Behemoth
- Story by Anthony Bartkewicz
- Photo by Jonathan Pushnik
Behemoth mainman Nergal has survived communist Poland and a rocky transition from black metal to death metal, but it was the construction of his band’s new album, The Apostasy, that nearly finished him off
Let's Get Our Terms Defined
An apostasy is a total desertion or departure from one’s religion, principles or affiliations. In the Babylonian pantheon, Nergal was a deity who represented pestilence and destruction. A behemoth is a massive beast or entity. A less mythical Nergal, Adam Darski to his mom, is the man behind Behemoth, the biggest extreme metal band to come out of Poland. He’s downing a Starbucks iced coffee outside the just-renamed Fillmore New York, where Behemoth is supporting Cannibal Corpse. “I had to save up for a month for this coffee,” he quips. “But I need it.”
On the line outside the former Irving Plaza, Behemoth shirts far outnumber any other band’s, except maybe the Corpse themselves. The guy at the very front of the line is rocking one. A few clutches of kids are chatting in Polish. Nergal’s back from some record shopping downtown (I asked: the newest ones from the New York Dolls and Mayhem), and the displays of Behemoth-love aren’t fazing him. It’s The Apostasy, Behemoth’s forthcoming eighth album, that has him anxious. “I just can’t wait. I’ve got to have the record out now,” he says. “I want to put the record online so people can download it, just so I can feel relief. If the record’s shit I’ll feel relief; if the record rocks I’ll feel relief. I just want to deliver the record because waiting for people’s opinions is killing me.”
Before “Christgrinding Avenue” gets unveiled at the end of tonight’s set, hardly anyone has heard anything from The Apostasy. It’s not shit; the album’s closer is a particularly vicious piece of full-bore death metal, and one of the only songs on The Apostasy that directly references Christianity. Other tracks take their inspirations from some of history’s most metal cultures: Ancient Rome, the Greek myth of Prometheus, the Babylonian demon-king Pazuzu (also the bad guy in The Exorcist). Nergal spent six years studying history, concurrent with Behemoth’s early years. “I believe it was my third or fourth year when I got more and more involved with the band,” he says. “My professors were very tolerant. They let me do my thing, let me pass exams. I was fortunate to finish university, but the moment I finished was when we went pro as a band. It was perfect timing.” With his degree, he’s now qualified to be a museum curator and probably overqualified to write metal lyrics. Behemoth’s roots are in black metal, a genre with more than its share of would-be history scholars (or worshippers, or revisers). There are self-styled expressions of “true Luciferian Paganism,” there’s off-the-wall shit like Varg Vikernes’ the Aryan superman will destroy the subhuman Orcs and conquer outer space trip, and there’s the always popular tack of proclaiming yourself to be true [YOUR LOCALITY] black metal. Asked if he sees lyrics from bands that don’t get it or just plain get it wrong, he refuses to talk shit. “I read other bands’ lyrics and I’m just like, is this what this guy felt? And I take it really seriously. Metal music is so much about sincerity.
“I don’t really see myself as an expert,” he continues. “If you see people like [Nile guitarist/vocalist] Karl Sanders—man, this guy knows so much about Egypt that I wouldn’t try to compete with him. My knowledge is not that big. But I’m a different kind of person. I never really went deep into one subject; I never discovered one thing deeply. Behemoth doesn’t write about cultures. I take some influences from here and there, but then it’s all about me projecting the world through different aspect of history, mythology, the occult. I’m like a student. It’s very analytical. I go to Nepal, to the Himalayan mountains, I get familiar with the cult of the Hindu goddess Kali and I write notes. So you can never say that Behemoth is all about Egypt, about Sumer, Slavic culture, the Pagans. I mix it up to make my own things. I need this to express myself because it can enrich my vision and give an exotic vibe to the music.”
