Industrial psychedelia and splendor have taken effect as Occult Spiritual Anarchy radiates throughout the multiverse, and its influence continues tearing at reality’s façade while maniacal laughter fills the surrounding expanse. A review of this new Chaospectacular was accompanied by a conversation with the ringleader and mystical anarchist extraordinaire, King Aleister Satan, who directs the creative energies and provocation represented as KING SATAN. Here we venture behind the scenes to explore the inspired philosophies guiding this entity, which leads to many deep insights and details surrounding its works, and other related topics also surface along with thoughts on the artistic metamorphosis awaiting in times ahead.
Greetings and congrats on the release of your newest masterwork! One thing I’ve been intrigued by is the overt nature of the band’s name, KING SATAN, which was taken even further with the title of your debut, King Fucking Satan, and it seems to reflect both the aggression and dark humor within its art. How did this name come to represent the project, and where did your fascination with the satanic archetypes originate?
– Hello and thank you! This has been now a very popular question during the 3rd album interviews for some reason actually! I have never felt any contradiction between being serious or aggressive when using dark humor mixed together, especially when it comes to sarcasm, satire, and self-irony. And what else is blasphemy besides dark humor anyway! On contrary, I have always felt that the over-the-top and overkill things are the best ones to provoke the people to think and to reflect (including me), so I wanted to embrace all this with this project with all of my focus. Some of the most influential things for me has been such things anyway, artists or thinkers including comedic aspects together with their more serious messages, so I wanted to cultivate this effect with my doings too. In similar fashion to the Devil’s archetype in some of the folklores and myths where “he” poses as a joker and jester in order to expose and destroy hypocrisy, charlatans, and stillborn moralism. Or like in the fashion of Socrates with his “Socratic method,” and Diogenes the Cynic with this Ancient Greek adaptation of Vamachara (original left hand path philosophy), which itself included this whole “Clowning is serious business” method we’ve been speaking about for years now.
I have been anyway obsessed with the archetype of the Devil and all the things Devilish in general almost my whole life. So much actually that I hold it as the major guiding and ruling aspect of my life and I have been a devout Satanist for the better part of my life (even I have felt need to call it either “Satanicism” or “Deofolism” instead of Satanism over the last few years, but that’s probably a whole other topic of discussion). In 2015 I had the strong urge to dedicate my new music project for this, and I just wanted a simple, powerful, and ambiguous name for the project which would symbolize it the best way possible. It was clear to me already in the beginning that I wanted the name “Satan” to be part of it because of its loaded and ambiguous nature and its important personal meaning for me. The “King” part came thanks to me being an avid fan of KING CRIMSON, KING DIAMOND, the soy sauce named Soy King (I really like Sushi), and also that the lyrics of AZAGHAL and TURMION KӒTILÖT influenced me as a teenager with their lyric parts including a line “Kuningas Saatana,” which means “King Satan” in Finnish. These influences together with some personal synchronizations, like that I had been accused of being a “Devil” many times when speaking my mind, or telling truth about something instead of joining some shared lies and also when doing things I thought was right, instead of what was expected or demanded from me. I always thought there was something very poetic and mythological there, which influenced me of course towards the nature of this project.
And of course, I was very much aware how loaded, ambiguous, and volatile the name “King Satan” is, but I wanted a name that would reflect my devotion towards this concept and also which could be kind of a middle finger towards other people’s expectations and conceptions about it, in very hostile irony towards it, which is a combination of this dark humor and aggression you mentioned. I thought, this name would be always too much, and we could never live up to it if taken in the context of other people’s expectations, and even our own, with it including so much baggage and variety of meanings probably as much as there are people. But I still decided to do it, because of the serious devotion to the concept and willingness to work with it all the way despite this. It’s a very absurd thing to do in a way, but philosophical absurdism played a big part actually with my decision making at the time, and has played ever since too. So, like in Absurdism it is suggested that in this approach there is a kind of metacognitive element that the person is aware of this conflict, but still does it. It is something what “King Satan,” the “God of this World” represents also for me, and I wanted to represent this to the outside world too. Not to mention how it affected the way we chose our appearance and overall aesthetics. Similar absurdistic thoughts can be found from Chaos Magick, Nihilism, and Existentialism in general too anyway, which all has influenced me a lot. And not to forget mentioning Gnosticism and Platonism when speaking about absurdism and the roots of Satanism! You know, I think it was best presented in Plato’s Timaeus book and with this myth of a Demiurge, when Demiurge claims to be God and becomes Samael (meaning “Blind God”), even “he” knows he’s not a God and there is one superior God above him he could not ever transcend. But yet still “he” decided to ignore that part and act like “he” would be a God. Something which influenced me deeply as well when I was a teenager, and I am sure the reader of this interview understands how it was related to choosing the name “King Satan” too, and also how it is related to Satanism and even absurdism as well!
