Global Domination | Interviews | Anaal Nathrakh

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Anaal Nathrakh - V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

11/04/08 || theProphet

Introducing Anaal Nathrakh seems somewhat superfluous. Let’s just say that I would like to thank snus-loving maniac V.I.T.R.I.O.L. for putting some time into answering these questions.

Global Domination: Greetings, and welcome to us here at Global Domination! How do you feel, are you excited about answering these bullshit questions? Have you checked out the site, pretty cool, huh?

V.I.T.R.I.O.L.: Not particularly excited, no, but hopefully that will change as we go along. The site looks professional, you are to be complimented. But there’s nothing wrong with vagina.

For those out there who might not know it, what kind of name is Anaal Nathrakh? Why did you choose it?

We chose it because we like the film we took it from, and it has references to dark and mysteriously powerful entities. But we really don’t attach much significance to it – it’s just a name, not a mission statement. Band names cease to mean very much once they’re established, and just become a term to refer to a band with. What exactly is a Metallica? Who cares?

Anaal Nathrakh What is AN about anyways? How did it all start?

It started after the demise of a previous band we were in together (which was immature and which no one has heard of). We went our separate ways to an extent, and Mick began working on some songs with a different direction – essentially nastier than most of what we were hearing at the time. We were still friends, just not doing anything musical together. So he came up with a few songs and needed a singer. He asked me and I thought the tracks sounded great, and we found it easy to agree on the sort of thing we were aiming for. And so Anaal Nathrakh was born. It’s about wanting to stab yourself in the face repeatedly until you don’t recognize what you see in the mirror. And then willing this to be a universalisable maxim.

Are there any certain religious or philosophical beliefs within the band? What are your attitudes towards fans that like your music but do not have your ideals?

There are lots of philosophical and religious themes we touch upon, and the animating principles behind the ideology of Anaal Nathrakh are misanthropy and nihilism. But I don’t like explaining them too much in answer to that sort of question. You don’t have to be interested in those subjects to listen to our music, but if you do have an interest in that side of the band, try to think for yourself about it first. There’s plenty of hints and explanations on the albums. As for whether people agree with us, if people like our music that’s great. It’s irrelevant if they agree with us because we’re not trying to convince people think in any particular way – quite the opposite in fact. This is a band which makes music, not a political or religious movement. It’s gratifying and reassuring when people do seem to get what we’re on about but we’re not interested in forcing anyone to do so. I don’t usually trust people who want to influence the way you think.

Do you guys feel that you are making enough money?

We hardly make any money at all, so yes. There is a perception that once a band has records out and you’ve seen their name in a few magazines, that they’re making a lot of money. But you would be surprised how few bands are actually making enough to live frugally on, yet alone live well. You need to do lots of big tours to make real money, and we don’t do that because it’s not what we’re about. If we do ever make loads of money, great. It wouldn’t make any difference to the band, but we’re not rich people so money would be nice. We don’t like the idea of other people making money out of us without us getting our part. But we started with nothing in a bedroom in a less than stellar part of a big city, money wasn’t the reason we started and it’s not the reason we carry on.

Back in the days you put a lot of emphasis on being “necro”, but that seem to have vanished somewhat. Are AN less necro nowadays, what with the clean choruses and so on?

When we started using the term, hardly anyone else used it. Terrorizer magazine, for example, took the term from us (as admitted by Greg Whalen when I spoke to him a long time ago). At that time, there was a lot of so-called Black Metal and other kinds of extreme metal that had keyboards and poncing about. We saw what we were doing as very different to that, and thus defined ourselves in opposition to it. The music we wanted to make was harsh, aggressive, unsettling – necro. Since then, things have changed somewhat and it no longer seems appropriate to plaster the word necro all over the place. It’s not a case of whether or not we have changed, there’s just no point in doing that now as we see it. We just make the music that we think is right, we couldn’t give a fuck what words anyone might use to describe it.

