by Niklas Göransson

Three decades ago, a young black metal devotee in New Jersey carved a solitary path, bound by an ouroboros of grief and obsession. From that hunger, Krieg took form, delivering a fevered sermon of destruction and rebirth – Rise of the Imperial Hordes.

 

NEILL JAMESON: My father had always been religious – but around the time I turned eight, faith took over his way of thinking. I suppose it became a coping mechanism, with unemployment, alcoholism, marital struggles, and life’s bigger questions all weighing on him. He was looking for guidance, though whether he ever truly found it, I can’t say.

Neill Jameson spent the first decade of his life in Pittsburgh, where weekly church services were routine, upheld by a devout Presbyterian father.

NEILL: Born right at the end of World War II, he grew up in an era where being a good, traditional Christian soldier was the stereotypical male ideal in America. My mother, on the other hand, came of age in the 60s – big on THE BEATLES, THE WHO, and MOODY BLUES. QUEEN played constantly in our house when I grew up.

As a Vietnam War veteran, Neill’s father disapproved of rock ‘n ‘roll – and anything related to alternative culture – yet shared his wife’s passion for music.

NEILL: For most of his life, he was a big fan of Motown, jazz, and blues, but later became obsessed with country music. Sometimes, I think I got lucky my dad died when he did – had he lived to see what modern country has turned into, just absolute propaganda-laced dogshit, he would’ve made it his entire identity.

When Neill was ten years old, his father took a job with the Federal Aviation Administration and moved the family to Somers Point, New Jersey. In October 1993, while travelling for work, he perished in a plane crash.

NEILL: My mother rationalised it almost as a statistical inevitability. You can only fly so many times before your luck runs out, right? She’d braced herself for that possibility. The experience hit me differently; my dad and I had only just begun mending our relationship a few months earlier, so the impact was… complicated.

In a 2004 interview with Anvil Magazine, Neill said it wasn’t just the tragedy itself that shaped him, but the lasting psychological weight of his father’s presence.

NEILL: I believe I was referring to conflicting emotions. In some ways, I felt relieved – no more pressure to live up to expectations, because he wanted me to play football, serve in the military, and chase the quintessential American golden-boy dream. But then came the resentment over how much he tried to shape my life, the grief of his passing, and the anger that we’d never get the chance to resolve things.

In the Anvil interview, you described it as ‘the ouroboros intertwined begins to break’.

NEILL: Losing a parent, regardless of your relationship, leaves a profound mark – especially when you’re still emotionally immature. That influence will always be a fundamental part of me. So, in that sense, it really is the serpent devouring itself. No matter how far I try to distance myself from those old wounds, they remain woven into who I am.

 

In 1994, after a childhood steeped in guitar-driven music – from GUNS N’ ROSES to hardcore and grunge – Neill discovered Hours of Desolation, a weekly radio show broadcast from Stockton College.

NEILL: Unless you lived in a big city, underground black metal was tough to come by. It hadn’t really spread yet. The only exposure came from whatever promos the labels’ A&R departments sent to college radio stations and fanzines. At the time, they were still focused mostly on death metal.

By 1994, extreme metal was in a state of transition. After dominating the underground for years, death metal had begun to stagnate commercially. In response, labels like Metal Blade, Earache, and Roadrunner either doubled down on more accessible acts or pivoted in a different direction.

Meanwhile, black metal remained an obscure phenomenon, especially outside Scandinavia. Major labels hesitated to back a scene that wasn’t just musically abrasive but also entangled in controversy, crime, and ideological extremism.

NEILL: That imbalance made black metal feel even more elusive and mysterious; like something lurking in the shadows, waiting to be uncovered. The very first such bands I heard would’ve been DARKTHRONE, EMPEROR, and Century Media acts like SAMAEL and MOONSPELL.

Through Hours of Desolation, Neill’s fascination with black metal deepened. He discovered ANCIENT’s “Svartalvheim” and the early BURZUM albums, whose atmospheric, dreamlike soundscapes struck an even deeper chord.

