Interview by FORLORN SOUL

Heilz Joakim. I recently got your fantastic second album -Terror Propaganda-, a really amazing and sick release. This is the first time I’m able to hear Crafts music, because I was never able to find your previous album as well as the demo. Did they suffer from a poor spreading? How did your previous label Black Hand work like? The re-release of -Total Soul Rape- is at hand, will it contain any bonus-tracks or something new if compared to the original cd?
I don’t want to talk about The Black Hand anymore. They didn’t handle things very well, so we decided to break the contract and give the rights to Selbstmord. But we get to answer this question in every single interview, as you probably can imagine already, so this question will from now on be ignored. But regarding the re-release of the debut album, no it will not have any extra tracks or anything like that. It will be re-mastered at a mastering studio in Gothenburg and the cover will be changed a bit, but nothing more. It will be released for one reason: it’s a good album, and it never got the attention it deserved because of the low print run of the TBH version.

-Terror Propaganda- has seen a very long and protracted birth, in fact people had been waiting for it a lot, more than one year if I’m not wrong. What were the reasons for this delay, I heard voices there were some mixing problems, is that all?
I must say Selbstmord Services got a little too enthusiastic when setting a release date. May 25 2001 was very optimistic to say the least. By that date we hadn’t even started recording the album. Many factors made a difference, for example we had problems finding recording sites and collect all the recording equipment at the same time. We started recording in August last year, and we finished the album about a half year later. But some things were to our advantage too. “Terror Propaganda“ has been given a lot of attention a whole year before anyone could even listen to it, and I think it sells quicker and easier now because of the long wait.

It’s really difficult to find around such a great Black Metal band as yours nowadays, that still sticks to the tradition but at the same time sounds powerful, fresh and even -groovy- (if you allow me this term). What I mean is that although your style of music recalls Black Metal cults of the past such as Darkthrone, Celtic Frost, Burzum etc., thus sounding cold, raw and anti-human, you have decided to take advantage of a clear recording and good production for the standards of the genre. Why do you think a production like that of Terror Propaganda fits better your music than the much rawer and lo-fi sounds we still can hear today in many Underground bands? Do you consider Craft as an Underground band?
I think the production fits ok to the style, but I wouldn’t mind having it more brutal. I don’t object to the lo-fi sound of many recordings, but we don’t want to suffer the pitfalls of too lo-fi production or those of a clean Emperor-like sound, so we try to stick somewhere in between. Not too polished production but definitely not rehearsal type sound either. The next album will be recorded on much better equipment which will make it easier for us to get a more suitable sound. Not clean but more powerful, that’s what we wish to achieve. Not all Craft-releases have “good“ sound either. The Arckanum/Craft split was recorded in a couple of hours with a small amp crammed up to extreme volume levels, with lots of feedback and other noisy elements as a result. It has great sound. You’ll notice the difference when you hear it. Craft is underground, because we don’t reach the mainstream with our music. We won’t get aired on television, or feature in any magazines that aren’t specialized in the metal underground. No one outside of the metal scene probably even knows Craft exist. So, yes, Craft is definitely an underground band.

Reading your interviews and lyrics, it is clear that ideology and propaganda, like for all other Selbstmord bands I presume, is a fundamental element of your music. Your attention is focused expecially on anti-human feelings, on the deepest hatred towards our earthly fellows and on the death of all unworthy flesh. Humans are often described in your words and lyrics like useless -worms-, -parasites- that crawl and stir up disgust. Where do these visions come from? What is the importance you give to your life compared to the life of other beings, do you see your person as worthless and crave for self-annihilation as well or do you consider yourself as superior to the scum around you? What are the differences between you and them for making you entitled to overwhelm/suppress the masses?
I most certainly see myself as superior to most other people. Not because I’m white or because I think I make better music than anyone or something like that, but because I have been selected to understand that which not many have the privilege to comprehend. The word misanthropy is thrown around all too easily, but I could definitely be labeled a misanthrope. And I am that because I set myself above all cosmos-worshiping scum on the planet. Eventually, I too must of course get my physical self destroyed, because that too is a product of Yahweh, and it will not be over until every single piece is destroyed. My convictions keep me from ignoring the decay and mass-psychosis known as the good/life-worship, so I must speak of what I know. Maybe someone else who hasn’t been completely disillusioned by the constant recycling of souls will get a hint of what their options are. The goal is of course total death of the universe. About humans, they are in general annoying, ignorant creatures, following each other seemingly without purpose besides finding food, in order to be able to give birth to new equally stupid creatures. I hate them. But I must live and deal with it, not selecting the relatively easy way of suicide, because I have the ability to spread the word – an option we have as a band since we obviously somehow manage to create music that people are willing to listen to and trying to understand.

What are the feelings you experience when you read on a newspaper about a mass-death (The Twin Towers, airliners that drop like flies, natural disasters, people that go off their nuts and start shooting on the street etc. etc.) ? What was the moment in your life when you lost all hope of changing the world and people’s minds and realized that their suicide or extermination would be the best and only solution?
I don’t care much of these things you mentioned, they are yet too trivial to make an important difference. I lost faith in the universe a long time ago. I think I have always disliked the majority of people, but if you’re thinking of the more esoteric belief systems, then I would have to say I started developing them when I was like 14 years old or so, and I’m still very much during development. I never thought I would change the world. I never cared enough about it to bother.

