissed on
a couple of their doors. One time I took a shit on a plate and left it in front of one of their
doors. I think they thought we were either in the circus or a cult. Which are both true.
What direction do you think society is heading?
I think it's heading for a huge explosion that will probably resolve things. Hopefully, we'll end
up with a better way of living. But, "Free Your Mind" attitude and the whole hippie Woodstock
mentality is doing exactly what "Just Say No" did in the '80s; nothing. Its causing more racial
tension. More intolerance and hatred. Marilyn Manson will be the house band for Armageddon

THE PROCESS: THE FINAL JUDGEMENT BY R.N. TAYLORTHE JUDGEMENT BY R.N.

TAYLOR

Apocalypse was in the air; an impend

those of us who had crossed it's rainb
would never quite seem the same aga
The prevailing order of things; the st
material things, these and a host of o
came into question, were scrutinized
But what were these mainstays of ou
newly emergent " counter-culture" an
need is love - love - love,' and joined

Process Founder and Prophet

Robert Moore De Grimston

of ' Strawberry Fields Forever' in joyful defiance. We had turned on, tuned in and dropped out - but where would we go
from there?
The much lauded creativity and freedom of this counter-culture; from it's hedonistic sex, it's drug induced visions, dayglow posters, tye-dye clothing, massive musical gatherings and a ' do your own thing' philosophy, had run it's meteoric
course and had burned itself out.
The early 1970s were to be it's anti-climax, as run-away inflation, growing corruption and cynicism began to penetrate
most segments of society.
American boys were still fighting and dying in this nation's second no-win-war in Asia; the secret police by-way of their
COINTELPRO operations ( infiltration, agent provocatuers, frames-ups, armed raids and assasinations ) had been
successful in rendering any revolutionary activity, right or left, ineffective and null. Tricky-Dick was our chief
administrator and about to live-up to his bad name. Psychedelics had begun to be replaced by other addictive drugs such
as heroine, morphine, and cocaine. The recording industry was about to experience it's lowest margin of profits in
decades. The Psychedelic head-shops began to fold up business. The so-called ' Age of Aquarius' had grinded to a halt,
and along with it and entire generation was left floundering in it's confusion and despair.
Into this void came the cults. Ready and eager to fill the existing spiritual vacuum with new visions, new perimeters,
new rules and directions. And they were many and they were varied.
Zen Buddhism had already made it's debut in the West in the preceding decade by way of the writings of Suzuki and
popular writings of Kerouac and Watts. It was further enhanced by a growing interest in various Oriental martial arts.
But it did not have the makings of a mass-style movement, and so remained relatively small in numbers and defused.
But the late sixties and early seventies saw a proliferation of odd sects and cults; Christian salvation groups such as the
'Children Of God' and ' The Jesus People'; Hari-Krishnas and transcendental mediators, Baba Lovers, and other Gurucults; home-grown psycho-analytical methods such as Scientology and EST, all of which alluded to some sort of
rational and scientific methods; long-time dormant fringe sects and elitist occult societies began to revive, expand and
attract new adherents.
By the early 1970s a virtual smorgasbord of religious persuasions could be found on the spiritual menu, ready to to be
served-up piping-hot for the lost, the lonely and confused.
The guru-cults appealed principally to the burned-out post-hippie remnants, who suffering psychological displacement
and a diminished sense of self, wished only to bury their frayed minds and psyches in some balmy cloud of mysticism,

thereby loosing themselves in a vision of the aglamorous Godhead.

Conversely, the psychoanalytical cults appealed to that group of youth and young adults with an in-born predilection for
entrepreneurship. They were most often the ones who had but recently been small-time drug dealers who " only sold a
little to their good friends". They were the ones who wanted all the success and material baubles of the preceding
generation, but didn't want to work too hard or wait too long in fulfilling these aspirations. Their personal quest was in
pursuit of finding 'sure-fire' methods for realizing these goals of romance, money and social status. The cult leaders of
these groups understood the mind-set and aspirations of these types only to well, and knew just how to play these marks
for all they were worth. The wheels of their system were to be well oiled with the capital of ambitious, but naive
aspirants. Cost for initiate-hood didn't come cheaply. It was measured out in dollars and cents. The aspirant could,
however, defray a large portion of these daunting costs by recruiting other fodder for the cult, who would in turn help to
make-up the deficit of their own tuitions and costs. All of this was just another variant of the pyramid- scam, a scam that
seems to have an almost unflagging and magical appeal to America's middle-class.
These psycho-analytical cults usually worked out of an almost corporate setting. No beards, no bare-feet or other antisocial trappings. Theirs was instead a professional front intended to appeal to and to generate confidence in the eager
and ambitious near-do-wells which they attracted.
- 2 - " The Malicious have a dark Happiness." - Victor Hugo
But not all who passed through the proverbial " doors of perception " were of the same disposition. Not all were the
jaded children of middle-class affluence, not all lacked a will to power. There were also others of the post-sixties
generation whose existence was made less visible in the media or the public eye.This segment of disaffected beings
were not thinking the same thoughts or seeing the same visions, nor were they intent upon the same goals as their lost
and listless counter-parts were. These were the outsiders. During the preceding decade they had no more upheld the
statism and status quo of the conservative-right any more than they had joined in the contagion of the New-Left. These
were the metaphysical rebels, Anarchs, Anarchists, occultists and nihilists, who wished a plague on all house!
Their visions were not those of Utopia or Nirvana, but were instead those of Apocalypse and ' End Time.' For them it
was not the golden-age of Aquarius, but the dark-age of the Kali-Yuga. Most preferred Buck-knives and revolvers to
that of beads and flowers. Initially they were scattered individuals, lacking a leader or an organizational structure, a
coherent philosophy or plan of action.
Within the ranks of these disaffected 'outsiders ' were several distinct types best described as Anarcho / individualist and
Romantic/Nihilists. Often individuals would share a combination of these basic traits.
The Anarcho / individualists seemed most concerned with their personal liberty and freedoms which might allow them
the freedom to ' do their own thing ', unimpeded by restrictive laws imposed by the state. Laws which they felt
repressive to their lives and liberty. Theirs was a distrust for authority in particular and a disdain for civilization and it's
decadence and complexities in general. Most shared a concern for survival in the not so distant future; nuclear war;
revolution; civil or racial strife or domestic tyranny. Most felt by-way of acquired skills and preparations that they
would one day crawl out from their survival compounds and retreats as survivors of a new day under the sun. Many of
them stock-piled weapons and supplies, trained with firearms and cultivated other military and survival skills and
awaited " The Day " of civilizations eminent demise, and it's post-apocalyptic aftermath.
Drawn primarily from urban and rural working class segments of the population, they envisioned a life more basic and
less complex. Most viewed the federal government as corrupt and meddling at best. Others believed and proffered
conspiratorial theories concerning Mason. Jews, International Bankers or Trilateralist One- Worlders, who they saw as a
hidden-hand behind all that was wrong with life as they perceived and experienced it.
Over the next several decades the majority of those of this persuasion would be content to plan, train and prepare. A

smaller number would grow impatient and more strident, and move on to more militant, and sometimes revolutionary
activity.
The other grouping, the Romantic / Nihilists, would be attracted to the a- morality of occultism, the so-called black arts,
and Satanism. This predilection differed little from what many prominent poets, artists and other creative romantics of
the previous century had done.
Satanism and occultism have often served as a proverbial loadstone for creative genius, ( i.e.); Charles Baudelaire, J.K.
Huysman, William Butler Yeats, August Strindberg, Antonin Artaud, to mention just a few, who have succumbed to it's
dark siren call. Reasons for this attraction can be largely found in the diminished or absence of true spirituality in
organized religion, as well as a striving for something in closer proximity to the Western Zeitgeist. Add to these factors
the sexual and emotional suppression and it is not difficult to understand the allure of such " underground " religion.
One can already detect in the late romantics a growing disposition toward nihilism. Little is left of the soothing
melancholia of Keats, or the visionary soaring of Shelley, and it is not difficult to understand why.
If romantics of the past age had felt estrangement and antagonism to the prevailing reality in which they lived, how then
might the romantic of this our present age of dialectical materialism and compulsive consumerism react?
The logical outcome of such contraries, of ones inner ideal as opposed to the outer-reality we live in, can hardly lead to
anything short of rebellion, world hatred and nihilism. Culminating in an inversion of feelings and thought, in which
evil becomes good, power, hatred and resentment supplant faith, hope and charity, and all the attributes of the
bourgoise-democratic existence; comfort, conformity, selfishness and cowardice, are viewed with disdain and addressed
with invective. This then becomes the world of the outsider and confirmed elitist.
However, this antagonism and eilitist mentality manifests itself in rebellion, not revolution. The true revolutionary has a
creed and a program that generates and guides his actions. He wishes to catharize the malignancies he perceives, and
proceeds to find the tactics and strategies for attaining power. For he realizes that only through the attainment of power
will he be able to reshape or revitalize society or the world in accordance with his visions and beliefs.
Satanism, on the contrary, is largely a personal rebellion. It is an anti- theology. Antithetical to the tenets and beliefs of
it's antagonist,Christianity. In it's original form, it would not exist save for the existence of Christianity. In this regard it
is reactionary to the utmost. It shares similar prophecies and revelations, an identical time table of linear progression of
events all culminating in some grand finale of Apocalypse!
The historical roots of Satanism are largely traceable to the later half of the last century. As a theology or philosophy,
Satanism does not draw upon any long-standing tradition or ties with antiquity in the same sense as neo- heathen &
pagan beliefs do. Prior to the existence of any organized Satanic sects, many hapless individuals no doubt were the
victims of being labeled " Satanic " or in league with the Devil, by the ruling Christian establishment. But such
accusations should not be taken seriously, for these sort of labels served as all purpose catch-phrases directed to anyone
who threatened or challenged Christianitie's parochial views or secular power. It was a ready epithet of derision and
approbation for one's enemies and competitors.
Most modern-day Satanists know all of this well enough. So why Satanism as an alternative to Christianity? Why not a
return to a more natural healthy heathenism, one totally divorced from the framework of Christian thinking? Because
the classic Satanist is not a healthy pagan, Nietzche's proverbial " yea sayer to life ", but is instead an inverted Christian
whose innocence has been wounded, whose romanticism has been betrayed; asceticism degraded, saintliness gone sour,
idealism made cynicism. It is not difficult to recognize resentment at the root of this metaphysical rebellion. A
resentment born of the realization of 'ones" own singularity and rights as an inviolable individual. This same realization
is of course at the root of all rebellion as well as revolution. But in the case of the Satanist this rebellion is born of a
realization of 'ones' own impotence in doing anything to actively alleviate whatever inequities or injustices which are

felt to exist.
Resentment was perhaps best defined by Fredrich Schiller as an auto- intoxication; the evil secretions in a sealed vessel
of prolonged impotence. It is resentment of this type which usually leads to the types of excesses witnessed in the
French, Bolshevik and National Socialist Revolutions. Shiller goes on to say further, that resentment always turns into
either unscrupulous ambition or bitterness, depending on whether it is implanted in a strong person or a weak one.
It is the nature of the resentful to take delight ( in advance ) of the hoped for pain that it would inflict upon the object of
it's hatred. Torture and cruelty have always been the violence of the impotent and cowardly.
This impotence is most apparent in the working of curses against one's enemies. It is a safe substitute for really doing
anything actively, directly or boldly. To a certain degree it no doubt serves as a purgative or safety valve for this " vessel
of sealed resentment and hatred ", which might otherwise manifest itself in destructive or suicidal acts.
And who is it that best personifies this resentful actor who fights his enemies from the make-believe battle-field of his
ritual chamber, who arrogantly endeavors to command Gods and fate to to do his bidding an fulfill his desires? It is
usually the artistic dandy, that narcissistic play-actor who chooses for his command performance that ultimate of all
stages - real life!
To live and die before a mirror - that according to The French Poet Baudelaire, is the slogan of the Dandy, For he can
only exist by defiance and opposition. And like all who exist without a measure of standards, lacking rules or ethics, he
can only be coherent to himself, as well as to others, in some role he has chosen to act out. And that role can only be
played before an audience for which to applaud or decry his performance. For his own existence and sense of being or
self, can only be established in the expression on other peoples faces. Others must serve as his mirror, a mirror that
quickly grows clouded. Therefore he is constantly compelled to astonish and to shock. Singularity his vocation, excess,
his road to perfection.
Prominent in his ranks is to be found that seminal figure of the Satanic, the Marquis de Sade, who has commanded so
great an influence upon most subsequent Satanists. If ever there was an archetypal personification of the " vessel of
sealed resentment" which Shiller so eloquently described, De Sade was it.
De Sades epic maturbatory novels may at first seem intended for little more than his own, as well as his readers, sexual
titillation. Upon closer inspection, however, one quickly realizes that for every couple of pages of lurid sexual
escapades, there are a dozen or more other pages devoted to outlining his Satanic philosophy and invective toward
society. It becomes apparent that de Sades novels are primarily a lure for the reader to be indoctrinated into his nihilism
and world hatred.
Even after de Sade, the literati continue to dominate the Satanic scene. The rebellion of the man of letters is singular in
it's preference for evil, and forbidden things above all else! When rebellion reaches this junction it is often at the
expense of forgetting all positive content. Since God reigns over a world full of death, injustice and inequity, thinks the
Satanist, it certainly vindicates, if not the exercise of evil, then certainly the applauding of evil and murder.
It is between Satan and death, in John Milton's Paradise Lost ( That favorite poem of the Romantics ) that symbolizes
this struggle. In order to combat the evil of existence, the metaphysical rebel renounces good and once more gives birth
to evil. In this way the Satanic hero brings about a religious blending of good and evil. He becomes that most attractive
figure ( to the individualistic West ) The fatal hero.
Fate leaves no room for value judgements - it instead replaces any responsibility for them by simply declaring
something to the effect of " It is so ", and being so, it becomes a moot point, ethically and morally, thereby excusing
everything - everything except of course the creator who from the very start is responsible for the mess that life and the

state the world are perceived to be in.

