BsB Interview by Vanya Marinova for the international magazine "Brutallica" (25.5.2002)

V.M.: Your CD is in my hands right now… The more I look at your logo the longer the “targetset” seems to be: COF, Enslaved, Satyricon, Emperor, Dissection, Hypocrisy… So these are the bands which you’re apt of regarding as cliches in the extreme music, right? Or maybe the very logo should be giving us a clue of what the Blackseed Boys are backgrounded by?

B.s.B.: Your thoughts lead to the right direction: With the letters of our logo you're supposed to get glimpses into those kinds of music we like and that describe the musical direction of the Blackseed Boys. Of course some of them like C.o.F. or Dark Funeral are laden with cliches, but that's not the only reason why we stole letters from their their logos. Take Meshuggah or Bal-Sagoth for example, unique styles inspiring our music as well as straight-forward stuff like Cannibal Corpse or Abigor. (By the way, is it possible you misinterperted the "L" of Limbonic Art?)

V.M.: As if I see not a Dimmu Borgirous “trace” here??!

B.s.B.: Yeah, the "o" in Boys is indeed taken from the old Dimmu logo, the one they used until Enthrone Dakness Triumphant came out. That was the time when we really got into Black Metal and saw the Dimmu Boygroup with Dissection, Cradle and In Flames on the first B.M. show we ever went to. Damn, that were cheesy Black Metal cliches, back then! Primitive corpse paint, bloodspitting, lots of spikes and ammo, not that kind of decent stuff they do these days...

V.M.: Your humour seems to be directed to current Black / Death Metal rather than to Sliced Girls, B. Fears or My Kill – Jack’s Sin; it was the very front cover that made me think so… Which kind of superficiality is less forgivable (and why): this in metal or that in pop music? I guess the answer is in my question but still I couldn’t help asking…

B.s.B.: That's not that bad a question. And the fact that you couln't decide wich superficiality dominates the mockings of Pandamonium proves, that we did a good job. What we wanted to state with that CD is that both, pop music and cheap Black Metal are basically the same things: ridiculous forms of music that demand distance from the listener. For if he or she starts to take those two kinds of evil music too serious, they might either end up like Jon from Dissection, killing other people or burning churches, or like 90 % of todays youth, narrowminded little consuming-machines, the super- and artificial plastic generation.

V.M.: What do you think about veterans like Venom, Possessed or Darkthrone?

B.s.B.: We might burn in hell for this ;-) but these bands give us nothing. We're really not into that kind of raw old-school Metal, probably because they are "too old" for us. When we started listening to more extreme metal music than Metallica, it was bands like Amorphis or Hypocrisy that impressed us, the more melodic ones...

V.M.: How about the Thrash icons Sodom, Destruction and Kreator? Do you feel proud of being from Germany at this point?

B.s.B.: Many years ago I owned the "Tapping the Vein", but I have no idea where it is right now and I'm not sad about that loss. Just like Venom or Darkthrone they may be good bands in their categor(e)y and have surly influenced a whole generation of good metal musicians (if you consider the Cradle coversongs and the like, it's even our favourites), but Thrash Metal has never been the kind of music we payed more attention to than neccesary. And even in the case we would, that's no reason at all to feel proud of being German. Isn't it foolish to be proud of anything you yourself didn't accomplish or at least helped to establish? I mean we don't feel the guilt of former generations either, although without doubt we can learn a lot from history, also from fromer bands and music styles.

V.M.: What other stuff are you both into save metal?

B.s.B.: There's lots of different music styles we like. Starting with close relatives of extreme Metal we could mention Subway to Sally or Angizia. Then there's medieval ministrel's music (Corvus Corax) and percussion music (african, south american or the like) to lift spirits, some movie soundtracks (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Conan the Barbarian,...) for dense atmosphere and some of the so called "serious" composers for interesting / inspiring ideas.

V.M.: I guess the Blackseed Boys are much more famous nowadays… Have you already happened to receive posts from vexed fans or musicians even?

B.s.B.: That's a wild guess. Are we more popular nowadays? Anyway, we got some stupid mails from vexed metal-fanatics, but if you mean serious people or those whose music we transformed, the answer is no. Now thinking about it, we could send Dark Funeral our cover and ask them how they like it; they'll surely understand that kind of humor. On the other hand, we collected more than 450 "fan-mails" during the last 4 years. That is more than we ever expected to get when we started the project long ago - Thanks to ye all!!!

V.M.: Have you thought of presenting “Pandamonium…” on stage? I guess you and some BsB friends who (might) play guitars, drums and synths could do great job live…

B.s.B.: That's a fantastic idea. We're gonna call up Trym, Frost and Nick tomorrow (since they're the only drummers who might stand at least a little chance to play our inhuman drumtracks), talk to a couple of keyboarders (three our four should suffice) - finding a third guitarist is really no problem (he or she would only have to pracice a lot) - and then all meet up and rob a bank to fund the proper equipment, pay the clubs and last but far from least, bribe the copyright owners... No, what we seriously could do is play to a backing CD with all keys, drums and bass (oh sorry, we forgot to mention those finger breaking bass lines) just like Limbonic Art do, but we'd have to organize everything on our own and keep deep in the shadows, for if wrong or too much attetion was drawn to us, we might get problems with EMI, Sony or whatever lables Madonna and her complices are on.

V.M.: What’s your point concerning the backstage chicks?

B.s.B.: Why not? Although it's more than probable, that the backstage chicks wouldn't stay too long. See, we're not rich, don't drink too much alcohol (leave away drugs), don't fuck around with creatures, just because they have holes in their bodies, hate cars and motorbikes (especially the loud and fast ones all the other rockstars brag with) and all the other things. But if you consider interested and interesting female human beings, that look for other things than money, fame, sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll backstage chicks as well, the whole thing looks completely different.

