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But goat rectums are not in the picture?

- "NO! Thou shalt not harm goats!"

Actually, when I heard the story about you and the goats I was a little bit concerned. 'Oh no, what did he do to them'..

- "I don't give a shit if people get hurt but what I can't stand is the violence against animals. If I see someone kicking a dog or something I fucking kill hem!"

I agree with that, absolutely.

- "I have more respect to animals than I have to humans."

For me it goes animal, children, and other humans...

- "I hate children so..."

You do?

- "Absolutely! You know what else I hate? All those Black Metal guys who now have babies. And they are claiming stuff like my son is now 4 years old and can play faster than Pete Sandoval on his drum kit. Like who the hell is going to believe that? And my baby is crying in the night so he must be a vampire. But which babies don't cry in the night? GET A LIFE ASSHOLES!!!!!!"

And they can say my son has been listening to BATHORY since he was two years old?. I agree with you there. These Black Metal people have been proclaiming mass genocide, anti humanity things and now they start breeding, it is the biggest hypocrisy. I can understand the human desire to re-produce - I am not interested in that myself - but it is a basic primal desire. But if you are going to be a hypocrite about what you are standing for it invalidates so much.

- "You have a point there."

Like when Samoth had a kid I was like WHAT???

- "He has a kid? I didn't know that."

He has a girl I think, four years old or something. I also heard that Hellhammer got married in a church, which is another pretty funny thing.

- "What??? Are you serious??"

Metalion told me, whatever that means! (It is 100% sure- Metalion)
So "Nihil" has been out for a while, are you planning the next album or?

- "We are waiting to see if we get the IMMORTAL tour or not. If we don't do that I think we will do a Czech Republic, Slovakia tour. There is a band called HYPNOS with ex KRABATHOR members from the Czech Republic. I sang a bit on their CD, I was doing the Black Metal vocals and some other stuff. So they would like to organize a tour for us. So if we don?t get to do the IMMORTAL tour we will do this instead."

You toured with IMMORTAL several times before haven't you?

- "Never."

I thought you did a tour with them, but...Oh well. Do you enjoy the new IMMORTAL?

- " 'At The Heart Of Winter' is much better. It kind of sounds the same to me."

Do you like the old material better?

- "No, the only IMMORTAL I like is 'At The Heart Of Winter'. I don't listen to that kind of Black Metal at all. I don't like the old EMPEROR stuff either. I like the new EMPEROR a lot, I think that is fantastic. But I don't listen to their old albums at all."

What kind of Black Metal do you listen to?

- "VENOM! That's the shit I grew up with so. I can tell you the first time I heard BATHORY was in '89 only. So I had listened to VENOM for seven years before I heard BATHORY for the first time. And that was at a time when I already heard NAPALM DEATH and stuff like that. So BATHORY never did anything special to me. I like 'Blood, Fire, Death' which is a magnificent album. But I am not really a BATHORY fan like most Black Metal people are."

I don't think you are like most of the Black Metal people basically.

- "The next IMPALED album will be really the philosophy of this band which is we don't give a fuck about anything! 'Nihil' is a dark album lyrically because 1999 was a hell year for me personally. We have been talking in the band and I don't know anyone who is like us. No other band is like we are. We don't fucking care anymore. We do our thing and that's it. And we don't sell so many records either but we don't care about it. Of course it would be nice if we could sell but it is clear that when you are doing the 6th album and the sales are the same we are not going to break ever."

What kind of sales does IMPALED NAZARENE do?

- "For the first time ever I will tell you all our sales. 'Suomi Finland Perkele', that's the one who sold the most, 25.000 copies. Then 'Tol Cormpt Norz Norz' is pretty much 23.000 copies, 'Ugra Karma' is around 18.000, 'Latex Cult' is 19.000, 'Rapture' is 12.000, and 'Nihil' we don't know yet."

It is a lot of records actually?

- "It is not bad. As long as it goes over 10.000 copies I am happy. What is surprising is the CD version of the split EP with DRILLER KILLER. It already sold out the 2nd pressing. It sold 2500 copies which is a lot for that kind of release."

When will you have the next album coming? Next year?

- "We are going to the studio earliest in Easter 2001. So we'll probably have the album out in October 2001 or so. I don't want to release it to early. Our first albums come within a period of 10 months. But I think it is good to wait like 18 months. We are writing the new material at the moment. It is the first time ever I have actually three lyrics ready so early. That is something that never happened before. I have so many ideas for the new album."

You normally write the lyrics in the studio?

- "Not in the studio, no, but I usually need to hear the music first. This is the first time ever the lyrics are pouring out of me."

You are also writing some of the music? On 'Nihil' you did?

- "Yeah, and on 'Rapture' I did three songs and on 'Latex Cult' I did three or four. My music is always the most punky sounding."

Personally I think "Rapture" is my favourite album you done so far.

- "Really?"

I think it is great. I thought that 'Nihil' was good too. IMPALED NAZARENE is a band that got more and more interesting for me, it?s cool. I think the 'Rapture' vinyl looks really good.

- "It looks better than the CD."

I think the cover of that album is extremely (approciate).

- "Well, the cover of that album, people didn't get it all. We can openly from our side say it was a mistake to do that kind of cover, people hate it."

Why did they hate it? No humour?

- "People didn't get it, it was too much."

I think it is sarcastic and funny, it's good.

- "Personally I like it to. But it was a mistake. It is clear that you must have a fucking demon on the cover, or a warrior with an axe if you want to sell to an Metal audience."

Don't confuse them, keep it simple, keep it the same, there's the demon, it must be all right.

- "Like all this Power Metal things that are coming out! Every fucking cover has the same thing, the warrior..."

...On a horse, with the horse up on his back legs, and he has a sword...

- "Like where is your imagination?"

Yeah, put away your Dungeon & Dragons book please.
(A funny thing is that Stephen did not see the cover of the new HAMMERFALL album before conducting this interview!)