INTERVIEW: Nergal – Behemoth

BEHEMOTH are a band that have become established in the black and extreme metal world. They constantly break down boundaries, even if it means putting their freedom at stake. Their 11th studio album I Loved You At Your Darkest is no exception to going beyond the line. We got to sit and chat with front man Adam ‘Nergal’ Darski about the album itself, the barriers they push and intend to continue pushing, fighting for artistic freedom and more.

How are you?

Nergal: Still alive. This is the most intense time of my life and it’s just extremely crazy and I’m like now I’m on my way home just to shower quickly and then go back to the studio where we’re doing a pre-listening session for VIP and media over here. Then tomorrow we’re starting with interviews, then rehearsals and then interviews again, pretty much every day is like that and in the meantime, we are doing pre-production for the tour so it’s extremely busy. That’s the way to make it and the way to fucking keep things going.

I Loved You At Your Darkest is set for release in a matter of weeks, you’ve released a couple of singles and had some listening parties. What’s the reception been like for the new material?

Nergal: It’s been really good actually, we’re ecstatic which is awesome. I’m pretty happy with it, before you just called me I got a Dropbox folder with the first round of reviews so I’m going to go through it shortly. How do you like the record?

I love it. Havohej Pantocrator is probably my favourite.

Nergal: Havohej Pantocrator, yeah. My favourite is Bartzabel, but it may change.

You’ve previously mentioned that this album is something you’ve never done before. Can you expand on how so?

Nergal: When we started working on the record we don’t look back and say that’s how we did things before so we should do something like that, no-no, we totally went for the feeling, we went for what was in the system, what was deep, deep, deep within. Regardless of expectations and limitations whatsoever, we put all this aside and of course trust me after every record you know, Evangelion, Demigod, on one hand people expect you to continue to do like the second round of the same songs but then in the first place when you do that they go and bash you for not trying out new ground. My biggest enemy is being repetitive and being bored so I do whatever it takes to not be bored with myself and not deliver another record that sounds the same, I fucking hate that. We definitely took some risks with the album, on one hand we are still faithful to our origins and who we are and what this band is all about, it’s still very radical, very extreme record, plus we just wanted to expand that vision and do something that is bigger than our black metal, I wanted to build this and more, paraphrasing the album title that we used years ago, Here and Beyond, I like to do things that way.

BEHEMOTH are constantly breaking down boundaries in extreme music, but as mentioned there’s always that line between fans that embrace evolution of the sound and others who want to keep the style as raw and original as possible. With a high-status, do you feel the pressure when writing to maintain a balance?

Nergal: If there is a pressure, then I don’t think I’m aware of that. I’ve already said it several times I can’t stop being myself in the first place, that is who I am. The unit doesn’t work that way, the others will pre-plan everything and there’s a lot of spontaneity, there’s a lot of freedom and free spirit, free artistic spirit that they just drop at us through the process. I mean there is pressure of course, I’m pretty fucking tense now because I’m in between all the situations and press and talking to the people in the business and stuff, this is the pressure, but I don’t that pressure can really make me change my style or make me do something I don’t want to do. All you hear on the record is exactly what I felt like releasing from my system, period.

You did take a break from extreme music for a while with ME AND THAT MAN After The Satanist you said that you were pretty much done with music. Afterwards you went forward with your ME AND THAT MAN project. Do you feel like splitting away from extreme music for a short while helped spark some inspiration back for this new record?

