– Hello and first of all, thanks for taking the time. How is everything going right now with DIABOLICUM? What are you currently up to?
Hey Tania!! Right now we are doing as little as we can just enjoying that the album is done and finally out there, taking some time with other projects and answering interviews

 

– Going to the early days of the band, you first started under the name of IMPERIAL, and after 3 demos you change the band’s name to DIABOLICUM. What kind of activity did you have as IMPERIAL and what prompted the name’s change? Did it also come with a different music approach?
Well we were really young when we started rehearsing with Imperial and back then we had a real drummer so it was ofcourse it sounded different and it was a search for our sound. But the riffs and the samples, keyboards and good guitar solos has been on tape from the very beginning. The name change was manly because of the French Imperial and I think it was when we got the first deal on napalm we decided to change, before our debut album.

 
– Now, after almost 14 years of silence with the exception of a split with ANGST, you are releasing your third full-length, «Ia Pazuzu (The Abyss Of The Shadows)». How has it felt to work after over a decade in a new DIABOLICUM album? And when did this album start to get shaped? Are all songs newly written?
We started to record this album 2002 but there was some fuck ups with the guy that owned the studio so we got out of there. (Our material was then on his next album) so almost all work was undone. But there are fragments from then still on this album , it’s been a continuous work from then and the last was written and recorded earlier this year. But I think it was around 2012 we started to really work hard with the songs and acctually thinking that it some day should be released.

 

– Your first album as DIABOLICUM was 1990’s “The Grandeur of Hell (Soli Satanae Gloriam)“. Superb. But for some reason went a little bit, and unfairly, unnoticed, maybe overshadowed by Norwegian’s Black Metal scene, which was back then more popular and bands were also starting to think out of the box. What did that album mean to you and how do you regard at it after so many years?
This was a really big thing for us our first record on a what we thought was a good label. We got a good budget for recording so we could leave the 4 track home. And we didn’t compete with the Norwegian scene at all we liked what they did but we wanted something else. We had never heard of industrial black metal back then we just didn’t have a drummer and the studio guy was the keyboardist from the euro techno band Melody MC and that i think did alot to our sound. So just to be in a real studio recording our own and hearing it for the first time was really great. And the record was maby not the biggest release but at least Glen Danzig name dropped us as a fav band ov him hehe so there was no lack of hybris

 
– And since then «Industrial Black Metal» has changed a lot, not only musically but the way people coneives it. How do you think has the evolution os this genre been?
Ooo I don’t really know I’m only listening to Kommandant Mysticum and Aborym if that’s what industrial BM is. I know there is a lot of bands now days    and with the new home recording tech it’s so easy to do this kind of one band bm and just say it is industrial bm but it’s really crappy to 99% no originality.

 
– This being said,  what has the band been up to throughout the last 14 years?
Well we all have other bands that we have been recording with and been out in Europe playing gigs. Robbing graves burning a lot of churches doing fuckloads of drugs moved around

 
– Dwelling into your new album, it  features a couple of guest apperances, by Malfeitor Fabban (ABORYM) and Vargher (NAGFLAR, etc.) What was exactly their input and what have they brought with their cooperation?
I can’t give a long and interesting answer to this but we always like to incorporate friends in our recordings if we can find space. And both this guys and the ones we have on past recordings are really talented people that bring with them something we need.

 
– And vocals are handled by Niklas Kvarforth, who already sang on the mentioned «Hail Terror» split. Was he your first choice?
It was acctually Wrathyr from Naglfar that did the vocals on that recording. But yea Niklas was the voice we needed and we have known him for at least 15 years or so.

 

– This has also been your first record with your new guitar player, Likstrand. How haas he fitted in? And what could you say has he brought to the sound of DIABOLICUM?
They obviouss is that I’ve never played with someone that could handle his axe like him. And on a personal level he is the gloves we put our hands in.  He is so fucked up from the core that when we are out on gigs we just have to try and keep him at the hotel. You can hear him playing the solos now on this recording but it will be so fun to start doing music with him because he is not even close to the box.

