The Monolith Deathcult – בראיון חושפני

The Monolith Deathcult's latest album, The White Crematorium, has earned them both rave reviews for its high quality brutal death metal, and some serious controversy for the views the band members are said to hold. After being labelled as Fascists and racists, the band's guitarist, Michiel Dekker took the time to set the record straight, while saying quite a few things that are certain to piss even more people off, here it is, complete and uncensored.

Hey Michiel! I'd like to start with current events, what is the band doing these days?

Hello Alon, we are busy writing new material for the next album. We are also busy to arrange some short tours in the UK and France. Is there a huge metalscene in Israel? I only know Orphaned Land and Melechesh. Maybe we could do some shows in Israel;-)

Let's talk about your latest album, The White Crematorium, first, what does the title mean?

The White Crematorium is a sobriquet for Stalin’s labour-prisoncamps situated in a region in the extreme cold north of Siberia called Kolyma. The “Enemies of the People” had to dig for gold under terrible circumstances. Kolyma have a climate on it’s own. You can’t escape the camps because you will be frozen to death within a few minutes on a temperature of 50 degree below zero.

The people of the Soviet Union feared Kolyma more than any other region of the Gulag Empire. "Kolyma znaczit smert" was the common phrase whispered at the time, and translates, without loss, to "Kolyma means death." Kolyma znaczit smert is also a quote we put on the back of our shirts.

What does the cover of the album mean?

The cover represents the title of the album The White Crematorium. The idea came from our artworkdesigner Mick Koopman. We wanted a cover like Moonspells’ Wolfheart or Immortals’ Battles in the North. Most metalcovers are dark, so we wanted a white cover. You see Siberian woods(The White Crematorium) and in the background the Chernobyl powerplant. The barcode means nothing, but it looks cool.

How would you describe your music?

Brutal, fast but well written. We are influenced by bands like Strapping Young Lad, Slipknot, My Dying Bride, Type O Negative, Nile, Cradle of Filth, Slayer and Guns n’Roses. That sounds very weird when you hear our music but I can assure you it is true. Our influences are not only musical but also attitude and athmosphere. By example; the “goth” typed vocals in The White Crematorium are a hommage to Type O Negative and were done by The Royal Makchachkala String Orchestra kapellmeister Mr Pjotr Stahl.

Robin Kok TMDC Bass/Vox explains: “The Royal Makchachkala String Orchestra was touring the ‘free west’ in 2005 with Dagestan S.S.R. country & eastern crooner Pjotr Stahl, who is actually a living God in Dagestan S.S.R. Owing to my connections with the guys from Death Kristjan we met up and agreed to let the RMSO do the choir and string parts. Mr. Stahl is distantly related to Georgy Zacharyjev, who is the godfather of “Christdeader” of Death Kristjan. Pjotr Stahl actually did the spoken word vocal part on the title track of the new album, and we’re very proud to have him.”

You've often been compared to Nile, what is your approach about that?

That is a big compliment for us but we do our own thing. Nile was the band which made us to decide to play music on the same brutal and chaotic way like they do. The sound of TMDC is based on Nile, but the structure of our songs are totally different from Nile. Nile mainman had an other opinion about that. Read: BlabberMouth.Net Story #1 | BlabberMouth.Net Story #2 | BlabberMouth.Net Story #3. It all depends on a misunderstanding and we had a good laugh about it.

How different is the album from your first release, The Apotheosis?

The White Crematorium is more “transparent” than The Apotheosis. The tracks and production is better because we had more studiotime. The studio was situated in my appartement hehe. Sorry for that neighbours! We also add some more keyboards on TWC. In future we maybe do a re-recording of The Apotheosis tracks Colosseum Carnage and Cathedral of Corpses.

Lets get down to the lyrics, why such an interest in History?

I am a student in history 😉 We like to show that we are not a silly band with stupid lyrics about killing or raping babies or intestines filled with shit. We think that we are writing cool songs so we want cool lyrics for it.A lot of people get pissed if we write lyrics about gore stuff that really happened. We are fully aware that certain historically accurate matters are quite sensitive in some countries. The Monolith Deathcult is NOT a political band. We distinguish between race and religion. We know that most people are too retarded to take a good look at our lyrics, but we refuse to lyrically adapt and limit ourselves to suit the IQ of the contemporary metal fan. The Monolith Deathcult treats historical happenings as they occured throughout the ages. Sometimes it happens that a topic is treated which certain people rather would not be reminded about because of the heinous deeds of their forfathers. We have no goal with the lyrics beside to create controversy and to irritate narrowmindend stupid people.

