One of the most legendary bands spawned from the Chilean green Hell is undeniably Pentagram. Active since 1985 (let alone almost decade-long hiatus in the ‘90s) Pentagram Chile was one of the main driving forces of South American underground with their primal, raw and furious Metal combining the best you can get in early Venom, Possessed, Sodom and Slayer topping it with their own brand of aggression and sense of riffing. After an absolutely hammering performance at 19^th edition of Brutal Assault festival I just had to take my chances and ask Anton Reisenegger, the guitarist, vocalist and general mastermind behind this great band, a few questions regarding past, future and all in between. What he had to say? Well, go on reading and find out yourself. Of korpse do not forget to fire up the debut full length “The Malefice” as a soundtrack!!!

Hello Anton! First of all, congratulations for the amazing gig. I think it is the best show of the day so far. How did you like it and this whole mixed European crowd in front of the stage?

Anton Reisenegger: It was great, I mean we arrived really, really late, in fact just in time to get ready and we were really stressed out, but as soon as we got onstage it felt amazing. The people were very welcoming and I must say they were a colorful mix which is cool and that’s what the scene is all about. I met some of them at the meet & greet and there were people from Poland, Peru..Everywhere. So yeah, it’s great. I loved it and it was pleasure to present the Pentagram to all those people.

And from what I saw there was even strong Chilean support in front of the stage

Anton: (laughs) yeah, there was a strong contingent. But wherever we go there is at least one guy with a flag or whatever…

I would like to take chance now to congratulate you absolutely ass-kicking debut album “The Malefice” after… 28 years. What took you so long?!?

Anton: Well, you know, the band formed in late ’85 and then we started playing and doing demos and stuff like that with a lot of things happening along the way. It wasn’t easy time in Chile at that point, we didn’t have support of any kind. There were some attempts to record a full-length debut at that time, but there were stuff like deals gone wrong etc., so that didn’t happen and eventually we just broke up in ’88 and everybody went to their own thing. I for example went to do Criminal stuff for a while. In 2001 I decided to move to Europe and around that time it seemed that it would be the last chance for us to do something together again, so we did a one-off reunion show and then we left, but in 2008 we did a re-release of our demos for the European market through Cyclone Empire and that sort of motivated us to give it another try. In 2009 we did a tour in Chile first and then we did a European mini-tour, pretty similar to what we’re doing now. But we played Wacken, Hell’s Pleasure Festival and a few headlining shows and it seemed like it was the right time to put the band back together for good. Then we started writing the material, but it took a bit of time to complete that.

You recorded “The Malefice” in HVR Studios in Suffolk, UK. How was the recording process?

Anton: Well it was partially done there. Our new drummer, Juan Pablo Donoso owns a recording studio in Santiago, so basically he recorded the drums in his studio and then I finished pretty much everything else in England, as it’s closer for me to go to England nowadays than going to Chile (laughs). So this guy, Danny, he’s got a studio, a great studio by the way, where we recoded the rest for guitars and the vocals there. Some stuff, like Uribe’s guitars and bass were recorded in Chile as well, so it was like an intercontinental process, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. It is a very varied record and even though we re-recorded all of the old material, thus the two discs, but it doesn’t get boring and all the tracks got their own character.

By the way there was a guest appearance in the process for “The Malefice” by Mauricio Pena the brother of late original Pentagram bassist Alfredo . He recorded some of the bass tracks for the album. How was the co-operation and what is the story behind?

Anton: The story is that, as you said, his brother was our original bass player and he committed suicide in ’89 I think, so I kept in touch with Mauricio over the years and he started playing bass as well in a Chilean band called Kingdom of Hate and we saw each other once in a while and it kind of felt like it was a right thing to do when we recorded the album to invite him. It was weird because he looks so much like his brother, he’s very talented and fast, so it was like… Wow. Almost like the other guy’s here again.

And how did you kept the significant Venom/Slayer/Possessed vibe that to this day is hearable in your music?

