Conducted by Robert Mallett
In the 1970s, key Punk artists like the Stooges, the MC5, the Ramones, the Damned, the Adverts, Wire, and later Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys laid the blueprint for a sonic revolution rooted in rebellion and a steadfast rejection of conservative societal norms. The shock to both mainstream society and the lazy, smug, fat corporate music business was total. And, far from being a fashion or a fad destined to die out, Punk persisted and morphed into a range of diverse genres and subgenres.
The first wave of Black Metal oozed the aggressive, angry vibe of Punk’s ongoing impact. Venom (Rest in Chaos Cronos), Hellhammer and Bathory were driven and motivated by the primal aggression of punk and fused this brutal energy with Thrash, Heavy Metal and a Satanic ethos that eventually spawned the seismic wave of the next Black Metal onslaught in Scandinavia. Just listen to early Mayhem, Darkthrone or Carpathian Forest, and it is right in your face. Fast, furious, potent punk energy delivering the fist of Satan into bourgeois society’s precious, cosy worldview.
It is the brutal honesty of this music and the way of life that accompanies it that has resulted in Black Metal not only enduring for over 40 years but growing and evolving into a plethora of different forms. But whatever directions Black Metal may have taken, from Atmospheric to Progressive to Post Black Metal, Black Metal punk is the rawest continuation of that original lineage. It strips away all sophistication, keeping the music anchored by a primitive, ultra-violent core. It is feral, street-level, nasty, the sonic equivalent of a blood-spattered devilish sigil carved into urban concrete. If Black Metal in its purest form is the forest night ritual, Black Metal Punk is the knife ritual delivered venomously in a seedy back alley behind the temple.
POX, formed in Flanders, Belgium back in 2014, are archetypal exponents of raw, boot to the bollocks Black Metal Punk. Since their early days, they have remained fiercely underground with a stated mission to create “the foulest, most rancid, vintage as fuck black metal possible.”
We caught up with the band in the wake of the release of their recent BKW: Brass Knuckle Witchcraft EP to talk about eerie witchcraft and being like the dead.
How did POX start, and what were the ideas behind the band then?
The actual roots of POX reach back two decades or so, to an, in hindsight, weird and epic past. From that point on, through the stillbirth of POX in 2014, and up until now, the main purpose has always been straightforward and clear-cut: to create the most rancid and eerie black metal possible; completely detached from any so-called “scene” and unaware of all prevailing tastes and trends. Retrograde, primitive, stripped-down aural filth – all probably very unsuited for these modern days with their modern ways.
To what extent does Black Metal inspire and motivate POX? Which bands in particular influenced you?
Loads of different bands have inspired different musicians in POX. Obviously, a lot of those bands have been black metal bands, but not all of them were. There is unmistakably a wild, rocking punk touch to our sound, or perhaps even a neanderthal heavy metal-ish element – depending on the subjective eye of the beholder/ear of the listener. So the range of so-called “influential bands” is pretty wide. You might not hear direct, one-on-one musical influences from them, but bands and albums like this rank pretty high in our list: Denial of God, Pest (by chance, all of them), Mortuary, the vintage Ancient Rites stuff, Gorgoroth’s Pentagram and Antichrist, Live by the Sword, The Corps (Aus), etc.
You’ve released some excellent aggressive recordings since you started; how do you write and how do you get that intense sound?
As through the years we have had more members than your average brass big band, the ways in which we write music have evolved as well. Back in the day, we rehearsed every two weeks or so, in one of those rehearsal spaces with empty beer bottles all over the place and old posters from Ablaze Magazine (yes – also the vintage Gorgoroth-one) stapled to the walls. In those days, songs grew organically (and very, very slowly). Nowadays, it’s more of an online operation with sparse but well-spent rehearsals.
That sound? Quite simple: we enter Studio Hearse, have a sit-down with Master of Ceremony Lander, play him a couple of example tracks, et voilà. The man perfectly knows how to find the aural balance between relentless power and utter disgust.
Why do you think the Black Metal Punk scene has taken off in the way it has? Who are the key bands in your opinion?
In those old Bathory interviews, Quorthon always stated that he was a lot more influenced by d-beat punk bands like Discharge or GBH than by classic metal bands. Early Venom had a lot of rough, punky influences. So basically this “black metal punk”-thing has been at the core of the whole genre from the very beginning. During the 1990s, the Scandinavian style with corpse paint, blast beats, and tremolo-riffing became the standard. Obviously, that led to a total degeneration of black metal which, in its own turn, might have kickstarted a renewed interest in thrash and punk elements as a back-to-basics response. Is all of this sociologically sound enough for your magazine?
I don’t know if these are “key bands” … But Hagzissa and Kringa have a definite punk allure to what they do. That first EP from Ildjarn-Nidhogg was a classic, back then. We can appreciate the raw, punk-style touches in bands like Horned Almighty, Necromessiah or Morbid Slaughter. Somewhat closer to home, Grafjammer might be interesting. And, on a slightly different level, there is the almighty Tabula Rasa. There is plenty more; just look for yourself. You lazy fucker.
What is your vision of current human society? How much longer can it exist in its current form?
Humans seem to have the incredible capacity of being able to lower the bar endlessly. Every time you think “okay this is it – we have hit rock bottom,” some cunt brings out an industrial drill and goes right through the rock to even deeper depths. I suppose you expect me to say that human society will soon explode, and all sorts of dramatic change will happen. In reality, I think the majority of people do not give a single fuck. As long as they can doomscroll their lives away, and they have their daily portion of processed food, all is well, and everything will keep on turning. Every now and then there might be a new little scandal, but people’s attention spans are too short to remember those for longer than a few days.
Luckily – there are, and will remain, small sparks of resistance. Let us cling to these. Because every fire needs a spark.
How influenced are you by Witchcraft, is it a big part of your life?
I prefer to answer this solely for the musical side of things.
A person for whom I have the utmost respect (but who sadly passed away earlier this year), once told me: “It is not enough to sing about the dead. When you do that, you have to BE like the dead.” It is a statement I can totally relate to. It is also the reason why black metal differs, or better: SHOULD differ, from most other musical genres. It requires a certain state of mind, especially when it comes to concerts and recording sessions. Undoubtedly, to a degree there will always be a Dionysian aspect to the whole thing – but in the case of POX, eerie witchcraft is fundamental to it all.
Are any more releases planned and any live shows?
As POX has always dwelt in a sphere of relentless chaos, and probably always will too, I cannot say anything relevant at all about the future. Or the lack thereof.
POX reject any idea of fancy studios and modern polish, holding true to the rotten banner of the old values. They are and will remain stubborn, solitary and firmly joined to stripped-down, rancid, vintage Black Metal with a wild punkish aggression that they inject into mid-tempo Black Metal structures. With releases that remain consistently vile, grim and rooted in the d beat of Punk, POX truly define the Black Metal Punk ethos. It flows through their veins, and they live and breathe it constantly, consistently.
POX are rooted in the folklore of northwestern Europe, in the pre-Christian archetypes and heathen concepts that ultimately define it. They fuse medieval pestilence folklore, the idea of ritual suffering, into a plague occult Black Metal that views disease as a sacrament, rot as transformation and contagion as a form of spiritual initiation. Across their entire cosmology, rooted in plague occultism, the POX ethos remains underpinned by primitive hostility, ritual violence and short, aggressive releases. To them, affliction is the altar, and those who bear the pox walk closest to the hidden gods.
Bandcamp: http://poxband.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/poxband