Did your father and brother ever have political arguments?
Not really. My father didn’t bring politics home. He signed up for the Party, but he wasn’t an active member. He just had his ID in his pocket; that’s it. He didn’t bash Paweł for his views either. Of course, today I know that communism actually meant constrain, but back then I just didn’t give a shit.
Didn’t your brother’s stories incite anything in you?
He was really fascinated by Solidarność, and I cared for Perfect’s music much more than for their lyrics. The sounds, to him, were just a carrier of content.
So what’s the story with you and music? How did it start?
In the beginning, I was just fascinated by how a guy with a guitar looked. It really captured my imagination. It didn’t really matter what I was listening to, because I enjoyed every kind of music.
It must have started with something specific, though?
It might have been the Polish band Kombi. Back then, they were on TV all the time. Actually, it’s quite funny, because I’m friendly with their guitarist, Grzesiek Skawiński, today. Recently, after a few glasses of wine, I told him that I still think that the old Kombi records are perfect. He thought I was pulling his leg!
I can’t help it, though: ‘Słodkiego, Miłego Życia’ (‘Sweet, Nice Life’) and ‘Black And White’ really stuck in my head. I think that’s how sentiment works.
Sentiment is one thing, but if somebody told you that years later you would be drinking wine with Grzesiek—not as a fan but as an equally popular musician—would you have believed it? Have you ever thought about it?
Are you kidding me? I used to pretend that I was playing on a broomstick, but I never thought for a moment that I would become a musician. It was all just a kid’s fantasy. But yes, music did draw me in in a most unusual way. The sounds were like a magnet.
When we spent holidays in the countryside, our neighbours, in the house right next to ours, were a very ‘musical’ family—they had a wedding band. I loved going over to their place, just to sit behind the drums and hold the sticks for a while or touch the guitar. Instruments were expensive and hard to get. For me, they were like relics.
How did you get your first guitar?
It was in 1983 or 1984. I was sitting in my pyjamas, waiting for my father to get back home from work. When he came inside he was holding a guitar in his hands. An old acoustic one. It was really beaten up and it had some black stickers on it that were supposed to hide the scratches. It looked like it was about to fall apart, but it didn’t matter. When I saw it, I was ecstatic.
Didn’t you get bored with it, as you did your first computer?
No way! I would sit on my bed and mindlessly strum the strings with my right hand. They would give off the same sound, on and on. I sang all the songs that I knew from the TV or school. That’s how it all started.
Was your brother as fascinated with music as you were?
He listened to music, but I had the impression that he was totally indifferent to what kind of music it was. He liked Polish rock music, but he also had posters of pop bands on the wall.
And what posters did you have on your wall?
My first poster was of ZZ Top. It fitted nicely into the typical Polish bedroom of the 80s: two beds, a desk, and a board with some banners above it. There was a wall unit set next to it, decorated with beer cans.
Did you often fight with your brother?
We didn’t really have anything in common; the age difference didn’t help either. In some ways I was afraid of him. He was older than me, and sometimes he seemed dangerous. Once, he beat me up so much that for the next few days I was bruised and in pain. Today, I remember it as a funny, tragicomic situation.
We had darts in the house. Our parents were not home, and my brother was sitting in his underwear reading TV listings, so I thought it would be funny if I threw a dart in the vicinity of his foot.
It was supposed to be a joke; I didn’t want to hurt him. I thought I could put the dart in the floor, but of course I hit Paweł in the foot. He started screaming like somebody was peeling all his skin off. For a moment he was jumping on one leg, then—when he stopped—he gave me one hell of a beating.
Did he often put you in your place?
Our relations were very bad at times. He looked down on me—we practically didn’t talk. Maybe it was because our parents brought me up in a different way—they were much more gentle to me. Paweł may have felt bitter. His relationship with our parents was very tense, and he cut them off quite early.
Did he move out?
He left without a word.
He worked delivering fruit. One day, our mother prepared sandwiches for him, as always. He just took the little bag and left home. He never came back. His friends told us that he went abroad. We didn’t see each other again until a few years later.
Were you afraid?
I finally had the whole room to myself, so I felt a degree of relief. We all did—even my parents. Prior to that, the situation was really tense; something was in the air, and somebody had to make an extreme step. Over time, I’ve come to realise that he just did what he had to. Thanks to that, he matured much faster. Today, he has a really good relationship with our parents.
Were you aware of what was going on with him?
After a year, he sent us a postcard from Spain. Before that, he was in France. He had a friend who had moved there. He had sent Paweł a postcard on which he marked the location of a house he supposedly lived in. My brother found the house and started calling—all to no avail. The guy didn’t live there anymore, apparently, so my brother kept going until he managed to get to the Iberian Peninsula.
How was life there for him?
For a few years he lived in Spartan conditions, often in squats. He worked illegally on construction sites, and sometimes he helped with house renovations. But he made do. He wasn’t extravagant; he saved money, and in time he created a real life for himself. He rented a place, met a woman, married her, and opened up a shop. He was well built and handsome, so people respected him and called him ‘The Barbarian From The North’.
