Interview: Birth A.D.
February 9 2012 at 02:39:22 AM  Hide the lavender. So let me get this straight: Some guy who writes songs titled “Kill Everybody” and “Bring Back the Draft” suddenly finds himself in the eye of an Internet shitstorm the width of actor Tracey Morgan’s proboscis for challenging some other guy in Brooklyn to a fight? You hear that? A fight! Gasp. In Brooklyn! Gulp. Between Metal bands! Err… So before we all forget about it by Friday, I caught with up with big bad bully Jeff Tandy (of the Black Metal band Averse Sefira) after a busy day to talk about his current group Birth A.D. and their upcoming record I Blame You, produced by Alex Perialas. And also to find out why something as silly as his (now-removed) Facebook gag directed at Liturgy’s Hunter Hun - Oh fucking forget it - caused so many people to gag on their morning flaxseed oil. How is the new album going to differ from the first? It seems like most of the targets you aimed at on Stillbirth of a Nation – the hanger ons, the shake n’ bakers, the whiners and criers, U.S. Congress - are all still around and not going to go away any time soon. Who or what is in the crosshairs on I Blame You? The full length is a direct continuation of the first. I Blame You is an indictment of society as a whole from top to bottom. We're all somewhat at fault for how things are going, though most of my ire is aimed at the "average" person who unwittingly does stupid and destructive things without even realizing it. I actually don't have much to say about our government after a fashion; it's the people who allow them to be there, so that's our fault too. Have you tapped anyone to do artwork for the album yet, or does that come with finding someone to put out the record? British comic book artist extraordinaire Cliff Robinson of 2000 AD fame is putting the finishing touches on the artwork. We should have a reveal on it soon enough. We worked together on the look and content, and the final piece really captures the idea of the album. It’s pretty great to see someone like Perialas still working with heavy bands today. What’s the experience at Pyramid Sound Studios been like for you? Alex Perialas is one of the godfathers of Thrash, along with Bill Metoyer, Fleming Rasmussen, and Rick Rubin (specifically on account of Reign in Blood), so to work with him was a rare and amazing experience. He's a great teacher and a great coach, and he has a formidable ability when it comes to capturing the ideal sound. He pushed us to give our best efforts in every regard, and you'll hear it on the recording. More than anything, the fact that Alex believes in the band and its potential is a huge honor. So much of what he produced made a gigantic impression on me in my formative years, and to actually work with him is the completion of an important journey. So it seems like quite a number of people feel the world is big enough for all different interpretations of Metal. Doesn’t seem like you share their “live and let live” attitude. Here is something you wrote a few years ago: “They want to wear our scary looking t-shirts with their horn-rimmed glasses and skateboarding shoes. They want to use us as a conversation piece and a fashion statement. We cannot allow this. I want to encourage all who read this to take action against these useless sacks of shit. Do not let them in. If they try to talk to you about metal, ignore them, spit on them, or tell them to fuck themselves. If you see them at a show, especially in the pit, then hit them as hard as you can. Hurt them. Let them know they are hated and unwelcome. Make it clear that we are not here to be a punchline or a fucking cartoon. We need to get hard on the outside world again, and these fools are an easy target. They cannot fight back and they don't have money for lawsuits, so harm them with impunity. We are evil indeed, and we should show them what it truly means.” Let's make sure that we qualify "they" as hipsters. When I wrote that entry, I had just finished stage managing a show for 1349 at SXSW in Austin. The bands going on before 1349 and Enslaved were all random dippy-do acts, and they had a very cutesy hip crowd who were very drunk and obnoxious by the end. It was a free show, and they had an alcohol-based sports drink sponsoring the event. When 1349 came on, the hipster contingent was dorking around and started throwing half-empty drink cans at the band. The band got hit, the fans up front got hit, and the show was basically a fiasco. Many of us were angry, and I think the reason it didn't get ugly is because the Austin police showed up to bust the show on noise violations right around that time. I was already displeased with the growing novelty-seeking crowd who were showing up at Metal shows, but the incident demonstrated to me how that non-culture of people are a bunch of clueless ingrates who do nothing but take up space and get in the way of anyone trying to do something useful. So yes, I sent a call for Hessians to push out weekender idiots. There's room for different kinds of Metal, of course. However, we don't have room for anyone who wants to try to dilute or trivialize the genre. Is that subjective? Sure. Will members of Wolves in the Throne Room ever wear Goreaphobia or Necrovore t-shirts? Not likely.   