And yeah, it’s a really blasphemous, provocative, and powerful name for a metal or a rock band in general anyway. Works on so many levels!
– In a way I was on the path towards this ever since I was a kid. I grew up in a community heavily infested with Lutheran Christianity and ever since as a kid I wondered why the hell adults are so much relying on this “God” whose existence I could not verify myself at the time or get any believable explanations from adults other than “You will understand when you grow older, now behave and do like others do!” I think my anti-authoritarian and rebellious nature originates from those times. When I started questioning it, it was stated that these questions are blasphemy and so on. Of course, I thought that there’s either something very wrong with me since I cannot relate to their “truth,” or that the others are wrong. I started feeling soul sympathy for all outsiders, outcasts, anarchistic and devilish characters who could not fit in or who I thought were misunderstood. I also noticed already at a very early age that most of the time people who were in power had no idea what they were doing, or were corrupt because of that. Same also went for the fact of instances where those regarded as “Good” were either corrupt or clueless as well, and actually more “Evil” than the ones who they regarded as “Evil.” Many times, those regarded as “Evil” were actually fighting for the truth and justice against the oppression. Just look at the history of organized religions, their myths, and their relationship towards the development of science, liberty and so on, and the cruelty they did to their own followers too.
All things related to religion and spirituality were kind of soft taboos in the 1990’s Eastern Finland that never should be spoken about, as it was always judged to be inappropriate, indecent, and blasphemous to talk about in questioning manner. Especially when asked from a curious kid. Very archetypal Lutheran Christianity really: Just go to work, pay your taxes, buy shit you don’t need for the people you don’t like and so on, and don’t think about the life’s deep questions which would jeopardize this cycle, because there will be better life in “afterlife” according to Christianity, where you can redeem the reward for “good behavior” in society afterwards. For me even as a kid it appeared as some kind of weird mass hypnosis, as I wondered why the hell we need to wait for afterlife to enjoy life. Nobody even knew anyone who returned to confirm if the afterlife was even a nice thing, or even if there would be such thing at all! Very childlike reasoning of course since I was at the time like 10 years old, but I think I had a point there already then, heh. And almost everyone I knew were part of this mass hypnosis. However, my parents were quite open minded with these things though. They encouraged me to search further as they really found out these things were bothering me, even though they disagreed with my views at first. These topics became our usual topics to talk about at our home actually, which was a big part of the development of my own views, and theirs too actually, as they did cut their ties to the Christian Church eventually too as well, and even though they never did become Satanists (it’s not for everyone) they did start building their own spiritual paths altogether after that with more liberated mindset. And my parents have been a really big supportive power towards my doings and my development towards what I am, and I think it deserves to be mentioned more often, as they have always encouraged me to walk my own path instead of following others.
