Saturday, February 23, 2013

Words of blasphemy with Antikrist/DEATHRONER (from Terozin #3)


Intro: Deathroner are by far the heaviest fucken black/thrash band around! Those canadian monsters combine their savage sound with powerful riffs and bestial atmosphere which leads the listener straight south of heaven! Death to all and no one fucken standing! Lets spread the word...


Medarov: Hail J.P. Antikrist! Thanks for your appearance! You’ve been summoned to spread the word about Deathroner in my humble zine and I am glad we have ya on board. First of all present the current line-up to the bangers. Also...the most important question! What are you drinking right now?
Evil Antikrist: Okay, here's the line-up : Myself (Antikrist), on the guitar and vociferations on studio works; Unholy, playing the guitar and handling the vocals duties for live stuff to come; Helldriver controls the bass and Panzerlord is beating the shit out of the drums. It's 8:09 A.M. and I'm sipping upon a Black Label while answering this interview.

M: I see in your history notes that the band was started by you as a one-man project back in 2004. What was the direction you headed in your first 2 years before the others stormed in? Do you have some unreleased recordings from these years? Share some memories about the child-steps of Deathroner...
EA: I composed “Fuhrerprinzip” out of a PCP buzz in my rehearsal room when I lived in Montreal, just after I left Supremacy - I was playing with Unholy in that band. I decided to keep on gathering riffs and songs for an eventual project. I had no band name and no precise plan whatsoever. I never recorded anything during that period. Then I left Montreal for a small fuckhole in the north of Quebec, so I was just working alone on that project, unknowing that I would eventually go back to my hometown to rejoin forces with Unholy and create Deathroner.

M: What are/were your main influences both music and lyricwise? Like the little whore in "Romper Stomper" said: "IT'S ABOUT WAR, ISN'T IT?!" Which are your all-time favorite bands?
EA: We're totally sold to old satanic metal from the 80's. Venom, Slayer (those two bands possessed us to listen to metal till we fucking die), Bathory, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Possessed and so on........Best metal EVER !!! Also, the death-metal and black-metal we listened to in the beginning of the 90's totally influenced us. Deicide, Beherit, Blasphemy, Autopsy, Darkthrone.......We'll always be sacrificing to the altar of these metal legends. Lyricwise.......Satan, Hell, Evil, War, Death, anything antihuman and negative will be Deathroner's main subjects until the end.....DEATH TO ALL!!!

M: Where did you found Unholy and Helldriver? Did you know them before that?
EA: As I mentioned earlier, I was playing with Unholy in Supremacy. I knew him and rehearsed with him for 15 + years. Same thing with Helldriver. When I left Montreal in 2005, we just lost contact. Later in 2006, when I got back to my hometown, we just met on the street one day. I talked about my riffs, Unholy had some too, so we decided to invoke Deathroner together. That's how it all started.

M: You stepped right-in with your debut s/t demo in 2007. It was released on tape by "Tour de Garde"...do you think this tape helped you to establish your name in the underground? How many copies were made? What was the feedback? Were you happy with the overall result?
EA: We recorded this demo in Unholy and Helldriver's apartment with zero budget and shitty equipment. We were mostly drunk and stoned all the time during the process, and we REALLY wanted to make it. We've done everything ourselves (recording, mixing, layout etc) then released it independent on CD, 100 copies if I remember. Later the guy from TDG heard our product, liked it and wanted to release it on tape. Our first layout was really cheap, so we designed another one for this release, with new logo, a pic and new fonts. 666 tapes were put on the market, the output was generally good about it, so yes, it really helped us engraving our first mark in the underground metal world. We were really proud of this demo, we liked the sound of it and were really content to see the TDG guy release it with a "professional" presentation.

