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| Antaeus |
| with MKM on Oct 15, 2002 |
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Antaeus from France recently released their second full length “De Principii Evangelikum” through Osmose Productions. Find out all about this album that is full of hatred, aggression, and as the band likes to call it “Satanik Audio Violence”. Detail saillant: MKM’s opinion on Internet and E-zines. (Note from the editor: most of the “k’s” (e.g. produktion, musick) in the original text have been replaced with “c’s”. This has been done for editorial reasons only. If by any means the band or MKM feels misinterpreted or offended, we hereby like to apologise.) | |||
| First of all, congratz on “De Principii Evangelikum”. Are you satisfied with the end product? I was told that your first full-length album (“Cut Your Flesh And Worship Satan”) was recorded in just two days! | |||
| Was the budget big enough this time to complete the recordings to your satisfaction? Hailz to thee & thankz for the support. Product… I must say that I have always had a problem when it comes to describing our album in such terms. Though it is on CD format & is “meant” to be sold, I wouldn’t view it that way. As far as I am concerned, I am truly satisfied with D.P.E. in general, apart from one detail being the introductions, all is as I wanted. We have increased the aura we always had with this perfect recording session. Both the dynamik & the violence are there, clearly pushed up front. That in particular is what was missing in the previous release (but it was something else anyway). Budget did allow us a bit more than a week of recording, which is perfect for us. I mean, it did seemed incredible to get more than 5 days for the recording & two or three days for the mixing. It`s impossible to compare it with the previous experience. To give an idea the vocal lines on C.Y.F.A.W.S. were done in one live take, all in a raw, without any possibilities to redo anything. This time I had 3 hours or so to record them, seemed like a fucking luxury. Also we had the opportunity to record with our own equipment, which means our own sound being truly re-transcribed to music. All these factors did help to match my expectations for the final pressing of D.P.E. And in additional the mastering work was also killer… | |||
| Can you tell us which individuals are playing in Antaeus? I am the sole member who was initially in the band (I joined in 94 as session vocalist). We have had a stable line up since 98 or so, and anything before that wasn’t much of my interest, I did have to check out a lot of musicians to find the right ones… Not an easy task to find the right members that could fit my concept of Antaeus. Anyway with the addition of two Eternal Majesty members (Sagoth & Thorgon) just after the release of our split demo (that sold around 700 copies, which is rather surprising considering the status of French bands abroad), we finally got fully efficient & destructive as I wanted. Set composes most of the guitar structures, we had the same drummer (aka storm/hbv6 – now using yov). | |||
We are one vision of Hell; we are one incarnation of Hatred… | Antaeus has been around since 1994. Do you feel it as an accomplishment for your hard work that a quality label like Osmose signed you? Not only that, it also proves that despite what numerous bands & individuals thought, we will never surrender. We went through all the shit possible as a band evolving in the extreme underground scene and we are still there. It has been known that my vision is linked to Him. We spread his message & our work is totally serious. A lot of devotion & fanaticism is put in the work process. Signing with Osmose would provide the fuel to a higher development of our germ of corruption. Label wise, we do get the support from the two labels I do respect the most: End All Life Productions and Osmose Productions. Strong allies are always worth having by one’s side. I feel it’s important to point out that those two labels were the ONLY one which had always supported the band, numerous supposedly underground labels were spitting on us and all of a sudden felt like signing us after the “C.Y.F.A.W.S.” release. A total opportunist move I couldn’t tolerate. | ||
| How would you describe the type of Black metal you’re playing? SATANIK AUDIO VIOLENCE! This term came up after the gig we did in Belgium for HELLoween ‘01. With Watain, Triumphator, Impiety, Decayed and Temple of Baal. Thanks to Erik of Watain & Marcus of Triumphator who came up up with that “definition”. It is also the name we used for a limited live tape (recorded at this hellish date, with Nord of Ofermod as guest vocalist). Musical-wise, our sound is a mix of any extreme metal acts from the early 90s and the sickness spawned by bands like Sadistik Exekution, Corpse Molestation, Nuclear Death… We are one vision of Hell; we are one incarnation of Hatred…Feel us. | |||
| What’s your opinion towards Satanism? Do you believe in Satan as an adversary to the Christian god or as an entity in itself? For I would dive deeper each day, I could end up having a clear definition, as of now, my eyes are providing a crystal glance. See through them, seek through them, reveal in the mirror. All is sickness, all is death, He is All. Communion via the wounds, flesh destroyed as an offering, a sigil of Hate – an xristik ikon. | |||