But then I got interested in philosophy, science, religion, psychology etc. at a very early age as I just wanted to find out what the fuck is wrong with the world. Finally, when I was 13, I got my hands on the books of Nietzsche, Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, which were quite fast followed by Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, C.G. Jung where I found the archetype of the Devil, especially Satan was a very inspirational symbolistic concept and the essence I wanted to relate very much. This together with me hitting to teenage years, and its overall angst and rebel juvenile attitude I took the Devil’s archetype, especially Satan, as my “Master”, “totem animal”, “spirit guide”, and my “God” rather quickly. But even though the decision to pursue this path was heavily infested by rebellion and angst, it was still founded upon the real issues based on the truth seeking which have not really changed over the years, even the angst has been mellowed but the rage really not. And the more I searched out about this theme, the more I found that there are actually a lot more serious philosophical, psychological, spiritual, mythological, and esoteric aspects surrounding this archetype all around the history. I still think that unlocking the “mysteries” regarded to the archetype of Devil will unlock the “mysteries” of the human reality and potentiality, which is what I thought already as a youngster, and it just gets deeper and deeper the older I get.
This is the first album to have a drummer fully in the lineup rather than using programmed drums. What effect did this have on the songwriting process, and were there any unique experiences during this and the recording of Occult Spiritual Anarchy compared with the previous efforts?
Pete Hellraiser the drummer worked very closely with me already during the demo phase contrary to the past, when I did the demos basically alone and only after then presented them to the band. This time, we bombarded each other with different drum compositions which of course affected the structures of the songs. I think it made the songs much more living and versatile than before, at least the energy is more tangible to me and there’s no turning back now from this route we chose in the future either! The whole band actually worked much closer together now than ever before, and Occult Spiritual Anarchy is the most band-oriented album so far in our discography for sure!
I always drive myself over the edge in every production I am part of, because beyond the borders of this edge I always find the real creative solutions and suitable energy for the matters at hand. The way I surf on the waves of friction and well, when lacking a better term, insanity, is always a very trippy experience and none of the productions are the same for me. This said, almost everything that happened after we entered the studio was not really the same as before, but between the lines it was. You know, chaos is the law.
I anyway require from myself a lot, but I also require a lot from the people I work with, and Hekate and Jerry are used to it already since they’ve been part of this circus longer than the rest and I think they have been able to produce some brilliant stuff too with these methods, as they always seem to transcend themselves with everything they do. But with EF-13 and Pete Hellraiser I had to first find a way to include their energy, thinking, and skills into this “coven,” which I think succeeded quite fast too, given that they toured already with KING SATAN since 2019. So it was “all there” already.
So, this all felt like a second debut album for us, not only with the transformation of the sound, but also with the methods of becoming much more band-oriented.
The position as outro and contents of “Clowning is Serious Business” could be compared to the chaotic use of laughter for ritual banishing. Was there a ritualistic scheme or structure in mind when arranging the album?
There are ritualistic schemes and structures in individual songs within Occult Spiritual Anarchy (and other albums), but the whole album’s drama arc has been designed with other things in mind really. The album structures of KING SATAN so far has been more influenced by Tarot card symbolism and so-called consecration paths of ancient esoteric systems, like Hermeticism and some oriental mystic schools – when adjusted into the rock album and pop art format of course.
I learned years ago that they actually teach in film schools the drama arc of Tarot card symbolic systems in screenplay and script writing classes, as even there it is acknowledged that there’s something very universally humane about it. Art movies and even Hollywood movies take inspiration from it too in their screenplays, and as a Tarot card fanatic I have been exercising this too with our music a lot. But in KING SATAN’s context, ritualism has its place too there somewhere in the structures as individual songs states so. This all said, the structures of KING SATAN albums are designed more closer to movies and theatre plays actually instead. If one is into musical albums designed with complete ritualistic scheme and structure, I suggest introducing yourself to my other band SATURNIAN MIST’s Shamatanic album released last year in 2021, as it was designed that way. And KING SATAN and SATURNIAN MIST are theme-wise kind of different sides of the same coin, even though genres are different.
The carnivalesque elements of KING SATAN are worth highlighting, and in some ways, they could be likened to the spirit of works like Principia Discordia. What are some of the inspiring sources behind these aesthetics?
