FORCE OF DARKNESS INTERVIEW

The Chilean scene never ceases to amaze me. Since I can remember, their underground has always had a lot to say. And most importantly, it had its own unique character, combining extraordinary layers of energy with incredible passion, determination and unlimited devotion. That is why I am so eager to reach for the achievements of Chilean bands, because it is a guarantee of real emotions; here there is no falsehood, pursuit of fashion, just 100% real and heartfelt playing. The hero of our today's interview is the extremely gifted FORCE OF DARKNESS, more and more recognizable in the world! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you this amazing interview with FORCE OF DARKNESS!

  • Hello and how are you? What’s the weather like in Santiago/Chile?

Hells! I am just fine, nowadays it is hot as hell!! We have summer now here.

  • Well, I will tell you I have always been interested in this very particular fact. Some countries has had a long tradition when it comes to their underground metal scene whereas others have not. Just take a look at former West Germany for instance – where, at a particular time and place, there formed a bunch of great Teutonic thrash bands (MINOTAUR, DESTRUCTION, POISON and so on); by contrast, in neighboring Luxembourg or Belgium there were, indeed, very few! Another example would be Norway and Sweden with plenty of amazing bands whereas Denmark or Iceland has always had relatively a very small number of bands. And so, I want to ask you what is so special about Chile (and its people) that your scene has always been able to "spit out" evil bands of highest caliber and neighboring Argentina or Uruguay ain’t… at least from the European point of view.

Very interesting question, I think there are several factors that influence this kind of musical expression_. First, this kind of music started in places where normally there was repression and/or urban centers where a new identity could be generated in order to differentiate oneself from the rest of the population, as a way of escape and expression_ associated to a rebel feeling and the need of a new identity.

In the case of other countries (I mean the ones which are not the style originators, like South America), factors like access and music distribution of those originating countries have an influence, as well as the search for a new identity representing rebelliousness and response to the oppression, either religious, political or social, ruling the environment. I mean that if you live in a society that is constantly oppressing you, you have to react to this “attack” in some way, and there are too many ways to react. I think that the Chilean society has some kind of “psychological claustrophobia”, just for the fact that we are very far from the rest of the world and we got strong natural frontiers (Dessert, Ocean and the Andes Mountains).

When the metal movement was on its peak,  Chile was under a military regime but at the same time there was a strong influence from the USA regarding fashion and trends. In that context, the propagation of a style like metal turns faster, compared to what happened maybe in Argentina, where the war conflict with England affected the influence of British bands and English-speaking bands in general, which to my understanding caused its propagation to be slower and stayed more into “rock” influences.

  • How did your perception of metal music form? When did you switch from being just a mere passive listener to an active musician? Was it, well, a natural process, I mean you had listened to and soaked with music, so to say, that you realized you needed to express yourself and add something personal to the genre or was it a purely spontaneous decision which, with time, resulted in a number of bands and recordings?

I think it became a natural and spontaneous process, I mean obviously first you liked the music and followed it many years to the point you dare try to play an instrument. Later becoming a sort of “musician” takes much more time because of the practice  that it requires to achieve a decent composition and proper songs.

At the end I believe in a constant motivation to create your own songs and sound, this is why there are always new bands spawning metal year after year.

  • How is Santiago as for its metal scene? Bearing in mind how many bands there are, every second citizen of this city seems to be involved in some metal music-related project. Ha-ha. But hey, seriously speaking, is the scene tight and healthy, I mean it all involves committed people who support the scene on a daily basis? How is it compared to what it was before? Is it better or worse now? How is Santiago as for playing live and rehearsing?

Santiago is a big city (at least for us), and yes, there are a lot of people involved in metal, but as you may imagine also a lot of posers, false people and wannabes trying to create an image based on social media and cyber shit like that.

For metal sake I think is better now than 20 years ago in a lot of ways. I mean today you can find several metal record stores with quality and quantity. 20 years ago most of records stores only got the mainstream bands and basically from big labels.

We got a very healthy scene in terms of gigs, and mainly a lot of bands that are playing in the most diverse kind of metal; from death, heavy, speed, black, and everything in between and some of those are very good and serious acts. As for playing live,  actually we don’t play very often, only 3 to 4 gigs a year, and most of them not in Santiago.

