Interview with Evil Wrath

Hello, thanks for doing this interview with Nokturnal Void.



You recently released a split with Pagan Rites. How did that come about and are you pleased with it?

- Well to make a long story short, Morbid got in touch with Devil Lee Rot to know if he would be interested to do a split and he answered that he had an old unreleased demo, actually the first ever Pagan Rites recording, that he could use for a split, so without any hesitation we accepted. I must say that we are a lot more than pleased with the split, it's probably the best thing to happen to us so far.



How come The Exploited cover “Fuck The U.S.A” if you guys come from Canada? Do you have a lot of punk influences?

- Growing up in the 80's and 90's it's kind of hard not to have any punk influence at some certain extent. As a kid I was a big fan of most of the Hard Rock and Heavy/Thrash Metal stuff that was around at the time that I could get my hands on but, also I was really into the Punk/Hardcore bands ...stuff like The Exploited, G.B.H., Minor Threat, DRI, Dead Kennedys, only to name a few... the totally pissed off, rebellious and "we don't give a shit what you think" attitude really got me hooked. As for the cover song, Morbid came up with the idea of doing a The Exploited cover and we both agreed that this particular song would be perfect because the lyrics, to this day, still remains extremely up to date as to what the majority of the world think of the oh so powerful U.S.A. ...



Do have any political stances?

- Absolutely not, politics are poison, they play the same role as religion a few centuries ago... control/manipulation by fear and lies, for money and power.



How is the scene in Canada?

- First of all, I think the scene here in Quebec is quite different than the rest of the Canadian scene, I might be wrong but it's how I see it. Basically here if you play over the top melodic or depressive/suicidal music your at the right place, as for the rest of Canada I think that a lot of black metal bands almost rely on brutality exclusively. So from our stand point the scene here is kind of weird, but we don't care, we do what we want and thats pretty much the only thing that matter to us.



What are the best current labels you have been interested in and what do think about bands like Nachtmystium signing to Century Media? Do you think this is a good thing for black metal?

- I don't know if it's a good or bad thing for black metal, anyways so many bands are now under contract with major label I can't see what it could change for black metal in general and I don't see why a band would refuse an offer for a major record deal. As far as I know, musicians play music because it's fun and so their music can be heard as much as possible, so why not take the opportunity of having major promotion and distribution when it comes.


How do you feel about downloading and file-sharing? Is it hurting the music industry and do you support it?

- I personally don't mind that much about file sharing, of course there's some mp3 "collectors" that will never buy a freaking album, but mostly I see it as a promotional tool more than anything else. I download some stuff when I don't know a band, when I want to know if an album is worth buying or if I simply cant find a place to buy the actual album. Same thing as tape copying/trading back in the days but to a much larger scale, giving the opportunity for small obscure bands to be heard worldwide. I can understand the big labels/bands to complain about file sharing to a certain point because, I guess, to them every download equals one potential sale lost witch translates to them as less money coming back to the label and the band for promotional and production purposes. As for the underground I don't understand whats all the complaining about, the underground scene really benefited from file sharing, I think that lots of bands would not have been known as quickly or at all if it wasn't for it.



How do you get your music? How big is your collection?

- Well around here it's not so easy to find a good CD/LP in a store, now there is a little record shop in town that only stock vinyls, dvds and used CDs, so every now and then you can find something interesting there. Before that we had to rely on major record stores witch practically don't stock any underground stuff or make a 2 hour drive to downtown Montreal were you can find a decent stock of underground stuff if you know were to go. Other than that I order stuff from distros from time to time and get a lot of stuff from trades too. As far as my collection goes, I never took the time to count them all as I don't really care that much about quantity, it's not a competition.



I noticed that the split with Pagan Rites seems to have a much thrashier sound than
Défaillance Monumentale? Why is that?

- The equipment used for the recording was of much better quality than previously used to record "Défaillance Monumentale", so we had a lot more possibilities to play around with our sound, allowing us to get closer to our main influences in metal. The drums have a lot to do with it too, Zvord's vision for our music was to keep the drums as old school as possible and the fact that it was recorded without use of triggers really gives a natural feel to the whole recording.



How else do you feel Black Metal can expand itself? Has it reached its end?

- Hard to say really, but personally I don't think that black metal has any limits, like any other style of music for that matter.



Do you enjoy bands that apply thrash metal to black metal(Toxic Holocaust, Abigail, Victimizer, Proclamation) compared to bands that have moved into a more experimental sound(Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Peste Noire)?

- Well if you look back on how black metal started, everything that has to do with black metal began with thrash, so it's only natural to enjoy bands with that thrash attitude and sound. I have difficulty getting into the more experimental bands but once and a while its kind of nice to be able to escape reality with music that is totally out of this world.



What bands have you been listening recently?

- I've been listening to a lot of old stuff these days, from old heavy metal to punk to old hardcore. Stuff like G.B.H., Adrenaline OD, Minor Threat, G.I.S.M., Metal Church, Jurassic Jade, Détente, Twisted Sister, Destruction, etc... usually I mostly listen to black metal in the winter but recently the new Arckanum releases really caught my attention and I can't wait for the new Absu album.



What are your top five records of all time?

- Man that's a hard question, but here are the five records that I enjoy the most to listen to, stuff that I can listen to today and still get the same feeling as at the first spin. Also albums that in my opinion are good from start to end.

So here we go in no particular order:

Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
Absu - The Third Storm of Cythraul
Sepultura - Beneath The Remains
Twisted Sister - Stay Hungry
The Exploited - Troops of tomorrow


What is next for you guys in 2008 and beyond?

-Still a lot of stuff to come for 2008, our second album "Chaotical Invasion" is going to be released by NHR Records in October, t-shirts for the album will be available around the same time as the CD will be released. A Tape version of the album will be released by Aural Offerings Records by the end of the year, around December. Also, in September a Tape version of the first album "Défaillance Monumentale" will be released by Kuravilu Productions. Thats about it for releases for the rest of the year, but we slowly started to work on new tracks and planning to record a couple of them for an upcoming mcd/ep or maybe a split, so new stuff is on the way for 2009...