Salacious Gods – “Humanity has changed, but we don’t allow ourselves to be affected by the delusion of every day live”

When you are caught off guard by a new album from a band that has more or less fallen off the radar since 2006, it is not only enough for a set of puzzled eyes, but more importantly for sparking some interest. Such was the case with Salacious Gods, a band that during the late 90’s and first half of the 00’s played a significant role in the development of what we may now call the booming Dutch Black Metal scene. Out of nowhere came ‘Oalevluuk’, an album that surprised not only in terms of timing but also certainly in terms of its musicality. Needless to say, I required no more reasons to fire a few questions at guitarist, founder and only remaining original member of the band, Iezelzweard. The result is a nice, personal in-depth interview about the band’s past, present and future…

Personally I am very pleased to welcome you to our pages, ever since the release of ‘Askengris’ (1999) Salacious Gods has been amongst my earliest metal equipment forming an important part of the development of my musical taste in general and Black Metal specifically. But since the release of ‘Piene’ from 2005 was the last thing we’ve heard from you, it was quite surprising that the band returned… Of course I am curious, what was the spark that reignited the fire of Salacious Gods?
Thank you, great to hear that we had an influence on you musical taste! Well, firstly let me tell you a little about the backstory of what happened since the release of ‘Piene’: So right after the release of our previous album Piene ‘ we already had an album ready, but that material was more in line with that album, while we actually wanted to take things to a higher level in terms of the atmosphere of the music and the musicality itself. At the same time, technical developments with regard to recording music did not stand still and we began to send ready-made songs to each other via the Internet. This meant that a recording facility had to be set up. Because this was still very primitive compared to the current techniques, writing and recording the new songs took a very long time. In the meantime, band members had spread all over the country, so that a rehearsal room in the central part of the country was the most logically located and rehearsals only took place a few times a year. Just when we were ready to study the new material, some members decided to stop. Mainly for personal reasons. After that it remained difficult for a while to find suitable musicians. When we finally found suitable band members, we also had to look for a new rehearsal room several times. In addition, band members were injured so that they could not be used for a while, recordings were lost and more of that sort of thing. In the meantime, the recording facility had grown and we have completed the recordings and the mix here. Salacious Gods now consists of Lafawijn, Swerc, Njirrebrod, Fjildslach and Iezelzweard.

So we never had the intention to give up. The sacred fire has been burning all this time and it is therefore not the case that a flame has flared up again because it was already present all along. But I must say that now that we have had a few rehearsal sessions, the atmosphere in the band is becoming more and more passionate and more suitable to start working on new material again.

If we go back in time first and you look back at your first two albums, the aforementioned ‘Askengris’ (1999) and ‘Sunnevot’ (2002) earned you a certain name in the Dutch Black Metal scene. The band’s sound and image quickly got you pushed into the corner of Cradle Of Filth’s and Dimmu Borgir’s of the time, with the laughs and teasing that ensued. How do you look back on those first two albums?
We look back on those albums in ambiguity. We are extremely proud of the music we have created. It is of quite high standard even though we have never had musical lessons and we taught ourselves everything. However, at the time we had no influence on the production of the album and the artwork. In our opinion, both albums could have sounded much rawer and more natural. In addition, we think the artwork of the albums absolutely does not suit us as a band. In fact, the artwork design of ‘Sunnevot’ is one of the ugliest I have ever seen. But musically we are also partly influenced by ‘keyboard bands’ such as Diabolical Masquerade, Emperor, Abigor, etc. And that can be heard on both albums. So we have succeeded in that intention. We were actually barely influenced by Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir because we didn’t listen to them and because in our opinion they didn’t exude the right atmosphere and we also thought they were too commercial. But the fact that we were compared to that is a logical consequence of a combination of our musical style, the use of keyboards on one hand and the smooth production and the slick cover artwork, which were not of our own choosing, on the other hand.

