Imperial: It had a more immediate and passionate feeling to me than death metal did. It spoke to me in a deeper sense, which isn’t to say that I discredit quality death metal, but at the time the US was really getting away from what I consider to be interesting death metal and more into the hip hop and hardcore influenced stuff that just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I was driven to start writing my own music for fairly basic reasons: it just felt right for me. I was in another band at the time and musical differences already were forming so the only way to express what I felt at the time was to create the now clichéd “one man bedroom black metal” band. Sort of frowned upon at the time, now it seems every asshole with a laptop and two riffs are releasing highly praised recordings from this way of working.

PW: I think it is fair to say that musically things started developing slowly in the States rather than there being a sudden explosion. Would you agree and what was it like for bands like yourself, not so much as starting a scene but developing a musical ideology around this time?

Imperial: The biggest reason that it did not appear that black metal in the States was growing and evolving in the early days is the fact that geographically most people into black metal were really far apart. The internet wasn’t the world shrinking entity that it is now and a lot of really great bands were lost in the ether of tape trading obscurity. For any underground band at the time, not just from the US, there was a lot of letter writing, phone calls and time spent waiting at the mailbox for signs of life. It was really very exciting, especially since I was still in high school and savoured the distraction from the mundane that this kind of correspondence brought. I also grew up in an area where any kind of metal was not exactly a popular thing so the amount of other people’s influence on what I wrote or listened to was minimal which was important for developing my own identity early on, even if the music I was creating was derivative and crude.

PW: Musically I think it is fair to describe your early works as harsh, abrasive and destructive and although that format has remained it has developed both stylistically and sonically through the years. How do you look back on your earlier works now, they certainly still remain powerful and potent and have a lot of admirers.

Imperial: I don’t care for anything recorded before 2001 besides some tracks from the “Tormenting Necrometal” demo and the “None Shall Escape the Wrath” 4 way split. They’re obvious documents of that period of my life and I can appreciate them for it but there are so many flaws that I can’t listen to them without thinking about what I would change. The first album especially, the vocals should be harsher, the guitars thicker. Things like that. It’s appreciated that there are still those out there who these records speak to, to know that a decade or more later things you’ve created still resonate with someone out there.

PW: Back then the split format was a very important means of getting your music released and it still is, helping get attention to not just your material but that of others. For example back in 2001 you released one with the up and coming Kult ov Azazel, I assume you are very selective over who you share disc space with?

Imperial: I’ve only done one split that wasn’t with bands I was close to: the “Four Spears in God’s Ribs” 10 inch. I’ve tried to be selective with who I have shared this format with, definitely. They have to be individuals whom I share a mutual respect with and whose music is important to me, that I could feel proud to be forever linked to even if it’s just in tape or 7 inch mediums. I’ve obviously abused this format in the past so these days I’m very careful not to release a glut of splits, it just seems that the ones that were agreed upon even a few years ago are all being released around the same time now. In the future I’ll probably only do one or two more if any at all.

PW: I don’t want to dwell in the past for too long, there is plenty going on in the present. I did find that the real change though came between the 2002 album ‘Destruction Ritual’ a ferocious and bestial album and the slightly more refined and mature ‘Black House’ in 2004. Would you say that you had stepped up to the next level then and how would you describe the changes between the two albums.

Imperial: “Destruction Ritual” took two years to record, mostly due to drummer problems until I started working with Duane Timlin. It was meant to be the line in the sand for harsh black metal, at least in terms of what I created-obviously there’s been recordings since then from bands who make “Destruction Ritual” sound pretty and calm. That and the “Patrick Bateman” ep were meant to be the end of the chaotic and noisier era of Krieg as I’ve never wanted to sit still with one “style” for too long. “The Black House” was meant to be a different path, as the themes of conflict and strife turned within and I wanted to write more personal music than I was hearing out of a lot of black metal at the time. It’s an ethos that I’ve carried with me to this day.

PW: We spoke around then when I interviewed you for my former webzine Live4Metal and at the time you mentioned that you had problems with being bi-polar and this is something you have not shied away from. I suppose ‘The Isolationist’ is the perfect theme to centre the new album around with this in mind?

Imperial: Since “The Black House,” Krieg has been entirely autobiographical. “The Isolationist” is no different and perhaps a bit more direct rather than relying on metaphor or nightmare images. Bi polar disorder isn’t just a lyrical theme for this record, it’s also a sonic one. The way the album is laid out as well as the variation in the songs is meant to be a road map of the highs and lows that this sort of illness provides on a daily basis.

PW: You do seem pretty damn creative though and not just with Krieg but other outfits who I will come onto. Do you find there are intense times when you are up and think you can take on loads of projects and then massive slumps where creativity is impossible? It must be very difficult to work under these circumstances? How do you manage for instance if you have recording space booked or a show to play and you hit a big fuck off trough?