M: Later it took you 3 years to release "Death To All"...why so long? Did you had some difficulties in those years 2007-2010?
EA: Hahaha.....Yes, we've had one Hell of a time!!! We were working on the other songs to complete the album, but were damn chaotic - lots of drugs and alcohol abuse, poverty, internal fights, rehearsal room devastations, problems with the authority, etc.  We had to leave our rehearsal place because the owner feared us - we were fucking wild and quite out of control during that period! So, we had no place to practice. We've been threatened by fucking punks and humanists because we were nazis (which is absolutely false), and we had to fight a couple of times. We couldn't do live performances - we were virtually banned from our hometown because we were an evil metal band!!! We found another rehearsal place, but it had to be demolished because of insalubrity.  We were still investing most of our cash in alcohol and dope, so we were ridiculously poor. We entered the "studio" on Halloween 2009, and the album was finally released on christmas 2010.......Sometimes I look back and thank Satan for Death to All : to have a Deathroner album is almost a fucking miracle!!!! Now things are going much better, but 2007-2010 was quite a rough period, to say the least......Hahahaha

M: Aaaanyway..."Death To All" is a monster! Sheer bestiality and torment! Where did you record this motherfucker? Who worked on the production? Are you happy with the overall sound cause it is massive to my ears! Are you satisfied with the job Devilsblood (tape) and Morbid Moon (CD) did on your album spreading? Why did you choose an euro label for your tape release?
EA: Thanx for appreciating our album, man!!! The recording of Death to All was nothing less than a fucking nightmare. We had to record the album twice because of totally incompetent studio engineering and non-working equipment. We destroyed the first recording (done in the beginning of 2009) because some takes were damaged and/or sounding like total shit. In the second "studio", the miking was done by a pseudo-sound engineer whose name is unworthy to mention. The mixing board was half broken, the rack-mount units were there only to decorate, and half mikes were shitty and/or dead. The mixing of those resulting sucky takes was done by us. We asked to a pro sound engineer to do the mastering, yet again we've had to stop before it was complete because we ran out of fucking money...Of course, the sound could have been a little better, but it sounds old and dirty, and it's quite efficient when played fucking loud, so it's okay I guess. After Death to All was released on MMR, Ian from DBP contacted us and really wanted to release our stuff on tape, so we agreed as it was a cool and old-school idea. Generally, Europe knows more about the old formats than Canada. I heard that the DBP tape sound sucks because of poor duplicating equipment, but Ian is a cool guy anyway. We're pretty sure MMR could've done a better job spreading our noise, but you know, we have to deal with it right now. We're currently looking for a label to release our second album.

M: What was the feedback towards your debut in the udnerground circles? Any zine appearances? Have you seen reviews? Did you saw those 2 in metal-archives and what do you want to say to these muppets?
EA: Generally, the reactions were quite positive, despite a couple off-puttings due to production and artwork. Following DTA's release, we gave some interviews for fanzines and one for S.O.D. zine. We've read some reviews about our stuff, which were classifying us from killer to average. And yeah, we saw the MA ones......Of course, our first reaction was like "Fuck those shitheads, they just didn't get it !!!", but you know, you can't please anybody, and if you do, then it probably means you're doing diluted/light/homo stuff, so after some time we got used to those negative outputs. It's just part of the game, so better deal with it.

M: Seems like you have a new member - Nihilist taking the shouting duty! Why did you decide to give-up on the vocals and find a full-time member?
EA: In the beginning, I took the responsibilities of the vocals because we couldn't find a proper vocalist. I didn't really want to do it - I am a guitarist - and really hated doing guitars and vocals at once. Right from the start, I don't like being on stage, so being the frontman AND doing guitar/vocals was indeed a fucking pain in the ass! One day I said "Okay, to Hell with it. I'm done." So we hired Nihilist to do live vocals. He's done a couple shows with us. We fired him 7-8 months ago 'cause his vocals were not over-the-top enough and he didn't have the fire in his eyes. He wasn't on par with what we wanted for Deathroner. We're not searching for replacements anymore and I'm not doing vocals except in the studio, so that's why Unholy decided to go on with the screaming.

M: You all took part in several black metal acts like Supremacy and the Black Goat Order? Who are still active? Are you involved in some other unknown projects?
EA: As far as I know, BGO is off. Supremacy is on hold right now, but still alive. Unholy is still working on material. Helldriver had a death metal band called Havok Legion. They released a demo a couple months ago (on Svalbard-Herskip Prods) then split-up. I have a solo project called Demonolator. An album should be out this year.

