ZERO TOLERANCE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
By: Nathan T. Birk
*Original, uncut, & unpublished interview taken from the pages of Zero Tolerance Magazine Issue #50 (Jan 2013)
VON - The Name Game
The name VON is one of the most mythical and misunderstood in all metaldom. Disbanding in 1992 – perhaps not ironically, just as black metal second wave was brewing a bloody takeover – after releasing only one demo, VON’s legendary would grow exponentially throughout the ensuing decades as the genres heaviest hitters would name check them either in interviews (most famously Burzum in Kerrang!) or through countless cover-songs. Myriad, oft-dubious releases would subsequently follow to capitalize on this cult phenomenon. Come 2010, shit would get all crazy: not only would the original vision of VON return, but also erstwhile solo projects VENIEN and von goat. Then disagreements arose, factions were formed, and now we see VON – comprising only one founding member, with the rest of the lineup entirely overhauled-releasing what was intended to be their debut album, Satanic Blood. And they’ve got another album following right behind it…and it’s the first of an intended trilogy to conclude by December 2013. Delightfully bewildered, Nathan T. Birk attempts to get some answers from that one founding member, VENIEN
Nathan T. Birk:
First off, why re-form VON?
VENIEN:
“VON was never fully formed or shall I say realized, it evolves as darkness does in a constant state of chaos and change, but yet a calm before death is always there you see?” “The current form, the form you will witness, and if you listen closely, embrace what is handed to you, and if you’re in the right state of mind, you will actually feel the answer.”
Nathan T. Birk:
Secondly, what were you looking for in the new VON members? Like, why did you choose them rather than reunite with your old band mates?
VENIEN:
VON in its present state will always be an ever-changing MONSTER with all of us; it lives within all of us, that was and still is the main ingredient for those that come to the fold. Those that are not accepting and if it does not suite them it will naturally again evolve. Soon, if those that are vessels for it now are not willingly or capable of harnessing it long enough, they too will excise it from their grip and move to another purpose, it’s the VON way. I on the other hand cannot leave it, for it lives within
Nathan T. Birk:
So, do you have sole ownership of the VON name?
VENIEN:
Brass tax huh?…OK right to it then, well isn’t it evident and plain enough to see? OK, well let's open those can of worms then for the wolves to gnaw on. In the real world, in the music world, in the business world, in western society, and for those that deal with currency, rights, property, and creations, hence the name of my business, Von Properties, ownership is intact with me. Von Records was added to the fold to specifically deal with records I made, VON is the entity, the vessel for the music, and I am VENIEN, I am the one that created VON.
Zero Tolerance:
This is the opening statement(s) from VON’s VENIEN. the vocalist/bassist is one of the founding trinity, but is now the last man standing. He holds the sole copyright to the VON name, while the other two now-ex-members have focused on the no longer aligned von goat. And if your keeping track, VON are back in action after nearly two decades in the grave. The soap opera surrounding VON since their resurrection has been heated words from both factions. I could waste my word-count on that, if the subject was only relegated on the controversial release of “Satanic Blood”. But I’ve always found the VON “legacy” inflated at best, ill-earned at worst, and I’m far more stoked on “Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves”. It’s the first of an ambitious trilogy to be self-released over the course of the next year (and that’s not including a double-album solo release from VENIEN), and it's fucking mesmerizing. It’s all the inflated/ill-earned ‘trademarks’ of the original-era VON, but better and weirder and wilder and wronger. It’s cast such a favorable impression upon this writer that the sweating-to-the-oldies Satanic Blood is actually sounding half-decent. A damn-near exhausting 58 minutes, VON’s Satanic Blood races through the retardo-trance of the band’s original 19-song cache, but bolsters it with thicker, more throbbing performance and even an attention to (tar-like) texture. As loathe, as I am to admit it, this sounds more 2012 than 1992, and is all better for it.
Nathan T. Birk:
To that, what are your thoughts on von goat?