The romantic artist and literati cry-out with Mliton's Satan: " So farewell hope, farewell fear, farewell remorse...evil be
thou my good." The final cry of outraged innocence. Since violence and injustice are seen as the ultimate root of all
creation - violence and injustice shall be it's answer. Ad here at last, once and for all, any distinction between good and
evil is laid to rest.
With these moralistic questions resolved and disposed of, no longer can one derive any intellectual, spiritual or
emotional stimulation toying with such abstractions as good and evil. Thus is nihilism born out of this psychological
vacuum; thus is murder and mayhem authorized as a necessary vehicle for attaining that frenetic state of mind, which
alone can alleviate this boredom born of a-morality.
Frenzy is the reverse of boredom. Exquisite sensibilities evoke the fury of the beast! Exaltation takes the place of truth,
and so the Apocalypse becomes an absolute value in which all things are confounded: love, death,conscience and
culpability. In a chaotic universe no other life exists than that of the abyss.
At this stage the Satanic rebel has by logical extension chosen the metaphysic of inevitable evil. All is drawn toward the
void. Terror and torture, murder and catastrophe become collector's items to be savored vicariously and exalted to the
status of revolutionary acts in some vague and defuse revolt against society and God. The serial-killer, the sexual
outlaw, the mass-murderer and an endless procession and sociopaths and psychotics become cult-heroes and heroines of
the Satanic rebel. Until recent times such thinking was restricted to a small segment of isolated individuals, and was
employed primarily for the subject matter of art, drama and literature.
But it was to come to pass in these lesser days of the late Twentieth-Century, that a movement would begin to bring this
scattered and disparate force into a semblance of order and action.
- 3 - " Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." - Aleister Crowley
The groundwork for the present day Occult / Satanic movement had been laid many decades ago. Though there does not
appear to exist anything like an unbroken line of descent, there has been a noticeable and consistent process of crossfertilization. As Schisms and rivalries occur often ( due, no doubt, to the unstable nature of many of those involved and
attracted to Satanism and Occultism in general ) new or existent groups will pick-up the remnants of a dissolving group,
and continue on with them till the next schism or power struggle occurs. The links between individual personalities is
far more pronounced and apparent.
The late 1930s saw a minor occult revival in the U. S.. This revival was focused primarily in that incubator of the
absurd and eccentric, southern California. Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, the Rosicrucians and other
similar meta[physical and mystical groups became high profile during this period. Most relevant to modern occultism
and Satanism was the founding of the Agape Lodge of The Ordo Templis Orientis ( The Temple Of The East ). The
OTO was originally founded sometime between 1895 and 1900, by two high ranking German Freemasons, Karl Kellner
and Theodor Ruess. The OTO had formed from the Masonic Rites Of memphis and the Miraim, which had in turn been
founded by one John Yarker. Yarker had authorized the foundation of a German lodge of this Masonic Rite by contact
with Kellner, Ruess and one Dr. Franz Hartman. Hartman was a prominent occultist who had started the german
Theosophical Society in 1896, and was linked with various neo-Rosicrucian orders.
The official OTO history claimed that's it's Tantric, or sexual magic practices had been given to it's founders by three
eastern adepts. Furthermore that these doctrines were the key which opens all the secrets of Freemasonry, as well as all
other religions. Kellner died in 1905 leaving the leadership in the hands of Ruess. Within a short time branches of the
order were founded outside of Germany in France, England and Scandinavia. What is known about the background of
Ruess is almost archetypal of the many personalities who become leaders of such occult societies.

As a young man he was reputed to have worked as a spy for the Prussian Secret Service. He relocated to London where
his mission was to spy on socialist German exiles. He became a member of the Socialist League, whose members
included Fredrich Engels and Utopian socialist William Morris. He was eventually exposed and forced to resign from
the group.
There were also some connections between the OTO and the Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn, whose members
included such notables as W.B. Yeats, Macgregor Mathers and other notable personages. One other member of The
Golden Dawn was Aleister Crowley, who was to become the OTO leader in England. Crowley however reputedly
revealed the inner secrets of the OTO in his writings in ' The Book Of Lies ', which Ruess claimed were coded
descriptions of various magico / mystical sexual- rites Crowley replied to Ruess's charges by claiming that the rituals he
had described in his book had originated in documents which had once belonged to Adam Weishaupt, founder of the
Bavarian Illuminati. Ruess accepted Crowley's defense, and all was apparently forgiven.
Crowley's checkered career has been exhaustively chronicled in many books and articles, as well as by Crowley himself
in " The Confessions Of Aleister Crowley ", a 900-plus page volume of vanity, arrogance, exaggeration and Satanic
philosophy.
Crowley was given to exploiting weak-willed and troubled individuals for his financial aggrandizement and sexual
gratification. His last years were spent in a seedy-English boarding house, and as a victim of a double addiction to
heroin and morphine. An odd fate for one who had dubbed himself " The Great Beast 666 " and had entertained
aristocratic and elitist pretensions throughout his life. Crowley was however not without talents; as a writer, a
mountaineer,a poet and investigator of the arcane - but despite his various aptitudes the totality of his life seemed an
ignoble and tragic waste.
The full Chronicle of Crowley is beyond the scope of this article, but sometime after the turn of the century he founded
several lodges of the OTO group in the U.S.. Leadership was initially sporadic and changed often. Eventually John
Whitesides Parsons, a physical scientist who played a major role in founding the aero-space department at Cal Tech
University, was conferred with the leadership of the California OTO lodge.
Eventually, John Whiteside Parsons,a physical scientist who played a major role in founding the Aero-Space
Department at Cal-Tech University, was conferred the leadership of the California Lodge of the OTO. Parsons, a native
of California, born in 1914, became connected with a fledgling young Sci-Fi writer, L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard moved
in with Parsons, eventually absconding with his wife Maggie. L.. Ron, with Maggies complicity used a large portion of
Parsons savings account in purchasing a new yacht. Though understandably angered and upset, Parsons somehow
forgave them both their transgressions.
Hubbard himself went on to become a fairly successful Sci-Fi writer and eventually founded the psychoanalytical cult
know as Scientology. After Crowley's death, california remained the mecca of his followers activities. Parson continued
on with the Agape Lodge until his rather dramatic death in 1952, when he was blown-up in his garage laboratory after
accidentally fumbling a case of mercuric fulminate while in the process of hose moving. An interesting side note is that
Parsons had a leading role in perfecting the rocket fuel which lead to the first successful lunar landing, and much of the
other space exploration of our age. In tribute to his contribution, a lunar crater ( appropriately situated on the dark side
of the moon ) was named after him. It can be found approximately at a longitude of 168 degrees, and a latitude of 370
degrees.
Following Parsons abrupt exit, another Crowley stalwart, Karl Germer, became the international head of the OTO, as
well as inheriting the copyrights to Crowley's numerous books. Germer was responsible for publishing many of
Crowley's out of print and unpublished books. Along with the publishing rights came the inheritance of Crowley's
ashes. Eventually leadership of the OTO went to another German national, Herr Metzger.

Another Crowley follower was gerald Gardner, the man most responsible for the modern emergence of Witchcraft or
Wicca ( as many of it's present day adherents prefer to call it. Gardner himself had been a fourth-degree initiate of the
OTO.
Still another Crowleyan organization ( that was not regarded as orthodox by the official OTO ) was " The Great
Brotherhood Of God ", and occult fraternity which owed it's existence to the activities of C.F. Russel, an ex-naval
officer who had once resided at Crowley's Thelema Abbey in Cefalu, Italy. This group had originally begun as the
Coronzon Club, a society whose advertisements had begun to appear in the occult press as early as the 1930s.
The Choronzon club, named after one of Crowley's devils whom he had invoked in the Algerian desert, changed it's
name to the Great Brotherhood of God in the 1930s. They combined a melding of Oto and Golden Dawn rituals, many
which were inverted by Russell. Russell was reputed to have been a dabbler in Satanism. Most of the groups teachings
and practices were concerned with sexual magik, similar to tantrik practices. Louis T. Culling, a former astrologer and
performer on the electric organ published the techniques and practices of he group in two books ' The complete Magik
Curriculum of the Secret Order G.B.G." and in ' A manual Of Sex Magik '. Both books had a surprisingly wide sale and
influenced other groups and individuals, most them young, who organized under Mr. Culling's leadership, or formed
their own groups to study Sex-Magik'. Between 1969 and 1971 the G.B. G. enjoyed a resurgence in activity.
Also during this same period another un-orthodox Crowleyan group became active in the U.S. This was the so-called '
Solar-Lodge of the OTO '. A group led by Georgiana ( jean ) Brayton, the wife of a University of California professor of
philosophy. Jean Brayton was born in 1921, and had a long-lasting interest in the occult. At about forty-years old she
discovered the writings of Crowley and fell under their influence to such an extent that she began to practice his rituals
with a particular fixation upon their darker aspects, which she began to emulate.
The leadership of the Solar-Lodge was apparently eager to gain recruits among the young. In pursuit of that goal they
opened ' The Eye Of Horus' bookstore at 947 West Jefferson Boulevard, in close proximity to the university of Southern
California campus. It was a small shop, but it's decoration in red and yellow, and it's stylized Egyptian eye in a triangle
painted on the outside, attracted a brisk walk-in trade. Some who frequented the store were eventually recruited into the
lodge. Before too long the group grew to about fifty members, the majority young and impressionable, but also some
older people with respectable professions and jobs. These included Jerry Kay, the art director of the popular cult-film
"easy Rider'. and others connected with the arts and entertainment world.
Brayton was reputed to cultivate relationships with dental students, making money off of them through loan-sharking;
lending small amounts of cash at exorbitant interest rates and using their easy accessibility to drugs Ed Saunders, former
member of the rock band 'The Fugs ' and author of ' The Family' , a book which chronicles the Manson Family and Tate
La Bianca murders, claims to have carried out extensive investigation into the activities of the Solar Lodge. Among is
alleged charges were the groups use of almost every known form of psychedelic drugs in an effort to expand the
consciousness of the initiates. These included marijuana, LSD, demerol, scopolamine, datura, jimson weed, ether and
belladonna. Aside from their conscious expanding properties, Brayton allegedly used many of these drugs to gain
dominance over them and programming them. Further, for the sake of extracting information for possible blackmail
purposes.
The stories of self-mutilation, child abuse, chicken sacrifices, and drug use abound. At one of her properties at 1251
West Thirteenth street in L.A., Charles Manson and his family were reputed to have been frequent visitors.
The lodge also owned a ranch about four miles from the Colorado River where it conducted it's more secret rituals. On
june 10th, 1969 a fire broke out on the ranch. This single event was to prove the demise of the Solar Lodge.
The fire was supposedly started by a six year old son of one of the lodges members Beverly Gibbons. In addition to the
main building being burned down a number of animals where also burnt alive in the fire, as well as a number of rare
Crowley manuscripts. The boy had his finger-tips burnt with matches and was afterwards placed in a wooden crate in

the blistering summer sun of 110 degrees.