The music is a framework for the lyrics. We do not play lovesongs. The lyrics are dealing with the stupidity and sickness of mandkind so the lyrics need a very brutal frame. Most of the time we have songs and write lyrics on it. Sometimes Robin or I have an idea for one or a couple of songs and we write the music on the lyrics. Par example: the lyrics for Concrete Sarcophagus, 1917 Spring Offensive and The White Crematorium did already exist for more than 3 years.

You have several references to the holocaust, what is it about it that drove you to write about it?

It happened all in our backyard. In the United States you have many bands who write songs about the war between North & South. Write about tracks about the crimes in Europe. Germany is situated next to Holland and there are a lot of people alive who go through the war. The Holocaust was a terrible crime and we think that we can write lyrics about it, because we do it in a respectful way to the victims and survivors.

Two tracks deal with holocaust atrocities done against Polish citizens, what is it about Poland that made it so important in the lyrics?

The fact that two songs deal with the Poles is coincidence. The first track "Army of the Despised" is based on the notorious madman Oscar Dirlewanger who fought his last battle during the uprising in Warsaw. Fortunately he was beaten to death by Polish troops at the end of the war.

"The Cruel Hunters" is about the thousands who volunteered for Muslim SS battallions Handzhar and Skanderberg to exterminate Jews in the Balkan and Caucasus , under command of Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem in World War II. This song is not really about the Poles. By the way, did you know that Al Huisini was a grand uncle of Bastard Arafat?

You've been involved in a very public debate about accusations against the band being racists, specifically anti-Muslim; can you give us your view about that?

Oh yeah! We are persona non grata in the Ruhr-area in Germany because of a this verbal incident in Wermelskirchen. That is were the whole story started. Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, get some cake and cola and listen to a story of love lost and the murder of the soul… Well, sorry for that, I was in a Cradle of Filth mood. Here we go!

The final show of the first European tour was in a small German place called Wermelskirchen. We just left the stage after a good show en went to the backstage. We were just sitting and relaxing there when an guy with dreads and a CCCP shirt enters the backstageroom. Later somebody told me it was the singer of a German band World Downfall. It was just two weeks after the start of the second Gulfwar. The guy was a lame-ass and whas shouting the whole fucking time: "FUCK GEORGE BUSH!". This guy was totally nuts and was shouting like an idiot. We were just 5 minutes of the stage so we asked him politely to be quiet or leave the room. He didn’t listen and continued his George Bush mantra. He asked us for our thoughts on the war on Iraq. Well Martijn (guitar left) and I told him that we hoped that the USA will bomb away the whole fucking Middle East with their backward culture so the USA can built McDonalds and parking garages over there. Finally he started to cry and called us racists. That is the whole story.

The story continued when somebody told me that Mike Meier, the webmaster from "Metalheads Against Racism", put an article about us on his website. We were unpleasantly surprised by the statement that has been made on his site. Their was no guestbook or forum for defending ourselves. We decided to export the whole discussion to the Blabbermouth.net site. We asked Mike for arguments. Than he came with his arguments. TMDC was in his opinion a racist band because we use phrases in our lyrics like: “The tortured Mudjahedeen scream their agony upon the stake…”, “The corpses of the impaled Turks penetrate your hopes”, “The blood of your forefathers shall be shed on mount Arafat, The bastard sons of Abraham shall never rise up again, The laws of the Sharia will not impress upon us, Your holy army, blotted out pounded into sand, The pest of Arabia shall not overwhelm us”.

