By Niklas Göransson

At the dawn of the new millennium, a young underground zealot was uprooted from his Bavarian home and relocated to Florida. In the years to come, he would emerge as Bestial Devotion – drummer of US black metal band Negative Plane.

 

BESTIAL DEVOTION: The older I get, the more grateful I am for where I grew up. Technically, I didn’t live in the middle of nowhere – but as a kid, it felt that way. Visiting my hometown in Germany last month made me realise how mentally isolated I was; it gave me the space to develop a weird personality without much outside influence.

Bestial Devotion grew up in a Bavarian town of about 15,000 people, nestled among mountains with Salzburg, Austria, as the nearest major city.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: It’s interesting how perspectives shift with age. Over time, you start seeing your family differently and understand that they might not have been exactly how you perceived them as a child. My parents are a bit strange – more artistically inclined than most people I knew. You just don’t notice these things when you’re younger.

How did you get interested in music?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: My uncle was a huge record collector and a fan of outsider music – especially jazz and old blues from the 1930s, like Skip James. I heard a lot of stuff through him, so I knew about music beyond the mainstream, so to speak. Before discovering metal, I’d already latched onto extreme electronics and ambient, like APHEX TWIN.

It was VIVA, the German equivalent of MTV, that introduced Bestial Devotion to metal music.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: CELTIC FROST’s “Circle of the Tyrants” video really stands out in my memory. As you probably know, it has some wild concert footage and a guy wearing corpse paint. At the time, I didn’t know anyone else who liked that kind of music. DANZIG’s “Mother” had a similar impact, showcasing that live energy I never got to experience growing up.

 

Were there no shows in your region?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: No, there was zero chance to see bands unless I travelled to Munich, which felt like a world away. As a teenager, a two-hour train ride might as well have been to another country. So, seeing those videos definitely felt like a significant moment – they were part of a bigger journey into fringe music.

Another milestone came when a friend’s father, having accidentally purchased SODOM’s “Persecution Mania”, passed the LP to Bestial Devotion, thinking he might enjoy it.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: SODOM was a big one for me. And then… you know how, as a teenager, you end up hanging out with every other weird kid around? A schoolmate was slowly getting into skinhead rock – not my thing at all, but for some reason, we became friends. Anyway, he bought “Panzerfaust” (DARKTHRONE) simply based on the title.

The Panzerfaust – meaning ‘armour fist’ – is a single-shot anti-tank weapon used by German forces during World War II.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: He got the CD, hated it, and came to school saying, ‘Oh, I bet you’d like this awful music.’ <laughs>. Wait – he actually had BURZUM’s “Det som engang var” too! He’d bought both, thinking they were whatever bullshit he was into, but ended up giving them to me. So, that’s how I discovered black metal.

 

Did you know anyone else who listened to black metal?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: No, I didn’t. A few of my friends were into whatever metal happened to be popular at the time; I remember one of them liked TIAMAT, so I tried introducing him to the records I listened to. But it didn’t work – probably because I was obsessed with DESTRUCTION, HELLHAMMER, and similar old-school bands.

That’s surprising – in 90s Sweden, underground metal newcomers rarely got into the older bands.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I didn’t have anyone to guide me, so there were a lot of modern releases I never even heard. For the most part, I discovered new bands by checking the thank-you lists on records I loved. I remember doing that with “Worship Him”; I found it in a bargain bin without realising the album was already several years old.

Upon its April 1991 release, SAMAEL’s “Worship Him” became the first-ever title from Osmose Productions.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: The thank-you list included SARCÓFAGO, HELLHAMMER, MYSTIFIER, and other bands I’d never heard before. Fortunately, we had a record store about a half-hour drive from my hometown, near the train station. I stumbled upon it by chance when my dad brought me to the area for something else.

Back then, record stores often had big selections of second-hand titles. Shortly before Bestial Devotion discovered the establishment, some local metalhead had decided to sell off his entire collection.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I couldn’t believe my luck. I picked up not only SARCÓFAGO’s “Rotting” and “I.N.R.I.” on vinyl but also HELLHAMMER’s “Apocalyptic Raids” – amazing finds at dirt-cheap prices. I didn’t realise how old those records were; I just thought, ‘Oh, SAMAEL says these bands are cool, so they must be.’

 

At thirteen, after digging deeper into the underground metal scene, Bestial Devotion began tape trading.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I used to take the train to school, and the stations always had these small newsagents. There was a German metal magazine called Ablaze – you might know it – that featured personal ads in the back. One guy advertised himself with, ‘I’m the coolest fucking tape trader and have thousands of titles. Send me five German marks for a list.’

