1. My salutations to the evil generals of the Stalaggh and Gulaggh! Your battalion has produced one of the most shocking, disturbing cd‘s of the recent years. How are you satisfied with the feedbacks which came from the underground scene?

Now that we have finished our :STALAGGH: Projekt-trilogy, we are starting to get both appreciated and hated more and more. We still receive photo's of people who have cut themselves while listening to :STALAGGH:.
There are also true fanatics who collect all our releases and pay 100's of Dollars for rare :STALAGGH: releases on eBay. A few months ago a test-pressing of the :Projekt Nihil: LP was sold for 500 euro.
We were surprised that so many people actually liked our recordings and some of them even listen to it daily. There are even many fanatics who have :STALAGGH: tattoos. Our projekts were not supposed to bring joy to the listener, only mental pain and fear. This shows what has become of humanity nowadays...

All in all you could say we are quite satisfied, we are heading in the right direction.

About the underground scene: we have learned a few things: first of all, we won’t achieve our goals (as far as possible) by limiting ourselves to the underground music movement. We need to force our Misanthropik Nihilistik audio-terrror and ideology upon the masses, get mainstream publicity and use even more provocative and direct forms of propaganda.
Second, we learned that everything needs time. Our anti-art needs to ripe, so it can enter the people's subconscious and the music industry.

2. Was there any kind of response which made you say „Wow, yeah, that's the reason why do that!“?

We heard about a Swedish fanatic who carved the word :STALAGGH: into his chest while listening to our projekts. He almost bled to death. He had to stay in hospital for over a week.

3. What were the craziest rumors about Stalaggh in the medias according to you?

We heard the rumor that one of the vocalists killed the producer while were recording :PROJEKT NIHIL:. The only thing that happened is that he smashed the window in front of the producer with a chair. The producer never wanted to work with us again.

4. Let's start with the Stalaggh trilogy.. i remember when the Projekt Nihil came out; almost everyone i knew was really shocked. I think that your concept of the Global Holocaust was clearly expressed there. However was the GH the only concept of your creation or was there something beneath?

Global Holocaust was certainly not the only concept. The most important goal of our projekts is transforming pain and fear into sound. Each :projekt: has it's own concept and atmosphere. Our first projekt is called: Projekt Nihil and represents Nihilism and shows the listener that their existence is futile.
Our second projekt is called Projekt Terrror (wrong spelling is intentional) and it's main goal is to terrorize the listener and is much more aggressive and disturbing than our first projekt. Projekt Misanthropia is all about the emotional and psychological HATE to life and humanity. The sounds should reflect and channel misanthropy to the listener and awaken and strengthen these emotions.
Also we wanted to recreate the situation of the Stalag concentration camps in sound.


5. When I listen to Projekt Nihil, one thing that comes to me at the first place are the screaming voices of various human beings. Almost immediatelly after this release came out, there were those rumors about the fact, that those voices belong to the clients or maybe patients of some mental asylum, and that you were abusing the patients. So what's the true story?

We have used mental patients on all our recordings. We want the pain and suffering in the vocals to be real and not acted. One of our members works in a mental institution in Holland, so this is how we got access and permission to record. All patients who have worked with us gave their full written permission. One of the patients who suffers from schizophrenia made the cover drawing of the Pure Misanthropia cd.
Some of the patients were allowed to leave the institution for a few days to record with us, others live on their own under guidance.
They are not retards, but they suffer from illnesses like schizophrenia, psychosis, borderline, multiple personality syndrome etc. Some of them are a lot more intelligent than normal people.

To give you an idea how our projekts were created, here’s a description of how :PROJEKT MISANTHROPIA: was created.
:PROJEKT MISANTHROPIA: was recorded in 3 parts. This time we used the vocals of 7 mental patients, more than we had ever used before.
The first part is the base layer and that was recorded in an abandoned factory building. This factory building had not been used for over 30 years and will be demolished soon. We (all :STALAGGH: members including the mental patients) were allowed to destroy everything that was inside the building.
This location was truly perfect. Inside the building there were old machines rotting away and layer upon layer of dust and debris and mummified corpses of birds and rats everywhere. There was almost no light in there and the air inside was polluted and intoxicating. We put up several microphones throughout the building and started the recording session. While evoking all our feelings of hatred and fear we went completely berserk and smashed everything inside to pieces. This session took about 3 hours.
The next recording was the vocals session which took place in the chapel of an old monastery that was no longer in use. The acoustics and atmosphere of that chapel were perfect for recording the howls and screams of the mentally insane. It was very hard to get access to that chapel, but we told the owner that we were doing this as a kind of scream therapy for the mental patients and finally he gave us permission.
For several hours all 7 mental patients screamed out all the insanity, pain and fear while the sounds recorded earlier in the factory were playing in the background.
The 3rd part was adding Black Metal elements and some structure and effects, but no riffs were written beforehand and the parts were improvised directly while listening to the earlier recordings.

6. Do you thing that founding of Stalaggh project was also some kind of therapy for you personally?

Not for our members, but it did for some of the patients who did vocals for us. Several of them called recording with us was the best therapy they ever had.

7. Many people who were fascinated by your music came from black metal scene. Are you also somehow connected to black metal as well? I mean like in the matter of concept, expressions, atmosphere? Were you inspired by some noisy black or doom metal stuff as well (Abruptum, The Black Legions), because i think you have actually something in common.

