Confessions Of A Heretic: The Sacred And The Profane: Behemoth And Beyond

by Adam Nergal Darski

  The forest?

  When I think about the church, I see a zoo in my head. Everything is in order; there are cages everywhere. In one cage there are monkeys, in another there are huge elephants, then some giraffes in another, and so on. Church activity revolves around the process of putting things in cages, of ordering the world by force. The only difference is that zoos are usually quite small, whereas Christianity is an ideology that tries to put the whole word behind bars. Of course, I’m referring generally to all forms of institutionalised religion here, but I can only talk specifically about the religion I know, because I live in a country where it dominates. ‘Dominate’ being the operative word …

  The church talks about free will, though.

  The presumptions of a religion may be beautiful, but ‘by their fruit you will recognise them’. Free will is a clever trick, anyway. Catholics say, ‘Do what you want; we’re not here to judge you’—and then they turn their backs on you and judge you. Then they make a fuss that they’re being hurt because someone has different views from them. The next step is lobbying for laws that are there to impose their own rules on absolutely everybody.

  When someone mentions freedom of belief, then publicly cries and laments the tragedy of the believers, attacked by aggressive minorities, like how Poland was attacked by Bolsheviks … all that just to dominate the people with different beliefs and to impose their own worldview on them.

  ‘John Smith fucks girl after girl, and my religion forbids me to do that! So let’s forbid him from doing it too! In fact, let’s forbid everybody from doing it. Let them all be sad like us! And then, let them thank the Lord for that privilege. Besides, they should be happy that we’re so generous, because Islamists would have killed them long ago!’ I despise this.

  So you’re saying that there is no freedom of belief in Poland?

  We live in a wonderful democracy that gives us an illusion of equality. Unfortunately, we’re equal only in the material sphere. With finance and the economy—there are no superstitions there. And the rest? It was only recently—during the twentieth century—that the world was actually freed from the feudal system. People have been exploited by this system since the Middle Ages and the church was always supporting feudalism. For ages, the princes and bishops have shouted from the pulpits that a good peasant is an obedient peasant. And they were invested in that, of course. Affluent life among the nobility meant affluent life among the clergy. The system changed, the church … not so much.

  The priests don’t propose serfdom nowadays, though.

  But they persuade people to vote for particular political options—to maintain the status quo and prevent changes. To concretise reality. The Church’s structure is based on precise and unshakable hierarchy. It’s all about keeping its position and influence. So you can see the importance of every sheep. Or maybe, I should say, every scapegoat …

  Why do you call believers names?

  How would you describe someone who takes the burden of slavery and tries to force others to do the same? Faith has nothing to do with it. It’s a system that imposes a spiritual totalitarianism. If we were born before the seizures and annexations, most of us would do anything to throw off the chains. But when we’re dealing in the spiritual sphere, we give up before we even start.

  For a long time, religion in Poland has been treated like air. When you breathe, you don’t think about why you do it—you just do it. The church managed to inscribe religion into our tradition—to the point where nobody even questioned it.

  It seems like this is changing.

  Because there’s corrosion at work. The main foundation of Catholicism—a statistical believer asks questions, often very inconvenient questions. It’s hard to stop social change, and people start using their heads. They often turn their backs on the institution, but not the faith itself. They feel that religion is turning into politics. It’s actually funny because Jesus, who was a rebel fighting with the order of the world, became the symbol of all that’s conservative.

  What do the rebels do today?

  They flee from the zoo I talked about before. It’s not the whole world, but it’s a big area. In Poland, it’s most of the country’s territory. When we look at a map from above, we can only see a few places where there are no cages, and where animals live according to their nature. For example, in Bieszczady: there is a pack of wolves there. They are people, who—just like me—love freedom. It’s easier to kill a wolf like that than to catch it because, even if you do catch it, it will die longing for freedom. Apostasy is my ticket to this forest.

  Is that how you see yourself? As a wolf?

  I don’t want to make up any forced or incoherent definitions. I would rather quote the words of the free-jazz composer Tomasz Stanko, inspired by the poet Witkacy. They stuck in my mind, and it’s difficult to come up with something better. ‘I am Particular Being. PB. No union or group or patriotism. I am a Pole, I was born here, that’s the language I speak, but I really feel that I am Tomasz Stanko. I am an inimitable collection of atoms, there is no one like me in the world, in the space.’ Replace the word Stanko with Darski and you’ve got the answer to your question.

  We’ve talked at length about what Nergal does not believe. What does he believe?

  I think that emerges from our conversations. I believe in change and that everything flows. Reality never really ‘is’ but it rather ‘is becoming’. I don’t know how the process started and I don’t know where it’s going. And I will probably never know that, so I don’t bother myself with it.

  Relativism?

  Call it what you want. These are just categories. The meaning of words also changes with time.

  If everything flows, maybe in a few years you will draw a conclusion that apostasy was a mistake. What then?

