by Niklas Göransson

In the summer of 2010, several currents Timo Ketola had followed since their beginnings converged in London. ArmageddoN Fest summoned Von out of obscurity and Repugnant from the grave, bringing old devotions briefly to life.

 

MR PIERRE: Erik wanted to kick off the “Lawless Darkness” tour with something memorable, and he knew Alexe and I would do everything we could to prove ourselves worthy. Then he presented his idea of the VON reformation. And, as you understand now, VON was basically the foundation of our friendship.

To mark the June 2010 arrival of “Lawless Darkness”, WATAIN announced a release show in London, organised by StrataNael Promotions. By then, an early personal connection had grown into a substantial working relationship.

ERIK DANIELSSON: I met them at Wacken in 1999; funnily enough, the same year I ran into Bielak. I was wearing a VON shirt, fairly unusual at the time. Alexe came up and asked where I’d got it; we’d printed a few ourselves back home in Sweden, and she wanted to buy one. After that, we started corresponding by mail – proper paper letters.

The three had continued crossing paths at festivals across continental Europe by the time WATAIN first played London in early 2004. The band’s UK debut was a rather modest affair: a pub show with ADORIOR, organised by members of GOAT MOLESTÖR, who later became GRAVE MIASMA. Pierre and Alexe hosted the Swedes at their home in Wembley.

PIERRE: I’m not sure what the financial arrangement was, whether the Ben-Haim brothers could afford a hotel or were planning on us helping. Either way, staying with us seemed the more practical solution. Firstly, the boys wanted to remain a bit longer rather than simply coming, playing, and leaving. Secondly, we had a big property, so we could actually host everybody and keep them together.

I have quite a few memories from that evening – one of the strongest being ADORIOR vocalist Melissa taping up bass player Chris Nunravager’s broken finger while chastising him for getting into a fistfight before the show.

PIERRE: That’s also when Chris got his long ginger hair completely wrapped around Tony’s guitar while headbanging. Then they were basically bound together, with Melissa stuck in the middle – because the place was so disgustingly small it didn’t even have a stage.

What do you think the capacity was?

PIERRE: One hundred, maybe? WATAIN were becoming known in certain parts of the underground, but not enough to attract much more than that. Still, I thought the boys deserved to be put on an actual stage instead of being stuck in the corner of some tiny pub.

The sheer intensity actually made this one of my favourite WATAIN shows of the era – with neither stage nor barrier, the crowd pressed in so closely that Erik eventually started kicking people just to create some distance.

PIERRE: But the thing is, you’d already seen them a couple of times. I’m a fully participatory kind of audience member. For me, you need to be right in the middle. If you’re not, fuck off. It’s a matter of territory. And when there’s no pit, you can’t see the stage. Things must be done in a certain way; I’m very conservative about that.

 

PIERRE: When I first moved to London from Paris in 1998, I saw a gig at The Dome. As far as I knew, it hadn’t really been used for anything like that in the seven or eight years since. So, we dropped by and discovered they had a wedding room upstairs. Pretty crappy, but it was big.

In September 2006 came the first collaboration: an ambitious undertaking at The Dome in London, where WATAIN headlined a bill also featuring ANTAEUS, SECRETS OF THE MOON, KRIEGSMASCHINE, and NECRORITUAL.

PIERRE: I wanted WATAIN to be able to do a real WATAIN show. No normal establishment would’ve accepted it, so we could either book a shit venue or have nothing at all. We spoke to the owner – who happened to be Irish, just like Alexe – about using the room for a gig. He didn’t bat an eyelid.

I’m guessing he was unaware of WATAIN’s full-sensory live approach.

PIERRE: Indeed, he thought it was just going to be rock ’n’ roll; he wasn’t expecting the blood cannons <laughs>. But Johan had tweaked the machine too strong, so the blood sprayed about ten metres higher than expected and coated the entire ceiling. The venue went fucking mental.

