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| Armageddon Holocaust
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| Interview With: Dark Doctor (Chaotik Armageddon) Date: October 5th 2000 Where: This is an E-mail interview. Date refers to date first E-mail answer Other Bandmembers: Dark Thriller (Destructiv Armageddon) Band's Geographical Home: Indonesia Discography: Into Total Destruction (2000) Available Through: THT Underground Official Website: Armegeddon Holocaust Interview By: mpo
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Armageddon Holocaust was a project from Indonesia that mixed extreme black metal with a message of destruction on the album Into Total Destruction. This album was recorded with the intention of disbanding Armageddon Holocaust after the release. The CD is out now so the band is no longer among us mortals. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out a little more about the reasons for the band's short existence. One of the originators, the Dark Doctor, explains. What were the reasons to start the band while you had in mind to drop it after one album? We only wanted to do this project for one album because it's a special project. It's not a career band or something. I have my own band who already released four tapes, and Dark Thriller has another band too. We only met for this project for the same reason: To spread the news about coming destruction. We decided to disband ourselves after the recording, and let our label THT Productions do the promotion to spread the news about destruction, through our music. The bio states that the lyrical concept is about the destruction of the Earth and its false inhabitants. How do you look upon the future? The future is dark for this Earth. I'm not pessimistic, just trying to be realistic with this point. And to be more precise? What exactly do you expect to happen? As shown in the book of Revelation. The lyrics seem to be inspired by the bible, the book of the Christians. Into Total Destruction ends with destruction and decay while the bible goes beyond that. Why did you only want to pick up the destruction part? Is it because it fits your music alone? Our music and lyrics are written to capture our emotions about what is coming to this Earth and its false inhabitants. That's the starting point. Those certain emotions. We are not covering the whole emotions that are portrayed in the whole bible. You're from Indonesia. In recent years I've heard quite a lot from your part of the world and the animosity going on between Christian and Muslims, between certain tribes and the governmental ruling. Does that influence you to write the lyrics you do? I mean, those things look quite harsh and I see a lot of hatred, violence and revenge. Lyrics like that of the song Armageddon Holocaust may seem to be quite harsh too though they don't deal with the current situation clearly. Let me put the question this way: What inspires you to come up with those lyrics? I have a very strong feeling that we are at the end of time. With all the chaos and violence in my homeland, that give us signs though they are not yet the Armageddon. This feeling made me to come up with the idea of doing music to capture my emotions toward that. I'm a musician and music is a language for my expressions. When I talked to my buddy Dark Thriller, he agreed because he had these emotions too, so we started to do the project together. We see there are no other valid prophetic references about the endtimes rather than from the book of Revelation. A book used by Christians as a part of the Bible but most of them forget the essence that the Earth is near the end. Too many Christians are just appear to be kind of pathetic humans, in which money and all that crap are what they concern about now. Even the book of Revelation doesn't end with destruction. This book as part of the bible, is written to Christians for encouragement I guess. To whom is Armageddon Holocaust directed and what do you want to achieve? Our music is never trying to translate the bible off. As I said earlier, it's my emotions that started it out. I got a very strong feeling about the Earth's destruction and I wanted to share it with others. Those who agree with me, those who disagree, and even those who don't care. In reality people, including many self proclaimed Christians, tend to forget the fact that the world will meet its death soon enough and they are still being trapped inside the world's affairs. That is our concern. Our music is directed to all people, to everyone. But we never expect anybody to react the same thing or to change his heart as we expect after hearing our album. If then a Christian listened the album and says "thanks to remind me about the destruction and reality" then it's nice because he might have forgotten that part and we can remind him through the mood on our music. But one that hates our album it's good also as it means he already listened the album. We have already share our emotions and spread the news about Earth's destruction whatever reaction people might have. One thing that I hate to see is that if people just put our CD on the rack and never play it. Another band who has been hammering on the endtime thing is Saviour Machine. Of course, musically they are miles away from the brutal sounds of Armageddon Holocaust but what do you think of this band and their message? I haven't