NEILL: Both BURZUM and early ANCIENT created intensely visual music. It fuels the imagination, especially if you’re immersed in horror and fantasy literature or playing RPGs with medieval themes. To me, black metal felt like a bridge between the past and present, reinforcing that ancient, otherworldly atmosphere.

Ever since the rise of second-wave black metal, its connection to fantasy literature and tabletop role-playing games has been inextricable.

For instance, bands like GORGOROTH, ISENGARD, BURZUM, ABIGOR, and SUMMONING drew conceptual influence from Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Not to mention the first two BURZUM records featuring cover artwork essentially plagiarised from the Dungeons & Dragons module The Temple of Elemental Evil.

NEILL: It’s a clear roadmap. It pulled me in much like the way people described the Satanic Panic of the 1980s: how Dungeons & Dragons supposedly led kids to devil worship. In my case – yeah, D&D books and Super Nintendo games definitely put me on the path to Satanic music. I suppose I’m a bit of a cliché in that regard.

In a recent NIGHTBRINGER feature, Naas Alcameth noted that many in his generation followed a similar trajectory – starting with fantasy books, then discovering heavy music, before finally arriving at black metal. Beyond aesthetics and escapism, he highlighted a philosophical dimension tied to concepts like ‘good versus evil, the power of darkness, and the vastness of it all.’

NEILL: Absolutely. Fantasy – especially the more intricate, immersive stories – goes beyond the base narratives of moral conflict. It explores abstraction, the grey areas, which fascinated me from a young age. The morality taught in church when I grew up was strictly black and white: good versus evil, right versus wrong. Fantasy, heavy music, and later black metal blurred those rigid lines, reshaping how I understood the world.

What about death metal?

NEILL: Then, as well as now, I enjoyed plenty of death metal but never saw the genre as more than what it is. Black metal, on the other hand, was a vessel – a gateway to something deeper. It exists on a different level of consciousness, beyond anything the other styles of metal can reach. There’s an undefinable, intangible spirit that elevates it beyond just music.

 

Only a few weeks after first hearing black metal, Neill started learning to play guitar. Given the somewhat unconventional approach in his early work, I’m going to take a wild guess that he was self-taught.

NEILL: So, here’s the sad part – I wasn’t. I actually took weekly guitar lessons for a few years, but it was just endless repetition of strumming the same note over and over. Boring as hell. I’m not good at math, and I don’t have a particularly scientific mind, so breaking music down into formulas or equations never meant anything to me.

Before long, Neill co-founded his first musical project, IMPALED, and recorded a demo.

NEILL: That was just me and two friends in my basement with a couple of practice amps and makeshift percussion, bashing out forty minutes of pure noise. Embarrassing, unstructured, and completely unprofessional bullshit – but it felt so exhilarating. The quality didn’t matter; we were creating something.

That session sparked conversations between Neill and the singer, eventually leading to the formation of death metal band ABOMINUS. The following year, in 1995, they recorded a demo titled “As Wolves Amongst Sheep We Have Wandered”.

NEILL: Every ABOMINUS member came in with wildly different influences. The singer wanted us to sound like IMMOLATION, and he expected me to play bass like Alex Webster (CANNIBAL CORPSE) – an obvious impossibility, given my lack of technical skill. Our drummer, on the other hand, was into contemporary metal like KORN and FEAR FACTORY.

KORN helped pioneer what would become known as nu-metal, featuring down-tuned guitars, hip-hop-inflected rhythms, and angst-driven vocals. Meanwhile, FEAR FACTORY took a more mechanised, futuristic approach, fusing extreme metal with industrial influences, syncopated riffing, and cold, machine-like precision.

NEILL: Our guitarist was completely new to metal, coming from a goth background, and he carried some serious emotional baggage. His mother had apparently been part of a cult, and he’d been passed around and abused by multiple people in it. So, the band became a complete mix of personalities and influences, but we ended up sounding like a shitty version of “Never Again” (BELIAL).

