Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Dave Hill and the Epistemology of Norwegian Black Metal

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Dave Hill and the Epistemology of Norwegian Black Metal · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: enjoyed episode. The following episode of Broken Record contains language
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that is extremely grim, infernal, cult brutal, and just sort
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of negative in general. My name is Malcolm Glabo. Welcome
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to Broken Record, where today we explore the dark world
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: of black metal with Dave Hill, guitar hero metal enthusiast,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: spawn of the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, creative force behind
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a seven inch Witch Taint anthology, the first thirteen Infernal Years,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and the forthcoming Sons of Midwestern Darkness. If you've never
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: seen Dave's epic version of Stairway to Heaven with his
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: eighty three year old dad on keyboards, by the way,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you should probably drop everything and watch it now. Today,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in a departure from our usual practice at Broken Record
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of doing thoughtful and sophisticated interviews, we're going to go
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: deep and tell the Witch Taint origin story, which involves
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: an extended encounter between Dave Hill's alter ego aka the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: King of Black Metal Lance from Gary, Indiana and the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Norwegian black metal empresario named Satan spelled Saiam also known
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: as Matthias. Why Norwegian? Because Norway is to black metal
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: like Belgium, Mister Chocolate. What's the difference in the way
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: one would play a guitar in a metal band and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: in a progressive rock band or in an alternative Can
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you just have give me a little tutorial on what
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it means musically? You know with rock, you can rock
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: can be kind of whatever you know, you can be like,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of arim e jangly ethens or whatever.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I mean. Well, metal, all metal, if they're doing it right,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: starts with Black Sabbath, of course, and that would be
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: described to me what you're doing exactly a net. I'm
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: butchering the riff to Black Sabbath from the album Black
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath, that's called the Devil.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: The flat at fifth is the Devil's interval, and in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: some cultures you can't even play it because it conjures
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the devil, Like in the suburbs of Cleveland, you can't
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: play that no, but no, it was truly like considered.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's always been fine to play in Cleveland,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: but in some cultures, I think, yeah, it was considered,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: like you just wouldn't so that one that's basically having
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: metal right there. Talk a little bit. You said there
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: there are distinctions in lyrics and sound between black and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: death metal. Can you talk a little bit about from
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: your perspective what those distinctions are. Death metal is more
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and by the way, there's going you know, if I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: may just a quick disclaimer, there's gonna. I would call
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: myself a metal enthusiast, not I'm knowledge I'm extremely knowledgeable,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I would say, but I wouldn't say I'm an expert.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And I say I mentioned this only because there's bound
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to be someone who's going to be like, you didn't
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: get that quite right, and so I'm just saying that
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: admitting to whoever's listening, Yes, you do no more than
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I do. So death metal would be more about like
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: gore and you know, just look at Cannibal Corpse's album
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: covers and they're all very great, graphic and violent, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: so the lyrics about that, like I think Cannibal Corpses,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I guess they're stairway to have them would be hammer
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: smash face, So that's death black black So death is
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: more gore and all that, and black metal is more
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: just dark and grim and satanic and depressing and very
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: negative and about you know, it's about also more about
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: can be about nature and about isolation. It's not a party,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: whereas I would argue that death metal is maybe more
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: of communal music. Do you think that black metal bands
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: take themselves more seriously than death metal bands? Death? Is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: death metal more much more tongue in cheek. Yeah, yeah,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's just more about fun and fantasy. I
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: don't think any I've yet to meet a death metal
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: musician who wasn't a and sunny person. And I'm not
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: even kidding. Yeah, I mean any that I've ever known
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have been in sharp contrast to black metal. Yeah, though
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: there I have met some very lighthearted black metal musicians also,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But the stereotype or the general rule would be there humorless.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Is there a particular black metal song or riff you
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: could you could do right now to shoot shows what
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: you're talking about? Well, I would say the stairw in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: my opinion, the stairway to Heaven of of black metal
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: would be Freezing Moon by Mayhem, which I think goes
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: up if you want to sound metal or sound black metal,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: how do you sing? It's more like with death meton
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of metal you're singing, you know, death metal
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: is more like cookie monster like words like you know
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of that, and with black metal it's more
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a lot a lot of it is more like like
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: more just higher and uh and just sounds much crazier
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, Can you can you sing and play
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: something death metally in that? I want to hear that,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that voy those two, those two voices, the death versus
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: there trying to think of like you know, there'd be
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: a lower like that and black metal will be more
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: like but is that really hard to do? No, especially
