Interview Northern Heritage (2000)

What did lead you into dark side of music and thougths ? Is black metal scene reason for your ideology or ideology reason to end up in black metal "scene" ?
DO : We have been into the realms of the extreme Metal scene for many years, long before Black Metal became popular and was soiled by the worms infesting it today. Black Metal is what we think and what we feel, so I can hardly answer the question of who was there first : the ideology or Black Metal... But the lust to murder and the utter hate for life has certainly be there before we started to celebrate Satan through musical incantations

Purely satanic black metal band is nowadays almost rare in the scene. While trendies follow new things, you have not. What's your definition of satanism ?
DO : It's slightly different for each of us, although we all wear the goat's sign with pride. Satanisme is the worship of death, which is the only reality, all you build up will sooner or later be swallowed by the ultimate void (call it Death, Satan or as you wish). We take clearly distance from the "organized" forms of so called satanism, as they're nothing but mere excuses for lifelovers to gather and to be happy like fucking hippies. Satanism is to feel pleasure when you see living beings suffer, bleed and die. Stan has its manifestations in deadly diseases, civil wars and rapes. All that destroys the human dignity, that reduces human to what they are : worthless pieces of meat. Every time we see suffering, we're pleased. We're the adversary of Life. Once you've tasted the real essence of Satanism, you can't quit anymore, as there is nothing after Satanism, it's the ultimate ideology. There is no room for evolution anymore : the Satanist is the only being that has the strength to face the Truth and the Honour to become one of the executioners of the fate of Life. Face it fucking weaklings : everything is doomed, you can resist for a while, but you will never win...

What is the origin and meaning of the name ?
DO : Deathspell Omega is a reference to our ideology. Just imagine the last moments of the universe, just before it will collapse. The final spell cast by Satan. Everything disappears in the ultimate void...

Your demo was limited only 66 copies, and debut vinyl 200 copies. You refuse to release Cds. Also, you decided not to give any other interviews than this one. What is the reason of not willing to jump into the spotlights of black metal scene ? Success should be easy with so amazing riffs and great son arrangements you have, what would definitely appeal to many black metal "fans" ?
DO : At first, I think our music is too raw to please the masses. There's only a handful of real Black Metal people that will understand its real essence
Secondly, Black Metal was never meant to reach its current status. I refuse to call "Black Metal" all the meaningless garbage that gets sold under that name these days. Many people say that it's good to spread the message further to young kids, but what message ? When you get "big", you are censored. Just try to say that the gaz chambers were a nice attempt of cleansing a part of humanity, and you'll never be distributed anymore in countries like Germany, so it's a false excuse for being interested in fame and money. The aim of Deathspell Omega is purely to celebrate the ancient Black Metal Kult, and to me, Black Metal was always meant to be out on vinyl, and tapes. Trendies don't even have a record player, so we are at least sure to avoid a part of the idiots that infest the scene this way. Finally, we don't enjoy to have contacts with people, this is why we will never do band mail nor any kind of promotion

There is no line-up, photos or contact address printed on your releases. Black metal goes often hand-in-hand with band photos with masks and spikes as well as "extreme" artist names, and attempt to promote band members and image even more than music itself. Why you chose not to follow this way ?
DO : Because the image has taken over the real meaning of Black Metal. Image was a good way to illustrate your beliefs in the early days of Black Metal, to take distance from the normal Death Metal crap of the early 90's. But nowadays, image is probably one of the biggest problems of Black Metal, as it helps its commercialisation. Just imagine how many money bands like Satyricon invest in make-up sessions... what does that mean ? Black Metal is purely a celebration of Satan through music, and our role as musicians and Satanists is to compose the most hateful odes to the Lord, not to be cool and become popular