 

As ABOMINUS struggled to find its footing, Neill began writing music in a pure black metal vein, which led to the formation of IMPERIAL and its subsequent 1995 demo. A cursory listen suggests a decidedly DIY approach. Someone credited as H.C. handled percussion, which sounds like a pair of plastic maracas run through a lo-fi guitar amp.

NEILL: None of us had cars, and in South Jersey, you’re not hauling a full drum kit around without one. So, we worked with what we had – some generic, no-name kit. But you’re not too far off about the actual recording; H.C. figured out how to turn a karaoke machine into something resembling a four-track.

Once H.C. had recorded the drums with his repurposed karaoke machine, Neill tracked guitars and vocals at Orchard Studios – the same place where he took guitar lessons.

NEILL: I’m sure my teacher felt frustrated. He was happy to take my money, but I wasn’t learning a damn thing. He did have some recording equipment, though – so once I started trying to emulate black metal on my own, I thought, ‘Why pay for lessons I’m getting nothing out of? Why not use that time to record instead?’

The demo took a long time to complete, with Neill chipping away at it gradually during his weekly guitar lessons.

NEILL: My teacher had no frame of reference for black metal. His main passion was THE BEATLES – a massive “White Album” poster dominated the studio. So, when I showed up with this chaotic mess, he had no clue what to do, and I couldn’t explain it. In a weird way, that made the first IMPERIAL demo the purest thing I’ve ever done: no plan, no expectations, just letting it happen.

 

On the first version of ABOMINUS’ second demo, “Scorched Faith”, Neill handled bass, backing vocals, and keyboards – but shortly after, he left the band. Since his contributions were then re-recorded, I’m assuming the split wasn’t exactly amicable.

NEILL: Oh, they kicked me right the fuck out. ABOMINUS was shifting toward a more professional direction, while my only interest lay in underground black metal. The guys then booted that traumatised guitarist, brought in someone who could actually play, and rebranded as PRESSURE POINT.

Do you think these early band experiences fostered your preference for working solo?

NEILL: Maybe. Back then, I didn’t play well with others. I had a very specific vision for my music, and whenever I brought people in, their ideas never fit. Instead of seeing it as collaboration, I took everything personally – as if they were tarnishing something I’d created. Eventually, I realised it was better to work alone.

Now fully committed to IMPERIAL, Neill recorded a second demo in 1996 – “Battlegod”. The music remains extremely primitive, to the point where it’s difficult to discern any clear influences.

NEILL: My focus was mostly on Norway, but I’d also started getting into Polish black metal. “Battlegod” would’ve been right around the time Pit Magazine ran that infamous GRAVELAND interview – I remember reading it and thinking, ‘Okay, this is the most extreme thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. I must check them out.’

In Pit Magazine #15, GRAVELAND’s Rob Darken praised the recent Oklahoma City bombing, called for the murder of sitting president Bill Clinton, and urged American readers to cleanse their country from ‘sub-men’.

Around the same time, Michael Ford of Indianapolis-based BLACK FUNERAL, promoting their debut album, “Vampyr – Throne of the Beast”, gave a similarly provocative interview in the same publication – one that drew the attention of the Attorney General of Indiana.

NEILL: At that point, I knew almost nothing about American black metal beyond ABSU. I was completely ignorant about the domestic scene until Ted from Dark Symphonies started sending me tapes of DEMONCY, VON, PROFANATICA, and BLACK FUNERAL – that’s how I first heard them. He completely opened the door to US black metal for me.

At the time, Massachusetts-based Dark Symphonies operated as a relatively new label and mail-order. Its first release, “Love Poems for Dying Children – Act I” by AUTUMN TEARS, introduced the neo-classical project of founder Ted Tringo. Despite his label’s initial focus on ambient and darkwave, Tringo had deep ties to the US black metal underground.

NEILL: These American bands embodied something primal – pure negativity, demonic energy stripped of traditional musical structure. At first, it seemed chaotic and formless, but if you really listened, there was more happening beneath the surface. Paul Ledney (PROFANATICA), for example, is an incredible drummer, technically proficient, yet never played to show off.