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: as sloppy as I'm doing it, it's not. But but
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: more of that where it's open and you're because usually
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in metal, in any sort of power like in rock,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't use the the third of the chord, the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: minor third, but but you you do. You there's a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: lot more of that and in black metal. We'll be
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: back with more broken record after the We're back with
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: broken record. The key figures in Norwegian black Metal are
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Uronymous who was in Mayhem, and Vargue Victorous, who actually
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: murdered Uronymous and who now lives in France and occasionally
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: posts nasty videos on YouTube. These are not pleasant people.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: All of this is detailed in a book called Lords
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of Chaos, The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: which I have to say is the most unintentionally bananas
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: rock and roll book I've ever read, and which I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: was required to read as a condition of Dave granting
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: me this interview. Is now is Mayhem. Their first sort
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of signature anti social movie is the church burnings. They're
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: burning down these no Way, I guess is rife with
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: two thousand year old wooden yeah churches, And this is
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: one of the things that's so unintentionally hilarious about them.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: They've decided that the great foe of civilized world, the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: civilized rule, is Christianity, even though of course no one
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: goes to church in Norway, right, It's like the least
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Christian country in Western Europe. So this subculture has grown
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: up in defiance of something that basically doesn't exist. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Like they're burning churches that no one attends. So varg
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: varg Victorius is the kind of what is is there
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is there an analogy to our Victorius in American society.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: He would be like the Charles Manson. He's a Charlie
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Manson basically. Yeah, yeah, I did have people know who
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: he is. Yeah, responsible for several murders. Well, again it
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: depends who you asked. He didn't know. I think he
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: is really only I know just one murder. Just he
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: murdered Uronymous for the guitar player from me. Oh, that's right.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And dad took his own life dead yeah, but prior
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: yeah dead who was the singer was Swedish singer from
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a band called Morbid. He was a singer in Mayhem
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and he, yeah, took his own own life and when
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: he he he this is very very graphic and gross.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: But he put a gun to his head and didn't
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Uronymous come across the body and then take two pieces
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of his skull and make necklaces out of them. Yeah,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: supposedly said apography. Was that true? I think the necklace
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: thing is true. But then you know, there was rumors
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: that he took pieces of the brain, because you know,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: he's dead, shot himself with the shotgun and there's brain
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: splattered all over and you know, so there were rumors
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that he cooked and ate some of the brain, but
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I mean that's supposedly just lore.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: But but the necklace thing is supposedly true. And they
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: mayhem in a famous concert had pigsheads on steaks. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: there's pigs I mean sometimes, but gorg Roth did that too.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Or it's like a thing, it's a thing. Yeah. Good.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: You know, if you can't get pigs heads, you sheep heads.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And there was some band I don't know if it
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: was Wattain from Sweden. I don't mean it wasn't them.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: There was some black metal band not from Norway who
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: got so much animal blood all over a club that
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the club had to go out of business. And I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: would say that's taking it too far. That's very black, yeah,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and and unsanitary. I would say the uh oh, yes.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Here's the reference into the pigs heads. And this is
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: from an interview with Bard. Bard was the drummer from
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: He was also known as Faust. He was the drummer
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: from from Emperor and is quote's unquoting for but I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: remember at the gig one person ate some piece of
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: the pighead, which was very old, so he got very sick. Yeah,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and that that what you just read. I mean that
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I cannot The first two hundred pages of Lords of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Kans are full of gems like that. I mean, it's
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: it is one of the most extraordinary reads. So this
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is a history of essentially, it's really a history of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Norwegian black metal, although it has pretensions otherwise, but at
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: its core and it sort of traces the lives of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: all of these through interviews of all of these key
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: figures in the scene, and especially Vark the Charles Manson. Yeah,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: he's in there quite a bit. First, have you met No,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I don't want to meet him. That would I would
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: not want that. Why because he's too evil? Yeah, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: just you know, I don't. As much as I enjoy
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: all this, you know, I'm kind of a softy and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I really don't want to be around a guy like that.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Here is Vark is my favorite arg quote, and there's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: a lot, I mean, there's a long list of potential candidates.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: But he gets put in prison and the first thing
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: he does is he gets really angry and he lashes
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: out and he says, it's much too nice here. It's
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: not hell at all. In this country, prisoners get a bed, toilet,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and shower. It's completely ridiculous. I asked the police to
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: throw me in a real dungeon and also encourage them
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to use violots. Yeah that's I mean, it's very typical arc. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that I mean, that's gold right there. So you read
