Interview by FORLORN SOUL

Heil Malefic! Since all interviews usually begin with a bio request I will avoid this question, also seen that it is available on your website. Instead, how have the responses to “Nocturnal Poisoning” been from magazines and webzines so far, are you receiving good reviews? What are the most frequent comments and, on the other hand, the most unusual reviews you got?
We’re off to a less typical start then?? I usually don’t get the chance to see many magazine’s of the paper kind, but I have seen maybe a few above average reviews in webzines, the most frequent reviews about it are that it’s ‘suicide black metal’, that seems to be a label that I get often, which is okay with me, after all, all the benefits of committing suicide dwell within my mind often enough. I think the most unusual review I got of this album was when I found out someone (maybe similar to myself) was cutting themselves, when listening to this CD at a very dark time in their lives... I don’t know much of the rest of the story, but I won’t get into it farther than this, cause this person’s life is probably shitty enough... I don’t know, would you call that a review or a reaction?

This cd should originally be produced by Warhammer Rec. What happened?
I almost forgot about that at this point...even though I was very pissed off about the deal falling through. With War Hammer, I found out that someone (I forgot who) was telling them not to release the CD of mine, cause it wouldn’t fit in with the ‘war metal’ bands already signed to War Hammer and that it wasn’t deserving cause I am a one person band or some stupid shit like that. I waited a long time, and it just seemed like nothing was happening. The War Hammer guys were in Germany at the time it was supposed to be released, plus Inquisition (the band in front of me) was taking a long time to finish their cd. So... long story short, shit talking + Germany + Inquisition + a lack of communication on both ends = NOTHING! I was angry for a while, but I don’t care about it anymore. I still talk to the War Hammer guys sometimes and trade with them... CD-R’s and stuff like that.

All your works have been recorded with a 4-track, even if the last one you used is a bit better than the previous one. Is this way of recording a specific choice or a necessity (lack of money etc.)? If your label gave you a recording-budget, would you go to a real studio?
About the 4-track...Yes, this is true, but with a twist of late. I use a 4-track but I also get more tracks out of using a CD burner... some trickery going on there...long story. But I was really not impressed with the work I was doing in the past like that demo CD-R, But since that time, I upgraded my situation with equipment, obtaining a better 4-track, rack module etc.. blah blah. If given the chance or a budget to record in a ‘real studio’ I would reject that opportunity, simply because I do Xasthur on my own moods and time, not someone else’s... I’m on an unpredictable schedule (or lack there of). However, if some label was to give me some more fancy equipment... that would be fine with me...

How do you create the right atmosphere in your room during your recording-sessions? And what are on the other side the perfect conditions for listening to your music (place, time, surroundings)?
It’s not easy... that mood has to be there. Periods of time filled with desolation needs to be there. Silence, Cold, etc... a lot of abnoxious humans can ruin this for me and I hate them for that!! Yes, I actually record everything at my house (room). I like to have candles lit, it helps me concentrate. I would think to listen to it after it is finished, a person might need to be in the same conditions as I have mentioned... It’s certianly not meant for party music, having a few friends drinking etc. Be alone when you hear it, because I’m alone when I make it, hopefully it will haunt you.

Of course the place where we live influences a lot, in a good or bad way, our personality. For an anti-social person the need to work and see shitty people every day, besides all the idiots down the streets and other poser Metal-heads, must be a real agony. How can you relate to others? Is your being different and better than most of the people out there a source of suffering for you or a source of inspiration for your music (hatred, scorn and such are very strong feelings...)?
That’s true, and I’ll add to that by saying where we live and where we once may have lived... most would say that I don’t live in a “black metal environment”... I can agree and disagree with that. After all, no life style is as anti black metal as Southern California ...a slum, which I seem to be trapped in. That in itself is true inspiration... will inspire much hatred. All these shitty people! Yes, you’re right!! I can’t relate to others... they’re proud to be ignorant and of Tijuana descent, whether born there or not! Their day just consists of eating food, creating more mouths to feed and being rude, there’s no honor in that!! I can’t relate with others, people who speak in tongues called depression seem to be more real and tell the truth for some reason. When I am among people from the outside world, though there may be many of them, I feel more alone than usual... and then when all the programmed idiots go to bed, I walk around alone late at night and I don’t feel so alone when they are all gone. I don’t really feel as if I’m better than many people, as in the eyes of some people, I have really wasted and fucked up my life and have had a fucked up life... that’s just a fact no matter who tells it. By the way... I am from the other side of the first sentence I wrote to this question, I was raised in the woods until I was eleven years old.... people are different there, they stay out of your fucking business and are quiet people. And these fake metal heads you speak of... well around here they just end up adapting to their environment...yeah... that’s ‘True metal’ isn’t it?? Without some sort of ‘spotlight’ they’re nothing, will be nothing and do nothing. Curses to the L.A. scene and its so called fans, I have nothing to do with them, as they are liars, all they do is brag, but in reality they have nothing to show for themselves as they play black metal for all the wrong reasons, fame, girls etc.. I know for a fact of a local band that goes to Gothic Night clubs handing out flyers and giving the girls bullet belts at places like these!! What the fuck??!! Also, these bands and their crowd give the metal scene a bad name by living up to the stereotypes that have been put upon them. The death metal scene is just as pathetic here too.