Some bands in the Selbstmord rooster, but also in the UG Black Metal scene in general, found their propaganda on their deep -religious- creeds and on basic Devilworshipping. The concept dealt by your band is very different, how do you relate with those ideologies? In the -Hellish Massacre- interview you affirmed that for you the word evil has no sense at all as it portrays a world dominated by dualism where the “eyes of the beholder” have no place; if this affirmation can be applied also to the human conceptions of God and Satan you have destroyed also the principles upon which Devilworshipping is based. Your comments?
I strongly disagree that I would somehow oppose devil worship just because I don’t see the point of using god-fearing language when I in fact don’t fear this god at all. The concept of religious Satanism is not that weak that it would depend on the use of these words and how the general person perceives them. I mean I use the words myself, but when I use the word “good“ I use it when something in favor of me and my beliefs has happened, which is not that often the same as everybody else. You see the destruction of cosmos is good, for me! Cosmic degeneration, such as the evolution of new species or the population’s growth, is bad for me. That’s the difference. I am a spiritual person also. I just refuse to use tiny life-loving words like “good“ and “evil“ when speaking of Satan. The words are not enough to describe the might, and they are most certainly erroneous as the words and their use was created by beings who were anti-Chaos. My point is: I’m not saying I don’t have any dualistic tendencies within me. It is very much about two different sides. One is Satan and one is Yahweh (but call them what you must). One is death and one is life, but which one is actually “good“ and which is “evil“?

Back to music now. My favourite songs of the -Terror Propaganda- album are -Ablaze-, -The Silence Thereafter- and -Hidden Under the Skin-. What are the ones you prefer? -The Silence Thereafter- is a particular song that stands out among the others for its depressive and melancholic atmosphere and sound. How was this song born and what are the feelings it provokes in your soul?
I don’t remember what this song came from. All the songs were written a long time ago, probably 1 to 2 years ago at least. My favorite tracks are “Ablaze“ and “Terror Propaganda“. I hate “N. D. P.“ which is too bad because I was really satisfied with the lyrics, but the song itself got old really quick.

Do you like depressive music/bands? I think many of these melancholic bands such as Abyssic Hate, Dolorian, Forgotten Tomb and others (all interviewed in this issue of the ‘zine, by the way!) often go with their lyrics against the most orthodox ideals of Black Metal, namely strength, superiority, hatred towards the subhumans etc., since these bands often talk in their lyrics about personal experiences, depressive feelings, nostalgia, which by some people might be seen as signs of weakness. Can these topics have their place in Black Metal, in your opinion? On the other side, some of those Black Metal bands who spend all their time in making redundant and exaggerately elated declarations to the big magazines give me the feeling of being the real weak ones, who have the need of feeling strong hiding their unworthy lives behind their “evil” image and declarations. Is this your opinion too?
As long as you promote the death of others there’s nothing wrong with it. Neither is writing lyrics that display signs of weakness while written in first person, if the lyrics are actually written to influence others to destroy themselves. You must remember that if the lyrics are written for the sake of propaganda, then they might not be based on reality, they may just as well be a lie and a way of manipulating the weaker person into something. Because the point of the whole thing must be that it’s not what is in the actual text that’s important, but the results they produce in real life. Yes, I think some bands use religion as a way of getting more underground credibility. That is probably inevitable. For example I find simple linguistic blasphemy to be rather superficial and slow witted.

In the cd booklet only three lyrics are published. Could you tell me what are the remaining lyrics about?
The lyrics deal almost with one thing only: death to the universe. And I didn’t like them anymore by the time we were about to design the cover, so I decided to skip them. Of course the general points they represent are still valid, but the way I arranged them and the way I expressed myself didn’t please me at all. But above all I was bored with them. I can be very hard to please when it comes to lyrics.

Some guests have contributed to the album, namely Botulistum for an outro, Richard of Contamino for one lyric and then some other people for ìadditional vocals and noiseî. Tell me something about these cooperations.
Yes, we wanted to have something which was different on the album, and since we had a guest outro on our first album we thought we might as well continue with it. I felt Botulistum would be able to pull it off in making an outro for us, so I talked to Nachtraaf about it some year ago and he did one which we didn’t really think we would use until we mixed the album. Then we realized what a disturbed track it was, some of the sounds are really disgusting and I have no idea how he made them. Anyway, disgusting noise impress us all of course so it got on there. As for Richard, I listen to his band and I think he’s a great vocalist. His voice is not as generic as most vocalists. It’s much more aggressive and disturbed, but that wasn’t actually the reason why we got the idea. I read his lyric for the song, which at that point was meant for Contamino. I though the lyrics were good so he gave it to us instead, and when the title “Reaktor 4“ was thought of it was settled, as I very much prefer obscure song titles that you can’t understand immediately.

END OF PART I - TO BE CONTINUED....