| What future do you see for Black metal? The poppy tunes of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir are not your favourites I guess….. Which bands do you consider as the messengers of the new era of black metal? I do not care for any future at all, for I know that devoted individuals do remain active in this scene, those bands you mentioned are evolving elsewhere & using some sigils to please their own egos. Our path is different, our goal drastically different… We do spawn violence and disgust via a clearly demonic message. Black Metal is linked to our vision, but Black Metal didn’t create that vision in us. We are suitable for each other & are as one. Bands I consider being in that field would be: Katharsis, Deathspell Omega, Dark Opus, Demoncy, Krieg, Wakboth, Eternal Majesty, Temple of Baal, Clandestine Blaze, Black Witchery, Thornspawn, Triumphator, Watain, Judas Iscariot, Malign, Svest, and Cantus Beastiae… End All Life Productions, as far as ideology goes, is the perfect underground label and all their bands do provide the musical sickness I seek. All support goes to them, it is an honor to have C.Y.F.A.W.S. release on LP via them. | |||
| With the departure of Marduk and Immortal from Osmose do you feel the climate for other bands became better? | |||
All is sickness, all is death, He is All. | For example a lot of the marketing money which used to be reserved for those bands is now used for lesser known bands I presume. I wouldn’t view the label policy that way. The marketing money has been divided among the numerous signing, I think that around 10 bands did join Osmose in the past months. So that means10 times studio budget. As you might have noticed, Osmose is no longer having full page ads in magz like they used to, they have a more underground approach than before. At the same time, since major magz are only covering bands that have some advertisements placed, we are totally not included in mainstream metal magz. Not that I care, but people seem to view Osmose as a marketing machine and it isn’t. It is true that we get a lot of support from the label.They push the band a lot and make sure that everything goes the best for us. As far as “promotion” is concerned I have been doing two to three interviews each day for the past month. Apart from that maybe 5 magazines like Terrorizer, Legacy & French magz. There is no rock star bullshit there; our message still remains for the fucking die-hards. | ||
| In some interviews you mention the fact that you don’t like the use of internet in today’s underground scene yet you have your own website. Isn’t that a contradiction? E-zines are not really my fave format I must admit, I actually never get to read one really, since I was doing a zine back in the early 90s, I know how fucking hard it is to do a paper edition, all the hard work and so on one has to put in place to release it and distribute it. E-zines are like polished zines, you know. Most of them are like fake, never get released (updated) and are just meant to get free stuff…The amount of dubbed tape I sent to those zines is incredible, over two hundred maybe. Hmm well, when I get to think of those “detailz”, I feel like destroying everything around. Also, those “message boards” be it the fmp board & so on, there is way too many importance given to rumours and gossip than anything else. It seems that the Internet did allow such things to increase to a critical point. Same goes for those e-Bay auctions done on underground releases, this is a total nonsense to me. When I got to see the SPikeKult Kommando ep I released (a split with Antaeus/Eternal Majesty/Deviant/Hell Militia) being sold for fucking 50 USD while I did loose some hundreds dollars in that release, that did piss me off. The only point of interest would be the email but I still use a lot of “written” correspondence, but emails made things more convenient and faster. I hate MP3 and stuff like that; I got to hear that D.P.E. was available on that format, while I didn’t have myself the master of the CD… | |||
| About the Antaeus website, I am not responsible for it, or even for the one who takes care of it. It is just a gathering of data that spares me the time to send files or infos about the band. I am considering having it relocated and hidden. So only those with a password could access our information and download the logo & so on. It seems that most zines I got to read lately did use pix coming from the website more than anything else. | |||
| You were supposed to participate in the European tour of Deicide but as I read on your website yesterday the promoter decided you cancel your shows. | |||
| Did this come as a shock to you? I can imagine you had already started preparing to go on tour. It pisses me off really. Not a shock since it has been a shitty endless discussion for the past month, getting changes everyday, also the tour support was rather expensive, but then again it is part of the whole masquerade. Not getting to perform with them is like “saving a lot of expenses” that might not have been needed now. Also it is best to hear about the cancellation now; I did get the news 5 hours before giving my “letter of resignation” to my employer, since they didn’t allow me to have that many days off… So I might have ended up unemployed and then I would have been truly freaking out, killing someone or so. But it is part of the Antaeus curse. We always have to deal with that kind of shit, there is more to come, we don’t care. We spread the message and that is all that counts. | |||
| Well, thanks for your time answering these questions. Are there any things left you’d like to world to know? Hailz to thee & thanx for the space given.
Any kontakt with sick individualz is welcome, C.Y.F.A.W.S. is the law. SATANIK VIKTORY | |||
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(Roy van den Brink) |
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