What is your personal vision of the world you’ve built within yourself during the years ? Which are the (physical or psychical) means you use to escape reality?
Another good question you have there. I have to create another world, that’s for sure, cause I have no place in this one. I stay indoors a lot, even though sometimes I need a coffee or a drink or even some fresh air, but a lot of the time I’m not gonna get it! I just shut out the rest of the world that I don’t trust. I do better when I’m not helping society, I can’t, because my heart really isn’t in it to do that! I don’t want them even looking at me. Though I hate the typical 9 to 5 programmed person, I can give them this: I can’t serve humanity for no reason the way that they can, but they can’t do the things I do either. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder when I do my best to stay away from a life I do not feel welcomed in. Why can’t they do the same? I hate them cause they won’t do the same...

“The negativity of Black Metal is the only thing that brings me any pleasure or excitement anymore”, you stated in another interview. It’s weird to hear that such a kind of music, worshipping Death, Sickness, Scorn and other negative emotions, can be a reason to live for someone. How do you explain this fact? Isn’t it contraditory for human nature to search for negative emotions instead of happiness, which seems to be the final goal of mankind? Or maybe we search happiness through negative emotions? (then we must be very sick)...
You really do your homework!! Haha. I do remember saying that, though I don’t remember where exactly. But yes, that’s true and the way I feel. That happiness you speak of... is it real? Is it a reasonable request? Maybe, but realistically NO! “Not men, nor women nor beasts” to me, Black metal, this is something that I can trust in (usually). A long time ago, when I would hear something as miserable as Thergothon, I took some pleasure in knowing someone else(s) was expressing the same moods that I go through, I appreciate that something like that could take me away to a different kind of cold, where I could sleep a long time. And of course there’s other black metal out there for different moods. Are we very sick though?? No! THEY are very sick. I have just pointed out some things that prove that we are less in denial. All they wanna hear are songs about teen love and then the real world gives them the opposite, true hate, but they can’t/won’t see it and kill themselves, but they’ll return to denial instead... they’ll pick themselves up... for what? Just to fall down again? And they know they will. You better know what you’re picking yourself up for then, if that’s some sort of human instinct?

What kind of feelings did lead you into the dark side of music and thought? Was the discovery of extreme music also an input for your personal inner evolution?
Hate! Hate for life and people, a way to distance myself from their ways of thinking and feeling. I think it made me see the grim reality, and not all so one sided…when one sees everything from a “good” Christian point of view, they often forget to think about reality, they think about what should be instead of what is. They’ll think ‘if you’re suffering, pray, and God will reach out to you’, they never think of alternate plan of action, did they ever think that maybe my credit isn’t too good with God ??!! I have learned that there is “good” in evil and a lot of “evil” in good, and sometimes I know that there is no such thing as either perhaps? I have learned that one can serve this extreme music, but also that if you really put your mind to it, this extreme music could serve you. People in life and on TV tell you shit like “You can do anything if you put your mind to it”. If YOU put YOUR mind to it, things are possible to achieve, but people aren’t a part of YOU and YOUR…they’re selfish and their goals aren’t the same as yours may be, similar at best but their goals will usually appose yours, or is it that I’m one of the selfish ones?