Two men who had visited the ranch with the intention of purchasing some horses noticed the child lying in the crate,
and outraged telephoned the police. Police raided the ranch and eleven of the lodge members were arrested. Further
investigation uncovered the body of a man at first believed to have been murdered, but forensic exams conducted later
proved he had died from an overdose of drugs, most probably jimson-weed tea imbibed not doubt, during a cult ritual.
By November 1969 all eleven members of the lodge arrested that June were convicted of felony child abuse charges.
Warrants were issued for Jean Brayton and several other high-ranking members of the group who had not been present
at the ranch. They fled prosecution and were thought to be hiding-out in Mexico where the lodge supposedly owned
property.
Crowley's legacy also began to find it's way into popular culture and entertainment as well. In Robert Heinlein's '
Stranger In A Strange Land ' and in other si-fi and fantasy fiction. The beattles put his photo among the collage of
famous on their 'Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' ' LP cover, as " one of the people we like ". Jimmy Page,
lead guitarist of the popular Led Zeppelin rock-band bought a Scottish manor, Buskin House, where Crowley had once
lived, which overlooks the brooding waters of Loch Ness. Page also purchased Crowley's ceremonial robe as well.
Much of Led Zepplin's early music was infused with occult and Satanic subject matter. During this same period various
rock groups such as H.P. Lovecraft, King Crimson and Funkadelic used music with occult and Satanic subject matter.
Do what thou wilt - is the whole of the law " Crowley's famous adage, found ready acceptance in a growing atmosphere
of a-morality and nihilism. The evil Crowley had spent most of his life promoting had begun to bear it's poisoned fruit.
4 - " Lex Talionis " - Anton LaVey
On April 30th ( Wulpurgisnacht - 1966, Anton LaVey, the father of modern Satanism, founded his Church Of Satan in
San Francisco, California. The Church of Satan was the outgrowth of a small grouping of friends and students with an
interest in the occult and paranormal, who formed around LaVey. Among this group were underground filmaker
Kenneth Anger and novelist Steven Schneck. So, in 1966 LaVey declared the dawn of the Satanic age and set-up shop
in his ' Black House ' ( a Victorian building which had formerly been a speakeasy and brothel.) Thus, the church of
Satan became a legally incorporated religious organization, with LeVay as it's high priest and his, then, wife, Diane as
high priestess.
Through a series of astute public relations moves The Church Of Satan became Internationally known almost overnight.
It began to draw celebrity status in the attraction LaVey and his organization seemed to elicit from such show-biz
personalities as singer Barbara McNair and Sammy Davis Jr.. Around this time LaVey conferred an honorary priesthood
upon actor Keenan Wynn. Most the Hollywood notables,however, wished to keep their affiliations with the Church
secret. Buxom blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield felt no such reluctance.
Most of the activities, personalities and the chronicling of events of this period of LaVey's church have been covered
adequately in numerous books and articles. Likewise with LaVey's own background as a organist, circus performer and
so forth. I will instead attempt to deal with the theology or philosophy of LaVey and his creation.
Many of the early applicants were logically attracted to COS based upon the prospects of sex, naughtiness and an
abundance of females in the group. Such however was not the modus operandi of the Church. Aside from the nude
woman employed as an altar-piece, all else was in the minds eye of the aspirant.
Not only was The Church Of Satan not a vehicle for personal lusts, LaVey went so far as to state that the ' Devil ' or '
Satan ', was not a literal deity, but merely a symbolic metaphor for that which the Christian religion called sin, and
which were in LaVey's estimation, nothing more than the healthy and instinctual urges of mankind.

LaVey's teachings can be more accurately described as philosophic and psychological rather than religious. The outward
trappings and rituals can be somewhat misleading, in so much as they are not some simple reversal of Christian
practices, as was described earlier in this article in reference to classic Satanism. The Church Of satan, explains LaVey,
was designed to fill the void between religion and psychiatry, meeting man's inherent need to ritualize, while at the
same time providing an honest and rational set of beliefs upon which to base one's life. Likewise his basic approach to
magik is not really of the Crowleyite vintage. He has never engaged in extravagant claims on a par with Crowley. His is
essentially the magic of knowing and awareness. Knowing how to manipulate one's enviormental factors by way of
analyzing people, places and things; saying the right thing at the right time. Techniques, as it were, for gaining ones
material and emotional goals.
Satan in the LaVey philosophy is commensurate with man's primal instincts and urges, rather than in a super-natural
sense. It is more a philosophy of Social Darwinism coupled with various dictums of taste in music, cinema, and art.
Throughout the early 1970s LaVey's church continued to grow. By 1973 many Grottoes ( as local chapters were called )
were active in many cities in the U.S. and Canada. Most of those attracted to the Church of Satan were no doubt little
different form those attracted to elitist and occult societies in general. For those who find their worth within such
groups, it often becomes a surrogate reality that supplants th larger mundane world around them. Achievements become
based upon titles and pecking order games and controversies create a rich emotional and social life.. These things in
turn set the stage for rivalries, animosities and schisms with the larger body or group. Lavey's Church of Satan was to be
no exception to this human all too human factor.
Two former Detroit Michigan members, Michael Grumbowski and John Amend founded two splinter groups out of the
Church of satan. The Order of the Black Ram ( OBR ) and The Shrine Of The Little Mother. Both endeavored to
combine Satanism with quasi-mystical ideas of Aryan racial superiority. The " Shrine " took a more radical departure
from it's parent groups doctrines. They employed sacrifices of chickens as a part of their rituals. It is alleged that the late
James Madole, founder and leader of the neo-fascist National Renaissance Party attempted to establish ties with the
OBR. He also used Church Of satan materials in his occult study units adjacent to his political objectives.
Other politically extreme rightists have seen an ally in LaVey and his Church. LaVey however has distanced himself
from most of them and blunted their advances with sarcasm and invective for the most part.
Other schisms have occurred over the years, but few of them have had much longevity. One of the few exceptions has
been that of the temple of Set founded and led by Michael Aquino and his wife Lillith Sinclair.
After returning from military duty in Vietnam in 1971, Aquino was ordained into the priesthood of the Church of Satan.
Aquino first met LaVey while attending one of LaVey's lectures. He was a U.S. Army intelligence officer specializing in
psychological warfare. Shortly after encountering LaVey he and his first wife both joined the Church Of satan. He
organized a Grotto in Kentucky, where he was stationed at the time. He proceeded to give lectures on Satanism at the
University of Louisville and eventually built up his group to about a dozen followers who regularly attended rituals at
his home.
Being a prolific writer, Aquino became a major contributor to the church's official publication of the time, The Cloven
Hoof. LaVey was obviously so impressed with Aquino that he promoted him to the rank of Magister IV, one rank below
LaVey himself. LaVey commissioned Aquino to author a series of rituals based on the works of horror story writer H.P.
Lovecraft. Traditionalist elements criticized these and other rituals invoking gods that did not exist. LaVey countered
this by saying that " The purpose of ritual is to invoke emotion. Because there are virtually no satanic rites over onehundred years old that elicit sufficient response from today's practitioners, if the rites are presented in their original
form. LaVey stated further that these critics had missed the point" All gods are fictitious."
Other rituals with similar t sources of inspiration were authored by La Vey from H.G. Wells " The Island Of Dr. Moreau

" and Fritz Lang's " Metropolis ".But, in the final analysis, this is not Satanism in the classic Miltonian or Biblical sense,
it is instead performance art, intended to create an atmosphere or to entertain. Add to this LaVey's essentially Libertarian
philosophy and we are left with something like Aynn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness clothed in Gothic costumes and stage
props.LaVey continues to be a personality of sorts doing occasional interviews articles and recordings. Perhaps his
greatest significance has been in the overall effect his writings and pronouncements have had upon more independent
and obscure individuals and groups who have borrowed from him in organizing their own thoughts and activities.
By 1972, a personal and philosophical rift had occurred between LaVey and his understudy Michael Aquino.
On the eve of the North Solstice, June 21st, 1975, Aquino performed a " magical working " and claimed that Satan
appeared to him in the guise of Set, the oryx-headed god of death and destruction, of which Aquino claims is the earliest
manifestation of the Christian devil, dating back to 3400 B,C.E..
The outcome, of course, was a document " The Book Of The Coming Forth By Night ", in which Set, according to
Aquino, declared " The Aeon Of Set ". The beginning of this Aeon is then traced to 1904, when Set appeared to Aleister
Crowley in Cairo, Egypt, in the image of his guardian angel, Aiwass, who declared Crowley the herald of the dawning
of the age of Horus. LaVey, according to Aquino, ushered in the the age of Satan, which was but an intermediate stage
symbolizing indulgence and was for the purpose of preparing the way for the Aeon of Set, which would become a age
of enlightenment.
In true megalomaniac fashion, Aquino was anointed worldwide leader for the new age, as well as being consecrated by
Set, as the second incarnation of the Beast 666 ( as prophecised by Crowley in The Book Of The Law.
Aquino accepted this heavy burden from the God ( obviously feeling it was an offer he couldn't refuse.) As a token of
his intentions he cut his hair into a widows peak, plucked out his eye-brows and had the numerals 666 tattooed under
his scalp An inverted pentagram ( originally a Pythagorian symbol for Phi or the golden ratio ) became the groups
symbol. Grottoes became Pylons and degrees similar to the Golden Dawn were adopted. Aquino became Ipssimus, and
Lilith Sinclair became Magus. A committee of nine composed of former Church Of Satan Priests was given the power
of administrative affairs. The primary difference between The temple of set and The Church Of satan, was that Set, or
Satan, was believed in as a literal reality. Absent from this new world leader was any taint of humor. Aquinos
adventures in wonderland had begun.
Aquino and the Temple of Set mark a new shift in emphasis in Satanic theology. The appropriation of a deity
completely divorced from the Judeo-Christian complex. Instead of the classic Devil or Satan we are now introduced to
the Egyptian God of the underworld, Set. others, in time, would appropriate the dark deities of other mythos. For many
Loki, the trickster of the Norse pantheon has supplanted Satan. This is of course a further move away from the Biblical
"bad guy " Satan. And Ragnorok elbows out the Apocalypse. At this stage the lines between Teutonic tribal religion and
Satanism begin to blur. But this is neither the Satan of the Bible or Milton' Paradise Lost. This is no longer the Satan of
the French Decadents, which we discussed and dissected earlier in this article.
But there was one group that did fulfill all the attributes of a true Satanic metaphysical rebellion. It was largely
independent of these other groups, and it did formulate a truly Satanic theology coupled with a true apocalyptian vision.
It was The Process, Church Of The Final Judgement. It is within the corpus of their beliefs that we must look to find a
true compounding and melding of Christian / Satanic theology.
Article first appeared in EsoTerra #6, 1996

Triangulating the Daemon

An Interview with Thomas Ligotti
Interview by R. F. Paul and Keith Schurholz

What are you currently working on, and when can we expect it in
the stores? Is it more horror fiction, and short stories, or something
different?
I dont have a next book. Ive never had a next book, since Im not a
professional writer and have only written horror stories out of the usual
impulses for self expression, ego gratification, escapism, and what have you.
You cant support yourself writing short horror stories, and thats probably
just as well. Horror stories were the first form of writing that I took an
interest in. Writers like Lovecraft, Poe, Machen, James and Blackwood made a
big impression on me in the early 1970s, so much so that when I think about
writing anything I only think about it in terms of writing horror stories. As a
writer, nothing else interests me. As a reader, its a different story. But
everything I read always has some definite aspect of darkness and nihilism.
How did you come to work with David Tibet and Durtro Press on
the book and CD collaboration In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land?
What served, if anything, as the unifying inspiration behind these four
seemingly connected stories? Which inspired which, the music or the
prose?
David Tibet is an incredibly well-read individual, and his reading
interests include classic horror fiction of the kind that has served as a model
for my own writing. He has read my stories and sent me practically the entire
catalogue of Current 93 on CD, sensing that I would discover a fundamental
likeness in artistic and philosophic attitude between us and suggesting a
collaboration. I did indeed sense that likeness in attitude and proposed that I
write several very short stories that he could integrate in some way into a

Current 93 recording. The stories became longer than I originally intended

them to be and started to bleed into one another to compose a larger piece
that was ultimately published by Durtro as, In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign
Land, titled after a line in the classic Current 93 song, "Falling Back in Fields
of Rape", and issued with an accompanying CD by Current 93. I dont readily
recall what made In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land ultimately take the
form it did as a more or less integrated work. I dont usually remember much
about beginnings of most of the stories Ive written. In a Foreign Town, In a
Foreign Land seems very much a piece similar to a certain type of story
which Ive written over and over through the years, featuring a quasifantastical and deteriorated town where puppet-like characters play out their
doom. As I remember it, I sent the stories to David one at a time, and I
believe that he and his colleagues were working on the music about the same
time I was producing the tales.
Do you have any plans to work with Mr. Tibet again?
Yes I do, although this time Ill be functioning as a member of the Current 93
unit, which as their admirers know, shifts its participating personnel
somewhat from recording to recording while maintaining the core figures of
David Tibet and Steven Stapleton. On this project, I actually came through
with several short texts that in form are somewhere between song lyrics and
nearly free verse poetry. The title of the recording will be, "I Have a Special
Plan for This World." [A new collaboration in the works is titled This
Degenerate Little Town.]
How about collaborations with other artists or writers in the future?
No.
The stories which make up the contents of In a Foreign Town, In a
Foreign Land appear, at least upon the surface, to be connected with
each other in some very subtle ways. Were they intended to be linked,
or is that merely a literary artifice? One theme I was able to divine
concerns the nature of haunting, or of people, objects, houses, and
even entire towns being haunted. This idea seems to be a recurring
idea throughout many of your stories. Is this close to the truth, or
have I been hoodwinked by ". . .a genius of the most insidious
illusions" such as is the fate of the narrator of the fourth and final tale
in In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land, "When you hear the singing,
you will know it is time"?
Ive already explained the first part of this question, regarding links and
origins. The haunting of persons and places is hard to get away from for any
horror writer, since everyone and everything bears the signs and scars of the
horrible history of existence. To be alive is to be haunted by the whole of