Nergal: Absolutely, that was a totally blissful experience and recharging experience for myself. I’ve said that several times but when I did The Satanist I was pretty much done with this kind of music. I mean, I might not have made another record because it felt like there was no more extreme metal in my system and this time I was already engaged with ME AND THAT MAN and I was getting a lot of more mellow, rock and bluesy stuff that I wanted to release and I was like okay, this is what I must do again. That’s how I’m formed, that’s how I am, that’s how I’m made, I cannot fake and if there’s something I must release upon the world I’m going to do that regardless. Going away, drifting away from that genre and doing stuff with ME AND THAT MAN was also risky because you never know if people will go and just not take it for some reason, you know what I mean? To me it was very uncompromising even though the music was like way mellow and on the other side of the genre but still it was extremely uncompromising for me to do that. It was like ‘fuck you’, this is the music I must release so fucking take it or leave it, there’s no in between. I was fortunate enough that a lot of people including BEHEMOTH fans dig that, they were like ‘hey that’s cool’. I don’t know, maybe even this would open some doors for other metal fans, sometimes these kids have nowhere to go so maybe they will realise ‘Oh shit, Nergal did that’, because maybe they’ve never heard of Glenn Danzig or Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson or Bruce Springsteen or whoever and that they dig deeper and say, ‘Oh shit, I’ve found this guy who was before Nergal and I don’t know Neil Young and he sounds similar.’ I would never compete with all these legends all I’m saying that I’m just a guy with a guitar that needs to do my shit how I want to, period, I cannot compromise that is not in my nature. I’m really happy that I went there because I opened up with clean singing and this part with the choir that you hear on the record is the result of me just warming up and getting used to my clear vocals.

I Loved You At Your Darkest is a quote from Jesus Christ and is something unexpected from you but works with your logic of the eleventh album being a misbalance from the ten commandments. What was it about that particular quote that made you decide to use it for the album?

Nergal: When I saw it, it just grabbed me by my heart and I felt connected with it, it sounds very inspired and can be interpreted in different ways. I have my own way and it’s probably quite an opposite to the original idea that is was meant for. I came up with this concept that’d be awesome to use our adversaries’ tool against them, you know what I mean? What all freethinkers, all these people are liberal, very liberal people and all they have in common is that they are very flexible with their mind and they know that there is no universal truth but there is truth that depends on the angle that you see. That’s how I see life, it’s like if you create universal truths that’s where you end up in all these ideological prisons like you know, religious and political and so on. It can be very enslaving and limiting to a human to create that kind of limitations and frames. I just hate that, that is exactly opposite to my sense of freedom. I felt that using that it’s gonna be an amazing idea to do that. There’s a lot of people where it’s bought a lot of confusion and it’s disturbed a lot of people and there’s no better way to intrigue people by disturbing and confusing them. I think it was exactly the right choice for us. What you said with your question it’s unexpected and as much as The Satanist was again the most unique idea to use the term, this time I decided not to use the same pattern but use completely different pattern and just redefine ourselves with something that’s gonna make people go ‘what the fuck is this now?’ and that’s exactly what the reaction is and I love it. Not only at its darkest but also at its lightest

Has the confusion from the fans surrounding the name settled down a bit now?

Nergal: I don’t know, there’s hundreds and thousands of comments out there and I can only process like a little instead of all of it. I don’t know, it’s not my job anymore, my job was to put the stick in and stir it up and I’m not taking responsibility for how people are going to take it you know. It isn’t my business anymore, it’s people’s business to open their brains the way they want or if they wanted to you, some people don’t want to use their brains and they’re just gonna hate it for what it is which is also good.

You’ve previously been under pressure from blasphemy laws in Poland, but each time you come back with more fight in you than before. Do you purposely try to push the boundaries with each BEHEMOTH record, and do you ever fear it might one day be too much?

Nergal: I don’t know, again, I can’t stop being myself. I was born in an enslaved regime because I know what the regime can do and how much we’re limited and then we converted it into democracy and I don’t believe that even this system is trying to imprison people as well. There’s a new government here in Poland and it’s just being super conservative to the people of absurd but they’re not going to take away our freedom because it’s one of the most basic human rights in the civilised world and this is where it’s so far, we leave freedom of speech. I’m defending my freedom of speech and defending my right to release and create whatever, the art that I want to create simple as that. If one day, they might make up some rules or paragraphs in the system that they’re going to be like a Nergal-cast then this is gonna be the last day for me in this country and I will gladly leave all my businesses to Germany or to Belgium or maybe to U.S. or England to I hope the smarted economy and political systems. They don’t give a fuck what you say as long as you bring something good to the system which is what I do like money, that’s what I do. That’s what this media doesn’t see that I’m bring a lot of money and a lot of economic input into this system and they’re still trying to nail my ass for what I do, it’s a one-sided policy and their days are counted, this is the most hated government since communist regime, it’s not gonna last forever. I’m just being patient and who I am.

