written by Marko Jakob | 26.02.2022 |
Pix666: Hey Aleister. Thanks for your time. How are you doing these days?
Aleister: Hi Marko! It’s all right considering the times. Mainly I am waiting eagerly the release of our 3rd album in April 2022 and the world to re-open again, especially our upcoming European tour where we are supporting the industrial legends DIE KRUPPS in May 2022, but also our own album release shows before and after that!
Pix666: Nine months ago you released the single ‘This is Where The Magick Happens’. Now the next singles ‘The Faces of the Devil’ and ‘The Pagan Satan’ followed in January and February 2022. How were the reactions to the new songs?
Aleister: The feedback has been incredible with these both new singles! Way beyond our expectations. These songs and the whole new album shows much more metal oriented sound from us where we kind of say goodbye to the aggrotech/EBM era of us, even you can still dance to it, but we had no idea how our old fans will react of this development. But we are very glad they reacted to it very positively! Other world has been seemingly more responsive to it as well for some reason, as we’ve been playing in radios and reached Deutsche Alternative Charts (DAC) for the first time too. But of course, controversy is still there, because we are what we are and we do what we do, so the controversy seems to follow always wherever we go, but it comes with the territory!
Pix666: Who actually designs your cool outfits, especially the masks that we see in your video clips?
Aleister: Since I am a director of these music videos, I kind of always keep my eyes open for outfits, accessories, masks, equipments etc. when I am browsing around fleamarkets, shops, webshops, streets, wherever, marketplaces, bazars, and when I see something I might have use for later I will get it just to be safe. And my friends donate these stuff to me too nowadays when they think I might have use for it, for which I am very much grateful. ‘The Faces of the Devil’ music video aesthetics is a result of hoarding and “The Master and Margarita” fandom, heh. With “This is Where the Magick Happens” all actors designed their own outfits based on my script, except those monks, who were also result of my hoarding too!
Pix666: The Covid Pandemic has slowed down your plans in the past – is that why you have postponed the release of the new single(s) and the album?
Aleister: This is correct. Originally we wanted to release an album when the touring would be possible again to support the album’s release, and it looked briefly good again in 2021 so we decided to release “This is Where the Magick Happens” single then, but then things started looking bleak again and world went back to lockdown. When the tour us supporting DIE KRUPPS was confirmed, we decided then to confirm the release plans to take place near the tour, whether the tour would even happen or not, but at the moment it looks very good and promising after a long time again!
Pix666: But now the time is coming soon. The new KING SATAN album ‘Occult Spiritual Anarchy’ will be released in a few weeks. What will fans expect, what are the main differences to your first two albums?
Aleister: The album is sort of the end of a trilogy we started with the debut album in 2017, so theme-wise it is linked to everything we have done before. Musically the biggest change is that we have now a real human drummer playing in every song of the album, instead of a drum machine. And also we stripped down the additional effect layers quite a lot, so the album is much more organic musically than before I guess. We wanted that we sound on album the same that we sound on stage, and this is why our live sound engineer Antti Välimäki produced the album together with me, and which led into this results you can already hear from the two first singles from our new album “This is Where the Magick Happens” and “The Faces of the Devil”. I guess it is also the darkest album of these three as well, even the absurdism and surrealism is still present, but there’s less splatter and exploitation there now. Maybe we are more industrial METAL now I reckon.
Pix666: Is it already possible to pre-order the album and will there be any special versions of it?
Aleister: Yes, it is possible. There will be a vinyl version available for the first time ever by Electric Spark Records, which you can already pre-order from their webshop where CD is also available, but also Record Shop X from Finland is offering exclusive pre-order bundle with LP or CD together with exclusive t-shirt and A2 poster with shipping world wide option.
You can see yourself behind from these links:
https://www.recordshopx.com/merch/king_satan/occult_spiritual_anarchy/
https://www.electricsparkrecords.com/products/king-satan-occult-spiritual-anarchy
Pix666: The situation with Covid has improved somewhat. Do you already have plans for concerts in 2022?
Aleister: Yes! We will have little Finnish album release tour in Finland before and after we go supporting DIE KRUPPS on their “Bright Side of Hell Tour” in May 2022 around mainland Europe, and we will also have couple of own headlining shows after that in Belgium and Netherlands before heading back to Finland for Summer festivals. At the moment there are also three confirmed shows in Germany, Hannover, Hamburg and Düsseldorf in May 2022 on that tour, so hope to see there!
Pix666: Your songs have quite a lot of views on Spotify and YouTube. Do you look at these statistics?
Aleister: It is nice to know that our material reaches people more and more. And yes, I find it interesting to know where we are listened of course, because it could mean potential concerts there!
Pix666: If you compare bands and musicians in the present with those from the 1980s, which era do you like more – the era with large numbers of record sales and MTV – or the present era with streaming and social media?
Aleister: Well, for the last century the music world has been going through very drastic changes all the time, so there are good and bad things everywhere, but of course the revenue from digital streams is almost nothing compared to physical sales, which should be looked into carefully if it could be fixed somehow. I grew up with MTV so I am always nostalgic towards it because of that, but it was also very limited channel.
Its also very common to over-nostalgize the past when you reach certain mental age, since basically missing the MTV culture is equal to missing of being spoon fed of music by few industry experts, so I am not missing that part that much. Thanks to internet I can find so much more easily new interesting stuff (also lots of shit naturally) than like two decades ago, but it requires some own effort instead of being spoonfed. I also grew up with physical albums being the most important thing, and for me that has not changed even today.
I have very contradictory feelings about social media, but it has been very important outlet for the oddball freakshow band like us to get our voice out there without any seemingly help from traditional music media, especially during our first years. But now, it seems that times have changed a lot in such short timeline I think, and for me it seems that social media has changed people’s menta lfocus to prioritize quick fixes, short sightness, fast changing trends and led into masses of people lacking any bigger picture of reality surrounding us. But then again, I guess it has been so always with easy answers, quick solace and humanity, even before social media, but now the result of this is visible almost in real time hahah.
Pix666: Do you have any other news about the band, that you would like to share with the fans?
Aleister: We will release new single called “The Pagan Satan” from upcoming album in 25. February 2022 from where we already releases little “The Making Of commentary” last week, all available at our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJr4NUndrK8&t=8s
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Good luck with the new album and stay healthy!!!
Aleister: Thank you for an interview! Fuck the rest, Satan is best!
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photos © by King Satan & Kati Vasu