 

  • How is the rest of the country compared to Santiago as for the metal music (gigs, promotion, labels etc.)? Is it the city of Santiago which is the most important area?

Yes, actually in Santiago lives almost half the population of the whole country, but when it comes to Metal there are several important places, at least, regarding underground metal. It is a long country and in general most of band are in the concentrate in the center and south of the country, some other important cities are Valparaiso, Iquique, Temuco, Valdivia, among many others.

  • What’s the main difference between metal in Chile and the rest of South America, for instance from Brazil? And from Europe in this context? Is there any point in trying to compare all these scenes to each other?

This is no expert opinion or anything like that, but nowadays I see in Chile we have a great variety of metal genres (from heavy metal to furious black metal) whereas in other countries you only get to see a particular specific genre highlighting from the rest…

I think there is no point to compare, only to enjoy the differences. I mean the German metal v/s Czech metal or v/s Greek Metal, etc.. They are all different and all are great, every country incorporates its own vision, passion, sound and particular atmosphere.

  • Is Chile a good place for a metal band? How about moving to Europe for instance? Would it help as for promotion, playing live or just the opposite? Would it kill all that spontaneity the Chile’s bands have?

In Chile there are great underground bands but we also have a lot of poser shitty commercial bands nowhere related to the real underground (like in all countries I think), but the reason for living in metal may vary a lot from person to another, since not only it depends on your musical likes, but it also, and most importantly, depends on how you manage to combine and to strengthen your musical likes with your own ideology and take it to the next level… 

Lately Chile has become a very strong country when it comes to metal music. I think because in the past, there were awesome and strong bands as well that help forge a healthy scene, probably because of being at the end of the world and somehow, being away from most of the trends of the open world forge our sound and vision… so in a way, that contributes to a very particular style applied to metal.

Moving to Europe would definitely help the band it terms of promotion, exposure, playing live, etc. somehow, living in a different country would obviously affect a band, since it changes the environment of people, so that may influence other aspects as well but is not all written, I mean always depends on the bands members and the ideology behind the bands.

  • Is it cheap and easy to travel over/through South America? How difficult is it, logistically and financially speaking, to fly/drive over from Chile to Brazil for instance, you know, to see some bands play live? The reason I want to know is here in Europe it is relatively easy and inexpensive to travel from one side to the other thanks to no-frills airlines and short distances. Also, it is a tradition here to go to other countries for so called summer festivals.

It’s a lot more expensive and difficult, actually I have only traveled (by air) once to see a live act to another country (Brazil actually), and it is not as easy as it is in Europe because of the distance and the offer is a lot worse. As I stated before, in Chile we are very much away from other countries and to travel by car is at least 3 days driving (almost non-stop driving).

  • In Europe, "cult" would be bands like BATHORY, SODOM, SARCOFAGO and so on. Is it the same in Chile or what?

Yeah, it’s kind of the same bands are the godfathers of the underground metal movement. I think it’s something going beyond borders and timeless classics that will remain forever as the originators…

  • Here in Poland, what we call "cult" bands are such crews as IMPERATOR, KAT, BETRAYER, old VADER or old PANDEMONIUM. How about Chile in this very context? Which Chilean bands are deemed cult among young metal UG maniacs over there, huh?

Yes, those Polish bands are bloody great and certainly come of them “cult” bands, as well others great bands as Exorcist, Magnus, Merciless Death, Mortal Slaughter, Scarecrow, Turbo, Xantotol, Armagedon, Egzekuthor, (Early) Hazael, among many others. Here we got our cults and classics too; acts like Pentagram, Atomic Aggressor, old Sadism, Totten Korps, Rust, old Torturer, old Death Yell, Darkness, Dominus, Inverted Cross, among many others…

  • And beside the above mentioned bands, any other you know from Poland? Any old zines too? How about other East Euro bands – ROOT, TORMENTOR, MASTER`S HAMMER, CRUX?

Of course those East Euro bands are great inspiration for us. I personally really like many bands form East Europe. The ones you mentioned are my favorite ones along with Tôrr, Aria, (early) Korrozia Metalla, Kryptor, Kruiz, Pokolgep, Amon Goeth, Assessor, Evil Blood, Tudor, Antichrist (hun) etc.. Also great band from other “exotic” places like Abhorer, Impiety, Nuctemeron. Pentagram (Tur), Heller, Annathema (ser), etc.

