Profanatica II
2024-10-30
by Niklas Göransson
In 1992, the Tormenting Holy Flesh split with Masacra elevated Profantica to the forefront of US black metal. But storm clouds gathered as they recorded their debut, burying the legacy deep underground.
PAUL LEDNEY: For all the early 90s, there were two separate versions of PROFANATICA. First, the one with me, Brett, and Aragon – which sounded kinda ripping. Then, the one with John was… I wanna say more doomy, but he had his own style and different influences.
After alternating between guitarists John Gelso and Brett Makowski for two demos and an EP, PROFANATICA’s fourth studio release – “Tormenting Holy Flesh”, a split album with fellow Osmose Productions band MASACRE – saw an attempted collaboration between the two.
LEDNEY: Before recording our shit, we tried combining John and Brett into one band. Unfortunately, they absolutely fucking hated each other which wasn’t good at all. I wanted them to join forces, but… the sound didn’t turn out very well, I don’t think.
“Tormenting Holy Flesh” was recorded at The Rockhouse in Norwalk, Connecticut, in October 1991. It is undoubtedly a classic in terms of material, but the sound is a bit thin and devoid of power.
Nonetheless, upon its early-1992 release, the split generated a lot of interest in PROFANATICA. But instead of capitalising on the momentum, Paul and bass player Aragon Amori faced quite an ordeal of retaining guitarists over the subsequent months, with both Makowski and Gelso departing intermittently.
LEDNEY: Brett was more into doing his own project and listened to very different music than Aragon and I did – and that didn’t sit quite right with me. If you’re in PROFANATICA… besides actually playing it, I want you to like the material. I mean, it’s our shit.
Why did John Gelso keep coming and going?
LEDNEY: John was always into it, but his participation mainly came down to availability; there were times when he simply couldn’t get away. But Gelso really did bend over backwards in playing and writing shit for PROFANATICA whenever we needed him to, even if he wasn’t actually in the band.
With their split released by a respected international label, PROFANATICA’s profile had risen enough for them to be offered live shows. Over the coming months, they performed alongside the likes of INCANTATION, MORTICIAN, BRUTAL TRUTH, GOREAPHOBIA, NECROSION, PUTRIFACT and CRUCIFIER.
I came across a July 1992 video from PROFANATICA’s set at Fleets Feast of Freaks in Rhode Island. Aragon wears a blood-stained shirt, and Paul is going wild behind the kit.
LEDNEY: I remember getting a huge container of pig’s blood. But since PROFANATICA had already become notorious for using blood, the club told me in advance they wouldn’t let us in if we brought any. Aragon soaked his shirt in it for a few days, so by the time we got on stage, it smelled really horrible and stunk up the whole place. The venue was almost empty during our set; most people stood outside.
How did the performance go?
LEDNEY: The show itself was badass. I think we were a little sloppy but more energetic. We had this bible with earthworms crawling on it, and for some strange reason, the worms behaved themselves; they stayed on the book throughout the entire set. I later met a kid – in Connecticut, of all places – who still has that bible.
Having reached the point where neither John nor Brett could commit to PROFANATICA, Paul and Aragon searched for a replacement. Eventually, they found Wicked Warlock – better known today as Ixithra, bass player and vocalist of US black metal band DEMONCY.
LEDNEY: I heard the “Impure Blessings” rehearsal demo that DEMONCY did in ‘91 and really liked it. I asked if Robert (Ixithra) could play guitar, and he said yes. Robert then wanted to know if I’d be willing to help him out on drums in return, which I agreed to. We jammed as DEMONCY a couple of times, but it was pretty underwhelming. I know Gelso also rehearsed with him to help out, and it didn’t go great either.
What was the problem?
LEDNEY: We did whatever was asked of us, but Robert would constantly change musical direction. He’d be into old-school shit one day and then, literally the next day, ‘I want new-school black metal, like MARDUK!’ Triggered drums and all that crap. It was similar to when Jon DePlachett from NECROVORE lived with MORBID ANGEL; he jammed with Trey Azagthoth on guitar and Pete Sandoval on drums. But I think David Vincent put a stop to that. Although, in our case, it just wasn’t good. Gelso told me it was awful.
Wicked Warlock’s first PROFANATICA outing took place on August 31, 1992 – with neither John Gelso nor Brett Makowski present. Aragon would later refer to this show as the band’s best-ever live set.