M: Where were your most memorable shows? Share some drunk stories of violence and disorder!
EA: The first Deathroner show was cool. The crowd was on fire, the pit was brutal and people were screaming like hell, already calling songs, which was quite surprising because we were virtually unknown. The date in Toronto was a fucking adventure!!! We came and went without going to sleep - 24 hours of driving fueled by speed, coke, hasch, pot and alcohol. We had 2 vehicles, but one of them ended up in a ditch after half and hour of driving because the road from our hometown to Quebec City was completely iced. All our equipment plus 7 people were crammed into my Dodge Caravan....Quite impressive. The venue was complete shit - chinatown hole - the backstage was a fucking refrigerator, most of us just didn't speak english.....The bar was totally jam-packed (100 people and the place was about to explode!!!) and it was THE most violent crowd to a Deathroner show, ever. There was no stage so people were just flying all over to crash into the drumkit or ourselves.....Absolutely crazy!!!!! In 2008, when Profan's suicide was announced (he was Supremacy's bassist and a true brother), we decided to go on a drug-and-alcohol frenzy to commemorate his death. It lasted 3 or 4 days, if I remember, and even longer for a couple band members. During that time, we had to do a gig in Quebec City, opening for Piledriver. We were so drunk and stoned that we barely remember our performance.....People told us that it was a good show, despite some musical fuck-ups on our behalf.....I'm pretty sure it was only bullshit! And of course, opening for Blasphemy in Montreal was also something we won't forget. Total cheap hotel room party!!! Etc, etc.....

M: What about the scene in your region? Some "nice", young fellas there like Riotor, Warcommand, Violentada, share your favorite bands from Quebec and Canada.
EA: Our favorites, past and present: Voivod (from our hometown), Razor, Sacrifice, Slaughter, Voor (another band from our hometown),  Infernal Majesty, Blasphemy, Kenaz, Supremacy....... etc. Dare I say Deathroner ?

M: Being an old dog already whats your opinion on the world-wide black/death/thrash scene? Do you think that the i-net and mp3s are slowly taking prevail over the real analog and paper formats? What is the solution? I think its time to start World War III already, he-he...
EA: Well, actually I'm really outdated. Not really following the scene closely. Once it was totally great, the 80's and first half of the 90's saw the rise of so many awesome bands. Then it got really weak - that's what I saw and felt at the moment, at least. Maybe I'm wrong, but the worldwide underground scene seemed to have regained power - good thing. Of course, the good old formats are losing the race against the modern ones, and it should not get better. Nonetheless, I still choose to read a paper zine and listen to a vinyl anyday. Seems like we can't stop progress (unless we finally start that fucking total war, haha) but we can slow it down a bit by sticking to the "ancient" format and therefore keeping them alive. They will never die.

M: Have you ever been accused of being nazis for songs like "Fuhrerprinzip" and "Blitzkrieg"?
EA: Hell yes!!!!! And you know what? 95 % of those who labeled us nazis didn't know shit about our lyrical content. They knew fuck all about us as persons. They didn't have a damn clue about what our music sounded like. But in their little vacuum-heads, we were nazis. But when and where did we claim we were??? We are on evil's side. That's why we've never done a live performance in our hometown: the main metal gig organizers out there don't want Deathroner to go well. They'd rather see us split-up and vanish in the shadows, a satisfaction we're making sure they'll never get. Ignorant scum always ready to burn you at the stake without having a single direct proof about your alleged crimes..... 

M: What lies ahead of Deathroner? Haven't heard news from ya in those 2 years...any demos/EPs/Albums planned? I hope you will continue spreading your pest...
EA: Don't worry man, more evil metal is yet to come! We're currently in the studio recording a demo. Should be out within a couple of months. The material for our 2nd assault is composed. We are working on the last details to be ready to return to Hell Hole studio this autumn. The flame still burns and our curse lives on.....

M: Ok...that was it! Thanks for your words and keep demolishing this fucken planet with your unholy speed metal!!! Any last comments from the Deathroner concentration camp?
EA: 666 fuckin' thanx for your infernal support!!!!! Keep the true underground alive!!!!! We shall return to crush the weak with total warfare and doomsday invocations!!!!!!!  SIEG HEIL SATAN 

Unholy & Helldriver

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