Confessions Of A Heretic: The Sacred And The Profane: Behemoth And Beyond

by Adam Nergal Darski

  When Baal and I parted ways, I basically gave Zbyszek an offer he couldn’t refuse. And I hit the mark. He’s an outstanding drummer. If I am the brain of the band, he is the motor. I felt the difference in an instant. I wanted to play music that was more complex, and with Baal it was impossible—not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. I demanded more from him than he could offer.

  It was different with Inferno. He gave to the band much more than I demanded.

  Today, Inferno is considered to be one of the best metal drummers in the world.

  And rightly so. Sometimes I think he’s from another universe. His coordination and skill in putting thousands of hits together is astounding. Zbyszek is an example of a man who discovered his calling very early and developed it. I believe that there is a great potential in each of us. You just have to find it and go for it.

  Was that what you did?

  In my childhood I would stand in front of the mirror and imitate my idols. I would use the broom as my guitar and pretend I was singing. I wanted to be like Cronos from Venom. I couldn’t even play two chords in the right tempo, but I knew it was what I had wanted: to be a musician. My brain was sending signals to the environment. My friends’ five-year-old daughter wears quite nonstandard clothes and she puts two different boots on her feet and defends her rights. Maybe she’s sending similar signals? ‘Let her develop it,’ I tell them. ‘Support her.’ Maybe she’s the next great fashion designer or a model? That’s how it works.

  So Zbyszek is a born drummer?

  Today’s metal scene resembles extreme sports, especially when it comes to drumming. Of course, there are drummers who are faster and more precise than Inferno. But he’s got something that you can’t ever master by training: great feeling. When he goes out onstage and sits behind the drums, I feel confident having him behind my back. A house needs a foundation, and a band needs an appropriate drummer.

  Even with Inferno on board, it took Behemoth quite a long time to get into the concert major league.

  I think our potential developed the most somewhere around the Satanica album. We were playing more and more shows around then. But we really gained momentum when we recorded Thelema.6. That’s when we began to play regular tours as the main act. It was a vicious circle, because the better we played, the more confident we felt; the more confident we felt about our own worth, the better we played. We were fucking rocking out onstage like there was no tomorrow. Don’t hit; just kill!

  I remember the Thrash ’em All tour, when we opened for Vader and Krisiun. Vader’s position was irrefutable. They were veterans, and one of the most important bands in the history of Polish metal. In Bialystok, when I came off the stage, I passed Vader’s singer, Piotr Wiwczarek, in the corridor. I said to him, ‘Piotrek, burn that place down!’ He just smiled and said, ‘You can’t burn ashes.’ I felt then that we had really begun to do something meaningful.

  And your line-up changed at that time, too?

  It had a big impact on our form. We got wings when Havok and Novy joined us. We made for a great crew together. Everybody contributed. Havok was really young. I had to ask his parents to let him go on tours, and they made me promise that he would catch up with schoolwork. But there was fire in this guy and huge determination. It wasn’t long before he was eating old and experienced musicians for breakfast.

  Novy, on the other hand, brought a lot of experience into the band. He was actually a session musician, but he fitted in the band quite nicely. He had impressive hair, and it contrasted beautifully with his wicked height. It made his hair look bigger than it really was. He literally swept the stage with it. They both made Behemoth more rock’n’roll.

  More revelry, more frolic?

  Novy was a specialist in both of these. Sometimes he went completely hardcore. He’s quite a peculiar guy, and a huge fan of Darth Vader. Whenever he got drunk, it seemed like he made a connection with the Death Star. Hell knows who or what it was.

  Once, I caught him, when he was way off his face, lying on the floor, caressing a huge, paper figure of his idol. It was harmless, but it got worse when he really got into the role. It was winter, cold as fuck, and we were partying in the hotel after the show as usual. Suddenly Novy took off his headphones and got up. He opened the window, got on the windowsill, blurted out a quick frrr, and stepped forward.

  What floor was it?

  Third. We looked out of the window, and there he was, lying in the snow and moaning.

  Did you take him to the hospital?

  He wouldn’t let us. He wasn’t insured, so he was probably afraid of the costs. Nobody examined him, not even an x-ray. For a few days he wouldn’t say a word, he would just sit in dark glasses and sob. I saw tears coming down his cheeks but he didn’t complain. For some time we just had to put the guitar on him, because he couldn’t do it himself.

  Did he ever tell you why he jumped out?

  Never. He probably listened to some bad music. Or maybe the Death Star told him to.

  Did he often do such extreme things?

  They were more, let’s say, entertaining examples. Once he was even beaten by the police. He thought it was the right time to run around the ‘sperm-absorber’ in Adam’s outfit, with only a bullet-belt on …

  ‘Sperm-absorber’?

  The youth hostel. We played in Warsaw, at the Proxima club. We couldn’t afford hotels, so we rented cheaper places. We had the belts with us—they’re standard equipment for every respected metal band. Guys put them on their naked bodies and went down to the reception desk. Somebody called the police, who promptly came with their batons.

  Did you take part in it?

  As usual, no. Somebody had to hold the camera. I’ve got a lot of self-control, or I am just not drunk enough or in love. I like having a good time, but with a degree of moderation.