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: this Lords of Chaos in and do you decide that
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you would like to get in contact? Yeah, I someone
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: from that scene. Well, yeah, I was reading this book
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and I found it fascinating on tons of levels, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: being a fan of metal, but then also love the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: absurdity of some of the things you just said, Like
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: what you know, there's hell vat I'm not pronouncing it
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: with the record store, so it's still But anyways, so
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: this store that Uronymous opened, at one point he said like, yeah,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: we wanted to give all the customers torches to walk
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: around to see, but then we realized that wasn't practical
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: because it would melt the vinyl if they got it.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And for someone to say something like that with with
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: just like dead serious, just no irony Whatso it was
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: just to me, this does not get funnier. I found
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the book just completely entertaining in that way with tons
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and yeah, so it became fascinated. And so
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: somewhere around the early two thousands, just to entertain myself,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I started going down. There was a website called FMP
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: six six six, I think Full Moon Productions, and I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: think this site is still up and it's they're not
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: out of business. But there was like a mail order
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: for black metal stuff, and so I just started emailing
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: bands and labels and stuff just for my own fun,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: like making crank calls. Only you know, at this point,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a grown man and I'm questioning how black these
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: guys are and saying, you know, I actually my band
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: witch Taint. I called myself Lance, a teenager from Gary,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Indiana who lives with his mother and has the most
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: extreme black metal band of all time called witch Taint,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: which in America, I think, you know, people know taint
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: is slang for the perennium, which is interesting as now
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: we do this witch Taint live show, and we've taken it,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: you know, we've done it in London, Oslo, in Germany,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and they don't have the same they don't have that work.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: They don't have they don't they missed the nuance, so
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I have to explain it. So then they're like, oh,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that's a great band name once I explain it. But anyway,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: so it was that on the orders of that day,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and when you you're obviously the competition. We're in the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: world of black metal, the name of your band is
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: obviously of enormous importance. Sure it just I mean, it
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't really matter what your band name is. If you're
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: doing you know, all rock, it can be anything obscure. Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I mean they're I mean, Spoon come one, great band,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: but come on, yeah, but the Snakes are really super
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: high when it comes to band naming. And I'm just
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: curious about So your feeling was that which Taint was was,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: as was the kind of apotheosis of black metal band
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: names in terms of what this character in my mind
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Lance Lance, you know. And I don't want to pat
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: myself on the back too much, but I will say
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that all of this came to me and so clearly
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: when I was started doing it that I did not
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: think for a second about what the band name should be. Literally,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: as I was typing and making it up, I named
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the band Witch Taint as if it had been in
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: me forever and I'm in it. I believe it to
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: be the greatest band name of all time to this day.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Why it's very good. Why Why was Lance from Gary, Indiana.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't really know anything about Gary, Indiana other than
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that's where Michael Jackson and his family were from. And
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: so to my mind, I thought it was just like
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: this white bread American town, which I don't think is
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: quite the reality at all. Oh, it's like a post
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: industrial wasteland, right, and which I didn't I didn't know that,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: but it was too. I love that you're from Cleveland, Yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and you feel the need to go somewhere else to
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: get a post industrial wastement. Yeah, well, because I thought,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like you know, and the perception on the mean streets
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of Cleveland in northeastern Ohio in general is that Indiana
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: is much softer. So I think that's where my mind went.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And Lance, you're emailing around and someone takes debate. Yeah,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: this label called Planet Satan Revolution, I thought that I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: was emailing. They were putting out records by this band
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: from Oslo called Mysticome, which is an industrial black metal
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: band whose music I've still never heard. I should stress
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to you fifteen years later, but they only put out
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: one album in twelve years. Yeah, yeah, well that's I mean,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that's a big thing with black metal, and I think
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: it has worked for a witch Taint as well. The
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: less music you actually produced and the less she performed.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Ideally you should never perform live, but the less you
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: do is almost the more you do, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: we'll be back with more Broken Record after this. We're
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: back with Broken Record and the ever Darkening encounter between
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Lance from Gary, Indiana aka the King of black Metal
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and Matthias aka Satan, Norwegian black metal empresario. So the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: first email and anyone can read all these emails at
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the black Metaldialogues dot com. The first email was I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thought I was emailing the band, so I'm insulting the band.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: And then the guy writes back saying, this is you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the label, and that's when I decide, well, I'm going