What's the problem with slaughtering the “Legions of Mohammed?” Mohammed was leader of a very violent group whose motto was "Worship our God or die". Does Mike Meier also accuse Deicide for being racist because they hate Christians? Mohammed was also a man who thought it was normal to have sex with his best friend's 9-year-old daughter (Aïsja). So Mike Meier defends the lifestyle of a paedophilic warlord with hatred and intolerance against other religions, Jews and non-belivers? Who is the real fascist here? “Mudjahedeen” means Warrior of God or Holy Warrior. They murder in the name of the Islam just like the SS killed people in the name of Hitler. What is wrong with using the word “Sharia”? The Sharia is one of the best examples of total fascism. Religion and justice entwined in a bloody mixture of hacking off hands en stoning women to death for nothing.

People like Mike Meier are so fucking blind. We really can't believe our eyes when we read his "arguments for calling us racists" Does he ever watch the Daily News? The Middle East is a powder keg. There's genocide in Darfur by Muslim militia. In Thailand not so long ago the Muslim youth went mad and attacked police officers. On the Balkan there were genocides. In Indonesia, where Buddhism and Christianity have lived peaceful with each other until the Laskar Jihad started a war. Who was ALWAYS involved there? The Islam or better The Pest of Arabia.

It also strikes us the Mr. Meiers apparently doesn't have the balls to tackle bigger bands (and associated lawyers) like Marduk, but insists on picking on smaller bands. E.g.: [Quote from "Kaziklu Bey" (Marduk – Nightwing, 1998)]: "Storming in fury with ten thousand men, To teach the Muslims a lesson again". [Quote from "Dracole Wayda" (Marduk – Nightwing, 1998]: "The fear of the Turks is growing but the sword of Dracul Will show the Muslims the reapers face." Are these not matters worth enquiring? Mike Meier thinks in his narrow-minded views that he can unpunishedly put someone up the pillory by accusing them of being racist or fascist. Well, Mike Meier picked the wrong band. We were tired of it and decided to battle out on Blabbermout. Read here BlabberMouth.Net Story #1 | BlabberMouth.Net Story #2 | BlabberMouth.Net Story #3 – Enjoyable!!

We love sarcam. We hate stupid ignorant people. At the end of The White Crematorium album we used an old Germansong called ”Die Partei hat immer Recht”. We also use that song at our liveshows. Some people are shocked but most of the audience already know the song and they sing it loud with us. The song is one of the party songs from the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or German Democratic Republic, aka. Former east-Germany. This is IMHO the biggest sarcastic wink on the album, since the preceding song is all about the communist deathcamps in Siberia.

Those who’ve (partly) mastered the German tongue but don’t take any particular notice of the lyrics will immediately –by virtue of the nature of the song- take it for a Nazi song, the irony of which gives us the biggest satisfaction: all the paranoid (mostly German, haha!) wankers accuse us of being racist/fascist/both going down flat down on their faced when they do their homework and find out it’s a communist song. The underlying message is: systematic ideological extermination was/is being carried out on both extremes of the political spectrum, it’s just that people fail to recognize the significance of that fact. 15-year old kids walking around with hammer-and-sickles on their shirts to me is the same as walking around with a swastika shirt.

Don’t get me wrong. We have nothing to do with nationalism or any form of racism. We are just outspoken and use a lot of black sarcastic humor. If we say that the Islam sucks it had nothing to do with the fact that most muslim people are blacks or Arabs. In the circle of extreme politics, rightwing radicals and leftwing radicals are closer to each other than they would like to admit. Winston Churchill said once after the end of WO II: “The new fascists shall call themsleves anti-fascists.”

Par example. The nazi’s and communists were sworn enemies. Their ideologies are eachothers opponents. But both systems had a lot of equals. They both had deathcamps. Hitler had his concentrationcamps in Poland, Stalin murdered his enemies in his larbourcamps in Kolyma(Siberia) and the quote “The Partei hat immer Recht” was custom in both ideologies. Mike believes that The Monolith Deathcult is the greatest fascist danger since the rise of Adolf Hitler and his NSDAP party, because we talk bad in our lyrics about the race of the Islam. I hear your readers thinking: But Michiel, the Islam is a religion, not a race! You know that, I know that, so mail to [email protected] for the answers.

Apart from the accusations against your lyrics, what is your view about the rise in Muslim extremity in Europe, specifically in The Netherlands?