Some of our members are part of Black Metal bands and some of our concepts and expressions are close to those of Black Metal. We were not directly inspired by such bands. All our :projekts: were completely improvised, so no style was planned beforehand.

8. I don't know how about you, but to me it seems, that there is some very strange obscure/noise/black/industrial scene growing in Belgium and Holland. Considering the projects and bands like Stalaggh, Gnaw Their Tongues, Camisole, Aderlating, old Aluk Todolo etc.. Is it just a coincidence or is there anything strange going on in those countries?

Yes, there are certainly some obscure bands here in Holland and Belgium, but it’s only a handful of individuals who form these bands. Maybe it’s because our countries are so weak and tolerant that these bands want to sonically express their disgust with society.

9. Project Terror was relased by a great american label Autopsy Kitchen, which however came to problems recently. What was the reason not to release this album with New Era Productions those times? Was it because of, i don't know, promotion reason? Because this album became very largely available in all the world. Actually i think way better that the NEP releases.

:PROJEKT TERRROR: was released by Swedish Total Holocaust records, :PROJEKT MISANTHROPIA: was released by AKR. They also released the :NIHILISTIK TERRROR: cd. We wanted to reach a larger audience with our final :STALAGGH: projekt, so we chose AKR. We also got some interviews in large American music magazines which gave us the opportunity to spread our message on a large scale.
NEP is still our most loyal label, they were the only label who dared to release our first :PROJEKT: in 2001.


10. Okay, so if you will give as a bit more time, let's talk about your newest incarnation, the Gulaggh!

When i first put your cd Vorkuta into my cd player, i was expecting some brutal distorted audio terrorism, but the music was totally different. First thing that came to my mind, was that it sounds like some sick russian funeral orchestra from Hellish asylum. What is the reason of this different approach?

For :GULAGGH: we wanted a whole new sound. There’s no point in repeating what we did with :STALAGGH:. We wanted to recreate the pain and suffering of the Gulag prisoners with the sounds of classical instruments (violins, trumpets, cello’s, piano, saxophones). The cd starts with a speech of Stalin, ordering his enemies to be send to the camps.
The classical instruments gave the perfect atmosphere for the coldness and bleakness of these camps. All instruments were played by professionals who understood our concept. It was very difficult for them not to play their instrument like they were used to, they had to let go everything they had learned and only transform their fears and pain into sound.

11. I heard rumors that Gulaggh is also planned to be a three cd's project, is the trinity in Stalaggh and Gulaggh for some specific or symbolic reason?

Yes, there are also going to be three :GULAGGH: projekt. The first one Vorkuta was released last year and we are now working on Kolyma to be followed by Norilsk. Those are the names of the worst Gulag camps in the former Soviet Union, they were located north of the Arctic circle. There is no specific reason why there are three projekts.

12. Were there some „guests“ on that album (like patients, or spirits of soviet prisoners)?

For the first :GULAGGH: release titled Vorkuta we not only used the vocals of 5 mental patients but also of damaged women (women that were raped and ex-prostitutes) and about 30 children from a youth mental hospital who suffer from all different kinds of mental illnesses. It took us months to get permission to record the screams of these children. They gave us only one hour to record there, but we are very satisfied with the results.

13. Did you know that Vorkuta is nowadays a town which was actually built on the remains of the camp? Have you been there or would you like to see this town?

Yes, we know that. One of our members visited Vorkuta before we recorded the cd to get inspiration.

14. When can we expect the Vorkuta's followers, can you tell us any details like the title or anything about the albums which will come?

For our next :projekt: Kolyma we will use a full orchestra and we are trying to record the screams of people that were born deaf. Their screams have an animal like rawness which fits our sound very well.


15. Do you also plan to do some sound or composition changes on the followings albums or was the concept of Gulaggh defined by Vorkuta ?

For Kolyma we will use classical instruments again but it will have a really different sound and approach compared to Vorkuta. Kolyma will be a lot more bombastic in sound.

16. Will there be also some video project of Gulaggh like there was the visualisation of Projekt Terror?

We hope so. We were very satisfied with the Visualisation of :PROJEKT TERRROR:. It took the artist Rigor Mortis over 4 months to make.

17. Is there any lineup change in Gulaggh or are there the same members as in Stalaggh?

Do not think of :STALAGGH:/:GULAGGH: as a group of friends or something. We have a stable core of individuals who share the same ideology and goals, these few individuals form the essence of :STALAGGH:/:GULAGGH: ,but each Projekt had a different line-up. For every Projekt we used different mental patients to do the vocals.
For the first :GULAGGH: we used over 10 musicians and over 40 vocalists.

18. What about any live performances or instalations in near future? Do you plan to do anything in public with Gulaggh or Stalaggh or maybe some Global Holocaust sound system?

We will never perform live. Concerts make people socialize which is not to be supported.

19. Do you think that there are any other projects or bands you can recommend to your fans who are looking for similar atmosphere or message? Are there any project or bands to which you feel some artistic or personall connection?

No.

20. Thank you very much for this interview and that you wanted to give us your precious time! Salutations from all the Mortem Zine and the underground from Czech Republic!

For those interested: Most of our releases can be ordered here: [email protected] Existence is futile...