  • What is worth mentioning is FoD was formed back in 2001 but have released just two full length albums plus some demos, compilations etc. Personally, I do like such an approach, I mean it shows you`re focused on quality not quantity and are not trying to catch up with NUN SLAUGHTER, ha-ha. Isn’t it the right approach, to produce a small amount of well-executed and well-worked on stuff, what you think? Don’t get me wrong, NS is a good band, but flooding the scene with plenty of recordings of questionable quality seems flimsy. I would say one could compile maybe 2-3 full length album worth of all they`ve released.

Every band has its own way of composing. For instance, even though FoD has not released many LP albums during its lifecycle, all the songs created since the demos and ep’s and the albums are all different, so it’s been a reflection of arduous work as well. Also we believe that every song has its own aura an magick, thus recording again the same song corrupt it and changes it primal feeling.

I think that it all has to do and depends on inspiration, energies and other aspects…

By the way, nowadays we are recording our 3th album, so beware of this new revelation.                                                                   

  • FORCE OF DARKNESS have, so far, cooperated with a number of labels. Your current label is NUCLEAR WAR NOW from the USA. Tell us some more about this cooperation, I mean, are you guys happy with it and does it look the way it was supposed to. Inform us a bit on the previous labels of yours, DEATH DIVISION RITUALS or PROSELYTISM. Why did you split your ways? Were those contracts "one-night stands" (ha-ha) so to say, or you weren’t too happy with promotion etc.?

Actually, NWN is Wrathprayer’s current label, and since we produced “The Wrath of Darkness” split with them, we decided to work with their label, based on the edition we all had in mind… it doesn’t mean we are signed to that label. We have been currently working with Iron Pegasus from Germany, and also Hells Headbangers from the US in our latest releases.

Regarding the old labels we worked with, we will always show our gratitude for the importance they had at that particular time, and for their support given to the band.

  • I have always wondered why people participate in many different bands at the same time. For instance, does it mean, in your case, that FoD is not fully what you expect a band to be as for fulfillment of your ideas which, in turn, you utilize in other bands, like HADES ARCHER for instance? Please tell us some more about your other bands and projects you’re part of. How similar or different are these when compared to FoD (musically, lyrically etc.)?

Force of Darkness has its own and strong ideology and music genre, which means that even though many elements can be combined for our music creation, there are some boundaries within its identity, and as individuals, if one wants to innovate or simply try other elements in music, parallel bands is a valid option for us.

Similarities or differences? I think it is better to form your own opinion by listening to it.

  • Your music radiates with a huge dose of dark energy; one can surely feel how strongly the band is dedicated to music and how sincere they are. It is not just the stage-related image but an everyday element in your lives too, right?

Well, what we can comment here is that the band is committed to its ideology and its music, and we are evolving along with it with every step we take. Individually, each one has its own ideology, which is later merged collectively. The composition sometimes takes too much time because we need to be inspired to do so, is not just playing…

  • How do you cope with your everyday existence as this existence is of primarily Roman Catholic character? Your ideas and behaviour seem a bit different from these peculiar to the religion of the cross, right?

In South America the Spanish conquistadores brought the Christian faith, with all the shitty dogmas and belief moral systems, but that crap happened in more places around the globe, but to summarize, our culture is a mixture of internal and external traditions, which have been developed and embedded to the future generations.

Nowadays, being against Christianity and its lying system, it’s always complicated to cope with Christian morals in everyday life in a country ruled by Christian religions, and the new tolerant currents that invades us.

Since they’re embedded in our surroundings, government, etc. and they always try, directly or indirectly, governing people’s lives,  normally the best is just to ignore it and live our lives based on our ideology, and practicing our own values, irrespective of what other people may think. We don’t care about them as long as they don’t get in our way…

  • To me, the Chilean scene seems to be adored by devil, no doubt about it! Plenty of devil-inspired bands over there! FoD is the name that perfectly reflects what your music is all about! It reeks sulphur and hell itself like fuck! How do you get inspired? What inspires you?

We are very far from everywhere in terms of distance, which is probably one reason why the music sounds more ‘classic’, and as you say, it’s also to do with our mentality.

The left hand path is much present in extreme metal in our country, not only the devil but also occult forces, evil, witchcraft and other relevant subjects. We get inspired by the darkness as a whole and all its aspects, which encloses many fields within the left hand path… That is later mixed with our personal and collective ideology and then put into dark hymns.