We Gonna Rock Down to Christgrinding
Years before he started university and Behemoth, young Adam Darski completed a different curriculum of cultural studies in a country where the course materials were hard to come by. “There were no CDs, no LPs, anything like that in Poland. We were a really poor country—Communism, right? All my parents could afford was to get me a tape of the Polish heavy metal band TSA in 1985. I was eight then. It’s one of the classic heavy metal bands, like an AC/DC style. That was it, you know? I just got it.” With Poland under Communist rule, Nergal says, “anything that came from the West was attractive: Van Halen, fucking Samantha Fox, whatever. It was all forbidden fruit. I was listening to any music that was from behind the Iron Curtain. Then I just started doing my own research and getting into thrash music, more and more extreme music. By 14 or 15 I discovered black metal—Blasphemy, Samael, Beherit, the Finnish, Greek and Norwegian scenes. I was gone! It obsessed me. That’s when I started Behemoth.”
When Nergal recounts getting the TSA tape for Christmas, he pauses and adds, “I was brought up Catholic, so I have to mention that,” though he says Christianity was not a big deal in his house. “Most Polish Catholics are ‘so-called’ Catholics, which means you can still fucking rape and drink and steal, and you’re still blessed.” The last time I heard him talk about Christianity was when Behemoth opened for Morbid Angel last year and he proclaimed, “Behemoth comes from Poland. Poland is a very Christian country… AND WE FUCKIN’ HATE IT!” Which is way fun to pump a fist to, but in a more conversational setting, Nergal’s beef with Christianity, especially in Poland, is quite reasoned. For one, the Polish government officially has a problem with extreme metal. Gorgoroth and Mayhem have been flat-out banned from playing there (so someone’s tax złoty may have gone to a government analysis of “Chainsaw Gutsfuck”). “Man, it’s ridiculous. They censor everything,” he seethes. “There’s gonna be no porn in Poland soon. You cannot swear on TV or the radio anymore. I see some similarities between the US and Poland now.
“I know you are not proud of your president, but I think it can be worse and Poland is a perfect example. Poland is growing dangerously right-wing, Christian and nationalistic at the same time. That’s what the Polish government is aiming for these days, and history shows that’s the worst combination ever. I’m very fortunate because I don’t spend much time in my home country. I don’t like my home country because what’s happening there affects the mentality of society. And it’s not like the society is against it—someone voted for this guy!” “This guy” is Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and Nergal is worked up. “How can I identify with people who pick such morons to rule over them? The thing that I hate the most is stupidity, so that’s why I don’t feel so proud of being part of [Poland]. It’s not even sad for me to say this. The more I travel and observe what life looks like in other countries, I’m more critical about what happens in my own home country, and I just have very negative feelings about it. There’s oppression in the air—you can feel it. It’s not going the right way.”
All of this leads directly to The Apostasy, and the idea that just ignoring Christianity is probably way more Satanic than bands acting like they’re little kids throwing tantrums to get negative attention from God and J.C. Like a select few—Emperor, Ulver and Watain among them—Behemoth’s brand of anti-Christianity is smart and self-determined. Nergal is still officially part of the church in Poland because “Once you’re baptized, you’re a figure in the statistics. To be honest I haven’t had the time to get out of it. An apostasy is the formal term for when people go to church, fill out the papers and are no longer members of the Christian church. When I have some time off, maybe next year, I’m gonna complete my apostasy. So this album has a very symbolic meaning. It has this down-to-earth meaning, and then the apostasy can be on a spiritual level too.
“I’ve had my periods where I’m like, shit, how much longer can I oppress Christians? I’ve done this a million times, you know? What else can I do to them? How can I harm them? But it’s not really about striking Christians,” Nergal explains. “It’s about striking the ideas behind them that I do not agree with—these ideas that have poisoned the society that I live in. It’s not like ‘born-again anti-Christian,’ it’s being anti-Christian in a more conscious way. When I was 15, man, I had an inverted cross on my chest, I was fucking totally against everything. When you’re 15 you have the right to rebel against [4] everything because that’s your age. When you’re 30, people say, ‘Oh, he’s 30, he’s gonna be more peaceful, he’ll be OK with all this stuff.’ But I’m not; I’m still very pissed off. But what separates this band from the band from five or 10 years back is that we’re more conscious. We’re not kids anymore.”