  Have you always been like that? During one of your first tours, a Norwegian band called Khold supported you. They suddenly packed their bags and fled. Rumour has it that you were ‘too rock’n’roll’ for them.

  We were playing a show in Spain. Our promoter there was a typical Spanish woman: curly black hair and eyes like coal. She wasn’t overly pretty, but she was really nice to us. She asked us if she could go to our show in Madrid with us. And I have always thought that if a girl wants to get on a bus with the band, she doesn’t want to just drink tea with them.

  What did you give her?

  Vodka, of course. She drank quite a lot of it. We all did. Apart from the guys from Khold, that is. They were strange, drinking Pepsi all the time and saying nothing. They were as entertaining as a broomstick. So we partied without them. At one point I decided I’d had enough and went to rest on my bunk. I slept for a while and went back to the back of the bus. There was only the sad Norwegians back there, so I went downstairs … and I couldn’t believe my eyes! The girl was lying naked on the table and there was a bunch of guys around her, all of them naked. One of them was holding the camera, and the rest were arguing, all of them off their faces—trying to shoot a porn movie. I won’t name any names, but I remember them arguing about who was going to put his dick in her mouth: ‘Oh, come on, man, let me, you’ve already had it!’

  Did the guys from Khold also go downstairs?

  No, but the next day they saw our amateur porn movie. They were really narrow-minded, and in some strange way they deduced that there had been a rape. They wanted to go to the police. They took the tape, packed their stuff, and fled. We waited as if for a verdict, because we weren’t sure what the girl would say.

  Did the police show up?

  We found the tape in a dumpster by the parking lot. It was in tatters. But there was some trouble looming. Our tour manager found out about everything. We tried to tell him that there was no rape. It was just a small, innocent orgy. He went to talk to the girl anyway. He wanted to know if she felt like it was rape. ‘No, nooo,’ she quickly responded, ‘it was cool!’ We played the show in Madrid a few hours later, without Khold this time,
and this girl was rocking out in the front row.

  She could have caused you some trouble, though, right?

  I was aware of that, and I felt great relief when the situation was rectified. You often hear about situations like this one. My buddies from the band Keep Of Kalessin met a groupie in Canada once. They took her to their bus. There was no sex, just an ordinary party. The next day, the girl told the police that she had been raped. Two musicians were arrested and kept in lockdown for a few weeks. They were acquitted, but they never recovered their legal fees. All they got was a piece of paper stating they were not guilty, in case it turned out that they had some criminal record in the USA or Canada. Without it, they could have had problems entering the country.

  You have to be careful about such things, especially in the States. Did you look after yourself during those first shows?

  At first, the States was a very strange place for us. We had no knowledge about it whatsoever, and we felt alienated. During our first tour there we were drunk practically all the time. We drank during the day—there was no other way to do it.

  One day we were at the Mexican Gulf and, drunk as we were, we decided it was a good idea to take a swim. So we let our fantasy lead the way and jumped into the water. Naked. At that time, there was a school-trip taking place on the beach. The teacher saw us and began covering the kids’ eyes and running away. Our tour manager screamed like crazy: ‘Get the fuck out of the water!’ I have never seen such a panic-stricken American. He went nuts.

  I didn’t know what his problem was, but we found out later that if somebody had called the cops, we would have never played a show in the US again. Arrest, expulsion from the country, and not the slightest chance of another visa …

  It’s a strange country. You can go to jail for drinking beer on the street, but yet everyone carries a weapon.

  During one of your later tours, your bus was shot at. It was quite a big story, wasn’t it?

  It happened in Texas. As a band, we were still quite new to the States. We didn’t really earn any money, so we spent most nights in our van. We could afford a hotel two or maybe three times a month. And it was one of these times. We got to the motel just before sunrise. I went to bed. It was a real blessing. I was exhausted; there was complete silence. Suddenly I felt like there was someone sitting next to me, pushing the mattress between my legs. I jumped to my feet.

  A ghost? Do you believe in such things?

  I’m sceptical. I don’t know if there’s anything more than the material reality. I don’t care either. Whether it was a ghost or a hallucination, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I looked around the room and didn’t see anyone, so I went back to bed. I was woken up by a knock to the door. I opened the door and saw a black police officer. He said that somebody had shot at our van. I went out to the porch, and sure enough, our van had bullet holes at seat level.

  Did anyone hear the gunshots during the night?

  No. I suppose they used a silencer. To this day, I have no idea why anybody would do it.

  How did the guys react?

  We were all bothered by it. In the car there were a few CDs that I had bought during the tour. Some of them were shattered. I still have them as mementos. But that was not the only time we experienced guns in the States. On another occasion, we drove up to a gas station that looked like it was taken from a Robert Rodriguez movie: a desert, two gas pumps, a small stinky shop, and a cowboy thrown in for good measure.

  An old man appeared by our van and started talking to our tour manager. He must have asked what band we were, because there was the standard answer that we always gave to such questions—as a joke—for people who don’t get metal. We told him that the band’s name was Antichrist. The old man went to his truck, took out a shotgun, aimed at us, and said, ‘So you boys worship Satan, huh?’ I have never heard tyres screech so loud in my life.