You're in general metal-only music listener. How much of it is black metal and how much weight does the message behind music have ? What do you think of traditional heavy metal headbanging -ideology : loud music, a lot of booze and some hot chicks to fuck
DO : Black Metal is about 95% of what I listen to. The rest is old Satanic Death Metal and a little bit of raw Thrash Metal too, and perhaps 2 or 3 Heavy Metal records as well. The message behind the music is extremely important, and bands doing good music with stupid life-praising lyrics (as it was often the case within Thrash/Death/Heavy Metal) is something I can't listen to. Everything must be good and extreme. As for the traditional Heavy Metal attitude, I feel the people into this and myself don't live in the same realms, and I don't have much respect for them. I would consume alcohol too, but listening to Black Metal only, and then mutilating myself until my arms are full of blood. Nothing very funny or cool as you can see

Deathspell Omega is anti-human black metal. I was recently told that black metal which promotes for example destruction of your family or your country, worship of death and destruction is only self-deception. What do you think of this ? Should black metal go to "secure safe future for white children" -type of stuff like current pagan/ns metal is often promoting?!
DO : Self-deception? Ha! To hate life is intelligence I'd rather say. Perhaps some poor loosers think they didn't ever reach anything in life and hate their situation because of that, but they're worthless worms, nothing else. We hate life, and want everyone to die but that's the result of many thinking, not self-deception. All of us within Deathspell Omega have managed to reach points in "social life" that normal people would envy us, be it because of well-paid job, or because of a very high state in studies. But all of this has no importance. Only the glorification of Satan matters. Black Metal can not promote values like "a safe future for white children", as Black Metal stands for pure negativity exclusively, and this is life-loving bullshit

Often the most radical bands and people tend to get liberal and softer while they develop. Would you see this kind of development possible for Deathspell Omega?
DO : No, that's impossible. It's mostly teenager that still have a need of evolution. We know who we are, what we think, and what we fight for. The message will never change, nor will the music get "nicer". Black Metal is a tradition, and to experiment musically or lyrically should be punished by torture

Self-destructive behaviour and suicides are sometimes connected to black metal. I personally don't have really respect for those who have presented themselves as tough warriors during the years and end up doing suicide instead of for example getting killed or just die during even "mindless" violent acts against things they said they fight against (for example doing mass murder inside church, since because of will to die it doesn't matter if being shot after this by police). What is your opinion of this ?
DO : I agree with you. If you really felt that hate inside you, and that you have the feeling that your time has come, you should simply sacrifice your life for Satan, instead of dying alone. If all of us would act like you said when the time has come, I can tell you that we would be a real threat for the world. Like Black Metal was meant to be : a danger for well-thinking beings...

Where you get your lyrical inspiration ? Is Deathspell Omega "one cause, one goal only" -band ?
DO : The inspiration comes from our ideology. People who say that "Satan" is a limited matter to talk about are only limited themselves. Satan is an endless source of inspiration as He covers all the dark aspects that exist. You can say that we're into it only for this : to praise Satan and Satanic values (which, again, is so vast a subject...) and to keep the Black Metal tradition alive. The metaphors used in the lyrics are always crude, no compromise

Do you consider videos of authentic death and sadism and human degeneration as good influence from bm / worthy entertainment ? Do you collect such material by yourself ? What about books ?
DO : Be it when you cut the throat of some animal just for pleasure, or when you watch some videos featuring human despair and pain, you get a lot of influence for sure. But videos get boring after a while. Books are way better, and I collect horror stories of some known authors and some more obscure ones too

Your material does not sound like it would be done in any "quality studios". However, it is very good and 100% suitable for black metal records. Where and how have you recorded these ? Are you satisfied with them by yourself ?
DO : All our material has been recorded in our own rehearsal room. We have painted all the walls black years ago, and if you use some candles, you can definitely create an abyss atmosphere there. We have never thought about using a real studio, as we know what we want, and a polished sound, or the advices of some stupid subhuman are not wished. We most of the time use some old 8 track recorder and that's it. I think the sound on the demo was the best we did so far. The new songs for the LP are good too soundwise, as we wanted something colder. But I prefer the "messy" feeling on the demo. On our next recording we will try to reach that sound again

