BEHEMOTH Frontman Says New SLAYER Album Is 'Definitely A Great Record'

Raoul Hernandez of Austin Chronicle recently conducted an interview with vocalist/guitarist Adam "Nergal" Darski of Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH. A few excertps from the chat follow below.

Austin Chronicle: Are you surprised that 19 years into your career BEHEMOTH is making its best albums?

Nergal: It's refreshing. That's the way it should be. The majority of bands around made their opus magnum in the early stages of their careers. Then they just try to top it, but they hardly ever do. Name any band and you know it's true. It took us eight records to make the ninth our strongest album. It's amazing. I love it. It means we can stay very creative and make impossible albums [chuckles]. It means we're still improving. There's still so much to say. I know that the next record is going to be a huge challenge — topping this one. We already proved ourselves, though. People said we couldn't top "Demigod". Then we put out "The Apostasy"; some people didn't like it, some people loved it. With "Evangelion", people said, "Wow. This is it." No reason to complain, it's all good.

Austin Chronicle: Have you heard the new SLAYER album, "World Painted Blood"?

Nergal: I think I heard it 50 times already [laughs]. At first, I thought it was weak. That was my first impression when I listened to it on the car stereo during a tour. Someone put it on. It was some shitty-quality MP3s. Then I bought a CD, and I also bought and LP, and I started digging deeper into it and understanding what it's all about. It grew on me. It took me some time, but it grew on me. Yeah, it's definitely a great record. It's some of their best songs ever. Like the second song, "Unit 731", is amazing. It could easily have been on "Reign in Blood" as well. I love it.

Austin Chronicle: The new song "Alas, Lord is Upon Me" is so heavy and the drumming is so heavy that the density alone makes it epic, and yet it's a three-minute song. It reminds me of that RAMONES thing that the songs are actually long, but played very, very fast.

Nergal: [Laughs] I like that attitude. That's a song that came out very naturally, a spontaneous thing. It just happened. It just came out and it was awesome. Originally we wanted to do it as an instrumental, because we hardly ever had instrumental songs. The structure of this song is fucked-up. It starts off almost as a doomy track, then it turns into this serious piece. It was killer. We loved it. Then I played it for a friend fo mine, and he suggested, "Hey, put lyrics into it, and it's going to be a great song, one of the best on the record." Then I just thought about it, and yeah, gave it a shot. It's definitely one of my favorites on the record.

Austin Chronicle: One of the best songs on the new album is the closer, "Lucifer", which is in Polish.

Nergal: That's one of my favorites too. I wrote it two weeks prior to entering the studio. I came up with the riff and everyone who heard it went, "Wow, it's amazing." I was like, "Okay, you know what? We don't need anymore songs," because we had a completed track listing for the record. But I was like, "Let's do the song — maybe it's an outtake or whatever. It's a great fucking song, let's do it." Then, a few hours later, we had the basic structure down. After that, I realized it was probably one of the best ideas I had for the record. So I remembered this email I was trading with this friend of mine, Krzysztof [Azarewicz], who's partly in charge of the lyrics on the new record and some past records. I remember mentioning to him about doing something in Polish and then he sent me the poem by Tadeusz Micinski. "Lucifer" is the name of the poem, and I just thought it was a great chance to use it. We still didn't know if it was going to be on the record, but once we recorded it and the way it turned out, everyone was just blown away, so we thought, "Okay, this song must end up on the record. It's going to be one of the highlights fo the album. So yeah, a lot of people point that song out.

Austin Chronicle: Did it then invite fans in Poland to ask if you'll ever make an album all in Polish?

Nergal: Yeah. They hear the one song and they want the whole album [in Polish], but they'll never get it, so whatever. English is the language for rock and roll music, so there's no way I'm going to do a whole record in Polish, but it was a great experiment. The fact that it's so special is because it's sung in Polish. Doing the whole record in Polish wouldn't be that special. It's all about surprising people and I think "Lucifer" will surprise a lot of people.

Read the entire interview from Austin Chronicle.