The blood machine had made its debut during a 2005 run through Finland and Russia, and remained very much a work in progress. Following the notorious Linköping show, WATAIN’s tour captain Johan continued recalibrating the homemade contraption – with somewhat unpredictable results.

Fearing a characteristically unresponsive English crowd, Erik had also prepared a more rudimentary contingency: he filled a 1.5-litre plastic bottle with blood, handed it to Pierre, and sent him into the pit.

PIERRE: Now, I’m not a big guy, but I started kicking everybody I could reach and then stood in the middle without moving. Of course, people rushed to attack me back, so I had this plastic bottle ready and – <makes spraying noises> – it went everywhere. Into people’s eyes, mouths, and faces.

The resulting scene bore some resemblance to the Linköping show.

PIERRE: The stuff stank so badly that people started throwing up, leaving an odious mixture of vomit, blood, and sweat – absolutely perfect. Of course, this sludge made the floor super slippery; a friend of ours fell flat on it and broke her arm. Covered in blood, she looked like she’d been mutilated in there.

At any point during all of this, did you actually think, ‘Fuck, I’ve lost control of the show’?

PIERRE: No, no, no. There’s no losing control. I mean, was anything lost? It might’ve been concerning if this had happened during an opener rather than the headliners. But I’m protected, so I don’t worry at all. The public who wanted to see WATAIN saw WATAIN. People in the pit were covered in blood and vomit. Everybody got what they deserved and what they came for.

Except for the announced afterparty in the venue.

PIERRE: That would’ve been impossible. Security sprayed air freshener everywhere, so you had all this blood stuck to the ceiling thanks to Johan’s cannon, mixed with chemical lavender and lemon scents. It was horrendous. Once WATAIN were finished, we went downstairs to put them into taxis, and the drivers freaked out.

Due to the smell?

PIERRE: Well, first they were about to call the police to report a mass stabbing after seeing people coming out covered in blood. Then one taxi driver radioed the others saying, ‘Don’t take them, these fuckers stink too much!’ Afterwards, there was no way we could use that venue again for several years.

 

When StrataNael Promotions next hosted WATAIN – the London date of an October 2007 tour with IMPIETY – it was at The Fridge in Brixton, where Alexe and Pierre had put on ASPHYX and UNPURE the previous month.

PIERRE: It’s a bizarre thing – despite being on the same Tube line running up towards Camden and North London, you could expect ten or fifteen per cent of people not to show up simply because the gig was in Brixton. Well, just so you understand: it’s a predominantly black area, and the venue itself is pretty shit.

In what way?

PIERRE: To give you an idea, people had to pass through metal detectors just to get inside – I’m sure you can imagine the hassle when everybody turns up wearing bullet belts and spikes. We tried to convince security not to use them, and the guy said, ‘I have to. Last week, somebody went onto the dance floor with a gun hidden between his butt cheeks and shot someone.’

No blood-machine malfunctions this time?

PIERRE: No, we didn’t have the blood thing – or rather, it was less bloody. But in terms of rowdiness or shit behaviour, the venue staff were completely unfazed, ready for anything.

 

The third official collaboration between WATAIN and StrataNael Promotions, the “Lawless Darkness” release party, would prove historic in several respects – not least by setting the VON reunion in motion.

ERIK: I got in touch with VON because they’d resurfaced online – all of a sudden, there was a Myspace page. Johan had been organising a few shows in Stockholm, so initially, we’d pictured a dream bill: VON headlining, WATAIN below them, THE DEVIL’S BLOOD opening.

The proposed billing has a certain symmetry. WATAIN took their name from a VON song, while Selim Lemouchi named THE DEVIL’S BLOOD after a track on “Casus Luciferi” – whose title, in turn, had been inspired by DEATHSPELL OMEGA. Given the gravity of the occasion, Timo was entrusted with the poster.

ERIK: There was a whole fucking saga surrounding that poster, actually. As preparations moved forward, the workload around the album and upcoming tours made it clear we’d be better off relocating the event to London and letting Pierre take over. He turned it into a two-day fest with a bunch of killer bands.