Speaking of necro, just how necro is it to have a band member’s brother strangled for an album cover? Rate on a scale from 1 to 666, where 666 is total fucking necro.

The necrocity would really depend on how the photograph was taken, rather than just that you were strangling someone on it. I think the word from the moron’s metal lexicon that fits best is more likely to be ‘brutal’. Given that he was suffocating in a plastic bag at the time, and then thrown out half naked into the snow afterwards, it was definitely brutal. But necro? He wasn’t wearing any makeup, and the photograph wasn’t in black and white and then photocopied 4 times, so it probably wasn’t over about 500. It also didn’t involve a cave, which in hindsight was an error on our part.

In an interview that you made a couple of years ago to one of the lesser webzines, you mentioned Britney Spears, saying that “Worse still, she appears to “stand for” what she represents (apple pie, sex only after marriage, lack of drug abuse, etc., etc.)”. Nowadays I think we have retrospect to prove that this isn’t really true, which brings me to my punchline: People in the metal community, you included I think, often claim to be the most hedonistic, degenerated and immoral people on the face of the planet. But can they, or we if you will, really compete with the likes of Britney or Paris Hilton?

Retrospect proves nothing about the girl as she was at the time, only what has happened since. People, even people like Spears, are a bit more complicated than that. What I think it does prove is that humans can’t live in the idealized world that they often like to think they could, or even do, live in. Whenever someone seems whiter than white, there’s always the whiff of bullshit somewhere around them. Think of the recent story of the New York politician who had secretly been fucking prostitutes. Whatever our other qualities, we are all greedy, cruel, manipulative, wretched things in the end on some level or another. And if you try to force us to live in a world which entirely obviates those negative things, we go insane and rot from the inside. I don’t claim to be any more hedonistic or degenerate than anyone else – talk is pointless when the truth can only be demonstrated (hi Ludwig), and in fact such talk is often based on an assumption on the part of the speaker which reflects their own vanity and culture more than the objective truth.

The most hedonistic, degenerate and immoral people in the world are very seldom the ones who aspire to being such – they’re usually simply the richest. For example, a hugely immoral thing to do would be to convince mothers with young babies that their own breast milk wasn’t good for their children and that they should buy a baby milk formula instead. A formula that was so expensive that the mothers went on to starve in order to feed their children. You or I can’t do that – you’d have to be in charge of the Nestle corporation to do that. I’m not interested in morally judging people – they can and will do what they want to, regardless of what some guy in some band says. And I’m not saying that we’re better or worse than anyone else. These things are just facts.

How does the writing process of Anaal Nathrakh look like? Are you both involved in both music and lyrics?

No. Mick writes the music, I write the lyrics. There’s only very limited crossover between the two. Generally we come up with ideas, sometimes discuss them, and not a great deal happens. Then somehow a critical point is reached and Mick dives into the studio and a few short weeks later, there is an album’s worth of new music. I gather my ideas and we go back into the studio together to record the vocals and finish everything off. It’s a pretty explosive process, a lot faster than most bands I’m aware of, but it works for us. It helps working that way to get more of a sense of urgency and chaos in the finished music.

Continuing on the topic of lyrics, why don’t you make yours “public”? Can we expect them to ever be released? Furthermore, what topics do you deal with in them, and what inspires you to write that way?

