Interview with J.P. Antikrist of Deathroner

 Canada's Deathroner play some of the most furious metal to come out of Canada since the golden age of the 80s. Their new album has been killing me since it came out a few weeks back and I felt it fitting to catch up with the band to hear their thoughts and straighten out a few myths in the process. Vocalist and guitarist J.P. Antikrist was more than up for the task so here goes. I actually got the interview back a week or so ago but they promised me some new band pics, but their bassist got too wasted last weekend apparently so they only just did them: on the moon by the looks of things. On with the battery!

AFITFOG: First up, why the name Deathroner? Is it indicative of a motive for the forming of the band perhaps; i.e., to dethrone all the lame-ass bands around nowadays?
J.P. Antikrist: Of course, the moniker shows a motive, and the one you evoked is perfectly fit for us, ha ha... To dethrone fucking Christianity with infernal powers, to dethrone enemies and weak ones with total war, and when all is done and everything's destroyed and dead, death will claim its rightful throne.
Who are your main inspirations?
First of all, lots of satanic, hateful and aggressive metal bands. Also, Hitler and WWII in general, Nietzsche and serial killers... Satanism, occultism, war, hate, death and nihilism are great inspirations for us.
The LP is even more hate-filled, intense and insane than the demo - especially the vocals - was this intentional?
Absolutely. We've put shitloads of hate and aggression in the making of this demo, we knew we had to top it for the album, and we did it. In addition, the dirtiness of the low-budget production and mixing helped adding some effect to our sound.

The album cover depicts a black hole in space sucking the Earth into it, what do you make of the current state of the world? Does it feel like it is coming to an end, both in terms of natural disasters (flooding, fires etc.) and with mankind intent on killing itself (wars, religion etc.)?
Well, if this fucked up world and pitiful mankind are not already "dead", they're pretty damn close... That's the meaning of the cover art. The worst is yet to come, and this is what Deathroner stands for.
So do you think Death To All is a suitable soundtrack for the apocalypse?
Ha ha, hell yeah!!! Deathroner is sponsored by the apocalypse itself!!!
Ha ha! Canada has had a very rich history of killer metal bands over the years with Slaughter, Razor, Blasphemy etc. What new bands do you think emanate the same feeling and what bands from the old days do you hail yourselves?
New bands... We're not really getting updates about what's new in our country and the rest of the world as well. The only new band we know that is similar to Deathroner in terms of aggression and old-schoolness is Perversifier from France. Bands from the old days, that's what we're mainly listening to, even after all those years; Venom, Bathory, Slayer, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Possessed, the great canadian bands aforementioned, Deicide, Beherit, etc. etc.
A while ago I was talking to a friend about Deathroner and he said he liked the band but felt that "politically they are a few snowflakes short of a snowball", yet inside your new LP it states the band is apolitical. Was there some misappropriated idea in the past that you were a political band?
Fuck, yes. Some fucking group of humanists and worthless punks—namely the A.R.A.-Anti-Racist Action—started branding us a bunch of National Socialists, which had us banned from a couple shows as a result. They were too dumb to understand that we were hailing and praising EVIL in all its forms, without political afterthought or understatement. If you're judging Deathroner from a humanist and moral point of view, you're really missing the whole fucking point, ha ha.

How did you come to labeling your music as Evil Speed Metal?
Well, since the mid-80s we were listening to those fucking great cult acts - Venom, Slayer, etc. In Canada, almost every extreme band was released under a label called Banzai Records, which was based in Montreal. It was a kind of very cheap, semi-rip-off shitty label, but all the greats from the 80s we knew were on that label. They had like a 'warning sign' printed on some extreme album sleeves—like Bathory's self-titled release and The Return..., Hellhammer, Possessed, and so on. I think Banzai Recs began branding it in 1984, if I remember correctly. This sign looked like a solar cross and the moniker 'Speed Metal' was written around it. So, when we were going to the record store and saw an album with the 'warning sign' on it, we knew what we were going to buy; something raw, violent and fucking great! Then Banzai Records died and fell into relative oblivion... Still influenced by this old extreme spirit, we decided to revive this 'tradition' with Deathroner by putting that fucking 'warning sign' on our layout. We just added the "Evil" to get a more precise description of our sound and also add some character to the whole thing. So, this is the fucking Evil Speed Metal story... HAIL SATAN!!!
Will Deathroner continue to bring more of their unique unholy brand of Evil Speed Metal to the underground in the future?
Absolutely! The second album is on the way. Everything's written and composed, we're working on it and when it's ready, we'll enter that fucking Hell Hole studio once again to record it... EVIL NEVER DIES!!! 666.

Death To All is out now on cassette from Devil's Blood Production, or on CD from the band themselves via their myspace.