PIERRE: The first problem was that Timo’s original idea of putting those three names into one design simply became outdated as the bill expanded. Obviously, we couldn’t just add ‘plus guests’, because every band had a reason to be there – which meant a very long and complicated poster.

ERIK: First, Timo had to come up with artwork and designs for this grand Swedish show featuring VON, THE DEVIL’S BLOOD, and us. Once that was done, Pierre added VOMITOR and REPUGNANT and whatever else… my memory’s failing me, but Timo’s brain probably exploded <laughs>.

Timo would never dream of throwing together a poster by simply placing a few logos inside a fancy border – everything from symbolism to symmetry had to be taken into account. He and I literally held lengthy conference calls about flyer composition whenever a new Bardo Methodology issue came out.

Combining VON and WATAIN alone was presumably daunting enough; add several other revered bands, and I can picture him short-circuiting at the mere notion.

PIERRE: I already knew my Ketola was difficult. And the thing is, I fully understand. If you put your soul into doing something properly – with such precision and painful accumulation of elements and so on – then once it’s finished, you can’t have someone coming along saying, ‘Oh yeah, can you redo everything by adding that and drawing this a bit bigger?’

ERIK: Somewhere along the way, I think the whole project grew too big for Timo to wrap his head around. He didn’t really know where to begin, or how we were ever going to bring everything together. I remember it as one of those projects that just kept expanding until it became almost too monumental to realise.

 

The Liber Ketola monograph reproduces a striking illustration Timo apparently made for the festival. Before the interview, I asked Pierre about the piece and was surprised to learn that he found it underwhelming.

PIERRE: I needed artwork that screamed in black and white, basically. No Photoshop – just something strong enough to work like a logo. Unfortunately, Timo’s image proved difficult to incorporate properly on the flyer alongside so many band names, the venue, the price, and the date.

ERIK: There are several versions of those festival flyers. I made one based on Timo’s “Lawless Darkness” cover, and there’s another where the image you’re talking about does appear, but very dark, in the background. I think Pierre threw it together at the last minute without asking either of us.

PIERRE: It’s possible, yes. I think at some point Erik may have been asked to deliver a flyer acceptable to Timo, but the promotion needed to be done quite intensively, the way I do it: by hand, not over the internet. That also meant going abroad to gigs with kilos of flyers in my pockets, spreading them everywhere.

So your promotional efforts were mainly offline?

PIERRE: Yes. Back then, a good chunk of underground metalheads weren’t on social media or forums. These people – the feral working class – aren’t computer nerds. You meet them in the streets and in bars, and they’re the kind of audience I wanted at our shows. So, it was important that we finished the flyers as quickly as possible.

 

PIERRE: It was incredibly exciting to be hosting VON, but adding their costs to everything else would’ve made it very expensive for a one-night event. Since WATAIN and THE DEVIL’S BLOOD were already playing nearly everywhere on the continent, many Europeans wouldn’t necessarily make the effort to come to London.

Following the strong reception of their 2009 debut, “The Time of No Time Evermore”, THE DEVIL’S BLOOD had a busy schedule of European shows and festival appearances. WATAIN, meanwhile, were preparing for an extensive run in support of “Lawless Darkness”.

PIERRE: The original billing would probably have drawn around three hundred people, meaning very little chance of breaking even. The thing is, I’ve never organised shows to get rich – but if I don’t recoup my investment, I can’t put on more concerts. And now you see my problem with faith, Mammon, and losing money <laughs>.

There’s a theological aspect to ticket sales?

PIERRE: These days, it probably sounds weird – but for me, the religious element is very important. Should I fail financially, it means the perspective of Master Satan isn’t on my side, and I deserve punishment. Clearly, I fucked up somewhere: I booked a band who shouldn’t have been there, or I was too generous with something.

 

In the run-up to WATAIN’s tenth-anniversary show in December 2008, Erik tried to arrange a REPUGNANT reunion. By then, the band had been dormant for more than four years. Their debut album was recorded in 2002 but remained unreleased when they dissolved.