creation and at the same time to be a creature that participates in and

perpetuates this haunting.
Relate your involvement with the recent Durtro Press publication of
David Banritz collection of poems, The Book of Jade.
The way the Durtro edition of this volume came about was this: some
years ago I found a copy of The Book of Jade in a bookstore in St.
Petersburg, Florida. It occurred to me after I bought the book that it might
once have belonged to Robert Barlow, a native Floridian and friend of H.P.
Lovecraft who was name by Lovecraft to be the executor of his estate. It is
suggested in his letters that Lovecraft owned a copy of The Book of Jade.
Could Lovecraft have bestowed his copy on his young friend or had Barlow
come into possession of it after Lovecrafts death? Barlow moved around
quite a bit subsequent to Lovecrafts death, but possibly the book somehow
remained or ended up back in Florida, perhaps being passed down from
collector to book dealer many times before I spotted it at a place called
Lighthouse Books. Later, I read an essay on The Book of Jade published by
Mark Valentine in AKLO.
In 1996, Carroll and Graf published the first omnibus collection of
your short stories, culled from your first three volumes of tales, as well
as six new stories under an enigmatic heading which read: "Teatro
Grottesco and other tales". Were these new tales published solely for
The Nightmare Factory, or are they part of a new work in progress? I
found these six stories to be some of the finest, if not THE finest work
you have yet produced, most notably "Severini", which to me, could
easily be considered as your ultimate homage to H.P. Lovecraft. Tell
me, did you have him in mind when you wrote it? I loved the phrase,
"the nightmare of the organism", which sums up in my mind your
entire philosophy, a type of dark, nihilistic gnosis of dread, marked by
a noted fear of and revulsion for the physical, corporeal world we
inhabit. I also detected a certain fugue-like, repetitious rhythm
throughout its entirety, serving to both understate and underline the
central horror of St. Alban's Marsh. Did any music aid in this
particular tale's construction?
The "Teatro Grottesco" stories were just coincidentally written around
the same time that Robinson Publishing [the U.K. firm who first published The
Nightmare Factory in 1996] proposed doing this collected volume, which
was of the nature of a collection of New and Selected Stories. I've always
written one story at a time and have never thought in terms of a series of
stories that will compose any single particular volume, In a Foreign Town
notwithstanding. As far as "Severini" is concerned, I don't recall what got that
story started but in writing this story I'm sure I wasn't thinking of Lovecraft

any more than I usually am, and far less so than in writing others such as "The
Last Feast of Harlequin" or "The Sect of the Idiot". The musical repetition of
ideas and phrases in that story can be directly attributed to the influence of
the Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard was a trained musician and
often wrote about musicians. I've always been a shameless imitator of other
writers' styles, and the "Teatro Grottesco" stories are my Bernhard stories. In
fact, I'm doing Bernhard to some degree in this interview, just as "Drink to Me
Only With Labyrinthine Eyes" is my Stanley Elkin story; "The Nightmare
Network" is my William S. Burroughs story; "The Medusa" is my E.M. Cioran
story; "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel" and several others are my Bruno Shulz stories;
and most of the stories in the first two sections of Songs of a Dead Dreamer
are my Vladimir Nabokov stories.
Speaking of music, what kind do you listen to? Any favorite bands or
composers? What do you like most about Current 93's work?
I listen mostly to instrumental rock music. My favorite bands of the past
in this genre are the Shadows and various surf bands, including the Chantays
("Pipeline") and the Sandals ("Theme for 'The Endless Summer'"). My favorite
contemporary instrumental bands are the Mermen, Pell Mell, the Aqua
Velvets, Scenic, and others I can't recall at the moment. I'm also a big fan of
such "guitar hero" figures as Eric Johnson, Steve Morse, and the late Danny
Gatton, to whom I dedicated The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor
Frankenstein. What I like most about Current 93's work is its sheer
visionary intensity, and what I like to consider its morbidity and world
disgust. To hear David Tibet screaming, "Dead, dead, dead, dead" or mewling
an ode to the memory of Louis Wain, makes me glad to be half-alive.
Someone once told me that you are (in-) famous for continually
revising and rewriting your stories, and that the versions of your
earlier collected tales published in The Nightmare Factory differ from
their originals. Is this true? How many drafts of a story do you usually
write?
It is true that I do usually revise my tales several times before I am
satisfied with the finished product, but the stories in The Nightmare Factory
are not revisions. However, the British editions of my earlier works do differ
from their American counterparts in that they form the first drafts of those
particular stories, with the exception of the British imprint of The Nightmare
Factory. Despite all this though, I usually only write one draft of any given
story, with some exceptions.
Do you have any spiritual leanings? Religious observances, habits,
etc?
I've had what one might call spiritual dabblings or minor obsessions

over the years, much as many kids from the 1960s have had. I was a fairly
devout Catholic as a child, less so as a teenager, and not at all since my late
teens. Then it was transcendental "this" or "that", "this" or "that" sort of
Eastern doctrine, one guru or another. I'll get excited for a while with a new
"spiritual" toy and then become bored or irritated, after which I lapse back
into ... nothing, really: television, my job, the daily routine.
Have the tenets and philosophy/cosmology of the early Gnostic cults
had any influence upon your thinking, and/or writing?
I liked the Gnostics because they cursed the same things Ive cursed:
the Boss of the Bible, the ways of the world, and so on. Of course, they always
had their own absentee Boss way out there beyond contemplation or criticism,
and I could never follow them to that place.
You seem to enjoy the short story/novella framework. Have you ever
considered writing a novel length tale?
No, I haven't. And to be completely honest, I really don't enjoy any kind
of fiction of any length, except fiction that is extremely unfiction-like: the
essay-like stories of Borges, the novel-length but not at all novel-like rants of
Bernhard, the poetic prose of Schulz, the pamphleteering fantasies of
Burroughs. Conventional fiction, however, is something that doesn't interest
me any more than ballet or opera.
How large a role do your dreams play in the creation of your work? Do
you keep a dream journal? Do you have lucid dreams? How often are
you plagued/blessed by actual nightmares, if at all?
I've written a number of stories that were inspired by nightmares, if only
because they supply an emotional stimulus that is suited to horror fiction and
that one doesnt usually experience in daily life. I dream vividly every night
and experience upsetting nightmares every week or so. But I don't brood over
my dreams or cultivate them in any way or attribute secret meanings to them.
I had a few lucid dreams during my childhood. I also had a lot of nightmares
and hypnagogic hallucinations as a child. Prominent among my earliest
memories are horrific television shows from the late 1950s and early 1960s,
although I can't specify what these shows might have been. I still have
nightmares about scary TV shows and movies with unimaginably monstrous
images and incidents and no certainty at all about them, just a lingering
phantasmagoria of fear. . .
List a few of your literary influences/inspirations. Who are your
favorite authors? Do you read any fiction by present day writers?
Over the years there have been quite a few writers whose influence has
shown up in my stories, sometimes in subtle ways and other times quite
openly and shamelessly. In a number of my early stories, such as "Dream of a

Mannikin" and "Les Fleurs", I did my best to ape the lavish language and
maniacal first-person voice of Vladimir Nabokov, as well as copping his
brilliant strategy of using a fantastic narrative to tell a fantastic story. It's a
simple idea, really, although few writers before him had employed this very
commonsensical approach to fantastic fiction. Nabokov conjured a spectral
world right before the reader's eyes, often, I'm sure, without many readers
noticing that he had done so. Of course, there are any number of authors with
fancy prose styles and intricate, though not necessarily fantastic, narrative
structures, but Nabokov's works also conveyed to my mind a profound
perception of a perilous and senseless cosmos upon which art may pose a
temporary, though ultimately helpless, order. There's a line in his short novel
Pnin that goes, I hope I've got this verbatim: "Harm is the norm; doom shall
not jam." It's the background of bleakness with a foreground of hypnotic
artistry that has appealed to me in Nabokov as well as in such writers as
Bruno Shulz, Jorge Luis Borges, William Burroughs, the Japanese poet
Hagiwara Sakutaro, and Thomas Bernhard. Lovecraft was the first writer of
this sort that I read, and in addition to being an artist whose works
harmonized so well with my literary tastes, he was also the first author with
whom I strongly identified. This may sound bizarre or pathetic, but H.P.
Lovecraft has been, bar none other, the most intense and real personal
presence in my life. Lovecraft was a dark guru who confirmed to me all my
most awful suspicions about the universe.
Gothic Tales (or, The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein)
is, amongst other things, an homage to classic horror films. Name
some of your favorite movies, and are there any recent films which
you've enjoyed?
I enjoyed all the old horror movies when I was a kid and saw them on
TV. Most of themDracula, Phantom of the Opera, and so onI can no longer
watch with any enjoyment. I faithfully attended Saturday and Sunday
matinees throughout the 1960s, during the heyday of Hammer Films and
William Castle movies. These days, I'll still watch The Exorcist or The Omen,
or parts of them, if they turn up on TV. And I'll go to see the latest Alien movie
or whatever, but not out of any particular devotion to the genre of horror
films. I've never been truly fanatical about horrific subject matter in any other
medium than prose or poetry.
Are you sure your film list isn't lacking a few titles? I've always
considered your work, especially the stories in Songs of a Dead
Dreamer, to be the literary equivalent of the film work of the Brothers
Quay. Have you seen their animated movies?
Yes, I have. About ten years or so ago, a friend said the same thing to
me, and I eventually saw some of the Quay Brothers short at the local art

institute. I suppose you could say that a few of my stories resemble the Quay
Brothers' movies, particularly the Street of Crocodiles, which is, after all,
based on the Bruno Schulz tale of the same name. Ive since seen Institute
Benjamenta, although I cant say I was crazy about it.
Do you suffer from any allergies? Any physical/psychological
maladies?
No allergies. As to other disorders, Ive struggled with Anxiety-Panic
Disorder since I was 17.
Have you been approached by Hollywood or other film makers yet?
Yet?! That's another world entirely from the minor, small press cult
figure one that I inhabit. Oddly enough, I recently co-wrote a script for an
episode of The X-Files, but that was done as sort of a lark. Someone I work
with named Brandon Trenz, who knows a lot more about television and movies
than I ever will, described to me an opening scene for The X-Files that I
thought was terrific. We wrote a script treatment and then completed a
script. But it's not as if the producers of the show asked us to do it, and I
don't expect that it will ever come to their notice, although we're doing what
we can to sell the thing, or perhaps turn it into a screenplay that no one
except the people we know will ever see. [Since the publication of this
interview Brandon Trenz and I have adapted the X-Files teleplay into a fulllength script and my story The Last Feast of Harlequin was optioned by a
Hollywood production company. Brandon and I provided them with a spec
script for this story, although its fate is still undetermined.]
After reading Noctuary I felt that the over-powering nihilism and
claustrophobia exhibited throughout these stories had possibly led you
into a dark psychic/philosophical quandary from which you wouldn't be
able to escape. In other words, it seemed to me that you had quite
literally written yourself into a "corner", so to speak. How would you
contrast these stories with, say, the ones which make up the "Teatro
Grottesco" stories? Which tales did you write first, the ones published
in Noctuary or the ones in "Teatro"?
Well, as Samuel Beckett has proven, there's nothing to say to begin with
but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying the distractions of literature.
Seriously, I know what you mean; it's just that one's philosophy has nothing to
do with anything. All the systems and speculations of philosophyThe Will,
the Thing-in-itself, the Ubermensch, the concept of Nothingness, and so on,
are merely characters in a series melodrama. Most literature, and all good
literature, is based upon feeling bad, on being sick in a specific way that
motivates one to disseminate the pain. Artistically, fear is a very profitable
way of feeling bad, whereas, for instance, being depressed is not. There's no

section in the bookstore devoted to Depression Fiction. The depression stuff

is over on the self-help shelves. Depression has no literary voice. I wrote the
stories in Noctuary some years before the "Teatro Grottesco" stories.
Do you ever suffer from writer's block? Is writing easy or difficult for
you?
No, I've never suffered from anything like writer's block. Writing is
difficult for me only in the sense that it stresses me out so much that I become
physically ill after about an hour of doing it. My stomach becomes severely
upset, my anxiety level goes through the roof, and I just have to stop. This is
why I've never been very prolific and will become less so as time goes by and
my little flame starts to go out.
One of my favorite stories of yours is "The Medusa" in Noctuary: "We
may hide from horror only in the heart of horror". Absolutely brilliant,
that! Almost a Buddhist expression of wholly accepting the
appearances of all things as they arise in one's mind, without
discrimination, or dualistic prejudice. Do you feel that there is any
spark of genuine "divinity", for lack of a better term, within the heart
or soul of humanity? Or are we just truly bestial to the core and
doomed to entropic decay in abysses of unfathomable annihilation?
I appreciate your reading "The Medusa" as a reflection of some superior
consciousness on my part, but I assure you it's not the case. I've been
fascinated by mysticism in various forms for some time, probably because my
temperament is so alien to the non-dualist mind, or no-nmind or whatever, to
which you allude. Obviously, human beings are very devious and complicated,
and certainly one has the sense at times that we are in some way wonderful
and bizarre creatures. But I think the whole spiritual aspect of humanity is
pure self-promotion on our part, and I don't think there's anything behind the
curtain of our flesh. Yes, the universe is very strange, but its strangeness
seems to me based on a haunting emptiness where one might expect,
unwarrantedly, something to be.
Do you have a particular "Muse"?
Yessickness of the body and the mind.
Most critics have justly hailed you as the greatest weird fiction writer
working today. Do you think this praise is justified?
My horror story collections have gotten a high percentage of favorable
reviews. I don't think any of those reviews mentioned my being the greatest
anything. But thanks all the same.
Any indications or comments regarding the future forms of horror?
Horror fiction, like all genre fiction, seems to exist in two worlds: one is