 
– «Ia Pazuzu» is being released through Code666, the label that already released «The Dark Blood Rising (The Hatecrowned Retaliation)» in 2001. Have you been in touch during all these years?
Yes we have and Emi  has a really good patience with us so we are sticking with him. And he makes really good looking releases as well

 
– And I read there will be different editions for the album. Would you mind to elaborate on this?
diabolicum ia pazuzu coverYes. There is the digipack that’s the main release and really that’s really good work done on that exactly as we wanted it to be, then it’s a black leather box with just the Pazuzu seal in gold with some additional stuff in it. Those who buy it will see. And then it’s a gatefold LP with bonus material and poster I think so as I said Code is doing some great work for us.

 
– On the other hand, artwork was crafted by Maxime Taccardi, mostly known for making paintings with his own blood. Why did you decide to work with him for this art?
I got in contact with him ofcourse through this world devouring social media and he is a great Diabolicum fan and wanted to work with us and after seeng his work I became a fan of his art to. So we just gave him some ideas of ours and the name of the album. The art he sent back to us was perfect at once. So those of you that don’t know his work should really check it out.

 
– Musically «Ia Pazuzu» is a quite diverse (still raw and somehow traditional) effort, with several mid tempos, as shown in «The Silent Spring». What’s the story behind this track?
Every metal recording should have a ballad according to us and the silent spring is the on for this record. (If you look at our old records you find them) But it’s of great importance that we really nail the darkness and misanthropic atmosphere to these songs. And when we listen to records and attend a show it’s just boring to hear blast beats for 40-60 minutes

 

– And how important is for you, both as performers and songwriters, to keep music rich, fresh and varied?
It’s really important because we got something for you that we what you to hear and reflect on, we are not doing party music or some background murmur there is a message. The music is the drug and the lyrics are the poison

 
– Production is audible still really raw, organic and keeping the overall darkness on the album. How was the mixing process like?
Hell!!!

 
– It keeps the atmosphere audible, and in fact atmosphere is an important element of the album I’d dare say, as we can notice on «Angelmaker», with ambient noises, atmosperic parts and melodic guitars (something we can find throughout the whole record). What kind of feelings are you channeling thorugh your ambiences? What emotions do you want to transport to the listener?
Yes it’s of the most importance for us. In fact the intro riff for angelmaker was recorded on a old sound card with a crappy guitar and we could never find that atmosphere again so we just built upon it. The music can ofcourse stand for itself but like in a movie the music should exaggerate the lyrics. I don’t know if we are trying to transport anything to the listeners or at least that’s not our purpose. This is our record

 
– In fact overall I find it similar to your debut album, still keeping elements from your sophomor release. It’s like you are taking and gathering in a single release the best bits of your career. Is this somehow the climax or just what DIABOLICUM sounds like anno 2015?
Well this is what we wanted to hear

 
– The overall feeling the album evokes is misanthropy, and disgust, hate. Could you say this is some kind the ethos of the band?
Yes it is. We are quite confident that the world as we know it must come to an end soon because of humanity and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this.

 
– But there’s also occultism, as for instance the album title, making reference to the king of the demons of the wind, also on the cover there’s the sigil of Pazuzu and his figure drawn. Why did you pick Pazuzu as «main» source for this album?
It’s not only this album. We have been deeply involved in occultism for many years and Pazuzu have played a great role to us in the past as well. And it’s a good name that we all can relate to.

 

– And does this theme expand to the rest of the album? As we can also find references to Astaroth among others.
We use this names to put faces to our beliefs and make it more understandable like a force in it self, but in the end it’s all about the coming of the great destroyer, the meaningless purpose of life.

 

– All this about «Ia Pazuzu» being said, how could you describe it in just 3 words?
Not for everyone

 

– Finally, what are now your near-future plans? What’s the next step for DIABOLICUM?
Try to be abit faster with the next record and get out on the road. I really want to do some gigs in Spain.

 
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Salve la Muerte
/Gorgorium
DiabolicuM

 

Tania Giménez
tania@queensofsteel.com

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