V.M.: Would you have the guts to send your material to a label that deals with more commercial bands on the whole?

B.s.B.: This would be rather dangerous for us, because all the lyrics and lots of the melodies / harmonies are adapted from the original bands and we do not search conflicts with the big capitalist record lables. They won't have the same sense of humor as we do, you know. And when they unleash their beasty lawyers, that might get more than too expensive for us.... Honestly said, a few years ago, we did send a demo tape with our first four songs to the German label Nuclear Blast, but they never answered.

V.M.: I don’t know if you’ve ever come across the www.metalmaker.net link –I suppose it would be a real treasure for people suffering of lack of creativity, heh…

B.s.B.: What do we have our heart and brains for? You're right, we do not need to feel melancoly, love, etc anymore, because now a machine does the job. Well, I checked the abilities of that homepage and it only made me laughing. I don't know where these ridiculous lyrics come from or how they are created, but in my opinion there is no need for something like that.

V.M.: As if more and more bands insert electronnic elements in their music – is this to be the serial trend cry?

B.s.B.: Yes, of course it is a trend, but since not every generation can invent the wheel anew, why should they not incorporate some up to date technical developments into their music (considering that using guitar effects and orchestral Keyboards was new once, too)? Just think about the possibilities the computer opens: soundscape compositions of yet unheard musical colours, whole new tone scales, speeds and other difficulties that no human being could ever master on any instrument; the list is endless. But unfotunately not many bands use up the chances. For example is Aenimatronic by The Kovenant just crap if you compare it to Nexus Polaris. And on the other hand there are bands that are affected so much by electronics that it dominates their music until normal metal freaks just don't understand it any more (like Ulver).

V.M.: Don’t you regard Gothic music as rather tedious as well? All that spleen (constantly) surrounded by flowers, etc…

B.s.B.: What exactly would you call Gothic music? What about the Dusk... And Her Embrace, isn't that totally inspired by Gothic novels, poems and cliches? We always thought Gothic, as that word is used today, is more a feeling or a style (just like Hip Hop is the feeling and style around breakdance and Rap music). Wearing black clothes with lots of laces, using black eyeliner (also male people), having this sort of romantic illusion of sadness and death, candles and all those kinds of things are what you'd call a typical "Gothic", the "Black No. 1" today, wouldn't it? Well, some of that so-called Gothic music is rather tedious, but as in every genre, there are very few interesting things going on amidst lots and lots of boring stuff. Concerning the question, how anger and flowers go together, we recommend watching Satyricon's Roadkill Extravaganza video, the scene where they pose so neatly with beautiful flowers and then the next minute play the hell of a Black Metal show.

V.M.: Are you apt of releasing a REAL tribute album and, in case you are, which bands would it feature?

B.s.B.: Is Pandamonium not a real tribute album? Of course the originals are mostly pop songs instead of metal, but you see, with Pandamonium we pay an honest and serious tribute to all those incredible, fantastic boybands and popstars that impress the whole world with suprising new ideas and revolutionary arrangements with each new single on the market... No, we will probably never release a tribute album featuring our favourite metal songs transformed into other metal songs, they're just too good to be considerably improved. A part of the Blackseed Boys concept is to take the worst (pop-) songs and create really good music on the basis of their (mostly more than boring) ideas.

V.M.: Have you thought of creating something serious? Something that could be persuading the (bored) crowd that there are people who STILL are capable of avoiding cliches? What made me ask you this was the obvious talents of you both…

B.s.B.: Thank you for the compliment. To answer this question it's necessary to philosophize a little about the word "cliche", or better about the difference between cliches and characteristics. Would you say fast and distorted guitars or screaming vocals are Black Metal cliches, or are they just characteristics of that music? Or think about that question for a while: What would Black Metal without cliches sound like, would it even be recognizable as Black Metal any longer? I mean, every kind of music has its characteristics, you could easily describe the difference between a Bach fuge and a Meshuggah track. So did Bach just use baroque cliches? Now enough of the questions, the answer is simple: It just depends on HOW you use the characterisics of different styles. If you use female moans and a low pitched voice just to sound like early Cradle stuff, that would be using cliches (just like we did on Pandamonium), but if you used those characteristics to express a certain message or feeling or whatever (like Cradle did back then), if those characteristics are but stylistic devices that contribute to an interesting concept, that's (in our opinion at least) recognizable metal music without cliches. Examples for that are Arcturus' "La Masquerade Infernale" or Emperors "Anthems..." .

Now back to your question: Indeed the two of us have own material, but we never had the idea to compose seriuos music together - don't know why. But we work in different musical projects as well, none of which has any finished material yet. So maybe in a coule of years you'll read in an advertisment "new CD out now! Featuring Blackseed Boys members!" (Wouldn't that be awesome?) Of course, if you checked the BsB hompage (www.BlackseedBoys.de) now and then you'd know earlier than the rest of the world ;o)

V.M.: If you happen to face Danny Filth someday what would you advise him (not) to do?…

B.s.B.: Well, first we would advise (if not force) him to take Nick, Stuart and Lecter back into the band. Since these three highly gifted musicians left C.o.F., the bands creativity constantly faded! And then we'd persuade him to write and publish the "Complete Cradle of Filth Dictionary in three volumes". Volume one should contain every single word he uses with explanation and etymological background, volume two all the myths and fearytales he alludes to in full length and volume three descriptions of all those creative neologisms and puns including those in the credits and thank you lists.

p.s.: Thank you a lot for this unique and interesting interview, it's so pleasing not having to answer the same questions over and over again!