  Just like a man can harness the flow of the river, he can also steer his own life. We build a dam to make the water flow in a given direction, and I burnt a bridge so that my life would not go back to wrong tracks. I was driven by instinct, intuition—something very strong and primitive.

  What did God do to you?

  In ‘Chant For Eschaton’, I sing, ‘Remove all gods from my way.’ There is no place in my life for any powers of nature superior to men. I absolutely decline the belief in a personified God. I also decline the belief that our fortunes and misfortunes are dependent on some force majeure. We take responsibility for our own lives. Knock God off the pedestal and you will take his place. Deus absconditus. That’s my philosophy.

  Is that why you often quote Austin Osman Spare, the English occultist, at your concerts? He said that he has never met a man who wasn’t God.

  A man created God, and he even gave him his own features and personified him; then he fell to his knees before something he created—as if he had taken everything that’s wonderful, creative and good out of himself and put it on a pedestal, while at the same time seeing himself as a pile of rotten manure. Why? I have no idea. What I do know is that with our attitude, creativity, and expansive relation to the world, each one of us can develop their godly element—without the help of figurines on walls and without prayers to golden calves.

  Pride … one of the deadly sins.

  I was always arrogant and insolent. I embrace these features. Just like my secret love for anarchy and chaos. Nietzsche once said that you need to have chaos in you to give life to the dancing star …

  You want to incite riots?

  I treat it metaphorically. Revolution, first of all, is just a state of mind. A thought that turns the system upside down and provokes, is always useful. It has nothing to do with politics. I’m not interested in coups; I am interested in human and his godly potential.

  You decline religion, but you often refer to occultism. Can’t you see a contradiction?

  The fact that I assume that God does not exist does not mean that I’m automatically deprived of spirituality. There are a lot of things that happen to us and manifest themselves and are not quite explainable by science. />
  The world is magical. As children, we look at it in a very simple, often very naïve, but pure way. We notice the magic. Only later do the definitions and concepts in which we close down the reality appear. We tame it and describe it. With time we treat descriptions as unchangeable and ultimate. That’s how organised religions work. People are drawn to it because they want to feel safe and get all the answers to their questions. We fear what we don’t know. This fear kills curiosity and the will of cognition. I don’t close my door to something I can’t touch, name, and define.

  You take Crowley’s or the aforementioned Spare’s books, read them, and accept them uncritically?

  I am very sceptical. That’s my attitude toward everything. On the other hand, I am an empiricist. I don’t negate anything before I digest it. I don’t decline an idea because of labels that somebody decorated it with.

  What Crowley, Spare, and I have in common is a conviction about the existence of a hidden potential in human nature. They look at the world like a constantly curious boy. And I’m buying that. I’m not running around with a magic wand; I don’t do rituals with candles, and I’m not a student in any school of magic. But there are things in occultism that inspire me. I take a lot from that legacy, like I do from many others.

  I’ve got a tattoo on my back of the whole Hieroglyphic Monad by John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s astrologist. Does that mean I walk the same path as he did? No. I can’t; that’s not me. My nature is extreme eclecticism. We’ve talked about the smorgasbord. This is what it is about. I am interested in philosophy, counterculture, and also occultism, for sure, but I don’t want to follow a path that somebody else walked first. I avoid categories like the plague. I decline all kinds of universalism in a natural way.

  Of course, I read with passion; I get inspirations and I borrow and steal ideas—anything! I’m like a sponge soaking up water. This knowledge is my fuel, but the creator of the system that allows me to live and function is me.

  You often refer to polytheism. Is there a place for many gods in the world, and not just one God?

  I use them as tools. That’s what they were made for. In pre-Christian religions, whole pantheons were needed to explain natural phenomena. People didn’t understand them—they couldn’t justify them—so they were given godly features. It’s naïve but beautiful.

  I’m not interested in trying to recreate antiquity. I prefer to use that legacy by giving it a new, up-to-date meaning. I translate polytheism into a language that is modern and closer to me. Gods are metaphors. Pantheons of pagan idols just give a bit of colour to our black-and-white reality. When thunder roars outside, no one says that Thor is having a fucked up day. The reason? A storm is an atmospheric phenomenon, perfectly described and explained by science. But when I’m attacked by a Christian, I proudly respond, ‘Your God was nailed to the cross, and mine has a hammer in His hands. Draw your own conclusions!’

  Nature versus God?

  If nature is chaos and change, and God is an ordered world of illusion, then yes. The old gods were not perfect. On the contrary, they were described as being chimerical and capricious. They were with the world, not against it.

  Humans fear space and the fact that they will end up in nonexistence, and I can understand that. That lack of sense is terrifying. What I don’t understand, though, is why people are so naïve to think that by keeping order in this chaos and placing God against it, they will harness nature. It’s like standing eye-to-eye with a huge tornado or a ninety-metre tidal wave, waving your fists, trying to show the element that it’s not in charge … nature will easily take care of this kind of thinking.

  Nergal: nature’s ally.

  I just fight sickness effectively. It doesn’t matter if that sickness is cancer or religion.