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to try to get signed to the label with this
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: band that doesn't exist, witch Taint. And by the time
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I'm emailing this guy, it's it's been going on for
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a couple of years that I've been emailing, but just
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: very casually. It'd be like late at night to be
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: getting ready for bed. I'd be like, let's email black
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: metal band, insult them just for no read, you know,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like you would make a crank call. I'm pathetic, I
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: admit it. So I started emailing this guy at Planet
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Satan Revolution and just kind of telling him about how
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: extreme my band was. You say that you had heard
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: about this band, Mysticum, and you had heard they were
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: very black, and then you listen to them. Wait, I
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: think we have to you have to read. Do you
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: have them? Can you read? I can pull it up,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you put just pull it up and read the the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: crucial section of that first email. So the first email,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So I send this email from my email address at
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the time, mister lou Rawls at aol dot com. By
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the way, how is that not a dad giveaway? Does
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: he not? Does he not Google Lou Rolls and understand
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: that you can't be the blackest I would, yeah, you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: would think first. Okay, So here's the email, subject Mysticum
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: question mark. Hey Mysticum, guys. I got your email off
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the internet. I was surprised someone in a black metal
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: band would use email, but whatever, I guess we can't
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: expect you guys to live in caves. All the time.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: If you were serious about black metal, you would though. Anyway,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the reason I am writing is because I was wondering
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: if there were two bands called Mysticome or something. The
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: reason I ask is because my friend Todd told me
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: about a band called Mysticum that were really heavy and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: extreme and that I should totally check them out. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I went out and bought your record and all I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: got was this total pussy metal instead. Is there another
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: band called mysticm that I should know about? I'm really
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: into super heavy and extreme black metal, so if there
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: is another Mysticme that plays this this kind of music,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I would really like to know. Don't get me wrong,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure tons of chicks did what you guys are doing,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: but I'm into some serious shit, not this strummy bullshit
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you guys seem to be into. Anyway, let me know
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: if you have heard of these guys. Are you guys
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: on MTV Dark Regards Lance aka the King of Black Metal? Right?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: What is the time that elapses between when you send
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that email and when Satan response? So I write on
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: November nineteenth, two thousand and four, five forty three pm.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: On November twentieth, two thousand and four, eight forty eight. Am, Oh,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: he's right on it and he is an Oslo, remember, Yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: so we do the time change. He's yeah, he's on
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it fast and he do you want me to read
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: what he wrote? Yeah? Read the Matthiasa's response. Just to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: be clear, these emails, there are thousands and thousands of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: words of ease emails. They go on epic. It went
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: on first six months. Yeah, and I think you can
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: read all of it in about half an hour maybe,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but yeah, no, it's thousands of words. So he writes back, Hi,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: exclamation point, so right away. Not very black metal. First
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: of all, I find your email a bit bare faced
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and strange, but I have decided to answer you anyway.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You have now come to the label address of the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: extreme Mysticum band. We have never heard about the pussy
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Ones you mentioned about. Label name is Planet Satan Revolution
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: all caps. Check out www dot Mysticum dot com. Under
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: release this link you can download the debut album from
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six for free. If you are interested in
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: ordering this masterpiece of black grimness, let me know. I
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: am soon sold out, so be quick. I like that.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: So he's kind of hit, you know, he's staying on message.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he's selling selling. This band is as
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a cult act originally signed Touronymous, Uronymous prenzes, rip of
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Mayhem's own label, Deathlike Silence Productions, parentheses DSP. And since
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you're claiming to be a quote unquote real black metaler,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you should know that famous history of what happened with him.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: If you're into real black metal, you should also know
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: that email addresses has nothing to do I'm reading there's
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a bit of English as a second language in here.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: As you can here to do with being quote unquote
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: true or not, you have won yourself. Mysticum has been
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in the underground for twelve years, so we know what
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: we're talking about here. There is nothing wrong in using
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: emails to spread the disease. Living in a cave has
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with black metal at all. As long
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: as you are dealing with satanic and occult things, believe
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in what you are doing, you can do whatever you want.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, Mysticum has never been on MTV and never
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: will be. Such music are not loved by the MTV
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: crew and too extreme to be on a channel that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: only sends crappy, happy, sellout shit dark regards. He steals
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: my salutation right out of the gate for Planet Satan Revolution,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: say Tom, managing director again back, he's a businessman, yeah,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: he writes back, defending his business model for putting out
