Radio Metal :You are a band in a class of your own in the French Metal scene because you have your own identity and your own style. That puts you on the same level as bands like Mayhem or Akercocke. Crazy bands, unclassifiable and incomparable. Do you agree with this analysis?

Dk. DEVIANT : There are two analysis. Some think that we are unclassifiable and others try to classify us. We are mixing both Death and Black metal in our music because this is what we like. It is the best music to express ourselves. We are not trying to create a style, and I don’t know if we are unclassifiable. Some think that we are too much Death and others think that we are too much Black… this may be a strength and we won’t change anyway.


You had some trouble with your producer concerning your last album, just like the one before. Are you out of luck with your producers or are you just really hard to please concerning your sound?

Both. We wanted a special sound and we didn’t make any concessions. But there is also a huge part of misfortune. We always had a lot of bad luck both on tour and in the studio. Months were going by, we were still trying but the one in charge of our sound just couldn’t grasp our ideas, though he had done some great work on the last album. Then we found out the right person who did what we wanted him to do. So you see, we are not always out of luck.


Can you tell us, regarding your album, what are the bands that you like? Which bands have influenced Orthodoxyn?

I don’t want to do comparison cause it is not my kind. There is not one band or one thing that has influenced our album. Maybe some other forms of art, but a band like Arkhon Infaustus just can’t crib from other bands. There will always have some people that will try to do some comparisons. You know we were accused of having copied the last Celtic Frost album, though our album was composed before their album was out! People like to diss us but if Arkhon Infaustus were bigger they wouldn’t do so. Personally I listen to lots of things: Black, Death, and non-Metal bands like post-core. So this may have played a role in the composition of our album.


What were you willing to do with this album? What were your motivations to create this album?

Going beyond ourselves. Succeeding in creating a fully accomplished record and letting nothing go. It was out of question to record an album in 20 or 25 days and eventually say that “in fact we couldn’t finish it but we like it this way, it’s okay….” Our goal was to create something that would correspond entirely to us. This album couldn’t have been any other way.


Actually, what is precisely the identity of Arkhon Infaustus?

We don’t really have a Black Metal sound and I don’t think that we can be compared to a band like Darkthrone, or even to the new wave of Black Metal bands that have a heavier sound. In fact, I consider Arkhon Infaustus as an Old School Death Metal band.


Your music is quite unhealthy. It creates into the listener a feeling of ill being. Is that what you were looking for?

Our goal was to express into music what was lying deep inside us. We were not thinking about what the listener should feel when listening to it.


You declared that Satanism is taking up a great part of your life (to a certain extent for each member). How can it be felt in your music or in your daily life?

This can be felt in your daily life in your way of thinking, in your reactions… in fact this can be felt in everything! For us, Satan is everywhere, surrounding us. He is in every one of us and Arkhon Infaustus is just something that tries to show where Satan is. All we want to do is making people understand that Evil is everywhere. And Arkhon Infaustus is a way to open their eyes.


You said that you really wanted to make an album that would be a fair representation of what you are. But your drummer, Altar ZK6, is from Lyon and plays in a band called Crystalium… How did you set out the rehearsals that were necessary to compose the album?

Members of Arkhon Infaustus are always ready for their band. This is uncompromising. We do not necessarily compose together because I create most of the guitar parts with the other guitarist. Then we meet at the rehearsals and we put it all together with the drummer, but that can take months. Our drummer then comes and settles in Paris for a while. He does not only come in Paris for a few days in order to record his tracks, but he takes part into the creation of the songs. Our goal is to set up natural and not prefabricated songs.


You recently made an interview for the magazine Hard’n’Heavy with other French bands like Eths, Gojira, Zuul Fx, Carnival in Coal or Black Bomb A. You were giving sensible answers, very different from the usual scandalous assessments we could hear from you. But in fact, we quickly felt that you were distant from all that…

Yeah absolutely… I was kind of there by chance. In fact, I was there as the representative of the French extreme metal scene because Arkhon Infaustus was in the studio. And in fact, all those bands along the interview have given answers that are absolutely not mine. They all begin by talking about money. For them, music is not only getting recognition, it’s just all about money! There is no soul in their music. In our band, we let all our rage and all our anger explode. Their music, although brutal, is much too thoughtful. It’s nothing but business. I do not feel in harmony with those bands, and lot of them wondered why I came, but I admit that I was wondering why I came too.


Are you actually driven to play sometimes this “wicked” role in your interviews?

Sometimes the journalists ask questions that go a bit too far, only to see how I would answer and we get the feeling that we are turned into the pet peeve… in fact turned into the fools expected to act like bad guys. But I don’t feel like they’re playing a trick on me…


But you will admit that your drummer, Altar ZK6, has played on the Ad Hominem album, a band which s clearly orientated towards National Socialism. This kind of featuring may bring to you an audience attracted by this nefarious aspect…

The featuring with Ad Hominem was only for a session. Altar ZK6 is not part of the band. The lead member only needed someone to play drums on their album and he asked Altar ZK6 if I wanted to do it for money. He accepted but he has never been a member of Ad Hominem. They are only music players that know each other even if they do not share the same point of view… You should not get it all mixed up. He was hired as a drum player for a single session. In fact now he got angry with this dude. This dude who is a good Nazi and who is talking about honor etc. He is criticizing the races especially the Jewish that he would qualify as being thieves. But he himself is cheating on the people he hires to play on his album. This type of men is not the one I want to be associated with. I have no respect for people like him


Site Arkhon Infaustus: www.arkhon-infaustus.com