We just don’t. And no, you can’t. I’m inspired by looking at and thinking about the world. We humans, at least in the West, think we’re so fucking great. I’m fairly sure that someone operating from a perspective with sufficiently objective detachment from our own would conclude that we are scum. Think of all the great achievements of culture and society – the art, the literature, the monuments. Think how much of all of that is related directly to suffering. And think how good they often make us feel. Think of all the misery and hate, all the war and famine, the hideous cruelty and iniquities of the world. And the truth is that it would be possible for humanity as a whole to eliminate these things if only we were capable of it. But we aren’t. On an individual level we can be kind, considerate, even wise creatures. And maybe those are good things to be. On a species-wide level we are cruel, shallow, greedy, vain and despotic. We even create art forms dedicated to eulogizing those qualities because we’re fascinated by them as much as we’re repelled. Anaal Nathrakh, is about all those things, both reveling in them and being utterly horrified by them. Sickened by what it itself is. It is very possibly the most negative thing in the world. But at the same time, we’re not a political movement – it is pretentious for a musician to call what they make ‘art’, but art or not, our music is intended in that sense – it’s simply presenting an atmosphere, an arguable way of looking at things, a way that we think is compelling. And plenty of people seem to agree with us. You may think that answer is pompous in the extreme, but to be honest I don’t care, it’s what makes sense to me.

How much of them are real lyrics anyways, as opposed to just incoherent screaming? Answer in percent.

Asinine question, but 100%.

Another thing that you seem kinda opposed to is playing live, what the fuck’s up with that? I am aware that you have played live and still do, but these occasions are just too god damn rare. How big are the chances that us Scandinavians will ever get to see you guys on our home soil (because we are so damn patriotic and love our country, especially in the winter when there’s fucking four hours of sunlight, thank you very much.)?

We’re not opposed to playing live, we just don’t want to do it too often. We want it to be special when we play, both for us and hopefully for the people who are there. We’ve actually played in Scandinavia twice already, although admittedly not in Sweden. But if the right offer comes along we’ll happily play there. I’d like the chance to see some of Sweden, in fact.

I guess it’s no secret that our planet is in a pretty fucked condition. What are your feelings towards living in mankind’s final millennium? Do you hope that you don’t die before you finally get to see it burn?

Final? From the point of view of future history and the planet itself, I’d say that was lamentably optimistic. I don’t think it’s too late for some kind of redemption, I’m just convinced that redemption won’t come. If the end does come within this lifetime, I just hope it’s at the very end of a long life during which people have learned to leave each other alone.

Anaal Nathrakh

Staying on the same topic, sort of, are you a fan of catastrophes? What do you think of events such as 9/11, the 2004 tsunami and the hurricane Katrina?

Fan? You’d have to be a fucking idiot to be a fan. Fascinated by them perhaps, but those things were all tragedies – people should strive never to forget that. As one famous war poem says, ‘Look down, and swear by the slain of the war that you’ll never forget’.

Now for the shallow segment of the interview; pick your favourite of the alternatives below, then write a short comment for our entertainment:

Oh, so the rest wasn’t shallow?

Cup o’ tea OR pint o’ lager?

Depends on the situation but I’m drinking a bottle of Budweiser Budvar at the moment. Usually it’s Guinness, so neither.

Suicide OR Deicide?

Lack of deicide is suicide (note the lack of capital letters).

Piercings OR tattoos?

Both or neither, I really couldn’t care less. If you’re a dickhead, you’re still a dickhead whether you’ve poked holes in yourself and/or filled them with ink or not.

Seafood OR tacos?

What?

Nietzsche OR de Sade?

De Sade. It’s often ignored that de Sade was dealing with some of Nietzsche’s themes 80 years or so before Nietzsche was.

Man OR beast?

The question doesn’t make sense.

Coca-Cola OR Pepsi?

Get lost.

Onwards with these funny, fluffy questions/requests… Rate these bands, and write three words each to sum them up, please.

Iron Maiden – paradigm forming millionaires.
Mayhem – paradigm forming nightmare.
Bolt Thrower – one album juggernaut.
The Beatles – brilliant but overrated.
Cradle of Filth – astutely manipulative pop.
Napalm Death – trend setting legends.
Marduk – past their prime.
Britney Spears – great Southpark episode.
Motörhead – still fucking brilliant.
Deathspell Omega – never heard them.
Vader – predictable but dependable.
Black Sabbath – very, very old.