  CHAPTER XIII

  WHAT LIVES WILL NOT DIE

  There’s no sign of your sickness anymore. Behemoth is back onstage for good. How tough has it been?

  I did it, but the beginning was difficult. We began with some one-off shows in the fall of 2011, then in the spring we went for a bigger tour of Europe. Coming back to playing music was quite stressful for me. Sylwia Gruchala—the Polish fencer who won a silver medal in 2003 at the World Championship and a bronze medal in 2004—told me that when sportsmen and women go to competitions, they are so tense that it is much easier for them to get injured.

  It got to the point where some federations even forbade their athletes from meeting each other before competition, so as to avoid getting any infections through a handshake. It’s amazing, because this is exactly the same kind of stress that I get before a tour. Being aware of the fact that I need to be in my best shape for another month makes me think about whether I can even make it. Especially nowadays. Three days before departure I had some problems with my lungs. I got myself examined, it was nothing serious, but my stress levels went a bit higher.

  How did you cope with that?

  I kept a positive attitude. The first concert was to take place in Hamburg. We played the show—even though I was literally coughing my lungs out before, during, and after it. Then we had another two shows and I was already counting the days to the end of the tour: twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty …

  I finally got rid of all the tension somewhere in the middle of the tour. I felt that it was my natural habitat. The rhythm of the tour straightened me out both physically and mentally. Then one day I just felt good. I started exercising; the back problems that I had for the first few days suddenly let go, and there was also no sign of the cold and cough …

  You’re back in rock’n’roll mode, then?

  I feel responsible for the band. Now, after the illness, I feel it even more. Besides, I am the front man; I use my vocal cords. A guitarist will be OK even if he has tonsillitis, but the singer? I’ve been through times when I couldn’t even speak and I would go onstage regardless. Sometimes I was even spitting blood—my own blood. If we cancel a show, we lose money, and we just can’t afford that. You don’t earn, but you still have to pay for everything, starting with the bus, the production, the gear, and finishing with hotels. It’s a damn difficult and demanding profession.

  So the party images that one can see on your Crush.Fukk.Create DVD are all in the past?

  Our natural clocks are unrelenting. Today, we are more driven by routine. But I like it. More sleep, proper amounts of vitamins and minerals, some relaxation, a nap before the show, some exercise, and then some rest at the hotel—it’s all good! Of course we still party, and the guys can still drink quite a lot. After the shows, of course.

  What about you?

  When I got more settled, I danced my ass off a few times. But I’m a good boy. We’re good friends with white wine. I could drink a bottle or two a day.

  Isn’t two bottles of wine quite a lot?

  Tours have their own microclimate. What you drink during a tour is not equal to what you might drink at home. It’s the same with holidays. You wake up in the morning and you don’t even feel hung over … but if you drank the same volume at home, you’d find it difficult to get out of bed the next day.

  Have you ever thrown somebody out of the band because of drinking?

  No. I’ve stopped being the nanny. I’m their partner. It’s a question of trust and respect for the rules we established ourselves. The priority is the tour, the band, and the show. Partying is in the background. If somebody goes over the line, they usually apologise and behave themselves. Everybody here knows that making a living in music is a privilege, just like the parties after the shows are. Throw all that away? What for?

  What if somebody does not apologise?

  Then the rest of the band straightens him out. But we’re tolerant. What’s important is that everybody must be sober before the show. Before and after that, they can be off their faces. We had such a situation not that long ago. The European Tour was really great socially. We toured with bands that we know and like—Cannibal Corpse, for example. They are our old buddies. For the first few days, George
Fischer, their lead singer, was drinking with Pazdzioch, our guitarist.

  At the beginning, they were drinking equally. I would wake up at 11am and they would still be sat there with beers in their hands, completely drunk. They went to bed and woke up just before the show. Then they did it again and again.

  The show was over, and George would come to our bus again and drink with Seth. He was doing all right until he got so drunk that he shat his pants. From this day on we stopped calling him George ‘Corpsegrinder’—as he is officially known—and changed it to George ‘Shitmaster’ instead. We would make fun of him until the end of the tour. But it was very friendly. We, musicians, are like a family. We can really talk a lot of shit to one another, but these jokes are not aggressive.

  Don’t your groupies miss you?

  I guess so, but I didn’t ever take advantage of it. Touring is hard, dirty, tiring … and then fucking some broad in the toilets on top of that? I’m too old for that. Besides, as I said before, I’m not really interested in my fans from that perspective.

  What about when you were younger?

  I’m not the Holy Ghost. There are conditions that are more or less appropriate for such situations. The latter ones occur more frequently. Also, I never felt the urge to break the record for nailing girls in combat boots. But that’s just one side of me.

  What’s the other?

  There are places where circumstances are good, more often. But we don’t go there too often. South America is a real Eldorado for a guy. Their women have a totally different temper—a different approach to life. There are fewer boundaries for them. They really like to have fun. It’s the same case in Russia. Man-woman relations are much simpler there.