I have liked circus, carnival and masquerade aesthetics and atmosphere almost as long as I remember. They have always appeared to me as grotesque and absurd instead of what they probably should’ve represented, and especially the dark, deranged, and twisted sides from these has been the ones that has spoken to me deeply. Carnivalesque, being a literary or atmosphere mode which subverts the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humor and chaos, comes very natural for me somehow as I always want to challenge the structure of reality, either by clowning or just being dead serious. But I must mention Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master And Margarita being probably the biggest influence for me in this matter, both in aesthetics and atmosphere, and I have not really been shy about paying tributes to it with the works of KING SATAN ever since the debut album. Also, some of the Fjodor Dostovyeski’s, works and Anton LaVey and original Church Of Satan aesthetics, as what else those grotesque and tongue-in-cheek ritualistic re-enactments were but part of carnivalesque manifestation? They were very serious too, but also very carnivalesque which are not contradicting each other of course! Very powerful stuff. The movies of Terry Gilliam and Alejandro Jodorowsky together with Monty Python, Hunter S. Thompson, Batman’s Joker and Beetlejuice have played a big part of influencing this carnivalesque side for me as well.
Three of the new songs are complemented by provocative, and sometimes also comical, imagery from music videos. What did you enjoy most about their creation?
I enjoy writing and directing music videos a lot in general, always been a big music video fan and I wanted to prioritize this aspect with KING SATAN too. With Occult Spiritual Anarchy I felt I had exhausted the absurdistic splatter-like psychedelia and lo-fi arthouse style, for now at least, which was my dominant style with those two first albums, and I wanted to do something a little different this time as a music video director.
With “This is Where the Magick Happens” I wanted to make a real 90’s summer hit music video tribute without compromising the message of the song, which could be first seen to be very much in contrast with the earlier mentioned. And these kind of challenges I set to myself while making music videos, which is why I enjoy making them a lot. But with this particular video I enjoyed probably the most that I got to work with wonderful actors and crew there who all embraced the absurd and carnivalesque with serious devotion, and all of them brought something new for the original script, especially the main male lead Niko Kontiainen playing Christlike Figure, who really blew our minds with his dedication. The whole process was very enjoyable with all surreal (black) comedy and real celebration of exploitation genre, where lots of minds joined into the creative process. Really great weekend!
With “The Faces of the Devil” I enjoyed very much that I finally got to work with the avant-garde theatre elements I had wanted to do for a long time already in KING SATAN context too. This local venue Olympia here had just exactly the premises for that, and I wanted to make both a very symbolistic and minimalistic video there which would be still full of energy. I wanted to challenge myself to find an archetypal and universal way to tell the story I wanted with small gestures. Based on the comments I heard, it is either perceived funny, absurd, and light, or tragic and psychologically devastating, but not so often both, which makes me feel I managed to do that! It’s curious how one thing can be perceived in so many ways and I think it’s safe to assume that it tells more of the person who makes the interpretation than of the video itself when it comes to that matter, and this is a thing I have exercised actually during the whole KING SATAN’s history. And I always enjoy a lot when I get to drop tributes and references to the things which influenced me deeply, and in this case, there’s really The Master and Margarita meets Fight Club thing going on there, I can proudly admit!
“The Pagan Satan” music video was something I also had wanted to do for a long time. No acting or anything, but we, all the band members participating in a real ritual and working with our inner worlds was something I had wanted to do in music video context. “The Pagan Satan” music video is the most clearest example of how you combine the working with the occult together with an artistic method, and we made a little bit of “The Making Of / Behind the Scenes commentary” about it which can be found from our YouTube channel. I again particularly enjoyed the whole process and working with so many talented hands and minds there in the set, especially the fire artists from the FLAMMA FIRE GROUP were truly phenomenal. So those days felt like some kind of spiritual retreat camp for me, a dream even, as the whole process was very otherwordly. Even though it was a music video production, there was something in the air when we filmed it in dark November nights during full moon. Huh!
For those of us living abroad who won’t likely get to experience KING SATAN live, how would you describe the power of its expression on stage, and what are you most looking forward to in terms of promoting Occult Spiritual Anarchy?