the world of pure entertainment, which hasn't changed since the days of Ann
Radcliffe; the other is a world sparsely populated by a few great mutants like
Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, who had the weird luck of finding the
most apt and personal means for artistic expression in a mass-market
medium. I don't see why it should be any different, say, ten or twenty years
from now. On the other hand, perhaps the advent of some really effective
psychopharmaceuticals will make the whole enterprise of horror fiction
incomprehensible to future generations.
In your story "In the Shadow of Another World", there is a character
named after artist/seer Austin Osman Spare. How much of a role does
mysticism or the occult play in the construction of your tales, or more
importantly, should one look for occult or mystic "truths" in your
writing?
I've always considered the occult in horror fiction functioned very much
as Lovecraft said it did: as strictly a literary device, a familiar framework
within which one attempts to tell a new tale.
Occult books feature in a few of your stories, most notably "Vastarien".
Have you been inspired by any occult writing?
Not yet.
What is your favorite piece among all your work?
"The Shadow at the Bottom of the World". Autumn has always held a
special magic for me, and I tried to put as much of that feeling as I could into
this story.
Did any teacher during your formative years especially inspire you or
guide your development as a writer?
Yes. My fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Lutz. But all his work was undone by
subsequent teachers, and I had to start all over again on my own several years
later.
What do you like about living in the Detroit area?
I really have no special appreciation for the Detroit area that I'm aware
of. As long as all the modern conveniences are available to me, I could live in
a bubble city on the moon or in an underwater shopping mall. Of course, I've
never lived anywhere else, so this idea that it doesn't matter to me where I
live could be a complete delusion, and probably is. I exist in pretty much a
constant state of nervous agitation so I seldom take any enjoyment in my
surroundings, except possibly to the extent that they stimulate my imagination
and allow me the fleeting sense that I'm no longer in a physical locale but in
some imaginary venue. This sense is often provoked by driving through very
shabby urban areas on my way to or from my job. [Unfortunately no longer the

case since two years ago the company I work for moved to a pristine suburb
west of Detroit.] But this feeling usually lasts for only a split second. I do put
a sort of imaginary value on living in Michigan because it's in the northern
hemisphere and not the southern hemisphere, toward which I feel a definite
aversion. In fact, I feel a definite aversion toward all geography that's not in
the northern half of the northern hemisphere. I really don't even like the word
"south" or anything that's in southern places, whether it's in South America or
Africa or Asia or wherever. On the other hand, I don't have any problem, in
my imagination, with North America, northern Europe, northern Asia, and so
on. Anywhere in which the natural landscape dies, or at least goes into a state
of suspended animation, for a part of the year, is okay with me. I'm
imaginatively averse to tropical regions, especially jungles. I'd rather live in a
parking lot than anywhere near a jungle.
Does Thomas Ligotti have a "better half", a partner in crime, a mate? If
so, how would you characterize the relationship?
No, I just have the one half and that's plenty for me to deal with.
What do you look for in a friend?
Somehow this seems to me an even weirder question than the one about
my having any allergies. I guess the quality I most prize in other people is
their willingness to be content with relating to me on an extremely superficial
basis consisting largely of laughs and an exchange of opinions on movies and
TV shows. Or to wax uncharacteristically metaphysical about it, I try to keep
most people at arm's length because I don't want to generate any unnecessary
future karma for myself by getting seriously involved with them.
Esoterra Srping 1999

JOHN COULTHART
Esoterra #9, 2000
Interview by Ken Withrow

Have you had any formal art training (art school, private/public lessons, etc...)?
I've had only the minimal art training one receives in regular school plus encouragement from my
mother who did go to art school herself. She taught me the rules of perspective when I was about
ten or eleven. By the time I was old enough to apply for art school I was sick to death of the whole
education system. There's very little training required in most art practice, anything you don't know
can be found in books; all the rest is whether you're any good or not. All my friends who did go to
art school had an awful time being bullied by idiot tutors.
Does the majority of your work (professionally and personally) fall within the weird/horror genre,
or had you created works outside of that field (fantasy, documentary, whatever)?
The majority of my work centres around the horror field although much of the Lord Horror material
I've produced with Savoy we tend to regard as (very) dark fantasy. I don't trouble myself with
categorisation too much, there's always a blurring at the boundaries of genres and I often like things

that mix genre rather than remain within a given area. Even Lovecraft's work does this; many of his
early stories are fantasy/horror, many of the later ones horror/SF. I've produced over 20 paintings
for the Magic: The Gathering card game which are straight fantasy stuff, plus other CCG work.
There have also been odd forays into the SF world, mainly with the (largely dire) covers I was
painting for Hawkwind. I got bored with straight SF years ago whereas I can still read fantasy
novels with enthusiasm, provided they're any good, of course.
What of your work, outside of The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions, has been
published or met the public eye in any way?
The main body of material outside the Lovecraft work so far has been the Lord Horror comics for
Savoy plus various pieces of illustration. I've done eight issues of Lord Horror (another is on the
way) since 1989 plus assistance on some of their Meng & Ecker and other titles. Savoy is currently
putting together a series of reissues of cult books; I'm designing these and will also be providing
illustrations for one of them (The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson).
I noticed you had done (and still do) a lot of work for Savoy. How did that all come about?
I moved to Manchester in 1982 as the city seemed to have a lot more going for it than Blackpool
(still does) plus a number of friends were attending the university there so settling in was relatively
easy. Blackpool is a small-town holiday resort and Manchester was the nearest big city; at the end
of the '70s its excitement was defined for me by the presence there of Factory Records (home of Joy
Division) and especially Savoy Books, then producing their first run of distinctive paperbacks.
When I moved here, I was producing sleeve art for the rock group Hawkwind; from 1981-85 I
painted 10 album covers for the group, also single sleeves, T-shirts and concert programme designs.
Within a month I met Michael Butterworth backstage at a Hawkwind gig. I knew Mike from his
association with Michael Moorcock's New Worlds magazine and his connection to the whole British
New Wave of SF in the late '60s and 1970s; he'd known the band for a few years but this was the
first time we had met. Most importantly for me, there was also his association with Savoy.
David Britton and Michael Butterworth set up Savoy in the late '70s as an independent publishing
enterprise, specialising in quality fantasy, graphics and post-New Wave SF (Michael Moorcock,
Harlan Ellison, Samuel Delany, Henry Treece, James Cawthorn among others). Fortunately for me,
they also ran a number of bookshops in the city and I was able to maintain contact with Mike and
later David Britton by visiting the shops.
Working for Savoy came directly out of the Lovecraft adaptations I was doing. I had painted my last
cover for Hawkwind (The Chronicle of the Black Sword, based on Moorcock's Elric books) in
1985. I'd decided I wanted to try something that was new and closer to my own interests; the result
was my comic strip adaptation of The Haunter of the Dark which I spent most of 1986 drawing. I
was disappointed that there was no decent book of Lovecraft illustrations out there (there was HR
Giger's Necronomicon, of course but the Lovecraft connection is peripheral). It seemed evident that
if no one else was doing it, I'd have to have a go myself; so began the long haul ... While I was
working on the pages I was showing them to Dave and Mike and receiving their encouragement
and, on occasion, criticism. The idea was to adapt three visually dramatic stories and package them
as a book. I chose Haunter because of the focus on the church; The Call of Cthulhu had a varied,
world-spanning storyline and a great ending in R'lyeh; the third choice was The Dunwich Horror.

The Call of Cthulhu took 18 months to draw; as it was being completed, Haunter received its first
outing in a large format edition of 500 copies, published by Roger Dobson and Mark Valentine's
Caermaen Books. Halfway through The Dunwich Horror, I received an offer from David Britton to
contribute to Savoy's Lord Horror comics series.
So tell me about Lord Horror.
Lord Horror first came to trouble the world in 1989 via David Britton's eponymous debut novel.
The novel recounts the exploits of the razor-wielding fascist Lord Horror, a character based on the
real-life "Lord Haw-Haw", William Joyce, an English traitor who broadcast for the Nazis during the
Second World War. The novel is violent, scatological, funny, gross and surreal in equal measure as it
details Horror's search for Adolf Hitler through increasingly nightmarish landscapes. In 1988, while
Dave was still working on the book, Savoy inaugurated an accompanying series of comics called
Hard Core Horror which followed Horror's progress through an alternate history of the events of the
war, with drawings by ex-Cramps illustrator and Lord Byron of the fibre-tip, Kris Guidio.
The series begins lightly, with a picnic on the grass in 1929, growing increasingly dark and
disturbing as Horror encounters various leading figures of the time: Winston Churchill, Oswald
Mosley (leader of the British Union of Fascists), Unity Mitford and, finally, Adolf Hitler. The fourth
and fifth issues lead inexorably into the Nazi death camps; it was my task to attempt to render the
horrors of the Holocaust in Hard Core Horror 5. As is stated in the foreword to the Haunter book,
the drawings of Hard Core Horror 5 came directly out of the Lovecraft strips I'd been working on,
as well as attempting to present 20th century scenes in the manner of Piranesi's celebrated Carceri
engravings. David Britton felt that these were so successful he started immediately planning a new
series, to be called Reverbstorm, which would extend Lord Horror's universe into the fictional
realm of the necropolis known as Torenbrgen. Work commenced on Reverbstorm in 1990; six
issues have been published so far, with a seventh due out soon and the eighth, and final, issue to
follow.
I had heard about some legal dilemmas that Savoy had run into upon the initiation of the Lord
Horror series. Would you like to talk about that?
The problem here is usually knowing where to begin, like most encounters with the legal system,
Savoy's travails have been long and complex. Being based in Manchester, they had the misfortune
to come to the attention of the most authoritarian police chief in the country, James Anderton.
Anderton's jurisdiction in Manchester lasted from the mid-'70s to the late '80s and became notorious
for its endless shop raids in pursuit of "pornography" and the increasingly lunatic pronouncements
of its chief officer; a devout Christian, he stated to the press that he believed God spoke to him
personally and, during the initial AIDS crisis in 1987, outraged the gay community by describing
gays as "swimming in a cesspool of their own making" and suggesting people with AIDS should be
interned in special camps to protect the rest of society.
In David Britton's Lord Horror novel, Horror invites a local police chief called "James Appleton" to
give an edifying talk on his radio show; Dave used some of Anderton's anti-gay statements
verbatim, only replacing the word "gays" with the word "Jews". This didn't go down well with the
Greater Manchester Police. After a shop raid in 1981, Dave had been sent to prison for 21 days for
selling "pornographic books" (books, mind you, not magazines). The police raids on Savoy shops in

the early '80s were monotonous in their regularity. By the late '80s things had slackened off but
picked up again with terrific force when Savoy's Lord Horror campaign began. The shops and
offices were raided a number of times and copies of the (limited run) novel seized. The result of this
activity was that David's book became, in 1992, the first (and, to date, last) novel to be prosecuted
for obscenity in an English court since Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1968.
The appeal was a high-profile affair, reported in the national newspapers, with Michael Moorcock
called as a defence witness and renowned freedom-of-speech lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC
defending. The ruling was overturned but the raids continued immediately afterwards; a year later
David went to prison again, this time for three months. The result of these raids was a long series of
trials in 1995 and 1996 which resulted in the Hard Core Horror comics being declared "obscene",
the first successful ruling of its kind in Britain (various underground comics had been prosecuted in
the UK since the early '70s but all previous rulings had been defeated). My experiences in the
courtroom, trying to defend my work against ignorant accusations, made me realise how backward
this country is in comparison to the rest of the free world.
There is still no freedom of speech defence in English law, nor is there likely to be in the near
future. There's a lot of detailed information about this whole episode in the History section of
Savoy's web site. Despite all this, Savoy continues, bloody but unbowed. All the above has achieved
nothing save the destruction of some of Savoy's product and the wasting of hundreds of thousands
of pounds of taxpayers' money. David's third novel, again featuring Lord Horror, Baptised in the
Blood of Millions, is due for publication this year.
What artists, would you say, have had an influence on where you've taken your art and why?
A big influence early on came from an unusual quarter of the album cover art prevalent in the '70s.
Our local record store window was like an ever-changing gallery of surreal and bizarre images
during the heyday of designers and artists such as Roger Dean, Barney Bubbles (the classic
Hawkwind covers and later Stiff Records) and the Hipgnosis group. The attraction was chiefly in
the imaginative imagery, I usually had no interest in hearing the records. As I scoured the library for
art books I quickly realised how much of this stuff was ransacking the work of the Surrealists and
artists of the fin de sicle.
Two poles of interest established themselves very quickly; one in the presentation of fantastic
imagery in popular media such as book and record jackets and the other a searching through the
history of art for equivalent images and approaches. I was astounded on my first visit to the Tate
Gallery in London at the age of thirteen to see the massive canvases of Biblical cataclysms by John
Martin, an artist I'd never heard of who seemed totally absent from the history books. Equally
surprising were Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion, shrieking
and distorted monsters that seemed to embody a rare and disturbing "otherness" that I hadn't
encountered anywhere else. This quality of "otherness" has been a key thing for me over the years
and it took me a long time to realise that many of the works I valued most seemed to embody it to a
profound degree.
Two artists I can select whose work exemplifies this would be HR Giger and artist/occultist Austin
Osman Spare, another name absent from most art histories. Put psychologically, "otherness" is
really the degree of truth in some image from the subconscious that is given flesh in a work of art;