It is a big problem here. Some mad muslim are reaaly fucking radicals and they use the same methods of intimidation and terror als the fascists once did. Example: If you say”I hate all Christians” there is not problem but if you say”I hate all Muslims” they call you a racist. What is the difference? Most people do not know the difference between race and religion. I rest my case…Dutch publicist Theo van Gogh was ritually murdered by a radical Muslim on November 2nd 2004. Since then the atmosphere in Holland is like a powder keg.

There is a lot of suspense in Holland between the Muslim population and the Dutch people. You can’t say that too loud because leftish ignorant motherfuckers will call you a racist. In june 2005 I watched the trail on the Van Gogh murder. The murderer was also a radical muslim who told in court the mother of Van Gogh that he didn’t hate her son, but his belief ordered him to decapitate everybody who insulted the Prophet Muhammed or Allah. Here in Holland everybody is sure that the next bombing will be in Holland. We have also soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and there is no possibility to stop insane people with a bomb on their body who are not afraid to die for their beliefs. One spark and hell is breaking loose in the land of Windmills, Wooden Shoes and Cheese…

Do you feel that the accusations against the band have hurt it, or promoted it?

It promoted us. People who accuse us must first take a good look on the lyrics before they start to cry like a screaming pig.

In the CD's booklet you wear fascistic-looking costumes and carry weapons, what does that represent?

Fascistic-looking costumes? You must be kidding…. I personally never have seen a fascist-looking squad with long hair, wearing coats from the Dutch Police and carried with modern US weapons hahaha. The idea behind our look on the album was bases on The News that there are a lot American Soldiers of Fortune/Deerhunters in the Middle East. The picture is based on a grotesq Soldier of Fortune Deathcultsquad. People talked about the picture so the purpose succeeded 😉

Some history, about the band this time… How did you guys start out?

Here we go..We are The Monolith Deathcult and we are hailing from Holland. We play a “free”form of brutal deathmetal which means that we play brutal death with influences of Slayer, Strapping Young Lad, My Dying Bride, Slipknot and ofcourse Nile and Hate Eternal. We released in winter 2002 a 4 track promo “Obliteration of the Despised”. One month later we got a record deal with Cold Blood Industries and we released our debut “The Apotheosis”. In 2003 we did 2 European tours with The Crown. In 2004 we recorded our most recent album The White Crematorium which was recorded in march 2005 and released by Karmageddon Media. In September 2005 we did some clubshows in the UK with Macabre(USA) and Screamin’Deamon(UK).

The band was first called Monolith, the name was taken from the Cannibal Corpse’s “Monolith”. We discovered that a lot of bands called themselves Monolith so we put the extension Deathcult behind it. We never wanted a standard deathmetal name for the band. Besides, we used “Deathcult” long before Dimmu Borgir released their Deathcult Armageddon album. The US rockband The Cult called themselves in their earlier days”The Soutern Deathcult”. That is were I took the extension Deathcult from. It has no deeper meaning. We called the band, crew and our fans “The Deathcult” just like Immolation does with The Unholy Cult.

You also played in Dead Head, are you still active with them?

No, I was kicked out because my mouth was too big for those old thrashers. After that they stole my quote “The White Crematorium”for a phrase in a track of them because their singer is a doubtful poet.

How did you get signed with Henry Sattler's label?

We recorded a 4 track promo called Obliteration of the Despised(free download here!) and we send it to Sattler. He signed us, we record the album and we got on tour with The Crown(twice). The White Crematorium was released at Karmageddon media in March 2005.

What kind of live shows did you do in the last few months?

We did some shows in the UK with Macabre, we played some festivals in Germany and ofcourse some gigs in Holland. At the moment I am busy to arrange some short tours in the UK and France.

Since your material is very fast, and very brutal, how difficult is it to maintain energy in a live set?

TMDC live is al wall of sound with a devestating lightshow. We have all wireless so we run over the stage. Even if we play very bad the crowd is enthusiast beacuse of the cool performing, the great lichtshow, our pointy guitars(to hide the lack of talent) and our signs to The Horned One.

Any last words to the Israeli metal people?

Sure, this was the first interview I ever did with an Israelian metalzine. I almost destroyed my pc in anger because the cursor was moving from right to left in my screen. We hope to visit Israel for a few shows. Ask your promotors for The Monolith Deathcult!

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