Never say never! It’s a real bummer that our European Tour 2022 supporting DIE KRUPPS just got cancelled right before it was supposed to happen, but something’s brewing for 2023, so stay tuned. On stage we are entertainers of course, party band, twisted circus act in the rock format, even though we have occasionally ritualistic elements and parts there. Music is after all something that transcends all words or conscious thoughts, and it is a language everyone understands in some primordial but also transcendental level, so we want to induce something transcendental and primitive by encouraging people to let it rip with dancing or headbanging (which is a form of a dance too). We want to enjoy ourselves there as well of course, and if we do, most of the time the audience enjoys themselves as well. And the best way for us to enjoy ourselves on stage is to let it all rip too, let the chaos and love manifest itself through us by the power of Satan! We just had our first band rehearsals with our new Occult Spiritual Anarchy songs as our album release tour begins soon, and I think we are entering to the whole other level of energy and intensity with our new songs and current live set up. Can’t wait!
Several deities and folkloric figures are hailed on “The Pagan Satan.” What drives your interest in different mythologies and is there a specific pantheon or god you find personally appealing? Are there other insights you could offer on their significance within KING SATAN’s art, and also how they relate to our collective unconscious?
– I find all of these being different manifestations or embodiments of the same archetype or same archetypes with different emanating angles or aspects (“symbolic archetypes depicting genuine force”) constructing the perceived reality and course of actions related, about which I have not really been shy of dealing with when writing the lyrics. The meaning and its significance of each aspect depends on the context of use, as “Chaos Magick” suggests, and my preferences and personal appeals can be found from the lyrics mostly already, so I don’t want necessarily to point out that further than already done. But it is safe to say that my “Satan” has never been Christian “Satan.” These meanings are older than those terms and names. I recommend to anyone interested in this possibly disorienting theme about archetypes to introduce oneself to C.G. Jung’s theories about it, and also the origins of the term from Ancient Greek literature and literature research. And of course, scrutinize the album’s lyrics as they are all related! Also, it is not unintentional that “The Faces of the Devil” and “The Pagan Satan” are after each other in Occult Spiritual Anarchy album, if that helps!
One theme KING SATAN explores is absurdism, while also shedding light on misconceptions of reality and our escapist tendencies. What would you say are the benefits, drawbacks, or other effects of having an awareness toward the more hidden existential and universal workings?
– When talking about the benefits of being aware of the things others might not, I always think of the symbolism of the “The Magician” Tarot card. Symbolic Magician sees connections between the things which seem to be unrelated or even contradictory for most people, which is why the deeds of the Magician are always powerful as they defy the conformity around by default. Magician makes things happen, magician creates and stirs the waves. For untrained eye it might seem like sprouting from nowhere, like magic, but there is always more than meets the eye in the consciousness of reality. Symbolic magician can see between the lines, beneath the surface, behind the curtains, and it has given him/her profound ability to harness the mechanics of how the idea becomes reality. No one is a natural-born magician, but everyone can become one, and without being aware of the reality you are in, it cannot happen. With this context, the now cliché quote of Sir Francis Bacon, “Knowledge itself is power,” makes a bit more sense too I reckon.
But being aware of things others are not can be a lonely place too, and which is why being “Outsider” one way or another is most of the times a rule instead of an exception with the people who really are aware of more than meets the eye or who want to dig really deep into these things. It can be like speaking to the walls sometimes, as my cynic premise here is that most of the people don’t even want to know anything deeper as they are comfy in their dream state (in Gurdjieff sense). Nobody really can accept any completely new information outside of his own conceptions and history right away, and people can only accept new information if they are about to do that anyway sooner or later based on the steps they have taken. If something outside of these steps are presented, a person cannot accept this information because there is not anything where this new information could be tied to (which is why I adopted this Spiritual Anarchy theme years back for KING SATAN, which I spoke at length in another interview with Soundscape Magazine actually just last week if someone’s interested). The development of personal knowledge is always cumulative. Same goes if there are way too many steps between where the person and the position of this new information resides. The new info cannot be accepted without going through all these steps. So, if someone has different awareness or another way to perceive reality than the others, it can be indeed sometimes an emotionally and spiritually lonely place (even if surrounded by lots of people), if the means of communication and interacting don’t meet each other so easily. Communication is the key, and if these kind of “Outsiders” really find a connection to someone or something, never lose it, it is always meaningful and worth to fight for. I think Colin Wilson has dealt with this topic most brilliantly in his book “The Outsider” released in 1956, I recommend it to all interested without a doubt. But it is no wonder that there is such existential friction and disrupted connection to others. Someone will find absurdism as a ventilation channel for this to cope with, and communicating indirectly through arts, music, lyrics, or similar channels. But when it comes to the absurdism, dark comedy, blasphemy, satire… I have found out that it shatters the expectations of how reality should be perceived, and it is this way a form of rebellion towards the status quo and conformity, which can lead into the destruction of the old forms and therefore birth of new forms.