LEDNEY: Up until that time, it probably was – mainly thanks to the setlist. For once, we could actually choose from all of our material. Because here’s the thing: if Brett was playing, then we’d have to pick one set of tracks. And if we had John, it would be totally different. Those two hated each other’s material and refused to play it.
That sounds incredibly frustrating.
LEDNEY: It was! Especially since I co-wrote all of those songs. About eighty per cent of the Makowski material came from me, and the remaining twenty were his, whereas the opposite ratio applied to Gelso’s shit. It was almost like two different bands. Anyway, great gig – good energy. The club had killer sound and… yeah, I remember that. The show happened while we were writing material and practising for the full-length.
The following month, in September 1992, the new line-up entered The Rockhouse to record PROFANATICA’s debut album. At the time, some working titles were “Sodomy of Sacred Assholes”, “The Raping of the Virgin Mary”, and “As Tears of Blood Stain the Altar of Christ”.
LEDNEY: We tracked the drums first, which went fine. But once we started on the guitars and bass, Aragon and Robert’s playing was very poor. The studio engineer came to me and said, ‘Look, these guys aren’t good enough. Your shit is very easy, and they should be nailing it.’ Then, everything kinda went downhill from there.
Like what?
LEDNEY: I’d arrive at the studio, and the others weren’t even there. Instead, they’d show up on an off-day – very passive-aggressive – but still couldn’t do it! I called the studio, ‘What’s going on? Is it done?’ and the engineer said, ‘No, they tried but didn’t do anything.’ He urged me, ‘Just have Brett come by; show him your shit and make sure this thing is released. It must be! You gotta put it out, no matter what.’ I should’ve listened.
It bears mentioning here that Aragon Amori later claimed that the tensions in the studio were not entirely his and Wicked Warlock’s fault.
LEDNEY: Yeah, I was drinking quite heavily and probably behaving like an asshole. But the bottom line is their playing simply didn’t cut it. And I was vocal about it – ‘If you can’t do this, then I’m bringing in somebody who can.’
Famously, Paul never got that far.
LEDNEY: My ultimatum led to those two destroying the entire recording. I’ve been quiet about this for many years now, reasoning, ‘Just let it go’. Because I didn’t want it to seem like I was complaining. But since you’re asking – what happened is that Robert and Aragon erased the tape by taking a magnet to it.
When a magnet is brought close to an analogue tape reel, it disrupts the magnetic particles that store the audio information. This can cause significant sound degradation or a complete loss of the recording.
LEDNEY: We ran the tape, and it had huge dips and would only play for a few seconds… the sound kept fading in and out, completely beyond repair. The engineer was fucking devastated – he couldn’t believe it. I doubt he knows what happened even to this day. I only found out years later, when I read an interview with Robert and Aragon bragging about it.
Unsurprisingly, PROFANATICA’s label was equally mortified. Osmose Productions had already launched the album’s promotional cycle by placing adverts in magazines.
LEDNEY: It’s very unfortunate. I worked hard to put all the material together, and the cover was gonna be really fucking sick too. One of the best airbrush artists of that time agreed to do it for us, and his shit turned out amazing. In fact, my feeling is that if the album had materialised and we’d kept going, what we call black metal nowadays would’ve changed.
Can you elaborate on that?
LEDNEY: Look at the line-up Osmose had – us, BLASPHEMY, IMPALED NAZARENE, and ABSU. Other bands like BEHERIT were still around. That would’ve been what defined black metal, not this shit with walking in the woods carrying fucking torches and singing about Lord of the Rings. But once the tape got destroyed, PROFANATICA just kind of broke up, and I let it die. That was a huge mistake.
Not only was the album left incomplete – PROFANATICA were initially supposed to be part of the legendary Fuck Christ Tour ‘93, featuring BLASPHEMY, ROTTING CHRIST, and IMMORTAL.
LEDNEY: Looking back now, I wish I’d taken part in that one because it was the first real black metal tour, and I believe PROFANATICA would’ve done really well. But I couldn’t make it happen. None of us had alcohol or drug problems to blame, nor were we lazy per se; I just didn’t have the experience to book our plane tickets and ensure we got on the bill.
With PROFANATICA effectively dissolved, Paul founded a solo project called HAVOHEJ. In January 1993, he recorded a three-track EP called “Unholy Darkness and Impurity”. Rather than the sacrilegious metal of PROFANATICA, HAVOHEJ morphed into some kind of industrial black noise.