Back to you and your music, one thing that I think strikes everyone hearing Anaal Nathrakh for the first time is your vocals. Either on the early releases where they are just plain fucking demented, or on the later ones, where they remain vicious but also display a fantastic clean vocal range. What the fuck man, how do you do this shit? Also, why did you decide that clean choruses is the way to go, and what kind of alcohol is best for the voice?

Thanks. I’ve only ever tried to do the best I could, and do what felt right with the music. I’m pleased you used the phrase ‘plain fucking demented’ though, haha. I just listen to the music and try to think what would sound best, and what would feel satisfying to do. Usually I’m pretty wound up, so the most satisfying thing is to scream my head off, but since the beginning we’ve always worked to give a dynamic, interesting feeling to the use of various vocal styles. I suppose that’s an influence from King Diamond, where he always used to employ different styles and voices. It means there’s more going on for the listener when they hear the music, so hopefully it makes everything more interesting.

Two of your albums include guest performances by another awesome vocalist, namely Attila Csihar of Mayhem fame. How was this arranged? He is sort of a bandwhore (band mercenary, perhaps?), his Wikipedia discography list performances with 12 different bands, many of them guest performances or just one album shots. Does he just help out his friends, or does he have other motives for being on so many releases?

I would never presume to know the motives of someone as unusual as Attila, he’s a bit of a law unto himself. But in our case, Aborym started it by asking Mick to help with some drums and programming on one of their albums at the time when Attila was singing for them. Then as you may know, we were recording our EP and thought his style of vocals would suit the track we were working on and just asked if he’d like to make a guest appearance. He said yes and so away we went. I think he just likes being involved with things he finds interesting – it’s not some kind of nepotistic clique, but I doubt there’s anything more cynical about it either. If you want to involve someone in your work, you just have to ask them and see what they say.

The end of this interview is approaching, so I’ll take this opportunity to ask you about the future of Anaal Nathrakh. Have you thought anything about the next album, perhaps there is even some new material written? Come on man, give me a scoop here…

I’ve been thinking about it, I’ve got a few ideas that will appear on it if and when we decide it’s time to record. Most recently I’ve been considering the ‘aretaic turn’ and the Chapman brothers. There’s almost certainly going to be something influenced by the book ‘Moment of Freedom’ too. Mick has been busy lately and we haven’t spoken about the next album yet, so I don’t know if he’s started working things out in his head but it seems likely there’s something bubbling away in there somewhere by now. I tentatively predict we’ll be recording at the end of this year but we’ll see what happens.

Finally, which five albums do you consider the most important releases, which was the first album you bought, and what do you prefer to listen to while having sex?

I’m pretty sure the first album I actually bought myself was “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” by Iron Maiden. I was actually trying to find death metal, I had an idea of the sound in my head, but I was only a kid and didn’t know what to look for. But I’d spent a lot of time listening to The Beatles records before that. Five albums? There’s not much point trying to make a definitive list, but particularly formative ones as regards Anaal Nathrakh would include “A Blaze in the Northern Sky”, “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, “A Holocaust In Your Head”, “From Enslavement To Obliteration” and “Them”. That’s not really a personal list but there’s too many personal albums to make a list of five. There is only one piece of music that should be listened to by anyone in the world whilst having sex at any time – “Birdseed” by Whitehouse. It is also the only music that should be listened to whilst eating (preferably alone), driving, working out, socializing (preferably loud enough that you can’t hear other people speaking) and at all times in between. The only music that should ever be performed or listened to live is “Frequency LSD” by Masonna.

Thanks for taking the time and doing this interview man! We here at GD sure look forward to hearing more from you loonies, if you have anything to say to your fans or whatever, now is your chance. And please, make it in proper ol’ British lingo, would you, old chap?

Thanks for the support. Proper ol’ British lingo? Thone Biscop meteth se Kyning. To any fans – thank you. Hopefully we’ll see you soon.

Interviews