heard about that band. How familiar are you with the so-called "Christian" bands and what do you think of them? I am not familiar. I only had listens from some CD's that Jeff has. I like Kekal, Horde, Antestor, Sanctum. There are some others I have heard but most of them suck. I never split bands into Christian bands or satanic bands or whatever. I hate labeling, that's ridiculous. Okay, you'll get one minute prime time television on CNN to say what's on your heart. What would you like to say? I would play them our 1 minute track Armageddon Holocaust and say "Beware of this one!" during the playtime. Realizing that the earth is coming to its end, how does that affect your life? Does that make you a different person, does that influence your life? It does influence my life, yes How? I'm no longer aiming my life to present time. Something about the music. The inlay states that you did Chaotik Armageddon on the album and Dark Thriller the Destruktiv Armageddon. What stands for those descriptions? We both played all instruments. It's kind of an equal thing, chaos and destruction is what our music is portraying and it's done by guitars, bass, and voice We equally play guitars and bass and all voice and such crap. On the album I hear a drum computer type-off drumming. Personally I think it becomes boring to hear quite soon. Are you happy with this drum sound? Yes I am. As you probably know, Jeff (Kekal) produced the album and he did all the good jobs in creating the whole morbid sound for us including the drum programming. That's what we wanted to get, the morbid and eerie sound in the middle of aggressiveness and brutality. It's important because the type of sound amplifies the emotions or the moods within the music. So when we told Jeff what emotions we wanted to get, then he said like "ok, the drums sound will be like that & the guitar sound will be like this" and he did what he thought was best for our music. We don't want to rely on the techniques and clearness but more on emotions, on moods. Our music is not to be enjoyed but to make people aware of the coming destruction. We are satisfied with the album sound, that's the most important thing. I don't care what people think about our music. Earlier you said "I'm a musician and music is a language for my expressions." Is the sole reason for doing music to bring over a message of coming destruction? Not a sole reason. You only heard Armageddon Holocaust album, and this one album is not everything out from me. I am not a kind of freak who is being obsessed by destruction and death. Shit, no. I just got a strong feeling about coming destruction recently and I am sick to see people's ignorance and hypocrisy. The first reaction is that I want to express by sharing my feeling to people including the ignorant ones. I always share my feelings through music and cannot do it through anything else, so that's why Armageddon Holocaust was created. I have many other emotions needed to be shared and I got another band that accommodates them. Okay, I understand. Is music then solely for sharing emotions? Why did you start making music and what made you move into the extreme stuff? Once I knew I have the ability to write and play music, I started to use my ability to share my emotions through the music I play. I am introvert, don't like being exposed and meet people. Honestly, this interview is perhaps the longest band interview I've answered so far. I always dream that I can live in the peaceful forest away from the city and the crowd. And my surprise you mentioned extreme stuff, I never think all the music I play is extreme enough. If metal is what you think extreme, I also have some darkwave ambient compositions done only on synth, and some acoustic guitar compositions. I wonder how things are going with your own band
Bealiah? How are things going and what are the plans? Why? Bealiah has never been available for interviews and never will. That's my very personal band and no need to be shared by other way except the music itself. If anyone wants to get news or plans, they should get them through the label THT Productions And as you are from Indonesia I wonder how the scene is over there. Can you outline it a bit? The scene is very local and very very underground. None of the bands in our scene have played in countries other than South East Asia, because we are not known enough to the promoters over there. Some of them have been signed to larger Indonesian labels and released albums which have major distribution in South East Asia, which they can get constant touring regionally. Others still suffer a lack of money to even recording a fair demo. The scene is overloaded by brutal death/gore metal recently, and the black metal scene is also in existence but most of the people involved are newcomers who just know black metal for 2 years and still think being evil is cool while many others have lost interest with it. Do think there's enough attention from abroad being paid to Indonesian bands? No, not enough. What's the most underrated band from Indonesia that media should pick up? I think Kekal. They should have gotten larger exposure from the media and labels around the world, but they haven't gained it yet. Too bad quite many people hate them because of their lyrics or because they play great music. I think people are just envying them, because they have great music and have released great albums. |
