(Today we bring you Comrade Aleks‘ interview with guitarist/drummer Barkayal of the German black metal band Dethroned, with roots in the ’90s and a new album released in December 2023 by Dominance of Darkness Records.)
Germany’s Dethroned was founded in 1991 under another name, Mysticism. They changed it to Dethroned only in 1995 and continued to record demos until their split-up in 1999. A reunion in 2007 wasn’t fruitful at first, and it took ten more years to record the band’s first full-length Bluontrunst. But six more years passed, and now Dethroned have returned with their sophomore work A Bridge to Eternal Darkness.
The band consists of its original guitarist and drummer since 2007, Barkayal, his bandmate (vocalist and guitarist) since 1995, Nebulah Danyal, another vocalist Golzarath, the guitarist John Never, and bass player Corpse. Together, they provided quite a convincing act of blasphemy, and Barkayal has a few things to say about it.
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Hi Barkayal! How are you? What’s going on in Dethroned’s camp now?
Hello, thank you for the interview… The old guys still go their way, ha ha… In the last years we had very few gigs and worked on the full-length album that is coming soon.
The first Dethroned incarnation was Mysticism, and only you were in the band back then. But Mysticism was renamed Dethroned in 1995 and for a short period recorded six demos and one live album. Why didn’t it click back then and you didn’t record a full-length?
Well, in the first place it was a financial question. Back then we were between 14 and 16 years old. At that time, it was nearly impossible to get a CD production without a label. Besides, we didn’t consider ourselves that important. We did everything primarily because of passion and conviction. That’s why we preferred to give our demos to friends or hand them out at concerts instead of sending them to labels and magazines.
How would you sum up this early demo-period? Were you involved in the German underground scene actively? How was it?
We basically grew up in the Black Metal scene. Here in Saarland we were probably the first Black Metal band at all. The local scene grew very slowly. It took years until we had a solid scene with a noteworthy number of metal heads. We travelled by train across Germany together to visit concerts and so on…
We really lived the Black Metal spirit here. Day in, day out, and not just as “weekend warriors”. At that time our whole life was about occult stuff, mysticism, music, and rebellion.
What motivated the band to reunite in 2007? How did you spend the first decade after resurrection?
Until 2000 the core members of Dethroned had always been Corneus (B.S.O.D.) and me. After he chose his new path, on which I definitely couldn’t and wouldn’t accompany him, I kept on working on new music, partly with Golzarath, but we never had intensions to release new stuff. I also was active in a few other bands. Someday King, Dizius, and Scorpios, entered the band. They were really motivated and so we chose to become more active again with Dethroned.
It came in handy that Golzarath and I started to get more in touch with audio engineering and so we could record music completely by ourselves.
Dethroned’s first full-length Bluotrunst was released in 2017. Did the album change the situation around the band and draw some attention?
I was working on new Dethroned stuff with Golzarath and John, while Nebulah moved back to Saarbrücken. Then there was the idea, to do it with three vocalists of three different decades. Every vocalist picked two of his favourite Dehtroned songs and we started to reinterpret them in the way we would play it now. Keeping the old spirit but giving it a new touch. We also built our own studio. For the first time we had full control of how it should sound.
A Bridge to Eternal Darkness was released on December 1st. How much of Bluotrunst is left there?
We don’t reflect on things like that. You’ll surely recognise our style. But in the end, we just realise our ideas, without compromises or even thinking about if it’s compliant with nowadays Black Metal or not.
Black Metal is always about the manifest, a declaration of war sometimes. Do A Bridge to Eternal Darkness and Bluotrunst keep the same message, the same vibe as Dethroned’s early works? What are the integral elements of the band’s sound and concept?
It would be stupid to still sound like in 1993. But the spirit is still the same.
It was another time back then… We had the passion to play this intense kind of music and loved this rebellious spirit. All this Christian shit was far more around than today. We were kids and got problems in school, just because of our outfit. Christian teachers, Christian morals… everywhere. Even most of the Death Metal heads dissed us. No one liked the ‘cat slaughterers’.
Black Metal was new in the early ’90s and we were among the first ones who celebrated it here. We established our own dress code to separate us from all the other dickheads. We were hated, and put our own hatred into creativity. We did our own thing and we did it extreme. No one had intentions to became a rock star or anything like that. We played the music we loved and tried to create our own version of the Norwegian Black Circle. We did a lot of shit, too. It backfired very quickly. Some got lost, some got crazy, some made a cut to return to a normal life. But we’re still there. 30 years later and we still don’t care if you like it or not.