Soulseller Records eventually issued “Epitome of Darkness” in 2006, with Timo credited for photography. He had followed REPUGNANT closely since the 1999 “Spawn of Pure Malevolence” tape, later citing them – alongside KAAMOS – as prime movers in Swedish death metal’s ‘return from the grave to haunt the living’. Erik’s connection reached just as far back: after discovering the same demo, he organised one of the band’s earliest shows.

REPUGNANT and WATAIN emerged at roughly the same moment, pushing against prevailing currents in their respective genres while placing unusual emphasis on the visual and ideological. Tobias Forge himself later said he’d wanted REPUGNANT to grow into a major touring act. Had “Epitome of Darkness” appeared as intended and the group remained active, they might by late 2008 have occupied a position in death metal comparable to WATAIN’s in black metal at the time.

ERIK: Considering Tobbe’s level of ambition, it’s not far-fetched. Still, I think REPUGNANT occupied a narrower niche than we did. WATAIN probably had broader points of contact with the general public; the primal, ceremonial aspects reach beyond the genre in a way that feels quite universal, strange as it may sound. Even my parents could look at it and respond, despite having no interest in our subculture. REPUGNANT, by contrast, were devoted to a very specific vintage of underground metal.

Forge couldn’t assemble the band in time, but later credited WATAIN’s invitation with rekindling his ‘hunger’ for death metal. By New Year’s Eve 2008, he had decided to resurrect REPUGNANT. Erik recommended TRIBULATION guitarist Adam Zaars, who in turn helped Forge recruit DEGIAL drummer Emil Svensson and Gottfrid Åhman of INVIDIOUS and IN SOLITUDE.

ERIK: I liked that he brought in younger musicians instead of members from… I don’t know, REGURGITATE or GENERAL SURGERY. Tobbe has always been good at recognising both potential and genuine passion in people. And it worked out really fucking well, because it gave the whole thing a fresh spark.

Notably, all three new members belonged to the death metal generation that had emerged in the wake of REPUGNANT and KAAMOS.

ERIK: I remember being pleasantly surprised to see things moving again. I’d hoped for a long time that REPUGNANT would eventually come back. It was a fucking shame they broke up in the first place, and most of what Tobbe did afterwards left me somewhat underwhelmed. I always felt he had more to offer than SUBVISION.

Around the same time, Forge asked to borrow Wolf’s Lair – the rehearsal space WATAIN had inherited from REPUGNANT – to jam with his new project.

ERIK: He said, ‘I want to try rehearsing this thing.’ I asked, ‘What is it?’ – ‘Oh, it’s black metal.’ ‘Okay, come down then.’ He arrived with Gurra (Carlos Sathanas) and the drummer from MR DEATH, Jonas Ohlsson. They started playing and… to me, it sounded so fucking poppy; like SUBVISION, essentially. I didn’t really understand what the point was. Plenty of other people did, obviously.

 

Too late for the anniversary show, the REPUGNANT revival instead took place at ArmageddoN Fest – the name given to the “Lawless Darkness” release party once it expanded into a two-day event.

PIERRE: With REPUGNANT confirmed, Alexe and I decided to add a second day. We now needed a headliner – a worthy act representing black metal on that kind of level. You couldn’t exactly put something like VADER on this bill, which is how NIFELHEIM entered the picture.

Pierre and Alexe filled the remaining Friday slots with Australia’s VOMITOR – then touring Europe to promote “The Devil’s Poison” – and two English bands, FUNERAL THRONE and CRAVEN IDOL. Finland’s SACRILEGIOUS IMPALEMENT joined the Saturday bill alongside London veterans NECRO RITUAL.

PIERRE: NECRO RITUAL are people we trust humanly. The members know WATAIN and can bring the equipment, so the practical side of booking a local act is there as well. These guys also happen to come from a specific working-class suburb, which I love, and they’ve got a good crew around them.