Anton: Because it’s what we grew up with. I mean along your lifetime you listen to a whole lot of music, but probably the most important is what you listen to between your 14^th and 18^th year because that’s what shapes you musically. For us it was definitely Possessed, Venom, Slayer, Kreator and stuff like that. It inspired us back then and still inspires today. So it was just a matter of putting on that mindset and it all came out naturally.

From the original lineup only you and Juan Pablo Uribe is left. Do you keep any kind of contact with the surviving previous members of Pentagram?

Anton:Well, there’s only one other original member and he’s a cool guy, but he’s crazy (laughs). He went into politics and he does also the weird stuff, so… Yeah, he is a cool guy, but it was just not working out with him in a band, so… But he’s cool. We have a good relationship.

You mentioned that your demos were re-released by Cyclone Empire in Europe. They also released “The Malefice”. I would like to know how’s the co-operation so far?

Anton: It’s alright! It’s good. They are small label and they have limited resources, but that’s alright because we’re an underground band and I don’t think we will ever going to change probably, you know, but they have been helpful and the press response for the album was pretty good I think, so I’m ok with it.

When Pentagram originally disbanded in 1988, only Alfredo seemed musically active with Necrosis. Were any of you also active in this time?

Anton: Yeah, I mean I did a band called Fallout for a while. It had a lot of Metallica influence, we did like two demos, but the band didn’t last long after that. It carried on for over a year or something like that. Then I started to try and put Pentagram back together, but I wasn’t really sure. I tried to jam with different musicians and it took a while until it really got off which was around when the Criminal started. Juan Pablo Uribe went more into playing like Rock music, more like Hardrock/Heavy Metal/ classic stuff. In fact he took lessons and became much better guitar player than I am (laughs).

Hahah, well… You are now on tour. Do you have any plans to visit my home country Poland along the way?

Anton: Poland, yeah… We were just at the signing session for meet & greet and there were a lot of Polish people there. I was surprised. I was like “Polish fans? Fucking Hell…”. So yeah, I mean at some point we tried to put on some Polish shows after this, but it didn’t make sense around this same date, cause there is so many Polish people around here, still we are planning coming back to Europe in November and we will definitely keep your country in mind…

You heard it, promoters! And now, for something completely different. The Chilean Metal scene grew very strong in the underground circles with the bands like Perversor, UnaussprechlichenKulten etc. Do you keep any contacts in there? What are your views on today’s Chilean underground as a veteran?

Anton: Oh yes I do because I do a radio show on a Chilean classic Rock radio station. I do a Metal show there and through that I have kept in touch with a lot of bands. There is such a great diversity of styles among those bands. A lot of talent too, definitely, but it’s very hard these days. For some reason it’s like a contradiction. The more globalized the scene is the harder it gets for a band to break out from their local circle. And over there it’s really hard for the bands to get gigs and stuff because there are so many bands coming from abroad, so people would spend their money on the international touring bands rather than on the locals. But there is a lot of talent there. We actually as a matter of fact will be doing a split 7” with an underground Chilean band called UnaussprechlichenKulten

They are awesome!!!

Anton: Exactly! And there is so many more. My memory is shit right now, so I won’t be shooting names, there’s just one I remember which is like Black Metal from the south of Chile they’re called Futhan, really good. There is so many more, there is Demonic Rage and a lot of others. I try to keep tracks, I got a lot of other things to do, but yeah I’m still into the scene.

Now the question that just had to be there: when the next album? I just hope not in the next 28 years.

Anton: No! We will be dead in the next 28 years (laughs). But I don’t know. We were talking about it and I don’t think the time is right to do another album yet, but I would like to do an EP because there is still some old material that hasn’t been revised and we have started writing for that split with UnaussprechlichenKulten and there is a cover track that our bass player suggested we might be doing, so I think like a vinyl-only EP or something like that will be nice. I don’t know, we’ll see. But there will be another album definitely.

Great to hear! So, that would be it from my side. If you have some last words for the Polish legions, please share.

Anton:I’d love to visit your country, I’ve never been there actually. I’ve seen the great response today at Brutal Assault and we will be there in Poland! (laughs)

Interview  by Tymoteusz Jędrzejczyk

Foto Live  by Leszek Wojnicz-Sianożęcki