  • Do you believe in any unnatural forces? If so, how do you think The Horned Lord looks like?

There are always forces and entities surrounding our lives and sometimes influencing us directly, so of course we acknowledge their existence… I don’t see the Devil (even though depicted) as the typical image with red skin, big horns and an arrow tale, but the icon itself may take many forms as we are all energy and a powerful entity can always become something else.

  • Well, some form of Gnosticism perceives Lucifer as a positive deity who is on friendly terms with man. Yahve was, contrarily, an evil and sly demiurge, the tormentor of the human race; quite the opposite of what the church claims. What do you think?

What I see generally is that most of these terms  (good/evil  or positive/negative) are used for one’s own convenience, and it is basically driven by one’s point of view – what is good for you may be evil for others and vice versa. For me, it’s all about the energy being transformed into different states; of course, since somehow we got the ability of thought we usually question everything, where we are coming from, what was or is our purpose in this life and so on, but most of the time we forget that our existence resulted from energy being transformed from another state, and we are just evolving from it and after our life cycle is over until we transcend.

Nowadays there are different views regarding Lucifer, “positive” and “negative”, depending on who is behind the relation of the subject. According to religions in general, mankind was meant to serve and obey the god(s), so on this point Lucifer represents an interesting concept of rebellion and questioning and disobedience that may inspire individuals to break their imposed chains of faith and free from their ways of ignorance and subduing…

  • Maybe it is not Lucifer, Satan or any other infernal creature that is responsible for all the evil there is? What power is it then? Or maybe it is man himself who is? It is always the easiest way to blame others instead of yourself, right? How do you see it?

We wrote some lyrics related to this matter several years ago and we have unearthed them for our forthcoming release. The song is called “Genesis of Evil”, and basically it reflects that evil is in our essence, and through the ages we blamed to the “gods” or “devils” for our disgraces, with different names along the years and cultures. I think there is something very real behind all this, and we have been masked it with different stories, names and archetypes in order to avoid our true devilish savage nature.

  • Your mythology is very colorful when it comes to presentation of gods. I was looking for some analogy to Lucifer, the one who brings light (or Satan, the ruler of Hell), but these myths doesn’t feature any of these. All I found was Pillan, the god of war who is able to unleash any cataclysm one can think of, and who rules over evil spirits. Does your culture not feature any hell- or demon-related deities? I am asking since even in the Mayan mythology there are demons like Ahpuh for instance.

Well, most of the pre-Hispanic traditions where banished and disappeared in the colonization process. So very few traditions, legends, poems, and script_ures resist the pass of time.  We certainly have more, but mostly are from the southern regions of Chile, I recommend to check some creatures like Cai-Cai Vilu, Trauco, Invunche, Pincoya, fuira, among many others.

  • What does the moment of death mean to you? The end of our existence or maybe the start of the journey to another world?

Well, death is obviously an important topic for us since it represents the end of an energetic cycle, and at the same time, the starting of another process, which is the rotting phase behind it… Spiritual death is even more interesting basically for its dark relationship with the soul annihilation and the chaos force pulling all the pieces together, taking back everything which belongs to it…

At the end death is something which sooner or later we will embrace, and, of course, the end of our conscious existence… Beyond life is a veil we can only speculate, but I think there is a plain beyond our carnal jail.

  • Have you ever heard the expression_ than hell itself is where we’re now in. How do you see it?

Yes, we’ve heard that expression_ many times. I believe it depends on how you view the world you live in. Nowadays some people are convinced the current world is hell or a test and depending on how you live it, you will have a reward in the afterlife. That, in turn, becomes a massive control system through fear so that the flock is not carried away… Personally, I don’t care about it, I’d rather seize my life as much as I can based on my ideals and my path…

  • Blood has always been a very important element used in religious ceremonies as well as occult practices. It is sort of a "spiritual currency" one can use to contact with spiritual forces; to strengthen the bond between man and deity or for other purposes too. I am not talking about human sacrifices or torturing animals but conscious bloodletting one can do in the case of certain rituals. How important is blood in your religious rituals?