With many of its progenitors coming from death metal backgrounds, American black metal had a heavier low-end presence. In the case of Paul Ledney – who was once part of a GG Allin backup band called THE CONNECTICUT COCKSUCKERS – strong influences from punk and hardcore also shaped the sound of his early work in TOTEN and PROFANATICA.

NEILL: It was raw, unfiltered expression. No pretension, no calculated aesthetic – just music created on instinct. That resonated with me because I’ve never been a good musician. I can write decent songs, but I can’t play for shit. That DIY spirit, similar to punk in ‘77, felt like an open door; anyone could do it if they had the drive, the ideas, and the will to express something real.

 

Neill recorded IMPERIAL’s third demo, “Endless Path”, at Orchard Studios a few months after “Battlegod”. The process remained highly DIY, with percussion performed manually by tapping a keyboard with two fingers.

NEILL: At that stage, I had no real grasp of black metal drumming, so tapping out rhythms on a keyboard felt perfectly natural. I did try learning how to use a drum machine at one point, but as I’ve said before, anything mathematical – formulas, sequencing – just doesn’t click with me.

The same keyboard was used to create two ambient interludes, clearly inspired by Mortiis and what became known as dungeon synth.

NEILL: Mortiis – along with early Cold Meat Industry releases – made a huge impact on me. I wanted to bring that influence into my music because I’ve always had a deep appreciation for ambient sounds. That connection goes back to fantasy films and video games. It offered a different way to channel creativity, a darker form of expression beyond just guitars and drums.

In the fall of 1996, Neill visited Dark Symphonies owner Ted Tringo in Massachusetts, bringing the “Endless Path” recording along with him.

NEILL: Ted’s reaction couldn’t have been stronger – he immediately said, ‘Right, we have to get this out. I’ll put a package together and distribute it for you.’ And that’s exactly what he did. Ted handled the layout, designed flyers, and even made copies to sell through his mail-order. That built a strong bond between us.

 

Despite its rough production, “Endless Path” gained traction, with 325 copies circulating and positive reviews from underground publications. More importantly, it helped Neill establish a presence in the US black metal scene by mailing copies to influential figures.

NEILL: At the time, critiques of the music itself didn’t concern me much; my main goal was using the demo to build connections and escape my immediate surroundings. Music consumed me, and sending my work to artists I admired felt like both a tribute and a hope they’d find something worthwhile in it.

Neill’s strategy worked, and the demo made its way through the international underground scene. He’d also begun forming a solid domestic network of up-and-coming bands.

NEILL: We had a local zine called Rubberneck that covered underground death metal, doom, hardcore – and some black metal. Most of the bands featured were smaller or demo acts, and they always included their mailing addresses. If something caught my interest, I’d write to them, buy the demo, and eventually build a pen-pal relationship.

Around the same time, Neill became involved in the underground tape-trading scene.

NEILL: Metal Maniacs had a classified section where tape traders posted ads; I’d write them and exchange lists. From there, both parties would discover bands we’d never have heard of otherwise – regional acts who weren’t on anyone’s radar yet. I’d spread my own releases that way, and the whole thing grew organically. I connected with NOCTUARY via demo trades.

Back then, the underground operated largely on a system of trust – trading tapes, sending cash in envelopes to distributors overseas, and waiting weeks for a response.

NEILL: It was incredibly exciting. Sending your money off and hoping something came back. Checking the mail every day, waiting for that package to arrive. The thrill of opening it, seeing the tape, CD, or vinyl for the first time, putting it on, and experiencing something completely unknown.

Do you think that process influenced your experience with the subculture?

NEILL: Absolutely. It made everything more personal because you weren’t just buying a product – you were engaging with the person behind it, even if only once. Whether a musician or a label, every exchange created a connection. Looking back, the whole thing amounted to networking, though it never felt that way at the time. I learned to navigate the underground by experiencing it firsthand.