Photo by Sylwia Makris / Christian Martin Weiss 

Behemoth are a black metal anomaly. When the Polish band released the album The Satanist in 2014, written and recorded after frontman Nergal's recovery from a life-threatening case of leukemia, they already had two decades under their belt as prominent leaders in the global extreme metal scene and multiple classic albums from 1995's mystical Sventevith (Storming Near the Baltic) to 2009's imperious Evangelion, forming a career most would be envious of.

The decade since The Satanist has been something else entirely, a band with each subsequent release firmly surpassing the usual barriers such an extreme band would come up against in order to become one of the largest enterprises and some of the most recognisable faces in global metal, period.

It has made Behemoth, and particularly Nergal as their voice and masthead, seemingly permanently at the centre of a cyclone of discourse, discussion, and dispute. Being the biggest extreme metal band actively engaging in overt, unflinching sacrilege aimed at religious institutions comes with a lot of battles to fight and a lot of mud-slinging, both from those religious institutions who have taken Nergal into court on more occasions than anyone else would be able to keep track of, and from a portion of (often quite privileged) metal fans who conversely decry Behemoth's continued waving of that banner as tired or redundant.

Titling their new 13th studio album The Shit ov God then is such a flagrant taunting of both camps. It is the work of a band with so little interest in shrouding what they're about in order to be more palatable to people on either side of the spectrum, and speaking to Nergal, he definitely comes off as someone who gets fired up by opposition. Conversely though, it is the most fast, to the point, and digestible Behemoth album of the modern era, and those who find themselves aligning with their blasphemy and bluster should find the immediacy of songcraft that has brought Behemoth to that place at the top of the extreme metal mountain.

On the eve of a European tour with Satyricon and Rotting Christ that as Nergal points out is amongst the largest extreme metal tours in venues tackled and tickets sold ever undertaken, he talks through the strict song-writing code and purposed sacrilege of The Shit ov God. 

The ethos of this album seems to be directness. The title obviously is not interested in beating around the bush, in a way that seems to have split people, and when the album was announced there was a statement that read “We’ve reached a point in our journey where words and statements mean less and less”. Here is a contradictory question to start off an interview, but do you get tired of explaining yourself?

Nergal - I am very tired. Partly this title is the answer to that. We are in a position where it is harder and harder to inspire people, trigger people, and to move them in any way, because the market and the culture is so oversaturated. Hardly anything gets through, and that’s because the world is stripped of the nuances. It is very polarised, black or white. I remember when I came out with The Satanist, it was the same story. Half of the crowd thought the title was amazing, half sarcastically went “Wow, so creative!” They were very cynical about that and it took a few years for it to sink in. Give those haters a few years and they’ll realise.

At this point in our career, when we’ve come out with all these metaphysics and bible quotes and Latin that people don’t know shit about, a lot of fans can’t remember the title Opvs Contra Natvram, or even I Loved You At Your Darkest which is a simple English sentence. This time around after exploring all the astral worlds and those different dimensions, we’re gonna take you down into the gutter now.

Of course there are a lot of way deeper meanings to it and an existential nature to it but you have to make the intellectual effort. When I hear people call it cringe, well that’s cool with me, but I know it is more multi-layered than that. Let them digest it, sleep on it, and we’ll pick up years down the road.

The album itself matches that directness at 37 minutes which is the shortest Behemoth album in decades. Is there a synergy between wanting that upfront a statement as possible with that title, and making such a short sharp shock of a Behemoth album?

Nergal - First of all, I wanted to make a very classic form of record. I am so fucking done with double LPs. If you want to get a good quality over a 50 minute album, you need double LPs, and it’s heavy and it’s so much plastic. Does the world need more plastic? No. I wanted less and even before we wrote anything musically, I knew the album was going to be under 40 minutes, A and B, four and four songs, like classic albums in the 80s. That was my goal, and of course there is more material I had to cut, but I have no problems with that in order to have a record with a very strong impact.

Instead of watering down and getting too adventurous, like on Opvs Contra Natvram there is the song "Versvs Christvs" which is an almost avant-gardeish theatrical piece, and it’s cool and great and I’m happy with that, but it’s not the case on the record. "Bartzabel," not the case on this record. I was like no, I did that, don’t expect another ballad or whatever. I want eight bangers. If you pick any song, it can be one that can be played live and will move the crowd. It’s gonna be brutal yet catchy. That was my main reference, to have fun while we were playing these songs in the rehearsal room before we recorded them.

