We’re a generous bunch, which is why we decided to give you the full interview transcript of the King Satan interview featured in ZT #79. Enjoy!
ZT: Can you give us a brief history of King Satan, what sparked the idea for such a ‘project’ (if you can call it that)? You have named it an outlet of sorts…
King Aleister Satan: King Satan was founded in 2015, and the shape it took bases on a long time fandom of industrial/electronic/experimental music for which I had never a change to work myself before I had a Blackvox Studio where I could experiment off hours after work, a lot. It started as a solo project where I wanted do everything I wanted regardless of timetables or social conventions, with full artistic creativity in mind and despite of any rules, and I also also wanted to work not in traditional band sense, because I am always full of ideas and will to create, so working with my other bands it was always that I had to wait others to catch up before proceeding. Now there would be only me pushing the buttons which satisfies rest of my artistic needs and personality issues (hah!). However, I have a band line-up here first recruited for live purposes though, but they proved themselves so worthy that they actually composed stuff to the album too, so it is not completely solo project anymore. KING SATAN is a natural continuum of my artistic endeavours and a full working band in eve of our debut album titled King Fucking Satan.
ZT: For our readership, can you list some of your influences? What ‘style’ would you dub the music of King Satan as – is it perhaps a new genre of its very own? Or are we talking black metal techno, industrial BM, aggrotech?!
KAS: I get influenced, or better yet – inspired by a lot of things! Like film artists as such as Alejandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch and writers like Aleister Crowley, Carl Gustav Jung and Mihail Bulgakov have inspired King Satan as much as any musical entities, maybe even more. Musically speaking though, main influence and inspiration for King Satan has been coming propably outside of metal biggest of them being The Prodigy. For the others, name dropping would be endless if I don’t control myself. But to name a few of the bigger influences, they would be probably coming besides The Prodigy from bands as such as Slayer, Behemoth, Skinny Puppy, Trollheim’s Grott, Suicide Commando, Hocico, G.G. Allin, Turbonegro, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Deicide, The Doors, Motörhead, Barathrum, Satyricon and Mayhem. When it comes to defining our style, first I found it hard and then useless to do it myself because I don’t really care about the genres and labeling whatsoever the things I do. I accepted the idea when promoters were saying this is black industrial metal as it is kind of roof concept under where can happen a helluva lot more, and also because apparently some of the people need some categories before they can decide what they are supposed to feel and think about stuff … :) Aggrotech influences are kind of apparent, and maybe death metal and hard rock too, yet black metal is not our musical style, but since I and we have strong roots in black metal, its influence to King Satan shouldn’t be forgotten. With King Satan, we do whatever we feel like, literally. We might make a black’n’roll release some day or just ambient stuff, no one can tell ‘cos I try to stay honest for the true creative and destructive impulses what hoovers around King Satan that is actually more than just a musical style. For now, Industrial metal means sex, magick (read some Crowley bitches!) and rock’n’roll!
ZT: What lies behind the name ‘King Satan’? It is quite an audacious moniker to say the least. Are you a Satanist yourself or are you merely parodying Him/His image within a certain context? If the former is true, of what persuasion?
KAS: “I’ve noticed that when people are joking they’re usually dead serious, and when they’re serious, they’re usually pretty funny.” – James Douglas Morrison
Although my mom said never answer with quotes when I was a kid. So… I suppose it is kind of loaded name and there are soooo many reasons why I chose it. I have been whole my life obsessed with the archetype of the Devil that can be found from different cultures, religions, philosophies, literature and even from popular culture yet with different symbolical masks and characterical features still sharing similar undertone and features despite of different surface form. Maybe it has influenced to my persona so much as well, ‘cos I’ve been accused (or complimented) of being devil in flesh many times in my every day life, even I wouldn’t even be evil (for the record, I don’t think Devil is evil more than good either in any world view per se, it is only such thing judged by the eyes of “God”, and you could actually see Devil as a symbol of idealism fighting against God which could be a symbol of realism… “Could be” vs “This is”. There is not really good and evil you know, because so called moral is based on the fear of the death!) – just truthful and open, which seems to cause distress among the ones who are not. There are devils everywhere, but human to itself, is the king of them all. We do have black comedy and satire in King Satan’s lyrics, appearance and aesthetics for some amount yeah, but you can make jokes of serious issues and be serious about jokes (like the capitalism and religion). But about The Devil / Satan. The Devil has been ALSO presented as a jester and trickster in many mythologies and stories through history, but as a sort of disguise to tell the truth or reveal impostors by tricks. I like that imagery very much, but it is just a one side of it as the archetype of devil is also very much a like Jung’s theory about psychological archetype of Shadow. You see yourself in it, the parts you don’t acknowledge of being part of you, but still are very much so, hidden in your subconsciousness. If you see it as a parody, it might be so for you, and it might tell something about how you see the devil (and yourself) in the first place. If you see it serious statement, it might be so too. King Satan means what you hope and what you fear. It’s all true. Basically, everything that has been said with King Satan, it’s all serious and we really mean everything we say, but the way we mean them might not be so apparent at all times, and what we really mean and how, is a mystery of art. “I always tell the truth, even when I lie” – Tony “Scarface” Montana