How do you see French scene these days ? What you think of strong NS influence with French black metal ?
DO : The best days of the French scene are gone for long. Nowadays, bands like Mütiilation or Antaeus are still going strong, but the other great bands have vanished. Among the newcomers, there's not much worthy material. The NS influence of the French scene is something I don't care about. NS People don't evolve in the same realms as we do, they don't fight for the same values as us. Black Metal is Satanic, Pagan Metal is NS, but these styles don't have much in common. I of course am very proud of the brilliant actions of intolerance that took place during the National-Socialist era in Germany, and in Europe during WW2. To gaz the jews and so many liberal thinking people was fantastic. We, in Deathspell Omega, are definitely fascistic thinking people, and proud of it, but we don't feel close to this new wave of political pro-life bands

You have said Finnish scene interests you. I'm quite sure that some Finnish people will disagree of our "scene" being good. What has made you like it ?
DO : Well, Finland is one of the few countries that still offers that good old Black Metal feeling and attitude, like in the early 90's. Bands like Warloghe, Musta Surma, Clandestine Blaze, Hewlett, Nightside come to my mind. I like these bands and they seem to be truly serious, so what's wrong with them !

Deathspell Omega is not using keyboards, clear vocals, etc. Some people consider unpolished, raw, straight forward black metal as relic from the past. They have vision to develop "black metal" further. Describing such bands as black metal is like some would say Korn or Pantera would be death metal. How much you stay in touch with "scene". Any new bands that has impressed you with music & ideology ? Does situation described above make you less interested to buy unknown records, when there's no guarantee what is been sold as "black metal" ?
DO : Well, Black metal is a tradition, as I already said. Open-minded people who want to experiments are traitors. Black Metal has to sound like Black Metal, not like some fucking pop or atmospheric-folk or whatever. Black Metal is the wrath of Satan, and His wrath is cold and merciless, not nice and melodic
There are still good Black Metal bands around, every country has a couple I'd say. When it comes to new releases, I give unknown bands a chance if they've released something on vinyl or demo. CDs are not of interest for me usually. But I'm still very interested in the scene worldwide, those subhumans who leave Black Metal and don't buy new releases anymore never had the unholy flame burning inside of them !

What do you think about black metal bands/labels being so interested to create all kinds of merchandise besides records ? Bands such as Cradle of Filth seems to be more concerned to create another shirt, flag or something like that instead of new record (good examples is in some big metal magazines : 2 full pages filled with dozens and dozens different CoF t-shirt designs) and even some smallest demo bands offer shirts, stickers, etc. It seems commercialism is taking over or at least influencing even black metal. Would it be irritating to see some unknown teenager wearing Deathspell Omega T-shirt ?
DO : Well, all the merchandising around Black Metal is irritating. T-shirts are acceptable if they're done in limited quantities and to carry an important message only. I wear some myself actually. If they're done, like most of the time, to earn money, then I don't want to have anything to do with them. There will never be any kind of "merchandising" around Deathspell Omega other than our propaganda on vinyls and tapes. If I had to meet some stupid kid on the street with some bootleg shirt of Deathspell Omega, I'd beat him up, just for the pleasure to do so.

What do you think of black metal in internet ?
DO : Internet is a nice way to spread propaganda to the weak-minded. But don't expect a Deathspell Omega site on the net, as we don't want such exposure to the eyes of everybody. Generally speaking, internet has a negative influence on Black Metal, giving access to things that should remain hidden.

Futureplans ?
DO : More Black Metal releases and Satanic worship. A split-LP with Moonblood (limited to 300) is scheduled for the second half of 2000. We're also working on a limited release (tape or 7", in 100 copies) of which some copies will be smeared with our own blood. DOn't try to get in touch with us, we're not interested in your pathetic lives.

Under Satan's Wings,
Deathspell Omega.