Do you mean that back then your attitude toward the genre was more extreme? What do you search for in black metal today?
Definitely! Black Metal was a statement and a big fuck off to religion and society. No one cared about consequences of the things we did, and obviously we overdid it. I don’t search for anything in Black Metal today… I found it all in the past.
Did you succeed in creating your own “Norwegian Black Circle”? Is it alive, and what kind of bands were involved?
At some point it grew fast. Corneus and I were in the tape-trading scene. We had a lot of contacts with other bands. We didn’t care about genres. It had to be extreme, misanthropic, or at least antichristian, and it was Black Metal for us.
There grew a circle of friends & bands & the more it grew the more extreme it became in the core. We were so naive to think burning churches could be a sign, or something to start a revolution. It backfired during some planned actions. We became the target of the press, self-proclaimed moral guardians, and then the protection of the constitution. They founded a special commission for ‘Satanic crimes’, and finally our parents.
You need to consider that we were teenagers, between 14 & 17 years old. With all that they developed a separation strategy and contact bans. I had the choice of juvenile prison, or moving to another city with the restriction of staying away from Saarbrücken.
Nebulah and some other guys ended in a psychiatric clinic. Some found their destination in drug abuse… Well… it fell apart as fast as it started. But somehow most of us survived. The Saarland Black Metal scene is not that extreme or fanatic anymore, but it’s still a very familiar scene and we all support our local underground.
How do you see Dethroned’s essence? Is it only about aggression and blasphemy nowadays? There is a fleeting feeling of melancholy mentioned in some of your songs.
I think the melancholia was always there. Probably we weren’t good enough to express it in the past. Blasphemy assumes Christianity is still important today. It is not! Almost no one cares about christians anymore. They fucked their children too much and lose their fellowship every day. We won!
The leftover of christianity can’t be compared to the time when we grew up. Today it is easy to stand up against christians, that’s almost just common sense. We should fight against islamists, as we implied around Bloutrunst. We’re here to live, not to obey! I think we did our part. But back to your question… Hate, riot, and blasphemy… that’s what we did so far and maybe it’s time for another chapter and maybe A Bridge to Eternal Darkness is a bridge to another chapter.
There’s a “Colour out of Space” track in A Bridge to Eternal Darkness, which is based on H. P. Lovecraft’s story. Why did you decide to include this song in the series of your blasphemous hymns?
Most songs of this album are about Lovecraft stories. It’s a nice and dark atmosphere and suits the songs well. There’s no sense in repeating the same phrases against religion, war, depression, or Satanism over and over again. Honestly, I don’t care much about lyrics. It’s more about the atmosphere of the songs. If the lyrics nail the atmosphere, it’s perfect. I think A Bridge to Eternal Darkness is a bit more complex in both ways. There’s more space to interpret everything your own way.
Do you mean both musical and lyrical complexity? Was this intentional?
Yes and no.
For the music… I don’t think about it. Just creating music when it feels right. For the lyrics you need to ask Golzarath, John, & Nebulah. I don’t think it was all about Lovecraft, but it happened that there was a red string which worked with the Lovecraft universe. So, no, it was not intentional. But you can interpret it this way or another. Just do what you want. That’s what I meant with more complex.
By the way, how do you like the Colour out of Space’s cinematographic adaptation with Nicholas Cage as its protagonist?
I like it very much. Since he was broke, he finally makes good movies again… haha
Why did you switch to English lyrics with the new album? There are just three songs with German lyrics this time, isn’t that right?
Except the Corpus Dei tape, we always had a mix of German and English lyrics.
What’s your gigs/ schedule for the rest of 2023? How often do you play live and how important is to play gigs for you?
I don’t really like playing live. We played a few gigs in connection with the Bluotrunst release, but in general we have no concept for playing live.
Three members of Dethroned also take part in As Light Becomes Shadow. Is this band active now?
We all are involved in various bands and projects. I can’t say how long they’ll last or how much output will come. We all keep the DIY spirit. That’s why it takes a lot of time to get things done sometimes.
What about your other bands? Do you have to play live with them?
I had a few non-Black Metal bands in the past. We also played gigs in different European countries.
Sometimes I help out the guys, on different instruments, when they record stuff in our studio. Maybe one day we’ll play gig with Dethroned again. Maybe not. I don’t care. I don’t like the spotlight and prefer the process of creating and recording music.
Thanks for the interview, Barkayal! I hope that you’ll have more fun with Dethroned further. What would you like to add in the end of it? Did we skip something important?
Fuck you all?