Imperial: Part of the whole bi polar thing is this odd manic need to start a large number of things you’ll never complete. This all came to a head in 2005 when I ended the band and fucked up my record label among other things. I took on too much and hit a pretty harsh crash that lasted a few years. These days I try to keep these urges under control since I understand how much worse a crash will be when I have too much on my plate at one time. It’s not to say this scenario doesn’t happen or will never happen again but my personal awareness of it makes a big difference. I try to placate my need to stay immersed creatively but at a much more responsible pace. I still have a backlog of things that need completed, like the Apothecary.Sound.Lodge track for a split 7 inch with one of Sanford Parker’s projects, vocals for a song on the new Caina record, and a demo for a new(old) project. But it’s not grown to be too much to handle.

PW: It is a lot easier being isolated these days with the internet, you have people at your fingertips if you need them and all the entertainment you could want ready to download. Would you agree and do you think this is a good or a bad thing? Is it perhaps making us more reliant on technology and less in the ‘real world’ and do you think that if this was suddenly taken away from us we would be, in a word, ‘fucked’?

Imperial: People would have to start communicating with each other verbally and face to face, which would be alienating and utterly frightening to those who are attached constantly to their cell phones and other technological items that society has attached a false “need” to. Christ, look at how much we rely on cell phones versus five years ago. Everything is fucking digital now, nothing tangible or hand made is of any worth. Books? Digital readers. CD/LP? Download that shit, cripple the record labels and fuck over the bands you “support” by taking away their studio and touring budgets. Art? Photoshop. Just a complete collapse of culture and a new impersonal isolation. This plastic existence is why I’d prefer not to be around people, mostly because I have nothing in common with someone who’s more concerned with spending five months pay on a tv that looks a little nicer than their neighbors. Life experiences are now things that you read about on each other’s blogs instead of actually going out and doing. A fucking pathetic way to live and it’s only going to get worse unless more people realize that these are all interesting tools but not proper substitutes for living.

PW: The new album really has an effective opening, the buzzing of flies kind of had me thinking of Amityville and the spoken word passage had me wondering if it was Crowley but I was not at all sure, where does the speech come from?

Imperial: The intro was recorded by Dead Times, a power electronics/black metal fusion from Rhode Island. I’ve been friends with them for awhile now and their music has constantly impressed me as it’s some of the most negative sonic expressions around. I asked them to do a track for the intro of the record and gave no input as to what direction I wanted. In one of the strangest coincidences I’ve experienced they used a sample of a séance for a dead pilot behind their massive wall of textured noise. This was odd because my father was a pilot who died in a plane crash under similar circumstances. They had no idea and I had written some segments of the record about this experience so it was one of those moments of strange providence in life.

PW: There is still one hell of a lot of rage behind things, certainly with your ferocious vocals, does creating music like this help as a cathartic medium?

Imperial: I’m a fairly angry person. This hasn’t changed since I started writing music, it’s probably intensified if anything. You’d think in my old age I’d calm down somewhat but the more you see, the more open you are to how horrible things are.

PW: I have also just been asking questions to Aborym who have done a concept album ‘Psychgrotesque’ dealing with a story set in a mental hospital, there are perhaps parallels with this and the atmospheric and haunting descent into your ‘Photographs From An Asylum.’ Lots of people who are involved with creating and many listeners of this sort of music straddle a fine line between sanity and mental difficulties, would you agree and why do you think this is perhaps?

Imperial: There’s just as many fucked up people mentally and emotionally in “normal” society and culture, they just don’t admit it or understand it. In underground metal, noise, punk etc you find more of a celebration and understanding on a subconscious level of this way of living. Also, to use the term again, in “normal” circles all they want to express are socially acceptable topics-love, money, sex- basic shit that never changes except with language whereas the subcultures I’ve outlined don’t have much in the way of taboo subjects to explore and creates an atmosphere of more honest emotional travel.

PW: The new album is certainly not one-dimensional as far as structure is concerned. You never know quite what is coming next either, was it important to experiment with your sound more here and add different moods and textures to it?

Imperial: I wanted to explore as many moods as possible. I also had the chance to really fuck with soundscape creation since Volume Studios is almost a playground with the amount of pedals and equipment at your disposal, more so than any studio I’ve worked in previously so I didn’t have any restrictions in what I could accomplish besides my own ability.

PW: One point in particular that is noticeable is the harsh wall of white noise on ‘….And The Stars Fell On,’ it certainly came as a bit of a shock on first listen. Is there any significance to this part?

Imperial: It’s the only song on the record that is a re-recording of an older track, it originally appeared on the split with Azaghal. In the original we used an old Sunn PA’s reverb coils to create noise interludes between the songs. As the song has no real concrete ending I wanted to utilize this idea again. Sanford Parker brought out this fucked up pedal that Sonic Youth keeps at the studio which created the harsh wall of noise at the end. The battery in the pedal actually died while we were recording with it, so the decay at the end is the actual death of the pedal (well it’s battery lifeforce at the time anyway).