The tape-trading scene was a lifeline for metal fanatics in the pre-internet era. These unsung heroes of the underground connected globally, exchanging demos, live recordings, and obscure releases that were often impossible to find locally.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I didn’t know much back then, but tape traders often included little notes beside the titles: ‘Most brutal album ever recorded’, ‘Sounds like CELTIC FROST’, and so on. Funnily enough, some also shared their phone numbers, so I began calling people for hours at a time. ‘Which are the coolest bands? What sounds like DARKTHRONE? Send me two tapes of that, and I’ll send you this.’ It was pretty much all I did.

Didn’t you have a social life?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Sure. I mean, I was into the metal underground full force by myself, but I didn’t know anyone else who liked it. My girlfriend, friends, or whatever – they were just normal people.

 

In November 1999, Bestial Devotion attended his first metal show when CANNIBAL CORPSE and MARDUK played in Salzburg.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Honestly, I didn’t even like MARDUK; I just went for CANNIBAL CORPSE. To this day, I still love CANNIBAL CORPSE. But my mother can never find out – because I told her I was sleeping at a friend’s house! Instead, I took a train to Salzburg, snuck into the show, and had my “Bloodlust and Perversion” shirt stolen.

Released in 1992, “Bloodlust and Perversion” was the first demo by Norwegian black metal band CARPATHIAN FOREST.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: That demo is one of my favourite things ever; it’s so fucking killer. I actually wrote to them and ordered merch. So, the first time I attended a metal show, I had to wear my most prized possession. Back then, in the 90s, you always did the whole long-sleeve underneath with a band t-shirt over – remember that?

Indeed. Probably because it made the XL shirt – the only available size – look less ridiculous.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Exactly; I didn’t own a metal shirt that fit properly until I was about thirty. So, I showed up layered like that, but it got really fucking hot, and I started sweating like crazy. Eventually, I took everything off and left it in the corner. After CANNIBAL CORPSE finished, I went to grab my stuff, only to find my t-shirt had been stolen. Yeah, very upsetting.

Had you started playing music yourself?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: No, that came later, after moving to the States. Florida made it so much easier to get started – everyone has space. Garages and sheds are common, so you can set up a drum kit and begin making noise without upsetting the neighbours. Where I grew up, that just wasn’t realistic.

 

Moving from Bavaria to Orlando, Florida, must have been a jarring transition – especially at sixteen, with established social circles back home.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Oh, there was plenty of culture shock and a real sense of alienation, though I’m not sure I’ve fully worked out how it shaped me yet <laughs>. Things happen the way they do, and you try to make the best of it. When we moved, I couldn’t start school right away – there was all this paperwork to deal with – so for a while, I didn’t do much of anything except listen to music.

Being completely cut off from the tape-trading network after relocating across continents, Bestial Devotion turned to his entrepreneurial instincts. Equipped with a lawnmower, he roamed the neighbourhood, offering to cut lawns for a fee.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I used my earnings to buy a computer – which is how I got into the whole downloading scene. It felt almost like a continuation of tape trading, but with MP3s. That became a huge part of my life for a year or two; I barely left the house. Between sixteen and eighteen, it was basically all I did.

At eighteen, Bestial Devotion enrolled in school but didn’t stay long, feeling that he was already too old.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: That’s when I met a couple of other weirdos, including my friend Joshua Murray. He was also a bit of a lost soul, I think. We bonded over our shared misery and eventually started playing music together. Josh kept buying musical equipment. First, he got a guitar for himself – and then a drum set.

Having decided to form a band, Murray declared Bestial Devotion the drummer.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Every day, I’d go to his house and practise. At the time, I was no longer in school and started work really early in the mornings, so I’d spend the afternoons there, doing my best to figure out the drums. Most of what we played were cover songs, though he also put together a few originals.

 

In March 2001, Bestial Devotion attended his second-ever metal show when INCANTATION performed in nearby Tampa.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I think my sister drove me there because I didn’t have a driver’s license. She dropped me off, and I walked straight into the line – just stood in the middle of it for no other reason than being an asshole. Some guy tapped me on the shoulder from behind; ‘Hey, what the fuck are you doing?’

That was Steve ‘Tregenda’ Childers. A native of Springfield, Missouri, the towering man had relocated to Florida in 1996 along with the remaining members of his death metal band, BURNING INSIDE.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Steve was massive – a real imposing figure. Luckily, he wore a BLASPHEMY t-shirt, and I just turned around and shouted, <heavy German accent> ‘BLASPHEMY!’ I remember him looking at me and asking, ‘Huh? You know what this is?’ I replied, ‘Yes. Godz auf War’! Just being a dumb teenager.

Childers‘ demeanour calmed further upon noticing that Bestial Devotion was wearing a BEHERIT shirt.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Within minutes, he’d written his phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me, saying, ‘Oh, you should come and hang out.’ I was so confused. Honestly, I’m surprised I even mustered the courage to call him. I can’t remember the details, but I think I went over to meet his friends, and that’s when they told me about their black metal band.