Many reviewers wrote that in your music an horrific atmosphere emerges intensely. Do you agree, and was this a voluntary choice? Are you inspired also by bands such as Mercyful Fate, Death SS etc.? I find some of your riffs quite hypnotic on the other hand.....
Really? I don’t recall too many reviews or reviewer’s opinions on this, maybe some. Mercyful Fate was a favorite of mine when I was a kid, very good riffs they had. In the back of my mind, I think I am always thinking about them, whether I know it or not. I pass my trance on to your hypnotic.

How do you imagine your funeral? Do you think someone will cry your death? Do you believe in an after-world, will the spirit carry on in another dimension, after our trespassing? Choose a song you would like to accompany your hearse to the place where you’ll find eternal peace...
If anyone cries, they’ll just do it cause they think that they have to, after all, what was I to them in life, they did’nt appreciate me or really get to know me when I was here, ... but was I really here? I don’t know... some people would find me to be a really boring person, it’s not my fault really, I have just lost interest in this naive game called life where all we really do is kill time. Hmmm, A song to choose to accompany the funeral/hearse, though it may be cliche`, I would have to say ,”The unknown kadath in the cold waste” by Thergothon. Very appropriate. I won’t go anywhere when I die, I’ll just rot. If someone were to dig up my grave after a while and take a look at me, thats the way I’ll really be and feel, frozen like, dead, trapped... the look on my face will resemble claustrophobia, and dying of it. Its like being locked in a pitch black small closet or cellar for the rest of your life... I don’t know, I’ll tell you when I’m dead.

Dreams are one of the unsolved mysteries of our existence... But what are dreams for you : fragments of past forgotten memories, hints of our subconscious mind, presages of another life/dimension, or simply chaotic senseless images without a reason that go far beyond our rational capabilities?
I really don’t remember my dreams, very rarely do I remember them. All I know is the dreams I have are about real things that are gonna happen but they are dreamt in a way where I have to put the pieces together and use metaphors to decode them… but like I said, that’s really rare though. The mysteries of what they really mean are somewhat disturbing to me, at least mine are that way. But I think when you say hints of our subconscious mind, I think that adapts mostly to mine, things during a busy day that I didn’t really know I was thinking about or things I didn’t get around to thinking about etc…

As mortal beings, everyone of us experiences in his life feelings of depression, discouragement, insecurity, love, friendship and other emotions considered as “weak” by “true Black Metallers”. Do you ever look at the Black Metal scene as something too “fake” at times, where everyone appears to be only evil, extreme, merciless and devoid of other feelings? We are not perfect creatures, and I think most of these people pretend to be what they’re not to preserve the image of themselves, often trying to hide with this their inner insecurity and need to be accepted by others. What is your opinion on this? And what are some of your inner fears, doubts, frailties?
I think you know what you’re saying. One might say, a pessimist is only an optimist that’s been around the block. Those so-called “weak” feelings were most likely felt by a “true black metaller” who went by the name of Dead. So, this kind of “True black metaller” contradicts his/her self…and isn’t Dead a legend amongst true black metal people? To know hate is only through knowing the opposite … it’ll give you a stronger definition of the feeling and word known as hate, unless they’re both the same thing? My only doubt is recovering from whatever’s “wrong” with me and I doubt I’ll see past 30 years of age for some reason. I also might fear going past 30 as well, if there’s nothing now, imagine then ?

“Whenever I look to my scars.... I remember where I’ve been and where my state of mind always takes me”... it is another quotation from one of your interviews. Can you deepen this concept? What is your personal experience on self-injuries and what is the state of mind you reach while you’re doing it? Have you ever suffered from depressive states of mind, ever been close to suicide?
I used to have a real habit of getting razors and slicing myself… I’m cutting down now (haha) I’ve tried thinking of many theories as to why I have done it all these years, the best one is this… Let’s say you had a broken arm and the pain was severe, if someone came up to you with a baseball bat and broke your leg, then you would forget about your arm. I always knew I would cut myself better when I had been drinking, so naturally I used to get drunk a lot, and not to be social and have a good time, but to do what I knew really needed to be done and let out. Yes, brink of suicide… I was put away for that for a while a couple times. Like I think you say in another question, I literally had nothing to live for, all was gone and I was just reacting in a very sane way by slicing my wrists and throat, some say one goes to a Psyc. Ward for losing touch with reality, in some cases you go for being too in touch with reality. But during these times when the blood pours, what’s going through my mind is not only the way things really are, but also the way they’ve always been. The way things have always been is that extra little push.