“In the world asleep the one who is truly awake, comes out as a beast or a fool and transcends them both.” – This is Where the Magick Happens
Time is mentioned on “Beyond God” as one invented concept that brings order to our perception of the world, but of course it has other dimensions most of us don’t often acknowledge. Which of the other flawed constructs or variables of “reality” do you feel humanity should be more mindful of?
– I think anyone who has any brains or guts to think for themselves agrees with me that the whole concept of what is reality is quite flawed with the majority of humanity, even with the ones who make such statements like yours truly, hah. Most of the problems in our history are rooted into the misconceptions about the personality, ego, “the true self,” and their relationship with each other, together with their relationship with the surrounding world, other people, and the existence in general. The parameters related to the promise of afterlife promised by organized religions and also the psychopathological fear of the death together are not helping the cause. It is a way large topic to go into at this point, which is why I write lyrics about it. I therefore encourage anyone interested to really read the lyrics of all KING SATAN albums in the trilogy sense, starting from the debut, go to I Want You To Worship Satan (2019) and end with Occult Spiritual Anarchy (2022). And my other band’s SATURNIAN MIST’s lyrics are linked to this as well actually, as at one point KING SATAN albums were supposed to be just continuum for SATURNIAN MIST band, before I decided to pursue a whole other project. I mentioned this to you in last year’s SATURNIAN MIST interview regarding to Shamatanic album if you remember, but there are most likely people who did not read that within KING SATAN’s listeners, so I repeat the thing I said there, here too.
If you want to really digest all the levels of my lyrical themes, I encourage reading the lyrics of these two bands together in following order, as SATURNIAN MIST’s Shamatanic was supposed to come already before KING SATAN’s debut actually, but there were lots of delays and other issues.
Saturnian Mist – Gnostikoi Ha- Shaitan (2011)
Saturnian Mist – Chaos Magick (2015)
Saturnian Mist – Shamatanic (2021)
King Satan – King Fucking Satan (2017)
King Satan – I Want You To Worship Satan (2019)
King Satan – Occult Spiritual Anarchy (2022)
“Trust the ones who seek the truth, but run away from those who claim to have found it”
Remixed versions of tracks from your debut have appeared on the subsequent releases, at least on the CD formats, with “Satanized (Alien Nation Remix)“ on I Want You to Worship Satan and now “Spiritual Anarchy ‘22” on Occult Spiritual Anarchy, and this link between them helps seal the formation of a trilogy. What led to these tracks being chosen to supplement those albums?
– All the remixes of our songs are done by other artists than us, and it has been a real honor they have wanted to do such things, and the chosen songs have been suggested by the artists themselves. Besides the fantastic remix of “Alien:Nation,” there are already remixes made by MISERIA ULTIMA and MECHANIK PROJECT released too: The first one of them as “The Pagan Satan” single bonus, and second one of them was South American license CD bonus with our debut album.
“Spiritual Anarchy ’22” is not a remix, but re-recorded version of this, and since Occult Spiritual Anarchy (2022) is the end of a trilogy, we wanted to re-record this song with our current band line-up to the album, to symbolically enclose the circle. And of course, since the song has been a relevant part of our live set lists over the years, it has kind of developed into a much stronger version of itself compared to the original studio version from 2017, so it really felt like circle encloses kind of thing to have it there.