In a way, I suppose I admired him. He showed me what real determination was. It might be that he has had a bigger influence on my life than I’m inclined to admit. He instilled in me much more than just the love of music …
Since you mention music, how long did you have to endure playing that old guitar?
I was killing my parents with my guitar playing. I would walk around the house, strum the strings, and sing. I think they felt there was potential there. I tried to make them sign me up to a music school, and they agreed. But by then I already wanted to play some heavier rock stuff, like what I heard on the radio. At school they made me play scout songs, and then I came back home and begged my brother to show me how to play ‘Lokomotywa’ by Perfect. It got to the point where my acoustic guitar wasn’t enough. Luckily, my first communion was coming up.
Did you get an electric guitar?
I got money—22,000 old zlotys, to be precise. I bought the guitar myself—I spent 13,000 zloty on it. I remember it well. I still have it. It reminded me of a Fender but it was homemade. I bought it from Jacek Doniewski, my first music mentor. He had learned how to play himself, but he had an ‘electric’. He asked my father to make a board and the neck, and that wasn’t easy for someone who worked in a shipyard. But Jacek finished the instrument himself and taught me how to play the riff to TSA’s ‘Bez Podtekstów’.
Did anyone else have an influence on your musical education?
My grandfather, Klemens Iwicki. My mother’s family was musically gifted. Almost everybody in the clan played an instrument of some kind: accordions, violins, guitars … my grandfather showed me how to play a waltz. It was the only time I played the bass strings with my thumb.
Thick string, thick finger …
Exactly. I don’t think anyone plays like that anymore. But in order to play, you had to tune the guitar first. I couldn’t d
o that, so I took my guitar for music lessons. My first real girlfriend, Celina, went there with me. We weren’t actually an item then, but she helped me. She was learning much faster than I was because she had slender, long fingers.
I will never forget her reaction when I asked her to tune the guitar. There were no amps or radios in the room. She looked at my guitar and said, ‘Let’s plug it in.’
What did you want to play?
I got chills down my spine whenever I heard ‘Perfect Strangers’ by Deep Purple—a timeless piece of music. That was the kind of music you would hear on the TV back then. I watched video clips on a black-and-white Neptun TV.
They played them all back during the day: Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, and so on. Even on programmes like Wideoteka, they always played at least one heavier song. That’s how I discovered bands like WASP, Kiss, Marillion, and ZZ Top. We would hold a tape recorder against the speaker and record the songs. The whole family had to be quiet, mind you—we didn’t have a cord to plug in the tape recorder. Only later did we manage to get a so-called ‘piątka’. We didn’t even dream of stereo gear. Stuff like that could only be found in sailors’ houses and people who could go to Pewex (a Polish store that sold otherwise unobtainable Western goods).
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I found my sounds.
What was in this music that touched you?
The energy, the adrenalin. It’s as simple as that. One kid prefers playing football, some other likes ice-skating; I liked heavy music. The rest is evolution. You get in and walk into a forest, where, as it turns out, there are many more different trees.
Wasn’t it difficult to get any information about this forest?
There was radio. Thanks to a schoolmate, I discovered the radio show Music Of The Young. It was a revelation to me. Once a week they would play entire albums. I went crazy! Every Monday at 3:15pm and every Sunday at 8:10am I would sit down with the radio on and record everything they played. I wrote the names of the bands phonetically; Krzysztof Brankowski and the guy who hosted the Metal Tortures show, Roman Rogowiecki, translated the song titles into Polish.
It was like light. Something you would wait a week for. I remember once, they played Kat’s album 38 Minutes Of Life. I was disappointed because I already had it on vinyl, so it was a wasted day!
It was on the radio that I heard thrash metal for the first time. At first it was unbearable; it was too extreme. I had to take things slowly. It was classic evolution. Starting with hard rock, finishing with something extreme. Music was my life.
What did your folks say?
They were very understanding. I would come back home from school, throw my backpack in the corner, and put on my coat. I asked my father to paint a skull with a ‘heavy metal’ inscription on it. Now I had my uniform and I had my guitar. I would play it for hours.
Doing homework didn’t matter to me. I sat in my room, composing my own songs and even writing some primitive lyrics. One of my song titles was ‘Kanalia’ (‘Skunk’). I even remember the lyrics, but I’d die of embarrassment if I had to tell you what they were.
The radio I used as an amp was in the living room. It was an Amator 2. My parents had to sit in the kitchen so I could play. The son had to play, so they gave him space. Only when I was finished could they come back into the room, sit on the couch, and watch TV.
Didn’t you want to form a band?
I did form a band. I summoned a few friends, at least. The drummer played on chairs, and the only real instrument was my guitar. We didn’t play covers. By then I already wanted to write my own songs. I pulled the strings. I would say to my classmates, ‘You’re in my band. You play this and you play that.’
Once, the drummer made a mistake. I considered this insubordination, so I beat him up. He went all red and started to cry.
Were you like that at school, too?
I was part of the group that terrorised the whole school. You become an alpha male when you’re a child. But I didn’t push it; I didn’t cause major problems. My parents didn’t come back home pissed off from parent/teacher meetings, so they didn’t try to keep me on a leash.