I think I got a little jealous when we were on tour with Arch Enemy. They are a very talented band, not really my music, but pretty much every song they put out is a banger and I realised how that works with the crowds. That was maybe the point for me where I realised I wanted to write a record like that full of songs that are catchy and melodic, though I hope not in a cheesy power metal way which I despise. I kind of miss that in extreme metal, and here we are with a record that is very catchy.

O Venus Come is maybe the closest on this album to one of those more slow-burning songs you mention but then it doesn’t end the album like they traditionally would. Does that speak too to that different attitude this time out?

Nergal - Exactly, "O Venus" is closer to those but it’s not that. What happens with the breakdown on that song when it goes super fast and crazy and has this ending that is so enchanting, it is a different animal. The point was to start the record with no big intro or majesty but just industrial rhythms that drive you right into the very groovy song "The Shadow Elite," and then the record ends in a way that we don’t usually end records, because it was always either a fast song or a big epic song. This time we find a middle ground and put a song that is still a banger but has a beautiful acoustic ending and leaves you with more questions. I am very happy with the whole form, the whole mix and whole story we are telling from the very first through the last song.

With the title track released as the first single, there’s a made-for- arenas immediacy to that riff over the technicality you favoured more in the 2000s. Where did that come in shaping the direction of the album?

Nergal - When I brought that riff to the table and when my boys heard the ideas before they became songs, this time around they reacted really strongly to those riffs straight away. When I started putting songs together I realised how much I missed just playing a riff without having to run straight up to the microphone and blasting all those words out over it.

 If "The Shadow Elite" or "The Shit ov God" or "Lvciferaeon" had been on Opvs Contra Natvram, you know where the vocals would come in? Right there in the intro. Now, I just want to stand there and enjoy this juicy guitar riff. Rehearsing those songs for the tour made me realise it was the right move to let those riffs resonate before I bury them with a cannonade of screaming and shouting.

Many of the hooks on this record such as “We are the shadow elite” or “We are the shit ov god” put that emphasis on the communal “we”, and despite being so dark and sacrilegious there is a togetherness and kinship about it. Is it important to you to be making life-affirming music amidst the blasphemy?

Nergal - I think I have managed to sneak some of my Manowar love into Behemoth! A lot of those lyrics have this anthemic nature that just came out of me, and let’s see people pick that up. Let’s see if they identify with it. The live show is going to be the ultimate test of whether they dig that or not.

I use the term “songs” for the forms we’re presenting to you, and in Poland a “song” would mean something that’s on the radio. If you were to tell people we play songs, they’d laugh. You call that a song? But most extreme metal bands these days when I listen are just an overload of riffs and tempo changes where you listen to a five minute long track and are left with nothing.

When I was growing up and getting hooked on extreme metal in 1991 and 1992 and I was getting into bands like Mayhem and Morbid Angel and even Blasphemy, the most extreme metal act back then, had verse-chorus formats. They’re like AC/DC but triply as fast. That’s what songs are to me, and when extreme metal is a blur and nothing stays with you, that is not what I want to play.

Our songs stick to your head and you can hum it. A lot of more radical fans would say it is wimping out and probably don’t like what I’m saying about those formats, but in the first place it is always my ego and my artistic needs that must be satisfied. When I am super proud of a record I will be bursting out with fulfilment and vitality, and I want to be a fan of my own music, and when I am a fan of my own music, I am more than confident than I convince most people to sing the same songs.

Opvs Contra Natvram has a very distinct different-sounding mix to the records around it and this one working with Jens Bogren aligns closer to the metallic sound of The Satanist. Do you have any retrospective thoughts about that approach on Opvs Contra Natvram and the different approach on this album?

