“Perfection makes things boring, I’m imperfect and I hope I’m interesting…Life’s not perfect, that’s why it’s so fucking exciting! So why make things that are so fucking polished? I don’t get it especially in extreme metal music. You’ve got to be weird, you’ve got to be dangerous. Where’s the danger factor?…I really wanted to bring the danger factor back to our music!”
Adam “NERGAL” Darski is a metal icon that needs no introduction. Multi-instrumentalist, multi-band member, business owner, video game contributor and last but not least leukemia survivor. He is a man very willing to give his unbiased, often confrontational opinion on any topic thrown at him including no less than three criminal charges brought against him in his home country of Poland. Nergal is also one to challenge and confront peopl’es own opinions and thoughts on anything from religion, cancel culture, politics, to war! Never shying away from or backing down for the sake of what is expected of him either by his fans or his ruling government, Nergal graciously and unapologetically opens up to Metal V and the readers of Heavy Mag focussing on a plethora of topics from Behemoth’s upcoming new album titled Opvs Contra Natvram and obviously much more.
My first question for Nergal was (as we hadn’t touched on it in previous discussions), now that he is over a decade of battling and consequently fighting off leukemia, how has it changed his perspective on life and made him the man he is today?
“I don’t think I was on the wrong course before,” he began, “I think I just sharpened my teeth afterwards! I became more aware; it has definitely had a massive impact on me. I believe even artistically when I came out with The Satanist album, one of the strongest in our whole catalogue/career. Afterwards, Behemoth would be going up and up, always slowly continuously elevating. We sped up so much afterwards…I think that I just got way more empowered and way more determined, knowing that life is that short. (We are on video chat, so Nergal instructs me to let you know that he is holding up his thumb and index finger about an inch apart!) I know it’s a cliché “Oh life is short” and fly’s, of course it does I’m not reinventing the wheel here, but some people never realise that and then they’re gone, some people get existential at the early stages, I got way more existential after I got released from hospital. I was like “OK, there’s not much left let’s push”, I want to be as aware as I can be. It wasn’t like I was a junky or drunk before, and then I switched to this healthy lifestyle. I think I was pretty well balanced prior to the sickness and afterwards I’ll just fucking push harder in those directions, and I’m in a pretty happy place now!”
We discussed whether there was a polar opposite, contrary or complimentary difference between Adam Darski and Nergal of Behemoth, to which he states matter of factly “No we are absolutely the same person, I’m not that bi-polar!” he laughs at the thought. But following on listening to the full podcast you’ll hear Nergal explain his interesting etymological reasoning of his two names.
The last time Nergal and I chatted was March 2018, not quite 12 months away from the pandemic for the upcoming release of Behemoth’s previous album I Loved You At Your Darkest. I was keen to know if after the fact, it changed the way he wrote and/or approached doing a new album? “Not really, the pandemic kicked in right after we got off the Slipknot tour,” he said. “We were back home, about a week later the world would just be shut down, all of it! No shows, nothing so I had to cancel all my activities with Me And That Man (Nergal’s side project), so there were no shows, the band was not happy, but I was happy because I was just worn out. But the original plan was “I’m jumping off the tour, regrouping, two or three weeks off, summer festivals with Me And That Man and right after the festivals, finish writing the new Behemoth and going right into the studio.” Just recapping those events I could hear the distant past of exhaustion coming from Nergal’s pores, taking a breath he continues…”When I came back home off the tour and I stood in front of the vision of non-stop work, I felt that small again. I thought, ‘Holy Shit!’ Can I fucking handle that, can I bare with it because it was just too much?…The universe heard my call” (laughing), “Relax, stop buddy!” But on the contrary Nergal discusses his thought process and struggles with the responsibility of putting something as massive as Behemoth into hiatus because of the pandemic and its impact on the world can influence and severely impact the people in the world that surrounds his band.
So now our chat delves into the creative aspect of writing Opvs Contra Natvram, pre-pandemic Nergal continues that his time off was “…a nice reset, go to zero and build it up again…We went into the studio to do some demoing for Opvs Contra Natvram pre pandemic, I had them on my computer and was slowly working with it and then when the pandemic started I told my guys take some months off and then when the fall of 2019 started, it was six month into the pandemic, things weren’t getting much better, we started writing and recording and the rest is history!”
Now deep diving into the heart of the new Behemoth record, I mention that the band has already released four singles/videos from the album, which is more than a quarter of the contents to which Nergal explains – “That is a sign of the times, trust me things looked different three years ago. Still (record) labels are trying to figure out how to promote music. I mean, what should we do, release one song and then the album’s released and then release a second (song)? No one knows anything, really! We were experimenting with that, and we still do and still don’t know if it’s the right thing. Time will tell” Overall Nergal tells me that by the time the album is released there are going to be six singles from Opvs Contra Natvram for the world to consume to which he enthusiastically says “…we did our part of the job, a gigantic amount of work for this album. Maybe we shouldn’t of because financially now we’re not in the best spot as a band. Maybe we should put some of that money to secure our lives, but we didn’t. We invested all this massive budget we got from Nuclear Blast into production, the most costly ever with Joe Baressi (Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains) producing, Bob Ludwig mastering it. Holy shit, months of work, the studio took forever, we’re gonna have six singles for fucking ten songs…that’s pretty fuckin’ impressive but then again our last one (I Loved You At Your Darkest) was very similar and The Satanist was similar. I don’t want to step down from that with the high standards that we set out for ourselves. People kind of expect that from us and I expect it from myself!”
Nergal soulfully and selflessly tells us, his Behemoth legions “that when I make a piece of art, it can be graphic, a painting, a show, a video whatever, it’s going to be me…and when I’m gone…because I will be gone at some point, it will be remembered, so I would rather invest in my longevity!
Listening to the interview in full, you will hear Nergal discuss the possibility Australia will see a full Behemoth show in early 2023, how he wholeheartedly disagrees with so many metal bands claiming to be organic yet sounding so processed and technology based. Plus, the defining processes and creating the sensational released and soon to be released videos. The meaning of translation to the album, not forgetting of course Nergal explains and introduces new tracks from Behemoth’s latest slab of magnificence Opvs Contra Natvram as well as previous killer songs from albums past.
Behemoth’s – Opvs Contra Natvram is out September 16th courtesy of Nuclear Blast records