Blood is always important, but there are other ways as well to connect with the spiritual world… I guess it will all depend on what kind of ritual is being performed and it respective purpose.  More reasons on this would be personal, but sometimes bleeding allows you to have an insight to the bearer of life (blood) and to take heed to how easily it can vanish if freed significantly. Basically blood is the fluid that gives us both, our life…and death…

 

  • What is your view on the following issue: replacing ritual blood with ritual art when making sacrifices? What I mean is to use your energy, time and effort to project it on a particular issue so you can achieve the same aim? Blood has always been a strong link between our world and the spiritual one – the bloody symbols were the light the ghosts use to navigate through up to our world. How do you see it?

On this I have nothing to comment rather than the acknowledgement of projection and suggestion based on symbols, which may assist the magician in achieving his or her goals. Blood can be an instrument, but is not the most important.

  • Ok, let’s get back to music, shall we? NUCLEAR WAR NOW did, last year, release a split with your country mates WRATHPRAYER. Can you please tell us some more about this recording?

Hell yeah!!! That split is one aspect we wanted to materialize when we reviewed the possibility to release it with our comrades from Wrathprayer since it combined two elements which were part of both the band’s names, and we saw that we could create something unique when it comes to an energetic manifestation… the result is The Wrath of Darkness!!!

This release I see not as  a “split”. For me it is a collaborated work within two entities in league with the dark.

  • The band is almost 18 years old. A long time, indeed. How do you perceive all those years? Are you happy with where you are now? How can you assess the contribution to the underground you`ve done, thanks to your music?
     

We are really satisfied and proud with what has been done and accomplished with Force of Darkness, and also with the evolution of the band and its energy beyond. As far as the band’s contribution to the underground is concerned, we only have a small idea based on personal experience and from all the support from the bangers in different places we have visited, but a third party involved in media may have a different view… What we can say is that the music style and energy of Force of Darkness has developed an unique match, so its materialization is an interesting contribution to the underground.

  • What does playing live mean to you? Is it a sort of ritual? I am not talking about the physical act of playing live, stage decorations etc. but its spiritual, hidden meaning?

For us playing live is a necessary ritual the band has to have, but we don’t identify ourselves as a band that plays much. We believe it is important to play live though, to keep the band’s spirit running and to share our energy beyond, through our metal music…

 

  • Your music is strongly influenced by hell itself as well as the old German scene (mid 80s). I can only suspect old KREATOR, SODOM, POISON or RUNNING WILD are still very important to you guys, am I correct?

You are correct on those bands as influences, but because we feel that in that time metal was made in a different way and passion. But there are many more influences for sure!!! Mostly heavy metal, black metal, death metal, thrash metal are part of our musical influences, and we could name a lot of bands we normally listen to, but the range varies a lot (among the ones not named above… Mayhem, Dissection, Satan, Angel Witch, Bathory, Sabbat (jap), Living Death, Slayer, Absu, Mortuary Drape, Tormentor (Hun), Infernal Majesty, Sacrifice, Order from Chaos and many, many others…)

  • If you could travel in time, where would you like to go and why? What would you change (in the world’s history) if you could?

If that would be the case, I would change nothing, but would like to witness the ancient events occurred in Sumer, Egypt, Mesopotamia and other civilizations… it’d be interesting to see how they lived and how their spirituality was and what sort of contact they had with the deities they worshipped… I’d like to see where ancient history was lost and the big lie was established…

  • Ok, that’s it, I think. All the best and thanks a lot for your amazing answers. Hails to the FORCE OF DARKNESS horde. Anything to add for our readers? Feel free, the floor is all yours.

Well, first of all, thank you very much for the support to the band. We are currently recording our third album and a new ep, both to be released this year (you will hear from us very soon…). We’d love to visit Europe sometime, so if there is any interest to make it possible, any interested tour related entity may contact us to our band email ( Adres poczty elektronicznej jest chroniony przed robotami spamującymi. W przeglądarce musi być włączona obsługa JavaScript, żeby go zobaczyć. ) or snail mail (P.O. BOX 17, Santiago 58 (Sucursal Grecia), Santiago, Chile, South America) and we will see what happens!!!

SICVT ERAT IN PRINCIPIO, ET IN SAECVLA SAECVLORVM…. DARKNESS SHALL PREVAIL!!

HAIL TO THE DARKNESS!!!

Paweł Wojtowicz & Leszek Wojnicz-Sianożęcki 

Poprawiony (piątek, 04 maja 2018 06:22)