VENIEN:
My thoughts surround the facts, which include my intentions to always finish what I started so long ago, but also to do it without the bullshit and hype. This is VON in its raw state and its truest form that it can possibly be! So I could care less what Shawn does with his life, his music, or whatever band he wants to portray or pose as, its all-just hype and those that stroke that boy, are fools. Last time I spoke to him was immediately after the London show and he called to basically quit VON like he did in the early 90s and told me to cancel all shows including Hole In the Sky, which I personally booked to play next. He had his farewell speech and laid it down that he was doing von goat business now and good luck with VON and Von Records…it was all bullshit! and it makes me sick I even considered recording the album(s) with him…next question
Nathan T. Birk:
Regardless of membership, is VON more of an eternal *idea* rather than a band?
VENIEN:
The vision that has endured, it is and has always been in within itself and is held within its own boundaries, so it's a yes and no. When I created the concept and channeled it through others, within that time I spent in the early years with them, it was a process that was barely scratching the surface and never was fully realized or was capable of gathering itself to reach its full potential in my eyes, and due to real life, the platform (band) was short lived and was no more. I had many things to tell and many visions “ideas” as the MONSTER grew inside me and the world itself through the music that survived. It is at times brutal, filled with rage, but then times it has more intricate aspects once it’s dissected. Overall, there is far too much to explain in one sitting. Those that had the chance to hear the demo material, feel they way they do unfortunately, since that is all they could base what they know about it, so hopefully they will finally get a chance to see more of the vision in the coming years, and get to experience what has been locked away for far too long.
Zero Tolerance:
But VENIEN Is keen to stress that this latest Satanic Blood is more than mere retro-retread, the proverbial dusting off of cobwebs
Nathan T. Birk:
Similarly controversial, you’ve re-recorded all the first-era songs as the “Satanic Blood” album. What was the impetus behind this? To put some closure on the past so that you can begin the “Dark Gods” trilogy or…?
VENIEN:
These are the FINAL recordings of all the material I created with Shawn, and it was always meant to be presented at some point, unfortunately it was 20+ years late. The works-in-progress, demos, tape recordings, that’s what you and everyone else have only had the luxury to be able to hear all this time. But, since those works were bootlegged, packaged, and sold as an album by a few companies out there through the years, you and the public are lead to believe it to be as an album, it is not. The demos have material we created in the 80’s and since some feel the true VON is only those that actually played on one of the demo tapes (that’s an whole other interview), it is not. Also since Shawn quit again recently before production of these albums being released, he is also not on these FINAL recordings. So the “impetus” was based on the simple vision from the beginning, and that was to finish what I started so long ago, and neither time, people, critics, anything would or will stop me from completing the path. It is done and I am content. For those that hate this piece of work or for those that blast it in their ears and drink too it…its finally there and complete for everyone
Nathan T. Birk:
How, then, do you address the folks who say this isn’t the “real” VON?
VENIEN:
Put them up against the wall! They know nothing!
Zero Tolerance:
Whether one chooses to view Satanic Blood as the closing of one chapter or the start of another-or possibly both-there’s no disputing that VON’s Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves is its own, hefty chapter. It should also go some way in establishing that the current VON is a real VON.
Nathan T. Birk:
What’s striking about the first “Dark Gods” album is how well it jives with the “Satanic Blood” material and yet aims for new + different territories for VON. Had VON not broken up a first time, could this first “Dark Gods” album have also been conceived in the early ’90s? Hypothetically speaking, of course…
VENIEN:
Dark Gods is an accumulation of material I have worked on for years on and off, there was so much of it that I put it across three albums. Dark Gods Trilogy has 3 parts to include: Seven Billion Slaves, Birth of The Architects, and finally Ancient Blood. In terms of the Satanic Blood album and then the three Dark Gods albums, they are all loosely connected but all stand alone in their own right. Shawn wrote the lyrics on Satanic Blood, but all the bass-lines were through myself. We worked it out together on the guitar and bass arrangements in the early stages, so we collaborated on most of it, but the overall theme of all the songs was based off simple bass-lines, as you can tell I’m sure. That stands true through most of the VON songs I have done to date, there are just a few added elements, but still the raw and primal simple rage behind the intensity and temperature of the songs is evident. If it was the 90’s and I brought in the Dark Gods material with the original guys included on the studio recordings, hypothetically? sure, with them collaborating on the material, no it would have never happened.