When ‘Piene’ was released in 2005 it seems, at least to me, that the initial ideas of the band came out a bit better: combining melodies with a rawer and more primordial Black Metal sound. How would you describe the difference between the first two efforts and ‘Piene’?
That’s exactly right. After ‘Sunnevot’ we were free to look for another label and we chose a label that gave us a modest recording budget and gave us the freedom to do it our own way. This was very important to us at the time, given the experiences we had with ‘Askengris’ and ‘Sunnevot’. We wanted to challenge the image that had been created of us. As you also mentioned, we were compared to Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. So ‘Piene’ became more of a “straight in you face” record. The material contained more thrash metal influences, and in that sense we partly went back to our roots to honor the music we listened to in our youth, and the production is also completely different. We went to an expensive studio with extremely good equipment and recorded everything in two weekends. That working method was also completely different than before and probably unconsciously a reaction to the first two albums. Yet of those three albums, ‘Askengris’ is my personal favorite because we wrote many of those songs when we could barely play our instruments and because the material is quite close to our original intention at that time. And secondly ‘Piene’ because this was really our own thing and because of the aggression that radiates from it.

I remember seeing you on tour with Shining and Urgehal in 2006, but that turned out to be the last thing that I heard from Salacious Gods for over fifteen years. What made you put the band to such a long hiatus?
After that tour we still did some separate performances. Even in 2012 we did two performances. In the meantime, as explained under the first question, work was still being done on the new album, but things were not progressing well. As a result, the album and the entire band felt like a millstone around the neck at a certain point. It was worked on, but often reluctantly. With the arrival of new singer Lafawijn, things got moving again and things were tackled and resolved more quickly. The atmosphere improved and we felt like a battle unit again.

Now that you have brought the band back to life, I am very curious how you would typify and differentiate the first incarnation of the band and this second coming. In my review I spent a few words on this “natural metamorphose”. A little oversimplified and shortsighted: ‘Oalevluuk’ sounds like the same thing but in a new guise. Clearly a better balance in melody and the tenets of Black Metal and overall more mature approach to the whole (Melodic) Black Metal genre. Your thoughts?
Very good question and difficult to answer. ‘Piene’ is more riff-oriented. And the material we had written after ‘Piene’ for what was going to be the fourth album was more or less in the same style. We wanted to go in a different direction which, in our view, was more dark and in which the atmosphere would again be more important, just as it played an important role in our music on ‘askengris’ and ‘Sunnevot’. So we rejected that material and started writing new material all over again. This has become ‘Oalevluuk’. I was the main composer and lyricist on all albums. So in that sense not much has changed on ‘Oalevluuk’ compared to the previous albums. And I think that the musical structures of ‘Oalevluuk’ have more similarities with ‘Askengris’ than with ‘Piene’. In my opinion, ‘Piene’ is the oddball out of the four albums. The previous line-up remained together until a few years after the release of ‘Piene’. Only drummer Fjildslach remains from that time. After years of working together that line-up was a close-knit group of personal friends. When the former members quit, it was a huge loss. Perhaps unconsciously it took a while before we were mentally ready to fight forward again. The new band members are very experienced musicians who have made their mark in the black metal scene. This makes everything easier. Some of them have been in the band for years now and slowly the right feeling is starting to return. So you are right about it being a natural metamorphosis. But the metamorphosis is taking a long time and is not yet complete. That will only be completed after the next album. Then the new members have been able to make their own contribution and only then will Salacious Gods be a completely new band.

As a whole ‘Oalevluuk’ on the one hand sounds quite refreshing but it seems to fit pretty well into nowadays Black Metal scene. The album offers quite some intricate song-structures as well as the occasional contrarian riff, something that has been omnipresent in contemporary Black Metal. A striking change. Might this have to do with a shifted personal taste and outlook on the Black Metal genre?
That is not how we experience it. The material for ‘Oalevluuk’ was written around 2007 to 2010. It was not written with the intention of being modern or keeping up with trends. But precisely to make a black metal album the way we think it should sound. It may sound outdated to some, but that does not bother us at all and is actually correct because it was written years ago. We did look for new sounds, rhythms and chords, in which Swerc in particular played a role in supplementing the rhythm guitars. The strange transitions and bar changes were also present on previous albums. We do not want to stand still and develop ourselves, but at the same time operate within the framework of what we consider black metal. Compositionally speaking, we also partly return to the material on ‘Akengris’. Very sporadic keyboards are also incorporated again. So we don’t feel like much has actually changed. We are curious to see how the material we write from now on will turn out.