The band now—Nergal plus bassist Tomasz “Orion” Wróblewski and drummer Zbigniew Robert “Inferno” Prominski —spent three months tracking The Apostasy, plus another month on mixing and mastering, and Nergal swears that the process nearly drove him insane. “People always say, ‘Oh, I’m going insane,’ just saying it. Honestly, I was considering going to the doctor.” Recalling his anxiety and panic around the making of the album, he says, “I got claustrophobic; I couldn’t spend any time in small places or I’d go crazy. I had too much in my head—millions of thoughts storming my mind about everything around the record: business, artistic, whatever. I couldn’t sit in one place for longer than two minutes. It was crazy. I thought when I went on tour I’d get drunk, you know, fuck here and there, I’d get better. I didn’t, but then I got back from that tour and calmed down a little.” And again, it’s the imminence of The Apostasy that’s keeping him on edge. “There’s still tension and anxiety. I’m very… I just can’t wait for it to come out.”
Better Living Through Brutality
By 2004’s Demigod, Behemoth were established as one of extreme metal’s premiere bands, touring with big-timers like Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and Danzig. The name “Danzig” is actually the German spelling of Gdansk , Behemoth’s hometown, and the former Glenn Anzalone has been a big Behemoth fan for years. “Glenn has always been very kind and generous to us,” Nergal says. “He happened to be a fan of Behemoth, and I can’t really ask for more, you know? When you meet people who are your idols and they’re the nicest guys and they support you, that’s one of those things where it’s worth it to do what you do.” He laughs as he calls Behemoth’s tours with Morbid Angel and Suffocation “A lesson in violence.”
“They really make us work harder. We just played with Suffocation in the Czech Republic and it was awesome. It’s a different kind of band, but every time I see them I’m like, ‘Fuck, I need to work harder; I need to get better.’ I see them as like older brothers, and that’s how they treat us too, like younger brothers. I would hate ending up on tour with bands that don’t stimulate me in any way. Going on after a band that sucks, what’s the point? I’m only gonna give 70% of myself.”
In a studio report from the recording sessions for The Apostasy [April 2007 issue], Nergal told Decibel, “This album is about establishing ourselves in the extreme metal genre.” The high-profile tours and impressive record sales would seem to have them plenty established already, but Nergal insists that he has to top himself every time. “The moment I start thinking we don’t need to establish ourselves will be our downfall. I desperately need to improve. When I’m not satisfied with myself, I’m not the most easygoing person. This band is gonna split up if one day I say, ‘OK, this is it, we’re first in the league.’” He’s already thinking about the next album while he’s still freaking out about the new one. “Next time we have to really step up and better ourselves again. If it’s gonna take six months in the studio and me ending up in a mental hospital for real, that’s something that has to happen to have the next record be better than The Apostasy. The fact is The Apostasy is the biggest effort I ever took in my life. There’s no doubt about it. This project was massive.”
Comparing The Apostasy to Demigod, Nergal talks about the albums in extremely personal terms. “It’s always been like that,” he says. “Behemoth albums always portray certain periods in my life, who I was when I wrote the lyrics and the music. For me, it’s that this happened when Pandemonic Incantations was out; I fell in love when I was on tour for Zos Zia Cultus. I don’t see regular time frames like years or decades—I see albums. That’s sick!” The Apostasy, he explains, is all about confusion. “It’s mixed feelings. The lyrics deal with completely different time periods and situations. But this means that this record is more diverse. There are definitely more dimensions on this new record.” He stops to enthuse about the track “Inner Sanctum”: “I gotta tell you about this song. I wrote it, and every time I listen to it I’m like ‘who the fuck wrote this?’ I get this weird impression that it wasn’t entirely me doing the record; I was under different states of mind. It’s just so fucking dark. It’s evil. We’ve got Warrel Dane [Nevermore] singing on that one, and we’ve got Leszek Mozdzer, who’s a world-famous pianist from Poland. The first thing he asked me was to read the lyrics. I showed him the lyrics and he said, ‘This is very disturbing, and I hope the kids who read this and listen to your music are conscious of how serious it is.’ I was very struck by what he said. It really made me think, ‘Shit, maybe he’s right. Some of this stuff is very serious and maybe I should watch my mouth.’”
It’s getting closer to showtime, and the Fillmore is packed with kids. Nergal is about to get ready and corpsepainted for tonight’s show. “Something or someone brought us to this place,” he says. “I’m 30 now, so I’m at my strongest. I really need to use it as best I can. I don’t want to sleep away the best years of my life or stay at home, get fat and have a family. I can get fat in 20 years. This family now is more important to me, these people.”