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: mist Coom records. Basically, so, I write back, dear say Tom,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I see your point. If you're going to put something
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: into something, in this case a record by a bunch
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of pussies called mysticm then you should get something out
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of it too, some money and also a reputation for
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: working with pussies like the guys in Mysticum. I don't
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: like the idea of everyone, or anyone for that matter,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: being happy. As you mentioned, though, that is exactly what
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. Black metal has nothing to do with being happy.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: It should make you want to live in darkness, perhaps
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: with a babbling brook nearby that would mock you in
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the night. But I fear I am being too harsh.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I realize you may not think that Mystic Come are
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a bunch of pussies, but that is probably because yet
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: you have yet to hear my band Witch Taint. In
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a perfect world, black metal would exist totally in the mind,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: as it does with me. Much of the time. We
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: would hear the black sounds pouring through our brain as
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: we sit in darkness, or maybe there could be a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: torch nearby. This is true black metal. A compromise might
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: be just having bands play in the woods, and there
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: could be a bonfire, and a select few would be
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: permitted to hide behind trees and listen to the band's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: perform I realize, however, that this is impractical and it
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: would be awkward if everybody ran into each other later
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: at the grocery store or something. It is hard to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: be truly black when shopping for groceries, which is why
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I rarely eat unless I absolutely have to. It goes
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: on from there, and then the wonderful turn is when
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Satan reveals that he has short hair, a wife. Does
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: he have kids? Yeah, he has a wife and two kids.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: These two kids, and so the plot so it gets more.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: It ramps up way more from what I just read,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, talks about all this stuff. And eventually
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: my friend John Kimber and I sat down and recorded
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the first ever witch Tint song, which I can play
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for you, which you know, before you play it, I
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: would point out that you do some absolutely heroic build
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: up in which you'd like to be signed by his
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: label and you claim that the music you're doing is
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: so black that he should remove all sharp objects. Yeah,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: like making his family's not run around, and that you
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have to even yourself sometimes when you're playing your own music,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: have to turn it off to kind of keep yourself
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: so safe. Yeah. Yeah, like I have to go take
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: breaks from it's too much. So this was not under
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: promise and over deliver when you were dealing with with Satan.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: You really really this is why. I mean, there's a
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: moment when you're reading the emails when you're like, oh shit,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: like what if Lance, Lance is building this up is
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the greatest, darkest, blackest song of all time, And like
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: now he has to deliver because Matthias keeps asking send
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: me something, yes the MP three, Yeah, because I keep
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: talking about the music, but it doesn't exist because it's
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: again just a grown man emailing this guy every night.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: So I finally decide my friend John Kimber I go
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: over to his house and we record a song to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: send to send it. It's called Necro dream Raper my character.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: We're not talking about sexual assault, We're talking more of
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: a psychological Uh. I don't want anyone to get the
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: wrong idea about the song title. But again it's from
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the perspective of this character that I was just trying
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to think of the most disturbing title that I could
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: put on this song. Can So this is the song
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I said, three minutes and thirty three seconds. So you
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: send this to Matthias and he's not impressed. No, he's
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: not at all. But at the same time he does
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: accepts it as my He analyzes it, it it gives his criticism,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and his criticism is super spot on, like he naw's
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: what's wrong with it? But then he doesn't dismiss it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: at all. He goes his whole thing like how it's
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not it says it is not depressive enough. I did
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: not think to cut myself and so but at the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: end of it, he says, send me some more tracks
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: so I can decide. But the problem is then I
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have anymore. That was the only one was the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: challenge for Witch Taint. It took thirteen years. Finally we
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: have it a record. Witch Taint Sons of Midwestern Darkness
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Satan's long wait is over. Here's their song Are You
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Ready to Black? Metal? Broken record is produced by Justin
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Richmond and Jason Gambrell with help from Bruce Headlam, Mia Lovel,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Jaquita Baskill, Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, Jacob Weisberg, and of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: course Rick Rubin. Special thanks this week to A. C. Valdez.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: To hear the songs featured in today's episode, check out
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Broken Record podcast dot com. This show is brought to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Godwo. Thanks for having me.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: If you get any you know, there's probably gonna people
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: will call me, you know, say I'm a pussy or opposer,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you know, false metal guy or something, and just for
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: forward those to my AOL address, we will defend you
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: against him