Doppelaxt – Barbarians Arise!
This interview took place last year, after I discovered the band. And what a discovery it was. Their approach to the genre is one that reminds me of Past endeavors, Past perspectives of the genre. And although I truly love what Black Metal artists are doing today, I am still very much connected to the 90s and the early 00s, and these mates from Philly are just that: contemporary feel, with an "old" attitude. Let us be honest, you cannot go wrong with that.
Thank you for the opportunity given. It is a pleasure to meet you. First, tell me how you got in touch with Signal Rex?
Cheers, and thank you for contacting us. We were contacted by Signal Rex almost immediately after we released the digital version of our debut demo; he expressed interest in working with us and we were quick to accept his offer as we have immense respect for his label.
I am going to be honest; I did not do a lot of research on the band, to learn more about it through the band members. Tell me a little about the concept behind Doppelaxt, the influences (musical, lyrical, and more), how the idea of creating this band came about, the story of how you got here.
There is no central “concept” behind Doppelaxt — the band is purely a musical expression of our desire to face our enemies and see them lain prostrate before us. The band originated from some demos that our guitarist Axel had developed on his own, but it took on its current sound and attitude once the three of us began to play together. We were quick to capture the magic of our initial rehearsals in the form of our first demo, and we are currently in the process of finishing up some new material and preparing for live performances.
Musically, we draw influence in equal parts from the battlefield-metal legends of yore (bands like Graveland, Bathory, Bilskirnir, Moonblood, Odal, Scald, Venedae, Lascowiec, and Thor’s Hammer), some of the more powerful old-school street-rocking Oi! groups (Fortress, Sudden Impact, Brutal Attack, Bound for Glory, and The Last Resort), and folk music from both our home in America and the soil of our Germanic & Celtic motherlands.
Your sound is quite epic (I am not talking about symphonic orchestrations or similar). It paints a Howardian landscape. Does this make any sense to you? Or have I been taken by the cover of the Demo?
Assuming we understand you correctly, this certainly makes sense insofar as the notion of our music offering a vision of bloodthirsty conquest and savage victory. As far as the demo cover, of course the symbolism of medieval weaponry is timelessly evocative, naturally bringing to mind the sights and sounds of brutal and visceral combat. Early jam sessions found us channeling the noble-yet-barbaric, “epic” sound forged by bands like Moonblood and Graveland, especially once the synths were added into the mix. If this combination can be described as Howardian, we will readily accept this description.
The music with which the Demo begins, reminds me of Primordial (more Old-school than current). I do not know if you agree, and if you have the band as an influence, but this is one of those bands that I also consider to be carrying a rather epic sound. What bands do you consider to be your influences?
Though we would not cite Primordial as an influence of this band specifically, we understand the similarity that you draw, especially as it relates to the first two Primordial records. Like Primordial, we understand the value of a triumphant melody, especially when it is ensconced in a more martial or violent rhythmic idea. But to be clear, to pick out of the long list of bands provided above, our core influences are Graveland, Moonblood, and viking-era Bathory, especially as it relates to the guitar work utilized in the group. The Oi! influences tend to influence our songwriting, which often revolve around two or three main melodic ideas with no major technical trickery other than occasional rhythmic modulation. Lastly, our drumming style is the result of specific influence from the primal, loose, almost folk-ish style demonstrated best by Capricornus, while keeping strong roots in the incessant urgency of Oi! as well as certain American hardcore bands.
In your Metal-archives profile, your sound is described as Pagan Black Metal. What is your vision on Black Metal, in the 21st century, especially in such a specific niche? In an increasingly technological world, how do you fit the idea of Paganism, whether in Music or in Personal Belief?
Any true expression of black metal should be driven primarily by personal esoteric research and synthesis. This essential aspect is the key missing from so many of the banal projects being labeled as black metal these days by lacking in self-awareness. The importance of Paganism to us lies in the revival of ancient wisdom, found through the history of our own ancestors, as well as that of the great warriors, philosophers, theologians, storytellers, and occultists throughout the ages. The greatest falsehood of modernity is the idea that we are now detached from the past, that we don’t need the values and wisdom of the old world in the new world. We consider this to be nowhere near the truth. In a world set on crushing the human spirit into a capital-generating data point, the need for true spiritual resistance is greater than ever. Luckily, fate has provided that in this time of deception and confusion, we also have been granted technology giving us immediate access to essentially all of recorded history, and all of the manifestations of human intellect that has come with it. This is one of the few truly profound gifts of life in the age of the internet, and any individual seeking to see beyond the veil of modern life would be a fool not to make use of this resource to the greatest extent possible.
Paganism represents not only our recognition and reverence for the ancestors that fought to cultivate our bloodlines with care and grant us existence, but also an embrace of the same values that they used to fuel their own survival... strength, honor, dedication to one’s kin, and a fiery will to tend to the primal needs of the body and soul regardless of the circumstances presented to you by reality, are what we see as the key to liberation from the chains of modernity. As such, our vision of “pagan” black metal is one that fundamentally includes both a total rejection of weakness and degeneracy and a righteous embrace of life and its glory. It should be a reminder to the old souls that all is not lost... something still survives deep within all of us.
What is your opinion about the growing wave of bands that have been coming up from the United States (and a bit around the World), making Raw Black Metal? Is there a resurgence of a more rotten and primitive sound, or does it now have more attention from the public?