ZT: Despite being a wholly separate entity to your long-running black metal band Saturnian Mist, the act is mentioned in the first phrase of the press release. This begs the question, why you decided to lead the PR with a reference to another band? The man formerly known as Mary Gore (from Repugnant) with his numerous projects that led to Ghost, preferred keeping former entities strictly detached from one another…
KAS: Well PR is made by promoters which makes me oblivious of many things, but then again I confirmed it before sending so…. “This” is not really an external role or character I am playing here but very me, just presented in different context than in Saturnian Mist (because Saturnian Mist is more a brotherhood band from where my another pseudonym, fra. Zetekh, my brotherhood name comes from) – so I don’t see why I should hide my other bands or artistic entities, because it has been me who has been part of them, and everything I do, comes from the same genius loci. Even sound engineering and album producing jobs I do are, for me, artistic working instead of mechanical adjustments (which is why I don’t do so many jobs so often). Saturnian Mist has been a very big part of my doings for the last 10 years, before founding of King Satan, and since King Satan is a natural continuum of my artistic endeavours like said before, I cannot tell my thoughts and artistic path without mentioning Saturnian Mist as a sort of foundation for what I do now.
ZT: The press release comes across particularly hostile against the conformist antics of today’s scene; dubbing its cohorts sheep. Are things that bad? What purpose does this serve to your mind? Is it aiming to be controversial in a scene grown numb to the ‘shock rock’ effect? Or merely a statement of opinion?
KAS: I do have a strong inbred need to slap people (including me) awake and towards the direction I think is right, or at least better than the status quo, propably because I am scumbag. But it is indeed funny that so called extreme metal is afraid of shaking people’s safe spaces and are very apologetic of stepping on some people’s toes, and some who claim to have no boundaries and claims to bow to no one, do follow very strict unspoken rules in order to fit in, talking about double standards. All the acts (and people) I respect have always done their own thing, despite of what others or any rules would state. If doing your own thing and speaking your mind is aiming to be controversial, then King Satan is controversial.
ZT: What was the idea behind the music video? It certainly is distressing. Generally speaking videos tend to send the clear message of wanting to branch out to more – dare I say – commercially lucrative milieus. What is your ultimate goal with King Satan?
KAS: If you are talking about our latest single, Satanized (Praise Hail Satan!), it has subtitles now too if somebody did miss the point! The lyrics are actually in fact one of the most serious and heaviest on the album and I like to play with contrasts a lot, in music, in lyrics, in aesthetics – so we ended up to the studio of Mr. Emppu Kainulainen to shoot the video which kind of tells the same story as the lyrics, but more flamboyant, psychedelic and not so heavy way, but still meaning the same. In the song there are more playing with contrasts in musical side too. Think of some religious monk saying with fanatic tone the same thing Kate is saying in the interlude part, how it would change the tone of the message completely? (But never fear, Kate is fanatic too) All the videos so far were made in order to support the textual side/thematic side. Enter Black Fire and Satanized are kind of same fundamental idea, playing with archive footage to emphasis the lyrics and message (and same I did for first Barathrum music video ever too!), but “Psygnosis” actually had a storyline and screenplay that both, song and video based on one script which I made back in the days while studying in music/film/graphic school and which then on inspired the lyrics of the song too. This all gave birth to this side mythology in King Satan’s songs (Maya institute, Dr. Woland etc…) which is represented in the video. For a message I want to send out, it is in the songs, pictures, lyrics. Idea dictates the form and aesthetics, I want to tell stories, spread the ideas and make music, explore myself and the world. Art (and the truth) is the highest priority here, aiming for money and commerciality kills the art so fuck that, so not really branching out anywhere particularly, but to those who would get something from it. Even if it is only a few people, it reaches it’s purpose. If it is lots of people, then I don’t know, haven’t thought that far hahaha. My ultimate goal with King Satan though is same than with my personal life; to start a new spiritually renewed chapter in the mankind’s history with spiritual anarchy and sex magick.
ZT: Thanks for the interview. The last words are yours. Feel free to plug any upcoming events, release, etc.
KAS: Very much so indeed! Our debut album titled KING FUCKING SATAN will be out 30th June in UK via Plastic Head and before that 26th May via Saturnal Records (the label manager accuses me of being a hustler but that man is a scoundrel himself! Good label though, propably the best in the world) of rest of the world. I am very bad of wrapping things up, so I take this as an opportunity to say that all the religions and philosophies are just forms of the fear of the dark!
FUCK THE REST SATAN IS BEST