In a somewhat surprising next move, Paul brought in Brett Makowski and headed into the studio to record a HAVOHEJ full-length consisting only of PROFANATICA songs.
LEDNEY: I have mixed feelings about this. Maybe I should’ve just continued with that seven-inch HAVOHEJ style – but Brett reached out. ‘I’m free again, let’s jam!’ Then Candlelight Records contacted me, ‘Can you do real musicians for a CD instead of keyboard-type samples?’ I said, ‘Yeah, because Brett is back.’ So, we thought, ‘Alright, let’s do this.’
The HAVOHEJ album is divided into two parts: “Christ Dethroned” – the re-recorded tracks from the MASACRA split – and “‘Burning Paradise”, which is Paul’s material for what would’ve been the PROFANATICA record.
LEDNEY: We kind of did those split songs a hair cleaner than before. While working on them in the studio, Brett and I talked about how terrible the sound on that MASACRE split was, and we wanted to set things right.
Candlelight Records released HAVOHEJ’s “Dethrone the Son of God” in May 1993.
Brett left again shortly thereafter, so they performed no shows to promote the album. Instead, Paul relapsed into noise, with two HAVOHEJ EPs – “Black Perversion” and “The Black Mist” – coming out in 1994. He then disappeared entirely from the metal underground, citing a lack of motivation and new life priorities.
PROFANATICA made a comeback in 2001. I can’t help but wonder what Paul thought about the black metal scene he was returning to.
LEDNEY: It was the lamest shit I ever saw. I went online and looked at every American black metal band I could find, and the only one I liked was BLACK WITCHERY. After checking them out, I thought, ‘These guys are the real deal – absolute beasts. They’re really tight and have their shit together.’
Vaz and Impurath of BLACK WITCHERY mentioned that Paul called them around this time. He’d written a new PROFANATICA song called “Fuck the Messiah” – similar to BLACK WITCHERY’s “Crush the Messiah” – and wanted to know whether they were okay with it.
LEDNEY: Next to the BLACK WITCHERY ad, I saw JUDAS ISCARIOT or some such shit. I went, ‘Alright, let’s see how heavy these guys are.’ I put it on and then found, ‘Oh, they’re not heavy at all. In fact, it sounds weak as fuck.’ And when I say it’s weak, I mean just that – super-thin guitars, shitty production, almost no bass, no balls, and falsetto vocals.
The lack of heavy bass is especially characteristic of the cold and bleak-sounding Scandinavian black metal of the 90s.
LEDNEY: You can easily tell who’s sincere and obsessed with true black metal – and who isn’t. We get a lot of this, ‘Yo, PROFANATICA influenced my band! You’re the main reason I started playing.’ And then I’ll listen to their demo, and it’s just more of this phoney-baloney Euro shit with thin guitars and no depth, so I go, ‘I don’t see how that’s possible.’ Whereas for BLACK WITCHERY, it’s totally true.
BLACK WITCHERY’s 1999 EP, “Summoning of Infernal Legions”, even has a spoken-word intro that is essentially a homage to PROFANATICA.
LEDNEY: Impurath and Vaz were like, ‘We love old PROFANATICA!’ and you can totally hear it on the first seven-inch. And then they became more influenced by BLASPHEMY and went in a different direction, eventually morphing into their own thing. To me, BLACK WITCHERY is a true US black metal band.
Who else is approved?
LEDNEY: Us, ABSU, DEMONCY, HELLGOAT, NYOGTHAEBLISZ, HELLVETRON, and a few more. Then you have other bands who live here but are mostly copying the Euro sound. So, when people call USBM lame, it’s not; they’re referring to American black metal. I guess the terminology is different.
What is the difference?
LEDNEY: It’s more about where the music comes from rather than what you like. I believe influences should be inherent – not consciously applied. I grew up listening to HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST, and BATHORY, but US black metal rests on a different foundation. PROFANATICA’s lodestars are all ingrained in our works; we can’t take ‘em out. Contrary to new bands ripping off the European style, there’s a certain DNA of influences.
Let me guess – punk and hardcore?
LEDNEY: Yeah. I know I keep mentioning those genres, but it kinda starts when you’re a kid. In the 1980s, we’d go see SLAYER in New York City, and everyone’s jacket had a D.R.I. pin, or S.O.D., or CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. I’m not talking about New York hardcore now – but the punk that was built into crossover thrash. All the early death metal bands were hardcore fans; it was kind of an adjacent scene.
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