Right: "Give 'em No Sympathy, Jeff ma' boy!" commented Nasty Savage's Nasty Ronnie. Why are you taking Black Metal so seriously? I take Metal seriously in general. Why shouldn't I? Art should demand to be taken seriously. It should be defended, promoted, and celebrated. Along with this comes a basic respect. Plenty of Metal music is for fun, but that doesn't mean it should be treated in a condescending fashion. This is why I object so vehemently to "post Black Metal" in particular. It seems like they're just exploiting a style to get away with playing twee music that might otherwise get ignored. They're basically squatting, and like all squatters they take what they want, give nothing in return, and leave a terrible mess to clean up when they leave. Black Metal is something I worked at very hard for many years, and I still believe in it, or at least what it is meant to be. Ask any luminary of the underground why they take their own particular style so seriously, and you'll get a similar answer. What kind of fools would we be to stake our lives on it if we didn't think it was important? And now you’re calling out the frontman of Liturgy. What did Hunter Hunt-Hendrix ever do to you? That's a fair question, and in point of fact he didn't do anything to me specifically. Then again, he seems to be content to say what Black Metal is and isn't when nobody asked him. It's convenient that his "manifesto" of Black Metal fits exactly with what his decidedly non-Black Metal band is doing, and I'm far from the only one who has downed him for it. As for calling him out, I realize that out of context the whole thing looks crazy. I haven't hidden my distaste for Mr. Hunt-Hendrix's efforts (and I don't know why the fuck his parents gave him such a redundant first name), but a lot friends and even fans jokingly egged me on to "do something about it," so just for fun I created a Facebook page where I invited him to fight me. The problem with it was twofold: I only forwarded it to people I know, where the humor factor was obvious. I actually have a fair reputation for being a nice guy, so to me it read like some kind of pro-wrestling call-out, with the exaggeration, trash talk, etc. So, part the second: something that took me 10 minutes to create at 2am appears on Brooklyn Vegan the next morning, and lots of folks who have no idea who I am take it seriously and figure I'm nuts or some kind of thug. In that light, it looks pretty unreasonable, which was the whole idea. It was ultimately an in-joke, and therefore it didn't work outside of a small circle. As with my music, I used hyperbole to make a point, but in this case it didn't work because it was taken at face value. I forget we live in an era where nobody reads MAD Magazine anymore.  Princess Toadstool, looking worse for wear in an artist's conception of this summer's now-cancelled
War in Williamsburg.
Pound for pound, not really. It did occur to me that Liturgy could be a cadre of MMA experts or handgun enthusiasts. We're not going to find out unless Triple-H decides he's going to call my bluff, but I don't get the impression he'd bother. He's an academic, and he doesn't seem to have an axe to grind, unlike me. Apparently he's also going to open for Metallica, so I doubt a street fight would make it on his day planner. Contrary to the impression that I've given, I don't mean the guy any actual harm. Then again, I won't reserve any kind words for him until he drops the charade and stops calling his music Black Metal. And if he really did want to fight me, I'd accept. I'd kind of have to at this point! Do you ever feel like punching yourself in the face for Averse Sefira being on a Madonna tribute CD? People would be applauding our boldness if we formed two years ago and did something like that with the "post" disclaimer on board. As it was, it's funny because neither of us really thought either way about the endeavor. What nobody seems to understand is that the project was put together by some power/noise guys out of Chicago, and the whole idea was to take Madonna songs and completely destroy them. They had groups like Masonna, The Haters, and Sleep Chamber on it, and we hadn't recorded a note of our own material yet, so it was mainly an opportunity to test out our new digital multi-tracker and throw out something that we thought nobody would ever notice or care about. We didn't even listen to that kind of thing, so it was effectively a non-sequitur. We played the song as a proper Black Metal track and changed most of the lyrics since we didn't know or care what they were. So, would we do it again? No, and certainly not under our own banner. Morbid Angel has demonstrated the perils of that. But it's still not as ridiculous as someone with a side part and a nice sweater trying to insist he's fronting a Black Metal band. And now I'm the bad guy for giving him grief? I guess the world is really upside down. [Todd DePalma]
type: articles
keywords:
black metal,
metal,
thrash,
penbangers,
lavender,
birth a.d.,
hipsters,
nasty ronnie,
the brooklyn brawler,
brooklyn vegan,
Comments (17) |
.jpg "Jailbait (NSFW)")
print
email
RSS
list
big
small
TWITTER
Hello hero, hero hello.
That dude on the left looks like he needs an aspirin and a bong rip.
That dude in the before/after looks like a girl.
Dude in before/after looks like a hot girl. I wonder what the reaction will be when I create a "Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, I want to fuck you" Facebook page?
36 YEARS OLD!!!
36 YEARS OLD!!!
36 YEARS OLD!!!
RAH RAH RAH!!!!
(s a u s a g e cheer)
S A U S A G E
quod erat fuckin demonstrandum
Sausages never cease to disappoint.
Stay scared kids. Hide forever.