this is what the Surrealists were always trying to capture and remains the thing that most interests
me about the work of other artists.
Trying to keep this brief then, I think influences are those things that have altered your creative
approach in some way. Artists that have done this for me would include Giger, Spare, Gustave
Dor, Aubrey Beardsley, Francis Bacon, Max Ernst, Joel-Peter Witkin, Piranesi and architectural
renderer Hugh Ferris, among others. In the field of comics, James Cawthorn's Moorcock
adaptations and Berni Wrightson's Frankenstein were a big influence on the approach I took
towards adapting Lovecraft. Reverbstorm owes a great debt to Burne Hogarth, the definitive
illustrator of Tarzan; the Ononoe creatures which Hogarth invented for Tarzan to battle appear in the
first Lord Horror novel and I put them and other elements of Hogarth's style into the comic series.
Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright assisted enormously in showing how to convey
a story using graphic narrative; the series is a textbook of comic techniques (Bryan's latest
Arkwright series, Heart of Empire has just been published by Dark Horse and features a guest panel
by yours truly).
Had any other people (musicians, writers, etc ...) influenced your style in any way?
The biggest single influence from 1989 on would be David Britton with whom I've collaborated on
the Lord Horror Reverbstorm series for Savoy. Dave's whole artistic philosophy of constant
questioning of your work and working methods, and of the intention to push your work as far as it
can go, to surprise yourself, has had a profound influence on my working methods over the past ten
years. It's helped, of course, that his Lord Horror character has been one that's been a great vehicle
for me to explore a wide range of subjects and techniques. Comics writer Alan Moore has also been
something of an influence over the past decade, also partly due to the fact that we've ended up
working together.
Aside from the obvious influence of Lovecraft and Hodgson, William Burroughs and JG Ballard
have been an influence in their imaginative reach, the surreal landscapes which permeate their work
and their willingness to go to extremes when necessary. Serious intent and serious intelligence are
always inspiring.
What medium/media do you prefer?
My original medium was chiefly pen and ink, with occasional forays into painting using gouache. I
was happy to replace the gouache with acrylics (on canvas or board), a far more durable and
flexible medium; I don't use oils. These days I'll use anything to achieve the required result. I
recently produced a book jacket that began as a collage/painting hybrid, was scanned into the
computer then added to using Photoshop so the final image is a digital one. Some of the art in my
Lovecraft book began as pencil drawings on paper which were then subjected to considerable
mutation via Photoshop again. Since computers have become capable of working at photo quality,
their scope as an artistic tool has become limitless.
Digital and non-digital art have their respective strengths and weaknesses and my main interest now
is working in the hot zone between the two.
Did you use Bryce to compose all of your pure CGI artwork? If so, which version? If not Bryce,
what program did you use?

I used Bryce 2.0 for the (Haunter) cover picture of R'lyeh only. I'm still intending on doing more
with this brilliant program but I need to upgrade my hardware first; the final image took 26 hours to
render. All other computer-related work was via Photoshop; I remain more interested in 2D rather
than 3D work where computer graphics are concerned. Most 3D programs leave me cold due to the
obvious artificiality and lack of texture in their results, Bryce being an obvious exception especially
if the final rendering is tweaked a bit in Photoshop as the R'lyeh picture was.
Why did you dedicate Red Night Rites 1 and 2 to William Burroughs? Did you decide this before
or after the pieces were complete?
The Red Night Rites paintings (actually one painting in two sections) were intended from the outset
to be "Burroughsian" due to my belief that William Burroughs is a genuine successor to Lovecraft
(a controversial opinion but there it is) and I wanted to try and blend some images and elements
from these two visionaries. Burroughs thought very highly of Lovecraft, a rare thing for someone
which such a notable literary reputation, moreover there are numerous sequences throughout
Burroughs' work that echo Lovecraft's landscapes. Let's not forget the malign invocation at the
opening of Cities of the Red Night which includes the words "...to Kutulu, the Sleeping Serpent
who cannot be summoned...".
You'd never get John Updike or Saul Bellow starting a novel that way. By an unfortunate
coincidence, Burroughs finally sloughed off his mortal form while I was working on the painting,
which explains the dedication.
Were the Hawkwind covers your first step into professional illustrating? How old were you when
you took that step?
Yes, the Hawkwind covers were my first professional work and, even though I tend to disparage
that stuff now, it was very encouraging at the age of 19 to see your work in print and in record
stores all over the country.
Have you any plans to illustrate more Lovecraft stories (or other authors for that matter)? If so,
what?
I certainly don't feel I've finished with Lovecraft's work although I'm not sure I want to adapt whole
stories in the way I was doing before. The process of adaptation, as well as being laborious, tends to
destroy the story for you, as you have to break it into its constituent parts to make it work in another
medium. Since the publication of the book, the gravity of the Lovecraftian mass seems to be pulling
me more in its direction once again and, having gone through the Reverbstorm series, I feel I've got
some fresh perspectives on how to develop this material. It's interesting how Lovecraft's fiction is
increasingly a metaphoric vehicle for viewing the world, just as much as say, the work of Kafka or
William Burroughs. I'm excited by this evolution and the way that others have been adding to in
things like The Starry Wisdom anthology and David Conway's Metal Sushi collection.
I feel you can contribute to this without saying "Here's another Cthulhu story" Lovecraft himself
did that first and did it best. A couple of things are already planned (for next year, probably): the
illustrated edition of The House on the Borderland for Savoy (not Lovecraft, of course, but one of
his favourites); we're intending that this should be as definitive as we can make it. Grant Morrison
is also working on a very bizarre Lovecraftian novella for Oneiros which he wants me to illustrate.

As well as this, I'm currently putting together a 2001 calendar for Armitage House using images
from the Great Old Ones section of the book, plus a couple of new pieces. That is not dead which
can eternal lie, as we know already.

NON Sense
from Esoterra (2000)
By Chad Hensley
Boyd Rice discovered at an early age that he had a special knack for finding ways to bother people.
Raised on 1960s television in a trailer park in Southern California, it didn't take him long to realize
that he had absolutely no desire to lead a nine-to-five lifestyle; he dropped out of high school in the
tenth grade. In the meantime, he began developing a fascination with certain aspects of pop music
that would lead him down darker musical avenues.
Layering sounds recorded from city streets with Easy Listening samples, Rice created his Black
Album in 1975. Shortly thereafter, while on a trip to London, Rice met Daniel Miller at Rough
Trade and soon found himself an artist on Mute. In 1978 (coincidentally, the same year that break
beats broke out in the Bronx), Mute released Rice's Pagan Muzak under the moniker of NON. This
one-sided seven-inch record was designed to be played at any speed with several holes in the vinyl's
center, allowing the listener endless possibilities within seventeen locked grooves. In the early
1980s, Rice moved to San Francisco and took up writing. His efforts produced essays for Pranks,
Incredibly Strange Films, and Industrial Culture published by the Re/Search imprint. Later, he
would assist in assembling The Manson File as well as contribute to Adam Parfrey's infamous endtime tome, Apocalypse Culture. In 1987, NON's Blood and Flame would further extend the genre of
Noise in new directions. Over the next few years, NON would continue the tradition with Music
For Iron Youth: The Best of NON followed by The Shadow of the Sword, mixing Social Darwinism
with martial rhythm and abstract melody.
During this period, Rice began the first of many collaborations with like-minded contemporaries,
each manifesting into a rather sinister and deviant homage to the world of lounge and Easy
Listening music. These collaborations have included an acoustic collection of antisocial truisms
titled Music, Martinis and Misanthropy, the band Spellan eerie romp through the '60s and '70s
with Rose McDowall, and, more recently, the hilarious beatnik terrorism of Hatesville.
Now, in addition to starring in the lead role as a hit man in the feature film Pearls Before Swine,
Rice has composed NON's latest masterpiece, Receive the Flame. A collection of eccentric sounds
fused together from traditional instruments and atonal overload, the new CD is sure to both delight

and disturb those familiar with the NON sound . Whether it's with his musical endeavors, an
outlandish prank, or simply because of the unusual ideologies he embraces, sooner or later, Rice
ends up offending just about everyone. His penchant for fascist imagery and obsessive exploration
into the darkest recesses of human nature certainly don't help matters. His ordainment as a priest in
the Church of Satan only adds to his bad-boy misanthropic charm. But Boyd couldn't care less
about people's perceptions of him. He only wishes they'd just react to his music rather than the
negative ideas of what they imagine he is.

What first attracted you to Noise?

I've been attracted to noise ever since I was a child. I'd honk the horn until someone would come
and bang on the car window to make me stop. Noise just has some visceral attraction. It's physical. I
had no idea it was going to become this genre. In a way, I sort of expected that to happen but when I
initially started doing this people just thought I'd lost my mind. They'd say, "Boyd, you're such an
intelligent guy. People like you. Why do you always do stuff that is going to piss people off and
create the basis of your failure?" But I liked it. I thought it was good and that there was the potential
that other people would like it as well.
I understand that the television series Dark Shadows had a big influence on you as a child?
People who didn't live through the period would find it very difficult to believe that there was this
massive occult revival thing happening in the late '60s. There were magazines in the supermarket
like Man, Myth, and Magic devoted to black magic, voodoo, and necromancy. There were even
commercials for the magazine on television. In the town where I grew up, Lemon Grove, there was
a billboard for it. The first issue had a cover by Austin Spare. This Spare painting was huge on the
billboard. It was an amazing time. Dark Shadows happened at about this same time. It was this
Wagnerian television show where every day there was death, resurrection, and blood. What they
would usually do is introduce a character that was really evil, like Barnabas Collins. He was a
vampire that was a really cruel son of a bitch. Everybody loved him. The producers realized they
had to keep him in the show but tone him down because he was the most popular character. So then,
they had to bring in other characters that were pure evil like Nicholas Blare and, later on, a ghost
named Quentin who would get kids to play a game where they had to try to murder their father.
There was another show that was a rip-off of Dark Shadows called Strange Paradise. It was
literally the world's first Gnostic soap opera. The theme of the show was death and resurrection. The
main character was alternately God and Satan. His wife dies and he keeps her body frozen in this
cryogenic coffin. He unleashes the spirit of his dead ancestor that was a pirate who possesses him. I
recently got some episodes and it's even wilder than I remember. It really has a lot of Gnostic
imagery in it and weird subtle references to the Knights Templar and things like that.
Tell me about Pagan Muzak.
It was a seven inch LP. LP stands for long-playing. You can listen to one sound all day. I knew this
girl who had some really obnoxious neighbors and we put the record on in her house, turned her
stereo up all the way, and went to a cabin in the mountains for the weekend. The neighbors had to
listen to it for twenty-four hours a day for three days. After that, the neighbors either avoided her or
were always on their best behavior. I knew some people who worked at record stores who'd say,