PW: There is a lot of what I would term as ‘psychedelic intensity’ about the music. This is slightly reminiscent of other artists who may well have developed their sound in line with yours. Has working with the likes of Sanford Parker (Minsk) and Blake Judd (Nachtmystium) rubbed off on you and vice-versa.

Imperial: Sanford’s been a pretty good teacher since I started working with him in Twilight plus like me he’s very interested in other genres of music and that led to a great mutual understanding of what I wanted to express on this record. What stands out from working with Blake is a lot of bad health habits. We have a lot of mutual influences but we also differ with our tastes greatly. However I will say his work ethic in terms of how he handles his business has rubbed off on me and made me a lot more professional and proactive than ever before.

PW: Of course this leads on to other projects. The Twilight album ‘Monument To Time End’ is also another storming release. I found it one hell of a lot more evolved than the debut. How do you find collaborating with so many ‘personalities’ and not having as much creative control as you might do within your own band?

Imperial: It’s great to watch how other people work and to see how your own ways of doing things can meld with theirs. It doesn’t bother me that I don’t have as much control over things, it’s its own entity entirely and each one of us has our own bands to be dictators in. Egos get left at the door in favour for a collective creative movement.

PW: You also worked with John Gelso (Profanatica) on the debut ‘Royal Arch Blaspheme’ album this year. I was being polite calling it ‘not particularly easy listening’ in reality it’s one fuck of an ugly album and a work of pure misanthropic hatred. This was going back to the primitive if anything, tell us a bit about that project and your involvement, are there plans for further collaborations?

Imperial: John was working on another project outside of Profanatica and the original idea I think was to have different vocalists do each track. He asked me to do a track in late 2008, then two more in early 2009 and finally the full record last summer. It was definitely the greatest honor I’ve felt in years since Profanatica are one of the most important bands ever to me and getting to work with someone you’ve respected since you were 15 was just amazing. There is talk of a second album and perhaps some live shows next year, I’ll continue to be a part of it as long as John wants me to be.

PW: What else are you currently working with, it’s easy to lose track? Is N.I.L. still active? I believe March Into The Sea’ are not?

Imperial: N.i.l is releasing a new mcd via Regimental Records titled “Neglect.Forget.Remember” either late this year or early next and are working on writing our second full length “Ghosts” as well as looking into doing a show or two. March into the Sea died in 2007 but I’m still searching for a label who’d want to either re-release the full length or release it on vinyl. I just recorded vocals for the new Hidden record and will be recording a song for the new Caina shortly. I have other projects I’m doing session or guest work with but nothing that needs to be announced right now.

PW: As far as Krieg are concerned the new album is on Candlelight, I think this may have raised a few eyebrows, how did this teaming up come about?

Imperial: It’s not an exciting story. I sent them a promo in 2008, hooked up with Ula and Clandestine Music, and began working out a deal. The business aspect of things is boring I’m sure for people to read about, all that I can really say is I’m very pleased that things worked out and to be working with Candlelight.

PW: I was also wondering what became of Red Stream Records, they used to have a great roster and imprints but only seem to be a distro now?

Imperial: Red Stream is still active, they’re releasing a new Bethlehem record this month as well as keeping their back catalog in print. Probably the biggest culprit for any underground label’s lower profile is the economy is utterly shit and people would rather steal records through downloading sites rather than helping keep labels and bands from dying out by getting their music legally. I’ll say right here that I don’t care if I make a fucking dime of profit off my music, I never have, but I do care if my studio budget is fucked or if a label I’m working with goes under because all these fucking parasites are getting promos for some shit web blog whose “reviews” are a sentence long and then putting the records up for download in order to get their friends “respect” because they have a promo early or whatever. The listener is not entitled to shit just as musicians are not entitled to record for free. Only bands like Xasthur are unaffected by this because they use home recording equipment and labels pay out the ass for them anyway.

PW: We have seen shows advertised for Krieg in places like Chicago and with great supporting line-ups and often keep fingers crossed for a more widespread tour. You have had numerous problems in Europe in the past so is this an unlikely prospect?

Imperial: No real problems that I’m aware of, we’ve toured there multiple times with only an issue in Switzerland. Obviously the obstacle that I think you’re referencing might cause minor difficulty here or there I don’t see doing shows across the pond in 2011 to be out of the question.

PW: You did make it over here and play a crappy little place called The Verge in London with Demoncy and Abazagorath. It was a pretty short and incendiary set, do you have any recollections of this?

Imperial: Yeah, the PA sucked and I blew my fucking throat out first song because I couldn’t hear shit. There was also barbed wire on pillars that were painted pink next to the stage. I was hungover and threw up over the side of the ferry on the return to the mainland the next day. We do around an hour long set these days so the return trip to London’ll be a bit different.

PW: Well that’s about all I have anything further you would like to add?

Cheers for the support.

For more on the band check out http://www.myspace.com/officialkrieg

Interviewed by Pete Woods

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