It would seem that this wave of “raw/vampyric” black metal is one of the most prevalent new trends internationally. While we have great respect for the legendary groups they are so cheaply and obviously imitating in their music and artwork (LLN specifically, in most cases), we are completely repulsed by the manner in which this trend has become essentially an easy-to-replicate, easy-to-sell layout for attention-hungry weaklings to pump out ad fucking nauseum. Using their “alter egos” as a vehicle to feed their pathetic masturbatory desires through social media and forcing the scarcity of their worthless material to pedestrians who will buy any bullshit tape with a corpse paint photo on it. How many bland, riffless, identical-looking, fake-mysterious “black blood of the wampyric hatred” raw black metal releases do we fucking need? The simple and obvious solution to this problem is strict adherence to elitist personal standards, both in one’s own work and towards the black metal you choose to give your respect and money to.
For years, few bands from the United States have been seen as relevant. Do you feel that there was some prejudice towards USBM, which prevented people from seeing beyond bands like VON, Judas Iscariot, Profanatica, and many, many more?
Coming from the perspective of Americans, it is a bit difficult to have a legitimately unbiased understanding of the way the rest of the World views US black metal, but it does seem there’s always some surprise at above-average material coming out of the States, perhaps increasingly so these days. Whether that is indicative of a historical prejudice towards USBM, or the relative lack of consistently respectable output and long-running veteran projects in comparison to that of Europe, South America or Canada is certainly debatable.
3 songs makes a short offering, but they are actually really good. Congratulations! Is there anything else saved for this year?
We intend to keep up the momentum that we have picked up in the wake of our first demo. With the release of KILL THE OPPOSITION, we quickly took to preparing material for our next release. After treating it as demo material for the first month or so of the writing process, we decided to use it for a split with another closely aligned entity. All we will say on the matter for now is that the band we are collaborating with on this split release hails from Poland.
Once the split is completed, we will begin focusing more on tightening our group musicianship performing the songs we have assembled so far, in preparation for several upcoming live appearances later in the year and the overall effort of making Doppelaxt as lethal and thoroughly trained a force as possible. Whether this will naturally result in more material coming together quickly for another release remains to be seen.
A funny detail is that the 3 of you share vocal duties. Is it due to specific moments of the songs? Did this idea come from scratch, or did it come about throughout the creation process?
The main reason for this is the splitting of vocal duties between songs by our bassist and guitarist, with each generally performing vocal parts that they’ve written, respectively. However, in addition to that fact, the idea of oi-style gang vocals was something we had been set on since early rehearsals, and toward the end of the K.T.O. recording process we decided to try adding that into the mix at some especially anthemic moments to a satisfying, yet subtly-placed effect on this release. We intend to bring this aspect of the vocal performance more to the forefront on upcoming releases. All members of the band have experience in the vocal position with other projects so no one has any issue providing an input.
Moreover, the process of creation: how does it unfold?
The process usually follows the lead of our guitarist bringing riffs and rough song structures to the table, at which point we all bring our own character to the material in combination with our united vision, and let it develop from there. As far as lyrical and thematic issues, we have a strong mutual understanding of the subjects we would like to cover, these matters don’t need to be discussed too thoroughly to come to an agreeable result. Lyrical responsibilities are dispatched arbitrarily from song to song with no creative tensions or negotiations needed.
How did the pandemic force you to change routines, habits, everything? Was the simple act of rehearsing affected by the pandemic? Do you think this pandemic really changed something in Man?
Doppelaxt formed towards the tail end of the pandemic lockdown as a result of the very close living proximity of its members, thus there have been few restrictions on our ability to rehearse as a group. Whether it’s truly “changed” anything is less evident than the brutally obvious indication that man, on a collective scale, is in absolutely no capacity prepared to handle any more physically or psychologically taxing of a crisis that this pandemic has been. And this has, for most people living in the first world at least, been an extremely low-stakes crisis with very little actual personal sacrifice being demanded from the average person.
In the event of a more extreme and disruptive natural disaster or violent conflict, it’s truly unclear what would become of the large majority of the populace who live their lives completely dependent on outside sources for lifegiving sustenance and avoidant of all thoughts of how they would survive or protect their loved ones in such an event. In America and many parts of the world this past year, there were the slightest brushes of genuine lawlessness and civil collapse, with the riots and resource shortages experienced by many in both rural and urban areas- a mere glimpse into the true fragility and instability of the globalized world. Most people, and their governments, responded in manners that were either totally selfish or naive. Maybe for a number of people, the pandemic and the social upheaval of the last year has sparked a more sober concern regarding this reality, but humans have a very short attention span. If the last year is any indication of society’s preparation for crises, a healthy cynicism would likely suggest a fairly tragic and poorly-handled outcome in any such large-scale event. So perhaps to summarily answer your question: no, not much has changed at all.
Your Metal-archives profile also says you are from Philadelphia. Even if it is not related to your music and/or Black Metal at all, I must ask you what you think the chances are, of the 76ers, to go far this year (Ball is Life, sorry)?
As of this writing, the Sixers are in Round One of the playoffs (leading the Wizards by two games) and show no signs of stopping. As a Philadelphian, you must always take success with a grain of salt and be prepared for the kind of cataclysmic failure which lurks around every corner - for the Sixers, this usually takes the form of a leg or knee injury to a star player. However, we are proud to report that for the first time in many seasons, this year’s Sixers have embodied the true warrior spirit, and we are quietly hoping for their total victory.
Thank you very much, once again. I am waiting for the tape, hoping more Music is coming. Greetings, from Portugal, to the United States.
Our pleasure. Many thanks for the
support, and inclusion in your zine. Cheers from Pennsylvania, to the European
legions. KILL THE OPPOSITION.
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