PEST: Interview with Equimanthorn

www.pest666.cjb.net       MCD: "Dauðafærð"

 interview  by Haavard Holm__   

courtesy of Haavard Holm and Metal-Norge

There aren't many Black Metal bands of today that catch my interest I must admit, but just once in a while there are those few that have the powers of possession that makes them stick to my mind, PEST is one of them. These two Swedish guys certainly do not invent a new genre with their current releases on No Colours Records, but their form of oldschool Black Metal in the same breath as the Norwegian wave of the early 90s, that is rather impressive. I had a chat with Equimanthorn about the bands past and present, and here is what he had to say...

Havaard:  First maybe some have to clear up some name-issues here, Pest is a name that now I know no less than three bands possess, you ofcourse, a Finnish one and a German one. Do you think this is a problem for the band, and have you heard any of the other bands ?

Equimanthorn: I don’t think about it too much, and I think the Finnish ones have split up so it’s just we and the Germans left I guess. Of course it was kind of disturbing at first when we realized that there were other bands with the same name as us. But since we had been playing together quite some time then we didn’t feel like changing it because of that. It´s not the first time in history that different bands use the same name. It’s up to the people buying records to be more observant. And no, I haven’t heard any of the other two bands, but I sure would like to.

Why did you decide to call the band Pest ?

It sounds like Black Metal. It’s a symbol of misery and death.

Pest has been active now since 1997 and your first work was a MLP and CD titled "Blasphemy is My Throne". It took you quite some time to get the band going from the start, seems like your first releases came out five years after the band started...

Well I guess things went a bit slow the first years due to various reasons. There was one period when we lived in totally different parts of Sweden wich made it kind of hard to do songs together, and I think the band was pretty much put on ice then for a while. But we recorded three demos during 98 and 99 so we weren’t completely dead anyway.

How has the bands sound developed since 1997 until today, in your own opinion ?

It sounds like we actually know what we are doing now ... The music have definitely become harder, colder and darker through the years.

Your first fullength album was "Desecration" though, then you had changed to No Colours Records in Germany, which is maybe the leading exporter of the rawer forms of Black Metal. How did this change happen for the band, and do you now feel to be a main band on No Colours ?

When we had released ”Blasphemy is my Throne” through Bloodstone, we realized that things went quite slow with that label, so we decided to try something else. No Colours was the first label that came to mind that we knew released old school Black Metal, and had some years in the business. So we sent a copy of the ”Desecration” recording to the labelboss and he thought it was some killer shit and couldn’t resist releasing it... This far I must say that things have went very smooth with this label, the records have been released in time and he has paid for the studiocosts for both ”Dauðafærð” and our upcoming full-length without arguing too much. I don’t know if NC gives priority to any of the bands, so I don’t know if ”main” is the right word.

"Desecration" in my ears is a good mix of many of the older bands from the early 90s, especially then DarkThrone and Burzum are two names that comes to my mind listening to it. Do you still feel to have maintained a own identity on the album, yet still obviously being influenced by bands like these?

Yes I think we have. But since the bands you mentioned along with Bathory and Mayhem for example, have created the purest form of Black Metal ever, it would be quite strange if there weren’t any similarities at all between us and them. I on the other hand don’t think we sound as much Darkthrone as people keep telling us, of course they are a sorce of inspiration, but it’s not like we are trying to copy them. The main thing we have in common is probably the utter minimalism when it comes to songwriting, at least on ”Desecration”.

Then on the follow-up MCD to "Desecration", namely "Daudafærd", you did in my ears the best work to date with a 1 single song of 20 minutes called "Lifit es Daudafærd". More depressive than any of your material, but certainly not less Black Metal either....

Yes, I´m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. The original idea was just to do a more epic song with a length of thirteen minutes or so, that we would include on a full-length. But since it got so damn long and had a different atmosphere than our other tracks, we thought that the best thing to do was releasing it as a MCD, containing nothing else than just this song. It was quite a challenge to do it, but creating tracks of this kind is probably not something we will do in the future.

Lyrically "Lifit es Daudafærd" is in ancient Swedish... How come, and what is the song really about?

The reason was to do the song even more different than the others, and in some part to include a piece of the past in it. We have made one version with English lyrics as well, wich is included on the B-side of the MLP. The English translation for the title is ”Life is a journey of death” wich pretty much sums up what the track is all about.

The graphical aspect of Pest is very limited, like with most bands in this genre. Have you ever thought to use anything different than the very recognizable black/white covers and imagery for your future releases, or do you think this is a trademark of the genre itself ?

The black and white covers suits us best I think. Since our music is minimalistic and cold I don’t think a coloured cover would be the best choice. I guess it could be seen as a kind of trademark, but then again not, if you have in mind that some of the best albums ever made have coloured and/or painted covers, refering to albums of Bathory, Mayhem etc.

Also as the older bands of the genre you wear the typical corpse-paint. Do you feel also this to be a trademark that you have to take care of for your musical integrity ?

I guess this could be seen as quite worn out once in a while, but for us it’s a part of the whole damn concept.

One thing you probably will not agree with me in, but on the "Desecration" album it was written behind it "No Trends - No Repentance - No Mercy - No Compromise". What I think is that this raw BM genre has now become a trend itself, there are good and bad bands, but the fact there is a swarm of them, and none agree that this is a trend... Isn't this a bit contradictory to the genre itself ?

Yes, you are right, I don’t agree... It is true when you say that there is a swarm of BM bands out there, but I don’t count them, as almost everything I hear sounds like pure shit. Just because they have a black/white cover and a shitty sound it doesn’t mean that they have any idea how to create Black Metal. The trend of todays bands are not that they play raw Black Metal, the trend is their total lack of dedication and their even worse lack of talent.

What do you think of the Black Metal genre of today ? Do you listen to other forms of music besides the typical Black Metal ?

I think the genre is lightyears away from what it has been, and I seldom find a new band that really leave a mark in my head. Sure, I listen to various forms of metal like but I prefer older releases here as well. Things used to be better...

Musically speaking between Norway and Sweden... Who is the better ?

Today it’s probably the same shit, but I think I have to choose Norway as the winner. But we are about to change that right now...

Vinyl versus CD... What's the preference ? Considering the "Daudafærd"' MLP it also has a bonustrack, so I would guess vinyl ?

The vinyl sound suites Metal, and especially BM, like a glove. And the covers look better as well. A LP feels more like a real record than a CD, even though I have to admit that a CD could be more practical in certain situations.

I know you are now working on your new album that is scheduled in the end of the year, where will that album take Pest ? Will it be a musical progression to  what you did on the "Daudafærd" MCD ?

It will take us as well as the listener straight to Hell. It will be quite the opposite of ”Dauðafærð”, which will make us loose all of our new fans, which is good since we don’t want to become too popular ha ha...  We have already recorded most of it, except for the vocals on some tracks, and it sounds like it will be something far beyond the ordinary. Eight intense tracks reeking of really old, ugly Black Metal.

This will then be the 3rd release to be released in just over a year from the band, are you concerned about such a high productivity, that it can actually compromise the quality ?

Hell no. ”Desecration” was recorded in November 2002 (even though it wasn’t released until almost one year later). So we have worked with our new songs ,parallel with ”Dauðafærð” of course, pretty much since then. We would not torture ourselves by going into a studio, if we didn’t think that we had material that was good enough.

When and why will we see the end of the world ?

Soon I hope. Why? Because there is no alternatives. Humanity is a disease that must be wiped out.

Allright, I won't be more in the way of your current recordings of the new album, so thank you for the interview and have the best of luck for the future!

Yes, thanx to you and Metal Norge for the support.

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