Nergal - On Opvs Contra Natvram we were really looking for something different. We wanted the record to not sound like anything on the market, and that’s why we chose Joe Barresi to mix who is known for working for Tool or Monster Magnet or Queens of the Stone Age, rock acts. I am fan of those acts and I really wanted to expand that extreme metal sound and to come across like a rock band playing extreme metal. It was cool for that record, but now I have no problems with calling the sound that we get with Jens more metal, and Jens did actually do a test mix of one of the songs from Opvs Contra Natvram. We did several test mixes for that record, we even got one from Greg Fidelman who does Metallica, but at that stage we were looking for something else. Now, it is a different nature of things.

During the formulating of this album the 10^th anniversary of The Satanist passed, one of the most important records in Behemoth’s history for giving this whole new burst of life, off the back of which you have somewhat transcended the glass ceiling of extreme metal in size and popularity. How do you feel looking back over what Behemoth has been able to achieve in the decade since that record and the foundation it’s been able to give you for this third act of your career?

Nergal - Well, I didn’t see it coming. I am a very ambitious person but I know my limits, and what we were drawing as a band within The Satanist cycle was already so inspiring and impressive that I remember thinking that having a thousand or two thousand people in the rooms was probably the best it would ever be. Now, ten years later, we are playing probably the biggest black metal tour ever in history. If there is a bigger tour than the one that is happening right now with Satyricon and Rotting Christ, tell me, but I am sure there isn’t.

We are playing sold out shows in 3000+ cap rooms, and we are playing our biggest headlining show in Wrocław, and that is almost 6000 tickets sold. It is way above any of my wildest expectations from ten years ago. I talk to my agent and I say that we are too extreme to go any bigger, and he says “Let’s see”. No one has done it before us, so why not push a little further? What is happening now is the best thing ever and it is the most fun I have had playing in this band, so if there is anything extra, I take it as a massive added value to my life.

Considering where Behemoth started out in the grassroots Polish black metal scene of the early 90s, what’s it been like acquiring that level of reach and resources in the last decade of your career rather than the first?

Nergal - Let me put it this way and tell you what I heard when I spoke to Cronos from Venom. We had already met before but we were playing the same festival as Venom so I brought my vinyl collection for Cronos to sign. I grew up watching the Hammersmith Odeon video maybe 200-300 times when I was 11 or 12, and it imprinted on me and had such a massive effect as the most radical thing I could think of. It’s still near the top of the black or death metal firmament, and there I am stood behind Cronos signing my records and he starts to say that he has been following Behemoth and says that what we are doing is what he always wanted to do with Venom. That just knocked me out, and that is when I realised what was happening.

Venom and that benchmark of that Hammersmith Odeon show is something that I still look up to, but somehow the stars have aligned and Behemoth has managed to make these things last. If you think of all those classic bands like Venom, how long did they last with the classic line-up? It is only a few years, maybe a decade for most. No one knows what Bathory would be now, maybe Quorthon would be touring, but it never happened. We happen to be pioneers in bringing that genre to the place that it has never been before. I don’t know how, a combination of determination and passion and a lot of luck maybe too and meeting the right people on our path, but things happened and I couldn’t be more grateful. The last thing I want to sound is arrogant but I am amazed at the landscape I can admire around me, and that 35 years of determination has brought us here.

In regard to the social context of a record like The Shit ov God, when you have been continuously brought into court cases involving the Catholic church in Poland, could you elaborate on your position on the continued importance of blasphemy in your art?

Nergal - There are those comments of “oh, Nergal, you’re boring, same old same old”, but do those people know the circumstances that I grew up with? Do they know where I live? Do they make any effort to check my background? I doubt. It is a very complex question that you ask, and there is a great social importance, but we’re doing this show in Wrocław which is going to be our biggest headlining show and there are already organised Catholic protests around it and I bet there will be a procession of Catholics protesting against the show.

There is a reason why I do this, and if people stop one day and become indifferent, then I guess it’s a signal that that’s it and there’s no more fuel for it. But I do have this fuel, because they confirm that I am right, and if people ignore me then it is useless. For artists it is crucial because it is like physics, where one force works against another force. That is what is happening now, and if there was just one force pushing into nothing, it would have no purpose. This is why I think I am right and keep on doing it and I see that in our fans.

-----

Catch Behemoth live as the band are currently out on the Unholy Trinity European Tour with Rotting Christ and Satyricon. See the list of dates and cities below. Get tickets - HERE

The Shit Ov God arrives May 9th via Nuclear Blast Records. Order the album - HERE