Zero Tolerance:
Taking the Satanic Blood material as a mere springboard, this first Dark Gods installment (d)evolves VON’s signature hypnotic element (that aforementioned “retardo-trance”) toward other, slower/creepier possibilities; at times, the tension created by the sustained trance is downright anxiety-inducing. Throughout the entire duration of VON, what’s so alluring to VENIEN about repetitive, hypnotic textures? Like are they symbolic of life being a ritual (at its best) or even the grind of mundanity (it’s worst)?
Nathan T. Birk:
The first “Dark Gods” album carries that signature *hypnotic element* that characterized the first era of VON, but then you also take it down other, slower/creepier avenues; at times, the tension created by the sustained trance is overwhelming and even anxiety-inducing. Throughout the entire duration of VON, what is so alluring to you about repetitive, hypnotic textures? Like, is it symbolic of life being a ritual (at best) or even the grind of mundanity (at worst)?
VENIEN:
Life bends and wields its own way my friend…light and dark are all the same, and this music is like that, it is almost like a score of a soundtrack, it has always been. Either a car chase, a murder scene, or a sexual scene that captures in slow motion the erotic sweat dripping down her face, and even more the heat from the sex all of a sudden, you can almost feel it through the screen…that’s the vibe I try to capture in my songs. Depending on the story I envision and how and when I want to tell it, it all drives itself in that direction. How others perceive its intentions as a hypnotic induced state, rage filled screams, or one that I hear time and time again is the phrase ” I just want to punch a hole in the wall!” It means and feels different for everyone; it all depends on your mood I guess. These are not albums you will listen to all day that’s for sure.
Nathan T. Birk:
So, what inspires you now vs. what inspired you then? And I’m NOT talking about purely musical things - rather, stimuli and sensations, vibrations, etc.
VENIEN:
I have had seeds that have grown and together we all experienced life as it is, that journey with them was an infectious high at times. However…The cold and black heart and the unforgiving man inside and the demons and darkness that has been festering into a growth around my body since I was a child, it has been “soaking” in the madness, the rage, the manipulation, the evil, and more things that can make you stark MAD!…those things reveal themselves from time to time as I have reached my early 40s now. There have been things inside me that have been bleeding into the ink that writes these songs, there have been visions and experiences that has infused itself into the riffs, and there has been soothing vibes and states of the mind that have been in memory and have found their way into the rhythm and the pulse…but always the darkness, the cold, the dread, those demons always laid themselves around me like a blanket to a baby…these are the things that have been manifesting in the real world and it naturally serves the notes, the music, the stories I create. Inspire? torture? induce vomit? Yes, those are all episodes that have taken me down this long road while writing and recording these works. It is all part of the path we take to look inside and peel back those dark and evil things that hold us hostage.
Nathan T. Birk:
You have quite an ambitious plan for this second era of VON: first the “Satanic Blood” album, then the “Dark Gods” trilogy of albums, and then a couple splits that will be in your “Black Mass” zine, not to mention your Venien solo double-album. Is this a culmination of material you’ve had for the past couple decades since VON’s initial demise? Or has your creativity kicked into overdrive lately and this is all all-new material?
VENIEN:
Timing has not been my best friend, creativity is born not made. These things that you will hear have been there all the time and since the beginning even before there was a band. Placement and the luxury to execute the projects has been tasking and long now and for years in the making. Much sacrifices and ugly things I have been part of in the cold streets to make my life from time to time and I am here now talking to you making these things reality finally. But overall, as things have progressed since the year of 2006, that’s really I say when the projects started to become reality and Von Records was created, then the studio, then all the other things along with the projects started to manifest and come together. Tons of material has been written since the boys quite the band in the 90s, but putting it all together and what was truly in the black heart of the MONSTER I call VON and also what belongs to the slippery-psychosis-induced-persona that overwhelms me from time to time, that is the thing I like to call VENIEN. That in itself has been a task to decipher, separate, and place within the stories and the upcoming albums, again they all come from the same place, the voices in my head. The writings and stories do take hold at some level and naturally separate and it that part has been completed. At the end of the day they all have their own place and albums to call home.