Were your friends as enthusiastic about music as you were?
My schoolmates were not. A few guys from the neighbourhood liked heavy music, but nobody was into it as deeply as I was. I was in it alone, aside from a few local insiders.
I was immersed in punk music by the time I finished comprehensive school. I even wore the appropriate clothes for each group. I had short hair, and I wore a badge with ‘The Exploited’ on it on my coat. I even bought some old, shabby combat boots. They were fucking awesome. I also remember a famous slogan: ‘Punks from Żabianka don’t drink no buttermilk.’
But you didn’t stay with it?
It was a short but intense flirtation. I felt aroused by the music, and partly also by the ideology—the love for anarchy, maybe. We felt freedom. We wanted it. Then we discovered stimulants. Some of the guys took a step ahead: cheap wines weren’t enough anymore, so they started sniffing glue. I used my common sense. I treated punk as a rival. Some guys went with the programme—school, college, family, kids, divorce, another wife—but we wanted to break that cycle, and metal stayed in first place.
How did you start to listen to really extreme music?
I was very influenced by my friends from the neighbourhood, Daniel Gierszanow in particular. We fed each other’s interest. One summer, after the holidays, he came back totally different. Before, we were afraid of Slayer and their satanic image. I thought they couldn’t play, and I considered their music to be just noise.
When Daniel came back, though, he said, ‘You know what? Slayer is not that bad.’ Soon I concurred.
He was constantly listening to the Reign In Blood album; he had it recorded on a shabby yellow Stilon tape. He was the first one to really fall in love with really heavy music, and he kept instilling it in me. After Slayer, it was Death. He loved Leprosy and I loved Scream Bloody Gore. I still listen to that record today. It’s a classic. I know all the lyrics by heart.
Then it all just fell like dominos. At one of the markets in Gdańsk, some guys showed up who lined up some recliners with tapes on them for sale. I bought tons of these; I spent all my allowance. You, Krzysiek, were selling there too, if I recall. I think that’s how we met: I bought Hellhammer and Sepultura from you.
I got back home, put Hellhammer on, and twenty minutes later, the music was finished. I looked at the tape—it was a 90-minute BASF cassette—and I thought to myself, ‘He tricked me!’ Of course, it was a mini-album. I had no idea about that, and I was really disappointed. It was only later that I came to realise that you wanted to be fair, so you recorded these albums on the best-quality tapes available. Anyway, I met both of you in similar circumstances.
It almost brings a tear to the eye.
You know how it was. You traded tapes with friends. In order to save money, everyone bought something different, so we could all have more music. That’s what we did with Daniel. We also tried to play together, but with time, our relationship was fading away. Then Baal, or Adam Muraszko, showed up.
CHAPTER II
THERE IS NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE
Did you ever want to burn a church?
Yes.
That’s a pretty serious admission.
You take a lot of issues very seriously when you’re a kid. I was completely drawn in by black metal music, for example—especially its radical faction, and the bands in Scandinavia. I was particularly fascinated by those who put actions before words and showed no mercy while doing so.
Between 1992 and 1996, black metal musicians and their fans burnt over fifty churches across Norway. Did any part of you want to emulate them?
Black metal showed up at exactly the right moment for me. My youthful, rebellious soul was only just coming to life but, that being said, I had already begun to notice the ubiquitous duplicity of Christian morality.
I had no intellectual backup, of course, bu
t I could see how mendacious people were: people who said one thing but did something completely different.
That is when music came to me, and it came from the North. That fact seemed only to add to its strength and authenticity. It sounded in my soul, and in doing so it brought me something primitive. It was authentic. I didn’t feel that it was posing as something else, either. It was radical, and it called things by name.
Did black metal offer you something that other genres didn’t?
You played the tape, you read the lyrics, and you discovered that in some part of the world there were people just like you. It seemed like there was no distance between you and a guy from Norway whose music you listened to. He was right there in front of you. You wrote him a letter and he wrote you back. That was the essence of the metal underground.
We were all sixteen to maybe twenty years old. We grew up in one generation. That was what connected us. It was our music and nobody else’s.
Black metal existed prior to that, though.
Yes, but in some other less radical form. First, I stumbled upon Venom, the fathers of the genre. They recorded an album called Black Metal, but with time I realised that it was really just like Motörhead enclosed in a satanic envelope. They never took themselves too seriously, but that in no way lessened my fanatical worship of them. The difference was that these bands from Norway implemented into daily life the things that Venom, Hellhammer, or Bathory were just singing about. Norwegians lived life to the fullest. Sometimes they died the same way. I don’t know how the first London punks felt when Sex Pistols were onstage, but the lack of humility and rebellion against certain rules had to be similar to those present on the black metal stage at the beginning of the 90s.
Were there other people in Poland with the same tune playing in their souls?
There was a rather tight and closed-knit group, yes—and we fuelled each other’s interest. When churches started to burn in Norway, we wanted to bring that to Poland.
Confessions Of A Heretic: The Sacred And The Profane: Behemoth And Beyond Page 3