"We love that Pagan Muzak record of yours 'cause at the end of the day when we want people to
clear out really quick, we just put that one on." I've also had people tell me they played it while they
were having sex or cleaning the house. Instead of one hole in the vinyl, some had two and three. It
was my understanding that there was this guy at Mute who was going to go through and actually
drill a second hole in the vinyl of the re-issue. I guess that didn't happen. When my copies arrived,
there wasn't any second hole. I don't know what happened, whether they forgot it or just changed
their minds.
When did you first perform live?
I did some performances before I actually started performing as NON. So: probably around 1975. I
did a few things at art galleries and then some Noise performances before I had NON going. The
response was generally pretty favorable. Some people didn't like it. I would trick people into
coming to some of the shows by making posters that said it was an evening of progressive rock or
an evening of Reggae. I'd even make Heavy Metal posters. I'd make posters for every kind of music
there was and put them up around colleges. People would show up expecting something and there'd
be all this Noise and pieces of metal hanging from the ceiling. I also had a band that did one
performance that was so legendary, we decided we could never top it and so we never played again.
The band was called The Martinis. We kind of sounded like the Shags. During the performance, one
of the girls in the band wasn't wearing any underwear and decided to urinate on stage. It was all
visually very compelling.
How did you get interested in pranks?
I've just always done them since I was a child. I grew up in a trailer park, which is a little closed
community. It's kind of like elementary school in a way, where you're in this organized environment
and you can do one little thing that just throws off everything for everybody. At an early age, I
became aware of the power of doing a single act that would affect a whole group of people. I had a
little motor that came from a Twinkie display that I'd gotten out of the trash behind a store. I
discovered that if you turned this little thing that moved on the motor in the direction it wasn't
suppose to go it would put out a field of electrical disturbance that would screw up television
reception. I must have been in third grade. I would go through the trailer park at night. All the
trailers had these huge sliding glass doors. If you were there in the dark, you could look right into
somebody's living room watching them while they were watching TV. I would just twist the device
and screw up their TV until they got out of their chair and went over to adjust the picture to try and
fix it. Just as they'd get about an inch away and lean down to touch it, I would stop. They'd kind of
look at it for a few seconds and then go sit down. Just as they were starting to sit down, I'd do it
again. I'd have these people going back and forth all night until I got bored.
Have you pulled any pranks recently?
The good thing about pranks is that there's something alchemical about them, where you realize that
even though what you're doing is not real, you can have a definite effect on reality. Remember a few
years back, when Denny's had these little clocks that the waitress would bring to your table? If you
didn't get the meal by the time the clock ran out, you got it free. I took one of these and I went to
Denny's with all my friends. As we'd be driving, I'd push the button on the clock. Then, we'd go in
and order these massive meals. The waitress would sit her clock down and punch it. As soon as she

was gone, I'd take the clock off the table and replace it with mine. They'd always be so shocked
when the bill was over a hundred bucks and we were going to get it for free. I was on tour just
recently in Germany with Death in June and Der Blutharsch. These old men left the key in the door
of their room in the hotel where we were staying. Albin Julius and I dressed up in Nazi uniforms
and gorilla masks. I have this really loud whistle from World War Two. We ran into their room at
like four in the morning, blew the whistle, and turned on the lights. They woke up totally dazed and
we starting throwing bananas at them. They just ran out.
What was it like in Denver right after the Columbine shootings?
Right after they occurred, I left the country as soon as possible. I can totally empathize with those
guys. If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to go in and murder all of the football players at my
high school, I'd be a rich man. The thing is, I didn't have, like, a support group. I was a loner. I
didn't have thirteen people saying, "Yeah. That's a good idea. I think you should do that." I was
always an outsider. I never tried to be but that's how it was. I can go to any town and walk into any
place and everybody just looks at me. They know I'm not one of them, even if I'm dressed normally.
That's been the case my entire life, for whatever reason.
Do you consider yourself a misanthrope?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I try not to have a lot to do with everybody. It's too much of a waste of your
time to actively dislike people. I've realized that if I have nothing in common with them that if I'm
around them, I'll hate them. So I try to create circumstances where I won't be around them or
minimize my contact with them. I don't consider myself a Neo-Nazi. I see a lot of the viewpoints
but the problem with the Nazis was they were kind of starry-eyed idealists. They really bought into
the whole Nietzsche superman thing. Man's not going to evolve into some sort of superman. Even if
you have the most perfect conditions on Earth, I don't think human beings are essentially going to
be much different than they are now. I don't think there is any moral or spiritual evolution. Man's
intelligence seems to devolve rather than evolve. Man gets further and further from the natural
world and any understanding of that, both feet firmly planted in technology. The technology takes
up so much slack for him that he doesn't have to think or take responsibility.
Have you ever slept with any non-white women?
No. But I'm not actually interested in women per se any more. They all seem to be, whatever their
race, cut out of the same fabric. There's some kind of genetic imperative in people who have
instincts to fuck the thing that looks most like them and has the most order and symmetry in its face.
The sexual instinct is to produce healthy offspring. I'm just not interested in relationships anymore.
Casual sex is being too intimate with somebody that has nothing in common with you. For twenty
years, I was the ultimate libertine and had sex with thousands and thousands of women. It's like
eating a strawberry doughnut every day. After a certain number of years that still might be a great
strawberry doughnut but it's not interesting anymore.
You've had sex with thousand and thousands of women?
Well, I mean I put a lot of time and effort into that but now I'm reaching an age where time is a
precious commodity to me.
Are you still interested in Charles Manson?

Not really. I've written an essay about when I was visiting him in San Quentin and exactly what my
experiences were that might be used in Adam Parfrey's new Manson book. That will probably be
my final word on Manson.
Do you collect anything?
I collect tons of things. Scopitones were these early '60s music videos shown in jukeboxes. They
have really bright colors and scantily clad girls doing go-go dances. I have them transferred onto
video. You can show them on sixteen-millimeter projectors with the magnetic sound. I collect these
lamps that were put out in the '60s that look like giant bundles of grapes and Sputnik lamps that
kind of looked like the Sputnik. When I was a kid I would go to this restaurant that looked really
space-aged. Over the tables, they had a Sputnik lamp. I wanted one ever since I was a kid. The bad
thing is that I get friends of mine excited about this stuff; then they're out looking for virtually all
the same stuff I am.
You recently did some recording with Dwid from Psywarfare.
Well, we just see the world in a similar way and like a lot of the same stuff. He reminds me of
myself. He's not just into the music stuff. He likes Noise but he also likes Paul Lynn and is obsessed
with TV culture. I'm not sure but I think I first met him at the Expo of the Extreme. He use to put
out a magazine and his wife interviewed me for the magazine. The new CD I have, I recorded a lot
of it in his studio. I did vocals for something that he did the music for that came out on a
compilation. We've recorded a number of weird things together.
How did you become involved with the film Pearls Before Swine?
The director was a fan of mine. He sent me a script and I read it. I noticed he'd used certain lines
from some of my songs in the script. In one scene, there is music from Music, Martinis, and
Misanthropy, where this guy is talking about how the world needs a brutal gardener to come remove
all the weeds and set things back in balance. I thought, "Wow, that's one of my lines." I called him
up and we were like two peas in a pod. So I flew over to Douglas Pierce's home in Australia and the
director met me there. He brought along a video camera and we did a screen test. Then he gave me
a check for me to come back when it was time to film. The whole thing was shot in Australia. I play
the main character, Danny, a hit man. The movie is ninety-five minutes long. It premiered last year
at the Stockholm film festival. Supposedly the critics said it's the A Clockwork Orange for the new
millennium. I think that's probably a bit of an overstatement. It's a very strange movie. It has
something to offend every special interest group on Earth.
Some of the material on Receive the Flame has a strange relationship between Noise and more
traditional music.
This is the first record I've used all real instruments on. So, even though it has an edge to it, those
are all real instruments. We used a violin, accordion, and guitar. I played most of them myself,
except for the violin. I have this special way of composing. Are you familiar with a Moire pattern?
Like when you screen a photograph that's already been screened. There will be a criss-crossed
pattern on it. I have this method of composing were I want to create that pattern, but with sound,
where I use two rhythms or frequencies and set them against one another where those two sounds
create a third sound. The pattern you hear isn't really there it's just suggested by the grating together

of these other sounds. Even if it's absolutely minimal there's a depth and complexity there.
Tell me about your recent tour with Death in June.
Albin would do Der Blutharsch and then he'd help Doug with Death in June. After that, I'd do the
normal NON set. At present time, that's some songs from Receive the Flame, God and Beast, Might
Is Right, and Total War. It's twenty-five minutes long; short and sweet. Most of it is live music. I do
use a pre-recorded rhythm track. There are some songs on the new album like "Everlasting Fire"
that's so digitized that it would be impossible to reproduce live.
Sometimes, you seem to embrace technology while other times you oppose it.
The internet is like a CB radio with pictures. It's the disinformation super highway. Nine times out
of ten, the stuff I hear about myself over the internet are very strange lies. I heard that Albin and I
were going to buy an island and open a gay disco. There are tons of misconceptions about me but
I'm not sure that I want to clear them up. I'm not totally against the Net, but in an age without
religion, people have a tendency to make anything they like into a religion.
Don't you have an article in a new book?
It's a book called Taboothe Art of Tiki. It's available from Last Gasp, put together by an art gallery
in Australia called Outre. The book is about modern people who paint Tikis. My thing is kind of a
history of the Tiki. About growing up in the late '50s and early '60s with Tiki culture everywhere.
I've also written this essay called "Distopia" that might be published in Adam Parfrey's Apocalypse
Culture 2. Its kind of synthesis of the Darwinian evolution idea and the Spraglarian idea of the
downward tide of history. The idea is thatwhat if every single fucked-up thing that you see
happening around you is part of this Darwinian evolution mechanism that Man has unconsciously
created to destroy the world? When life is unhealthy, it will create ways to destroy itself, just like
too many animals on an island. I think the things we are seeing around us are representative of a
kind of human death wish. They've created a situation like chemotherapy where it practically kills
you in order to kill the cancer inside of you. We've hung tenaciously to these Utopian ideas for
decades and decades and what it has resulted in is the exact opposite.

Godflesh Article/Interview
[Source: Seconds #40 - 1996]
By Chad Hensley of EsoTerra
Kindly typed up by Tnth

In the trenches of todays musical underworld any band blaring metallic guitar noise while grunting
vocals that sound more like Sesame Streets Cookie Monster than actual singing can dare call
themselves Grindcore. Fare worse is the fact that most of these mongrels are completely unaware of
those responsible for the creation of the genre they are attempting to imitate. One praiseworthy
individual who runs in front of the pack is Justin Broadrick. He has managed to birth a true
mutation from the marriage between Metal and Industrial. And, though Broadrick has spawned
quite a few bastardizations of sound, Godflesh is his bleak and brutal brainchild.
Beginning a foray into aural assassination when most of his age were busy playing in the
schoolyard, Broadrick experimented with noise and formed his first band before he was a teenager,
inspired by the menacing militancy of Throbbing Gristle and White houses storm trooper
electronics. A few years later, he would become a founding member of Napalm Death (though
appearing only for one side of the first album) as well as a key player in Head Of David. However,
it would not be until the gestation of Godflesh and their relentlessly oppressive debut Streetcleaner
that Broadrick would create a dark amalgamation of sound threatening to crumble the most
solidified of boundaries.
A staple of Broadricks nihilistic misanthropy is to entwine searing guitar with heavy bass and
Dance samples. Godfleshs latest excursion, Songs Of Love And Hate (Earache) layers Trip Hop
cut-ups beneath the brutality. Doom-drenched fans need not worry as Songs slams the skull as
subtly as any sledgehammer. Without a doubt, Broadrick, bassist G.C. Green, manual drummer B.
Mantia, and their insidious black drum machine are back with a vengeance, continuing to mutate
the limits of extreme music.
Seconds: Tell me about your fist band, Final.
Broadrick: I used to sit around in the bedroom and play sort of half-ass Punk Rock. I had just
gotten a guitar and was learning to play when I discovered Throbbing Gristle. At the time, I was
around twelve years old. Final was the first music I ever played. Through listening to Throbbing
Gristle in certain circles, I was exposed to a rather notorious English band Whitehouse. I got
really involved with the most extreme noise culture I could imagine. Once I heard these two bands,

I learned I could make music out of anything. I got a short-wave radio and all manner of cut-up
tapes. I thought that I could make music like this and it would be powerful. I wouldnt have to use
any degree of professionalism. I actually played a simultaneously learning to play several
instruments. Id also have to say that Ive been influenced by the early Swans, Black Sabbath, and
SPK. Each of these bands were sort of a musical obsession that I went through as a child. All of
these welded into one with Godflesh.
Seconds: What types of people would come to a Final show?
Broadrick: Wed play to about twenty people. The crowd was mostly freaks. I come from
Birminnham, England and at that time, there was quite a collective of people into Throbbing Gristle
and Whitehouse. Just for being into this type of music and hanging out in the right places I got to
know some of these people. I think people found it interesting that I was a kid and thats how Final
got on the billing with other bands.
Seconds: what did your parents think about this?
Broadrick: Theyre out to lunch. My parents are old Hippies. I spent the first four years of my life
growing up in a Hippie commune. My father was a Heroin addict. He was a complete fuck-up and
soon disappeared. Hes back on the scene now as a businessman, which is really weird. He seems
to have it together but I didnt see him for about ten years. My parents got a divorce when I was
very young. So, I was brought up by my mom and stepfather. He was very musical and was the one
who taught me guitar. He also had his own recording equipment. I learned everything from this guy.
But my mom and stepfather broke up about three years ago. Thats the problem with Hippies who
raise kids theyre so fucked up. My mom is absolutely fucked. Far worse than I am. Its like
talking to a little kid. At the moment, she does nothing for a living. Shes about as poor as it gets. I
see her about once every three weeks. Shes a problem for me. Shes one of the banes of my life. I
really dread it then she rings up. Im like, Here we go whats next? She just goes out all the
time, gets drunk and smokes loads of dope. Shes got a boyfriend whos half her age. Shes still got
her looks so she gets blokes chasing after her. We have got the roles reversed completely. Shes the
kid and Im having to guide her through life.
The weird thing is that when I tell people about my background, they think it should have fucked
me up. But it wasnt until I went to school that I realized that not everyones parents were Hippies
and smoked dope. That was initially quite a surprise. I spent the first five years of my school life
keeping my parents out of the equation of everyone I know at school. My family was sort of poor
and we lived in one of the worst parts of Birmingham. Birminingam is a shit hole. Imagine the inner
city of Detroit about a tenth of the size without guns and thats a bit like Birmingham. Its a
miserable, heavily industrialized place. Its the asshole of England.
Seconds: How do you feel about the label, Grindcore?
Broadrick: I am really uncomfortable with it. Grindcore sounds really cartoonish comic book
stuff. When Godflesh came to the States, for the very first time it was on tour with Napalm Death.
Everyone was like, Wow, theres this new movement of music called Grindcore and we thought
that Napalm Death sort of typified that. Literally, the word grind is a nice little word for what sort of
effect this music can have, I guess. But we didnt think Godflesh had anything to do with that. Nor
did we feel we had any connections with other Earache bands during that time when it was

predominantly Carcass, Napalm Death and Morbid Angel.