Nathan T. Birk:
Nevertheless, are you being overly optimistic with this intense release schedule through the end of next year? Or is it really totally feasible for you?
VENIEN:
The first album “Satanic Blood” should already be out by the time this goes to print, the first part of the Dark Gods Trilogy is called “Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves” that is already mastered and going to press to drop at the end of the year. Following up with that in March 2013 is my 24-track solo album called “Tribal Blood”. That album is currently in the mixing and mastering stage and then to press for a March release. The second part of the Trilogy “Dark Gods: Birth of The Architects” just wrapped drum tracking and is en-route to being mixed and mastered as well for release in July 2013, right after the solo album. Finally in December 2013 you will see the last part called “Dark Gods: Ancient Blood” drop, that album is currently in preliminary tracking stages as we speak. We will be done with all these albums before the end of the year. Once that is done we like to take it to the streets and present it live on tour for what we call the “Ritual of The Black Mass” for all of 2013 into 2014. Again, I’m here to finish what I started.
Nathan T. Birk:
I believe there was talk a while back about a custom VON guitar line or amplification…?
VENIEN:
I designed a bass guitar for myself; it will also be fitted for guitars for my band-mates as well. Design phase has been completed, waiting on patents and paperwork to come back before I move forward with it. I will be doing some cuts soon and getting some prototypes launched for the tour next year and there might be a few for sale but all custom made to order only for those that afford that kind of thing. This is not a mass-market thing and will all be handmade to spec, so it will be costly. I had talked to someone to put my ideas for a raw and heavy bass amp together for what I do, but nothing has come of that yet. Hopefully I will be able to revisit that with someone that has the same vision I do for that part of my gear.
Zero Tolerance:
VENIEN‘s single-minded approach to pursuing his vision of VON has also manifested itself in his DIY operation Von Records. Why go the self-release route when you could’ve signed to any number of labels interested in capitalizing on VON’s legacy?
Nathan T. Birk:
You’ve also chosen to go DIY with Von Records. Why go this route when you could’ve signed to any number of labels interested in capitalizing on VON’s legacy?
VENIEN:
Vision…simply that….by the way, I never got any calls…I guess everyone wanted to wait and see first before calling me, or will never call. I changed my number a few times anyways. DIY is all I know, if you want it done your way…DIY, if you want it done right…DIY… its all cut and dry don’t you think?…timing, patience, and just know you going to spend lot more than your gonna make, and are willing to make it happen no matter what, that’s why people don’t do it…I’ve had companies that I’ve owned and my employees would come to me asking for raises, simple answer back “If you’ve earn it I’ll cut you a check”…bottom line man, I’m not a fucking slave to anything except myself. Myself and my family, we make our own in this world period, we don’t need anyone to be honest. I’m hard on edges anyways, it would be tuff to deal with me let alone sign a deal that I would even consider. I’m not in it for pussy, not in it for fame, not even in it for the money, I do what needs to be done for my music and that’s it!
Nathan T. Birk:
And now: what are your true, honest thoughts on VON’s legacy? Why is VON so feted *now*? Would you rather have been feted back then? Or was this posthumous interest a case of “too little, too late”?
VENIEN:
Legacy is a strong word to use for this, I look at it as more of a potential and sometimes hidden or a skewed perspective/feeling that has always been there in music in some form. This MONSTER I call VON, it only presents itself in its own way. People have not yet heard or seen enough to be truly “feted” as you say; yet some tend to be, while others think it is the worst music they heard, in the end it matters not to me. All I can do is finish what I started and move forward with what is coming out of me and if it is accepted or not, it will be done. When I started VON, people just stared at me in horror and would say, “What the fuck is this?” “Play some Metallica MAN!” all it did was make my fingers tingle that much more when I blasted “Veadtuck” in their face!
(Source: Zero Tolerance Magazine Issue #50 Jan 2013)