With the passing of time everything changes, a concept that always fascinates me. when it comes to music, musicians getting older is something that brings out the best in them, or it exposes that they can’t keep up with the speed of life and time. How would you compare yourself as you are now to the person you were in the early years when you started the band, and how does this reflect in the music you write today?
I haven’t changed at all. Of course there have been tragedies in my life and you learn from all your experiences, but the core remains the same for me. Some people feel the need to adjust their life path after certain events with major twists and turns and to take an occasional different direction. I prefer to keep my path as straight and clean as possible by tweaking a few little things every now and then. I often have the feeling that I’m on the inside looking out to the mess others are in. That’s why the band’s metamorphosis isn’t complete yet. I’ve been the lead songwriter on every album so far. It may well be that this will change from now on. This is also because the new members are very well versed musically and also have the right “black metal mentality”. From now on I can perhaps outsource more, seek more cooperation and let the course take it’s flow. So perhaps something will change in that sense.

Picking up on the previous question as well as on the question about your first two albums. Although Salacious Gods have not been active for a long time, you have always stayed in touch with “the scene”. How would you compare the scene of those late 90’s/early 00’s with how you experience it today?
We also have discussions about this in the band. Everything in the black metal scene used to have a mysterious and dark edge. Unfortunately, that feeling has disappeared. Every now and then there is a band or a festival that evokes that old feeling again, but that is sporadic. The entire society has also changed for the worse. However, this has no effect on us. We still act and think the same as 30 years ago. Humanity has also changed. People are mentally weaker and are more easily fooled. The backbone of the majority of people has disappeared. Without wanting to claim that we have the wisdom, but most of what has happened in the last 10 to 20 years we saw coming. We don’t participate in that, we don’t allow ourselves to be affected by the delusion of every day live. When you do that you can keep on doing that endlessly but that makes no sense. Just hold your ground and respect your ancestors, origins, culture and your own religion. The mysteriousness of the black metal scene has also been lost. In the early ’90s, it was new, dark and mysterious. But as you dig deeper into it and get to know more people in the scene, that gets lost. That is also one of the reasons that we are conservative and stick to the traditional form of black metal. We don’t feel the need to be original and we stick to the nostalgic, grim and dark feeling it gave us from the start.

Also the way a band has to promote themselves changed. Everything is less underground and more in the open. And in the open you can’t hide things form the light. And thus you can’t fully express your darkest art as a band. I have a lot of respect for the bigger bands because it takes so much more time and effort now to promote yourself as a band. On the other hand, the black metal genre is not really meant for presenting yourself as a band in a commercial way. When we were still looking for a label, our only goal was to release the album. We hadn’t considered promoting the album at all. But now that we are with a good label, all kinds of promotional things are asked of us and that motivates us to pick up the hatchet again. But the time when you simply release an album, do some interviews and sell some merchandise is over. So much more is expected from a band. In addition, there are countless bands that consist of 1 or 2 band members who only exist by placing something digitally on the internet. Such bands often make good black metal but don’t have to worry about whether what they make can be reproduced live and also don’t have to find band members or practice in a rehearsal room. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a bloodletting.

Recently you have picked five albums that were influential to you as a musician. Apart from a few more obvious choices like Samael (‘Worship Him’) and Satyricon (‘The Shadowthrone’) – which, by the way, seems to confirm my contention that the Salacious Gods formula consists of a good mix between the basics of Black Metal and its melody. The (good!) choices of Acheron (‘Rites Of The Black Mass’) and Diabolical Masquerade (‘The Phantom Lodge’) surprised me. Of course, I won’t ask you to repeat your words from the Hammerheart article, but I am curious to know how and in what you yourself think the influences of Acheron and Diabolical Masquerade can be heard.
As mentioned in that article, Acheron’s album is not a direct musical influence on our own material, but during our first performances we covered ‘To thee we Confess’ from Acheron’s album ‘Rites of the Black Mass’. At the time it was one of the darkest albums we knew and that we were musically capable of playing. More or less coincidentally, years later I ended up in a band with Vincent Crowley (Infidel Reich) and we are on the same label with our other bands. Diabolical Masquerade seems more obvious to me. Keyboard oriented black metal with heavy and thrash metal influences. That’s what we also did in the beginning. I find Diabolical Masquerade much more creative than most such bands from that time. Blackheim is also one of the most creative guitarists as far as I’m concerned.