Seconds: But there was a time you enjoyed being part of Napalm Death?
Broadrick: Yes. During the first album, which was basically in 1985. At that time, it was fun for
sure. I was pretty young then anyway. But I promptly left after that one album. I played the guitar
and had a part in some vocals. The first Napalm Death album was before the band became
predominantly influenced by Heavy Metal. The first album was primarily influenced by mideighties American Hardcore bands like Siege, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Dead Kennedys, as
well as English Hardcore bands like Discharge. We wanted to put these together and speed it up to
create the most extreme sound we could. As far as we were concerned, speed, aggression, and
heaviness. In hindsight we only got halfway there.
Seconds: Did you part with Napalm Death on amicable terms?
Broadrick: No, not really. The original Napalm Death was Mick Harris, Nik Bullen, and myself.
The band was really Nik Bullens band. He had asked me to join and we asked Mick Harris. It came
to a weird point. When I left, Nik was kicked out by Mick. After this and the release of Scum was
when John Peel started to go crazy for it. I basically got the billing for my part in Scum and left to
join Head Of David. I was so bored with Napalm Death because the only sort of musical ambition
was to be as fast as possible. At first, Head Of David was a much filthier, slower form of music. But
Head Of David soon wanted to become a heavy Rock Band so I quite. The only member of Head Of
David I keep in contact with is the former bass player, Kevin Martin. He does a project with me
called God. As soon as any band Im involved with wants to become a bit more conservative with
their outlook on music or wants to just toe the line a bit, I am not interested anymore. That was why
I formed Godflesh.
Seconds: Why did you choose the name Godflesh?
Broadrick: We actually chose it before I had even written one song. We chose it as something to
aim for. We wanted something that sounded huge and was untouchable. It was a goal for us to have
that name and then try to live up to it musically. It was just a marriage of words that we found very
attractive. There was nothing really deeper than that. Obviously, the name has lots of connotations,
which is nice. Godflesh is also an expression for Mexican Peyote with strong, hallucinogenic
qualities. We wanted to paint a picture but it was nothing as direct as an attack on Christianity or
anything. It is meant to drum up many different reactions.
To be honest, I do oppose organized religion. Spirituality is another thing altogether. Obviously,
theres more to life than just whats here. What I really cannot stand is sheep. The flocking that goes
on is a desperate need to believe in something or someone that submission and lack of will in
people.
Seconds: Are there Godflesh groupies?
Broadrick: I guess there is. Girls have tried to throw themselves at me after shows. Its funny really
because when people act like that you jut put it down to immaturity as much as anything. I have had
quite a few heavy experiences with women. There are a lot of people into Godflesh that are also
into body piercing and S&M. Because of the music, they think that our personalities, what we do,
and the way we exits must be of an extreme nature. There have been two or three situations where

Ive been on a tour bus in America and its like, Hey, do you want to come have your balls nailed
to a table? or, Can I eat your shit? They want to do this as a gesture of their fondness for the
band. People get really disappointed with us when they come and meet us. Rarely in Europe do we
encounter girls who actually flock around the band.
I guess the first time I encountered this groupie thing was on tour with Napalm Death. I d look out
of the bus window and thered be like twenty women. Some of them would be flashing their tits. Id
be like, What? Prior to that, when wed play shows people would keep well away, which is
usually more preferable. Godflesh spends many show sulking around making sure we dont go
anywhere near the audience. That is really my policy all together. People have ripped the piss out of
us before so now cower in the dressing room. Its like, Dont let anyone meet us who likes the
band! We just fall to pieces. We cant deal with it. We seem to attract a lot of game playing. Its the
music in general. There are people totally into brutalizing that come and get off on our music.
Weve always considered our music to be for people who are weak and very frail, like ourselves.
Normal Heavy Metal is for bozos who are overtly male and White Trash. Our music is for people
who can sort of think a bit and are pretty crushed by life and can maybe use our music to find
strength. A revenge for years of not being able to fight back. Im that sort of person so its really
necessary for me to make music thats really strong.
Seconds: You have started doing Final again as well as other projects, like God and Ice.
Broadrick: For me, each project that I do explores a different area. When I was a kid, Final was
just primitive noise making. I put the concept back together around 1991. I thought it was a good
time to take the original premise to a new, mature level. The process of making noise has become
much more abstract, and, for want of a much better word these days, more ambient. More textural,
more usable, more listenable. God is really another guys band and Im just a guest guitarist. There
is another project that we do together that is proving to be the most popular, called Techno Animal.
Its got more to do with the whole instrumental Hip Hop thing, which is called Trip Hop in England.
Techno Animal is an attempt to reach the nasty end of that. Whenever we come to the States and I
start to talk about Hip Hop it falls on flat ears. People say, Fuck that. But its seriously important
music for me. If it werent for Hip Hop, Godflesh would not have existed for the last three years. I
think that Hip Hop is the only music left thats genuinely brutal. But its the beat thats the most
important part of it. The language of it is last on the list. The rhythms for me are all encompassing.
You can groove and dance. But the sheer weight of those beats are heavier than any Heavy Metal
band. Certain Gang Starr tracks can really kill. As well as Jeru The Damaja. Then theres the more
popular stuff like Wu-Tang Clan and Method Man. I just dont hear anything in modern Rock music
that appeals to me anymore. Very few bands seem capable of creating music thats abstract,
psychedelic and powerful.
Seconds: What instruments do you play?
Broadrick: Guitar, drums, bass, and keyboard. Thats about it really. At the moment, Im learning
how to program on a Macintosh computer. Im teaching myself to use some hard disk editing
software called Session 8. I used to be really into tape splicing and joining mixes together in
different sections. But Im just crap at it. I cant get my head around it at all. But this software will
allow me to splice in a digit al domain. Ive been at it for the past ten days and Im having a fucking
heavy time. I ll get up at four in the afternoon and stay at it until four in the morning. This is the

first time I have spent this much time with a computer since I was a kid playing computer games.
Its such a head fuck.
Ive been doing a lot of other work as well. I did a remix for an Australian band called Mark Of
Cain Henry Rollins produced their latest album. But the band wanted to remix a couple of tracks.
I want to do remix of the whole Songs For Love And Hate so I hope that will be next. I want to
really bastardize the thing until its a completely different version. That was really my first excuse
to get the computer. I virtually live in a recording studio. Ive got one at the bottom of my house. I
make music all the time.
Seconds: Do you have a favorite drug?
Broadrick: Ill smoke Marijuana like theres no tomorrow. I always have. Thats probably why Im
pretty kicked back. I spent the past ten years smoking dope and I really enjoy it. When I tour, Ill
drink alcohol but I just dabble in it. ON tour, you have to drink or youll just go under.
Seconds: Your last record was on Columbia. How did you like being on a major label?
Broadrick: It confirmed a lot of things for me basically, all my worst fears about the industry.
Once we got deep into it we saw it was all about unit shifting and liking asses. We thought we were
definitely in the wrong game. It was bad news. We dont know how to play the game and we dont
want to. Thats the thing. When we got there we realized it was all about playing the game. Were
here to make music and thats it. Luckily enough, Columbia did not get involved with the musicmaking part which we wouldnt have allowed anyway. They signed us on for purely what we
were and, when they discovered we were not about to be the next Nine Inch Nails, they promptly
dropped us. We also made a video which they thought was going to be super but MTV refused to
play it because they said it was too controversial. The song was Crush My Soul Columbia said,
Look, we have a pretty big video budget here. Who would you most like to make you a video?
Our first choice was H.R Giger but that didnt happen. So we picked Andres Serrano, the
photographer who made Piss Christ. We love his work and hed never mad a video before. So,
through the power of Columbia it worked. Still to this day, I cant believe we pulled it off. After our
last tour in the States, we went straight to New York and filmed it in an old synagogue. We shot it in
one day. We gave him the song and said, We want your ideas. MTV gave the final product ten
edits and still wouldnt play it. MTV couldnt get the point. There is a lot of blood in the video but
no gore or fighting. They knew there was something inherently evil about the video but they
couldnt put their finger on it. It just shows that people with money like Madonna can do any kind
of video they wantand it will get played.

WHITE STAINS / CARL ABRAHAMSSON INTERVIEWS

ESOTERRA 1995
- When and why did the band form? What is the significance of the name, "White Stains"?
CARL ABRAHAMSSON: Originally, White Stains were a trashy rock'n'roll band with psychedelic
leanings. This was back in 1987. People came, people went, etc... The same old story. I became
more and more interested in electronic music, and adapted the combo accordingly. Why the band
formed? Simply because I was (and still am) a great muic fan, and I wanted to create the ultimately
fantastic music together with friends. Did I succeed? Who can tell? Concerning the name: I first
came upon it through Crowley's collection of erotic poetry, "White Stains". I liked, and still like,
that book very much.
- Who are your musical influences?
C.A.: Right now almost exclusively classical music, mainly from the 1800's. I'm a big Ravel- and
Wagner-fan. But on a more general level, I've liked most modern stuff from the past three decades.
Psychedelic music of all sorts, experimental, ambient and techno a lot these last few years.
- To what degree are you and the band involved with the occult?
C.A.: The band I wouldn't say that much at all, unless we look at a truly occult angle of modern
music, which is to affect the individual through a combination of vibration and poetry, i.e. more or
less structured messages appealing to other strata than the conscious rational mind. Myself, I'm a
Hocus Pocus kind of a guy, and see myself as far too far gone on my path to ever be able to turn
back...
- Of late, you seem to have lost interest in T.O.P.Y. Why? When did you first become involved with
T.O.P.Y. and why?
C.A.: In the early 1990's I was involved in administrating T.O.P.Y. in Europe, and it turned out to be
one hell of a bureaucratic task in the end. I followed (and follow) the Thelemic maxim of "Do what
thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", and moved on to other things with slightly less paperwork
involved. However, I still carry a lot of respect and admiration for T.O.P.Y. as such in my magickal
back-pack. I first became involved in 1985 as a youngster checking out the Order-territories of
Europe, and at that time liked the loose structure of the Occult Network-idea, and the ideas and
techniques that were at my disposal within this Network. I worked diligently and "completed my
23", so to speak. Which taught me a damned lot about myself. The funny thing is that the main

administrative guys: me, Gen and Tom in Denver, all quit at about the same time, mid '91. It seems
that we were tuning into each other synchronistically. Gen has now set up a new "Process" in
Northern California, Tom I guess is studying Central American lore, and I'm as hooked as ever to
writing and creating a lot of printed matter.
- Currently, your sights seems to be leaning toward The Church of Satan? Why? What is your
affiliation with Anton LaVey? I know White Stains have collaborated with him on at least one
occasion.
C.A.: We are friends, and I'm certainly very proud of the friendship. I see myself as a "LaVeyan"
Satanist, and I really like his blend of ideas and currents. A potent mix indeed! Right now, my new
company is working on the release of the Swedish translation of "The Satanic Bible" in 1995.
That'll be fun! I'm often surprised at "established" occultists' way of seeing and discarding LaVey as
a mere con-man. Actually, I often use this as a sort of an acid test with "occult" people I meet, if
they can understand "The Satanic Bible" as such or not. In the end it often turns out that the most
"liberated", "tuned in" and "open-minded" individuals still carry a great fear of the S-word, which in
essence just means that they're really scared of the deeper levels of themselves.
- Why did you start the publication, "The Fenris Wolf"?
C.A.: Firstly because I'm an intellectual junky, hooked to printed matter. Secondly, because "The
Fenris Wolf" is the forum for the researches of "The Institute of Comparative Misanthropology".
We're probing into territories of magico-anthropolgy and comparative religion in their cultural
aspects, not always necessarily through a misanthropic state of mind though.
- Who are some of your literary influences?
C.A.: Concrete literary influences... I really can't think of any, but there are certainly very many
sources of inspiration: Aleister Crowley, a genius, Burroughs, Sven Hedin (a Swedish adventurer
and friend of Adolf Hitler's), Alexandra David-Neel and William Seabrook, to name but a few.
- What do you think about society and the direction it is heading?
C.A.: Gee, a pretty tough question I'd say! Which society, first of all?
- Would you call yourself a misanthropist, and why?
C.A.: I see myself as a very "positive" character and I like to create and work and work and work
until I blot myself out totally. I'm an optimist and a magician. But I can't really seem to enter totally
into my own little dream world, so naturally, like everyone else I have eyes and ears and emotions
and I really don't like what I see, hear and feel most of the time. I have no respect for humanity as
such and am terribly aware of over-population and the soul- and culture-lessness it brings. It's in a
sad and dreary state right now, this old beautiful planet of ours, and we only have ourselves to
blame. Or credit, if we ever get down to doing something about the problems. I foresee the positive
revolution through war, famine, plague and general diseases and disasters. We have interesting
times up ahead, if not always pleasantly so...
- In what publications has your literary work appeared?
C.A.: Mostly in "The Fenris Wolf", and in Swedish and Scandinavian fanzines and magazines. I
hope this will change soon, to include full-length books and work in International Fora.