Your musical tastes are very wide and similar to mine, for what concerns the Black Metal and Doom Metal fields. Besides Raw Black Metal you like Depressive bands such as Burzum, Mutiilation, Manes, Abyssic Hate, Forgotten Woods, Deinonychus, Shining, Katatonia, October Tide, Forgotten Tomb :-)), Rapture, Anathema and so on... What are the feelings these bands give you? In your biography you state that without Graveland’s “Thousand Swords” you “wouldn’t have been so strongly motivated to create such a depressive sound”... Why do you like so much this album? I think it’s a very good epic opus but not so depressive, if compared to many other bands you listen to...
With Graveland’s ‘Thousand Swords’ they have every kind of emotion all together on the same album, and all at the same time even, feelings of Hate, Darkness, Sorrow, War, defeat, medieval. All 6 of those feelings are very extreme by the way, and I had never heard anything like it before, no one can duplicate it, not even Graveland, I will say though that Skepticism-Stormcrowfleet comes close… even though it’s dreadfully slow to most people. About the other bands mentioned here… I listen to them cause they make you stop and listen and also freeze, I can’t really listen to something like Revenge (Canada) over and over again, cause it just goes in one ear and out the other… all you can say is “wow, that drummer can go fast”, it’s almost like a sport or something, also, very one dimentional. I mean, I can admire how extreme and brutal something like that is… but that’s about it.

Do you feel part of the American Black Metal scene, do you like any bands, are you in contact with anyone? And what is your reaction instead to the American “way of life”?
I felt not a part of it for a while, some would say I was bitter about the US scene. But now, I see that things might be changing, I thought that all America wanted was “war metal”, or is that just what was given to them? I think something such as Crimson Moon and Ninnixu could give their minds something else… I would like to do the same if possible. I’m in touch with just a few other bands like Shroud of Despondency, Dead to Earth and a couple new contacts in other countries, but not that many.

What is your everyday life besides Xasthur and music, do you work? What are your other interests? What is your attitude towards life, how does your way of acting every day reflect the feelings we can hear in your music? What are your reasons to keep on living?
Well, Xasthur has kept me busy, and that’s what I like about it. I am unemployed often, I have a hard time holding down a job. I sometimes like to draw scribble like drawings, I like to sleep, even though I don’t give myself the chance to enough. I like to drink coffee. Things like watching TV and chasing women would fill most peoples time, but seem hopeless to me. My reason’s to keep living? I have absolutely no idea.

In which way do you think humanity will extinguish : a natural disaster, a world war, a nuclear blast, a meteorite or do you think men will destroy each other with their own hands? Lately, it seems like a lot of apparently “normal” people, at least here in Italy, all of a sudden go off their nuts and start to kill school-mates, their parents, their children, or people on the streets. This happens very frequently, and often they are very young persons, 14 or 15 years old. Why do you think today’s youth is growing up so sick?
I do think a race war could wipe out a lot of the population, especially in bigger cities, in the news, middle east countries can’t get along with the US and other countries like Israel and others. Those two building in New York going to the ground was something very extreme, apocalyptic if you can imagine. These are all signs of the end to come, who knows when it will be? But, it’ll be sooner than thought, as the vibe was really felt on Sept. 11th. All I can hope for is to laugh at people as they pray and cry, just before we all die. I’ll laugh as I wonder why they cry. Why cry over the wasted life that they lived? A hypocrisy that I can actually laugh at. About the 14-15 year old kids in school killing classmates, is somewhat of a mystery to me, all I could say is they might not care because they know their future looks bleak? I really don’t know why at that age, I would expect people in their late teens/early 20’s to be more in the news for stuff like this, cause life treats them bad or different at that age. About the kids that got shot in Colorado a few years back, that’s simple, revenge!

Give us some anticipations about your future releases...
I’m looking forward to the “Suicide in dark serenity” Mlp on Bestial Onslaught prod. before the end of the year, it will be 5 new songs, about 28 min. This one is similar to “Nocturnal Poisoning” but more energy draining and depressing. After that, I don’t know what will happen exactly.

Thanks a lot for this interview, Malefic. As a final thought, let us know what would be your last message to manking before to die...
You asked some good questions, I thank you as well. Say hello to the guy in Forgotten Tomb for me. My last message for humans is they should have committed suicide before even having to hear my last message. Use stupid peoples problems as a way to hurt them and as a way to benefit yourself. Give a helping hand when people are digging their own graves.