  By comparison to Mexico, the USA is an oasis of peace—agreed?

  In Mexico, we literally brushed against dead bodies. Well, one dead body. It was in Juàrez. It’s a very unusual and notorious city. Since 1993, a lot of young girls have been disappearing there. I was told that by the winter of 2005, more than four hundred girls had been kidnapped. People would smile and say that according to unofficial data, the number might be actually ten times bigger.

  Did you play a show there?

  Yes. The city lies just next to the American border. You could say that we were smuggled across to the Mexican side. It’s a place that’s visited by a lot of Americans who want to have cheap fun. The borders are practically open there. The show organiser told us that we are not to leave the venue under any circumstances.

  As usual, before the show I had to go to the shitter. I just have to sit on the toilet for a moment to loosen up—it’s my ritual before every concert. The toilet in the club was so hideous, even a dog would have run away from it.

  Even in the USA, toilets are usually in pitiful condition, I’ve noticed. Sometimes, toilets are only separated from each other by small partitions, so you can see what your neighbour is doing. It’s really astounding that such a well-developed country can offer you so many extremes. But in Mexico, it’s even more brutal.

  I asked a bodyguard from the club to walk with me. A few blocks down the road there was a bar. I went inside and went to the toilet. The partitions reached the ceiling, but there was no door. I sat on the throne and waited for a miracle. It didn’t come. So we’re going back to the club, and there’s this guy lying on the ground in front of it. He was dead. And that, apparently, was completely normal …

  People die …

  It is accepted in a lot of places in the world. People just get over it.

  I’ve seen similar things in the Himalayas. I went there for a holiday. I was alone and I was completely unprepared. I didn’t have the right trekking boots so after a few days my feet hurt. On the way from Kathmandu to Pokhara, I realised how different people were in that part of the world. They are unusually reconciled with the rhythm of life and death. We were driving on a road by a huge precipice. The very sight of it made my blood run cold. You could look out of the window and see a few hundred metres of emptiness, and car wrecks at the bottom—one next to another.

  ‘Look how high it is here,’ I said to the guide. ‘Do buses fall off the road sometimes?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a few every year.’ He was absolutely at peace with that possibility. He was aware that his life was in the hands of the driver, and he still enjoyed his trip. He just shrugged, and I was reminded of a quote by Aleister Crowley: ‘God gives, God takes. Praise the Lord.’

  Do you find it hard to put your life into someone else’s hands?

  I feel that if I lose control over certain things, everything will fall apart. I do realise that it’s irrational, because a lot of people have influence on how my life is going. Nevertheless, I want to take responsibility for everything.

  You don’t like chaos in life then?

  It depends. Sometimes I clean everything up obsessively, and sometimes I just go with the flow.

  And at home?

  Sometimes.

  You don’t like washing the dishes?

  Since I bought a dishwasher, I’ve become a real god of dishwashing.

  Do you do your own laundry?

  I do have a washing machine. But I never do the ironing. It’s overrated. If you hang the clothes properly, you don’t need ironing anyway.

  Some people even iron their socks.

  There are people who have lost their minds.

  You like to be a perfectionist in certain areas.

  A professional. That sounds better.

  Your friends say that you can spend weeks mixing one song. That you go to people’s houses and play them five versions that are basically the same.

  I think this is changing. I used to be more fanatical about it. I couldn’t sleep at night because I didn’t like how the snare sounded. Nowadays I give more opportunity to luck and chance. I let the music and lyrics liv
e their own lives. There’s more air in all that. A few years ago, I had the chance to speak to a real legend of metal music—Tom Gabriel Fisher of Celtic Frost. It was right after the promo concert for their brilliant album Monotheist. We had the honour of opening for them. Their music isn’t really too complicated when you examine it. It’s actually quite primitive. But it does have some kind of undeniable magic. You just stand there in the pit with your mouth open and you pray to the stage.

  I asked Tom what the secret of this sound was. He said that you have to let the music breathe—that you can’t overwhelm it with too many sounds. He also commented on our show by saying that we play more sounds in each song than they do on an entire album.

  Did you take that to heart?

  I think you can hear that on Evangelion. With time, I began to listen more to what the guys in the band have to say. I don’t impose everything on them. At least I’m trying not to. I fight my dictatorial tendencies.

  We’ve talked about some of the former members of Behemoth. What about the current lineup? It seems stable, and you’ve been playing together for years. Do you often fight?

  A band is like marriage. Sometimes it’s perfect. If the show goes great, then we transfer all the ecstatic energy to having fun until morning, with no inhibitions, but then there are moments when you can literally hang an axe in the air because the atmosphere is so dense. We know each other very well—maybe even better than our wives, girlfriends, and lovers know us.

  Let me give you an example. We were at a gas station in some desert in the middle of Texas once. We stopped for a while and wanted to use the toilet. There were ten cubicles. I chose one and sat on the throne. After a while I heard footsteps: sloppy, like a bear walking in. There were also grunts and coughs …

  ‘And I saw a beast rise up, having seven heads and ten horns …’