From your point of view, what more needs to be done to achieve freedom and to feel safe?

Nergal: I don’t know as long as there’s attempt to limit my art and my mind, my freedom and my actions, I know there’s no way for me to give up. Maybe one day when we become a secular society that’s going to separate from the church and state and there’s nothing else to do maybe this will be the time to move to Ukraine and start riots over there, I don’t know but I really think that what I do is strongly determined by the place I come from so Poland made me and they are the ones to blame if they don’t like me. To give an example, Norway made MAYHEM, but after a lot of fateful events that there’s nothing funny about because people died and there’s nothing funny when people die. Because of the extreme band, radical band that would make like a winning card, but not only would they try to stop them from playing but also donate their tours and make them just one of many examples in the region. ENSLAVED are another band but they get butchered from the government because they are a touring example of how awesome Norwegian, Scandinavian country culture is, they embrace it. But these idiots in Poland they reject that because we just think different now and they want people to be robotic, they want people to be afraid which is stupid because that what makes the world powerful, the differences between us, we should embrace them. I’m not encouraging people to kill Christians, I’ve never said that because they think differently or stand on the other side of the barricade, no I’m saying embrace Christians and learn from them, I’m not saying become like one because we’re not the same kind but churches can be beautiful, especially the medieval ones, the modern ones can be pretty ugly, the medieval ones are beautiful, the culture can be very inspiring as well. Can you imagine black metal without Christianity? You cannot and that’s exactly our path you know somehow, we’re bound to each other, it’s like sacrum profanum, that kind of thing. I’m encouraging people to stand up from there knees and to encourage people to think for themselves. There’s also a lot of Christians within the Behemoth legions that appreciate what I do regardless which is amazing, and I embrace it too and I’m not rejecting them, I’m not denying them, I’m not saying that you’re a believer and you can’t listen to our music, to me it’s a sign that BEHEMOTH music can communicate beyond boundaries. Maybe there is some meta energy, some meta language that is bigger than our small labelling and definitions and our narrow brain because they’re pretty narrow.

When speaking about the album, you’ve said you know your legacy but want to achieve ‘higher ground.’ What would you deem as that next level for you?

Nergal: I don’t look that far and I just focus on what we have now and create the best music we can afford and create and deliver to people. That’s what I’ve learnt from my life experiences. I’m planning tours in 2019 and we’re going to push the record as far and as hard as we can but it’s the same with The Satanist, even when touring The Satanist new doors were opening for us so before I make any decisions and I declare to do something and deny it. I’d rather wait and see what happens, the process of this record has just started, it’s not done, when we start touring we’re going to process the songs in the live environment and this can teach us something, we can learn from that and you know let’s say in two, three years down the road we’re going to be way more experienced you know, way more clever, I hope. Ask me this question in three years time because from this perspective now, we are totally into the album, I cannot see anything else.

Does that apply to the tours as well as you’ve said that you’ve got a ‘new strength coming’?

Nergal: Oh absolutely, every album triggers a new energy and new strengths, so obviously we are going to do our best to deliver a fucking amazing performance and just expect a refreshed and refined setlist. It’s going to be massive and overwhelming and a crossover, we’re going to be promoting the new album but we won’t be playing seven or eight songs out of it, we’ll probably end up playing four songs and then we’re going to choose some of the ever green and then we are definitely going to play some songs that we’ve never played before from the back catalogue. We’re just trying to balance it out and make it very interesting for old-school fans, mid-school fans and new-school fans, of course we can’t satisfy everyone but you can expect the biggest production we can afford.

I can imagine the back catalogue is going to draw in so much excitement.

Nergal: As I said, the new record is like when you have a kid you can be tired or whatever or stressed but seeing that gives you so much energy, motivation, determination to go that one step further and do even more than you could.

I Loved You At Your Darkest is out now via Nuclear Blast.

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