Death is often a metaphorical reference to transitional states where we tear down and then rebuild ourselves, and this theme is encountered throughout, with “Left Hand Path Symphony” being an example that also mentions “The dark night of the soul.” What other thoughts do you have about the importance of periodically undergoing this process and facing the challenges associated with it?
– This question is hard to answer without using phrases from my own lyrics actually, hah. But reality reveals itself only through the death and pain. The path of self-development and self-awareness is a curious thing. It always requires some sort of crisis or trauma to start, or feel appealing. For a symbolist, death means transformation in all metaphorical sense, yes, like in the Tarot card symbolism. People also find out usually at latest what are their most important things in their lives when facing the times of crisis, trauma, and tragedy – or during the so-called “dark night of the Soul.” For most of the people this is enough already to reach content state of mind for long periods of time, even for the rest of their lives. And of course, there are some lucky ones who never have to go through such things and still live a content life.
But then there are some people who live their life with different intensity and speed with “spiritual” things, and might not be as content so easily, which means that the meaningful things are also in the process of constant development. These people are the ones usually who end up as practicing left-hand-path mystics or something similar under another terminology (like Pratyeka Buddhists for instance). And they usually encourage and induce this process with conscious choices as a part of the self-development, empowering the self and raising the level of consciousness. And in this path, it seems to be more rule than exception that it will be done many times during their lifetime. It is effective and it gives fast results, but also very heavy for the person of course, and it is no wonder there are so many such mystics who end up going completely insane or killing themselves with wrong reasons if repeated too many times, or with too tight a schedule. Mind is a muscle and it needs time to rebound too. I have more experience on this path as one can guess, and I can say with my experience that it is not really for everyone, even everyone can take inspiration and tips from it and adjust them into their own paths. But messing with the so-called “natural order of things” when it comes to the human mind, there are always consequences. Both, the great and terrible alike. And sometimes they are the same.
Since this trilogy is now complete and your art is exhibiting a potent and continuous expansion, have there been thoughts on which direction it will take next?
– Yes, it has been clear for a long time now already where to go with this project, but I am unfortunately not yet ready to share about it publicly too much. The time for that will come eventually. What I can say is that the next concept has been maturing quite a long time, and I felt that this “Spiritual Anarchy” trilogy must be done first in order that more people would understand the themes and the possible meanings about what we are about to do next, theme-wise speaking. And this includes me too, as this “Spiritual Anarchy” path was something I really needed to go through myself first too in order to get the “palate cleansed,” and to reach enough certainty about some fundamental things before going forward with this next concept, in the context I spoke about those hypothetical and allegorical steps in the earlier question.
There is of course not one right way to understand, interpret or experience our works, as “Arts” and “Entertainment” are very personal things, so in the big enough picture it doesn’t really matter what I think about it myself, but this just felt like the right order of things to proceed for me. When these works are ready and escorted into the world, they start to live their own life and the artists themselves get to stand after that almost on the same line with the listeners who make their own interpretations. In this way I feel all my albums are my brainchilds that move away from their childhood home to the world and start to build a life of their own, and I can talk only about their background and how they were raised after this transition, but it is not in my hands anymore really where they go after that.
Many thanks for your time and insights into the realms of KING SATAN! I look forward to crossing paths again in the future and will leave the final words to you…
– Thank you for quite an interesting interview! I really enjoyed this one, as an avid fan of the philosophic and mystic side of all artistic things, I like to talk about it more than music actually most of the time. Music I want to listen, not talk hahaha. Well, to the point at least, as of course I can talk about music too, and have talked about music in most of the interviews really. But for this reason, this is very refreshing. I realize that some of my interviews recently have become quite excessive anyway, and I have no idea anymore if the way I answer to these music-related interviews are even suitable anymore for this format, but then again, I never anyway really fit into the conventions and conformity. I don’t remember anymore who said it, but the quote was, if you allow me to paraphrase, something like “The problem of philosophy is that it starts with so simple things that it feels pointless to talk about them, and it ends up to so complex things that it feels impossible to talk about.” Anyway, I want to thank you, and everyone who takes their time to read these interviews in order to know more about the band and the thoughts behind it. Hail Satan and I hope to cross roads again in future as well!
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