Not surprisingly, after so many years of hibernation, the band has undergone a number of line-up changes. To the outsider, the most obvious one is of course the new vocalist, Lafawijn, whom we previously heard with Orewoet, among others. Has this new blood also contributed to Salacious Gods’ renewed and refreshed sound?
Yes indeed. His voice is more grim than Steakelhorn’s. So his voice, for me at least, summons more feelings of an occult frenzy. And since he is considerably younger than I am, he also has other musical influences. He’s crazy about Finnish bands. It is not without reason that he is also the frontman of Iku-Turso. He also has a fresh view on the scene and black metal as a whole, but an aversion to ‘modernity and trends’. Perhaps we can expect a different lyrical approach from him for upcoming material.

It’s no secret that you draw inspiration from local tales and also use your own local language/dialect. Can you tell us something about the conceptual content of ‘Oalevluuk’?
One of the reasons why the new album is called ‘ Oalevluuk ‘: it is Drentsch (an obscure Dutch dialect that we speak) for ‘old curse’. It stands for throwing off events that were against us and people who were ill-disposed towards us. Shedding old burdens (curse) and blazing your own path. The cover design also represents this: a transformation to a new identity which also counts for us as a band and as individuals. Allowing the most evil and dark part of your personality to triumph through self-reflection. This process of transformation often goes through several stages: sometimes symbolic, sometimes physical. By acquiring knowledge in different ways, by simply reading books or a period of fasting’, staying in nature for a while or having ritualistic sex. Sometimes letting your anger stir up or by consciously undergoing pain. Anything to come out better on the other side. Rituals do not always have to be taken literally. It can also represent a learning process or an awakening and realization. But it can also be a literal ritual of worship for spiritual and mind-expanding benefit. The album is not a concept album in the true sense of the word, but the songs all have a strong connection with each other. The theme of the curse and ritualistic transformation process returns in one form or another in every song. In addition, we see the album as a whole as a work of art in its own right. On this album we did not draw inspiration from local tales and myth’s but more from our own experiences, fantasies and dreams.

We used the Drentsch dialect on every album. This came forth out of chauvinism. In addition, it conveys emotions much more intensively because it is the language in which you also think and feel. I think we were at least the first and may still be the only Drenthe speaking metal band. Texts in Dutch were already done by Sammath.

I guess I will not have been the only one that has been surprised by your sudden return, but in the short conversation leading up to this interview you told me that you have been working on new music for a while and ‘Oalevluuk’ is already old and even called it “dated”. That means you have again been able to push the ‘old’ Salacious Gods formula to new dimensions, what can we expect from the successor to ‘Oalevluuk’?
The next album will be called ‘Kwelhekse’. There is new music on the shelves, but it is mainly different riffs and ideas. We want to give the guitars more layers and make the guitar sound grittier. As far as the drums are concerned, we want to do more with percussive drums. There are also ideas to start working more with keyboards again. Not in the excess as on the first two albums, but more like we have now done on songs like ‘Bloedkloete’ and ‘Morbid revelations in blood and semen’. We also have an older song of about 12 minutes that we like to rearrange. Besides that Njirrebrod, our other guitarist has a different style of playing then I do and we like to incorporate our styles together. Before we do a new album we first want to prepare 2 songs and release them as a split or EP together with a song that we often play live but that has never been recorded.

In that same conversation you referred to ‘Oalevluuk’ as being the runner up to the next album, this implied that new material is ready. Of course, ‘Oalevluuk’ is just off the press and is even still warm… It’s almost premature to ask, but I’m curious anyway: when can we expect you back? Hopefully it won’t take many years again?
Hopefully the aforementioned EP or split will happen in the beginning of next year.

And while we’re at it, it’s also been eerily quiet around your other band, Lugubre, for more than a decade. Can you report any news about that?
In Lugubre, Striid is the main songwriter. We have been urging him to come up with new material. But so far it didn’t happen. He is also busy with other projects and bands. So the same thing counts for Lugubre: the time has to be right.

Okay Iezelzweard, I was finally able to ask some questions that had been on my mind for years, so thank you for your time and valuable insight. I would like to give you the honour of closing the interview with a few final words…
Thank you for your support!!