Interview with Deadly Kristin

Interview by Andrew Stanton

Deadly Kristin is a legend in Black Metal. Andrew Stanton got to talk to her about her life in the Metal scene.

Hello and welcome to Inside the Darkness.

“Hi guys, thank you for inviting me into your world, let’s see if I can shed some light.”

- How did you get started in music?

“I started when I was about 15. I used to sing all the time along with records and I had such a strong desire of expressing myself artistically and wanted to do more. I once recorded myself on a tape, singing over a mixtape I had made with songs of different bands, from The Cure, Depeche Mode to Sex Pistols and few death metal bands and sent it over to a goth duo in Switzerland. They loved it and they told me there was something magical in my voice and were impressed by the different styles I could sing. That was an eye opener for me. I thought I had the skills and attitude to create my own band and just be an artist and go out and perform one day. I then attempted to form some local bands but I didn’t get too well with the other members, I felt I needed someone who had a more similar attitude and ambition to mine, or maybe more of a spiritual feel to it all. So for years it was really re- hearsing and improvising in different practice room and with different people. In the meanwhile, I was writing tons and tons of lyrics for potential songs or poems at home. Until one day my path crossed with Aphazel of Ancient. We became a couple and when he heard me sing he thought I was really good and could use me in his band. For me it was a blessing, I couldn’t believe he asked me to do that. That was around 1997 - 1998 . That’s when I recorded my first album “The Halls of Eternity” and started to tour straight away. It was the breakthrough I always waited for all my life.”

- Is it easier or harder working in the underground scene?

“When you are in an underground band things are very much real. You are yourself, you don’t do it for the money, you do it for passion. You are free to express yourself musically without caring too much what people think. When you get signed to a big label, it becomes more of a compromise sometime. Fans have expectations, the label itself has expectations. You need to follow that. In a way, it gives you a lot of exposure, they arrange all the interviews for you, they advertise you, they give you the money for your videos and photoshoots and all. They make you feel like a freaking rockstar but if you don’t sell enough they can drop you in a blink of an eye. From a star you become a nobody from one day to the next. I had a bit of a taste of both back in the days.”

- When you first started in Ancient, I think the only women around were Sarcana, Kimberley Gross and maybe Dismal Euphony. What was people’s attitude towards you at first?

“There were very few women. The only one who could sing like me was Cadaveria of Opera IX. I went to one of her concerts back in the 90’s, few years before Ancient and was very surprised to see how aggressive she was on stage. She could do deep vocals and growl just like me. Girls like Kimberly had a completely different style to mine. She was a soprano. She only did clean vocals. I despised that kind of vocals, I still don’t like it up to these days. She is probably a better singer than I am, but it was just the style I didn’t like. I thought she sounded like a nun singing on a black metal track. I was more of a Punk/Death Metal kind of vocalist. I used my vocals to express my anger.

I was a beast on stage. For me that is what metal was all about. I must mention Erichte, the female vocalist Ancient had after Kimberly and before me, the one who sang on “Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends”, which is my favorite album of Ancient. I simply adored her. She was doing some kind of extreme vocals too, but in a more toned way. She was a hell of a character, I adored her. I felt bad taking over after her and I only agreed to become Ancient’s new female vocalist when I was assured she was not in the band anymore because of the distance as she was in USA and Aphazel had relocated to Europe. You see back in the days people thought that the way I sang was just outrageous. A few of my friends laughed the first time I started to growl on stage as they had never seen any girl doing that before. Back in the days, Metal was just a man thing, let alone extreme female vocals. People were not used to it. Now, on the albums of Ancient that I sing on such as “The Halls of Eternity” and “Proxima Centauri” I mostly did clean vocals as I was asked to do that, but I did a lot of extreme vocals too and people would just assumed that was just Aphazel doing it. They would only found out when seeing us live that it was actually both of us doing it. Things have changed so much all these years. People were simply not prepared for that back in those years, but I had a lot of credit from some Metalheads who appreciated what I was doing. Some other, simply couldn’t cope with the fact that a woman could sing like a man lol.”

- Was your image an important part of your job? Did you have full control of it?

“Yes I had a full control over it. I somehow regret wearing such sexy outfits though. People were quick to judge and label you as a slut just because I used to go on stage in a net dress who left too little to the imagination. In reality for me it wasn’t a sexual thing at all. I didn’t do it to provoke people. I just thought those outfits were cool cause nobody was wearing anything like it back then and I wanted to look different. I didn’t even make much effort in trying to obtain a certain look. I never had my hair done or my makeup done, I was doing it all myself. Some of my outfits were also semi modified by myself to make them look more mine. Most of the clothes that I wore on stage were the same ones that I would wear when going out. I was just being myself. Nowadays females in Metal all look like photo models. If you look at them now they all got professional make up on, super nice hair and all. When I see their pictures and how being sexy now is the new normal in a way I wish it could have been like that back then, as I wouldn’t have had to face some of the judgements I had to hear for years.”

- You and also Ancient seem to travel around a lot. Does it make it easier to make new contacts?

“Mostly Aphazel, Kaiaphas and I were the one who traveled the most and lived in different countries. I guess this nomadic spirit that we shared in common was also part of that connection that we had. We knew people everywhere. The amount of holidays and trips I have done around the world visiting friends and contacts! It was amazing. I used to be on the internet a lot as well, back in the internet early days, I always made my own websites and blogs and that was making it even easier to connect with people. Also when you are in a band you always get to meet other musicians and people just get in touch with you constantly. It is easy to build connections around the world, nowadays more than ever with social media. I once went to visit the guys in Monstrosity in Florida. I only met them once at Wacken Festival when we played in 2000. We exchanged phone numbers and a year later out of the blue I just called them from work, we had quite a chat and I just told them “Hey I am coming to Florida next month, can I stay with you guys?”, “Yes sure”, it was that easy!”

- When music turned to downloads, did the money stop like everyone thinks is what happens?

“It did! Maybe not completely but it totally turned the world upside down for the musicindustry. The way labels would set budgets for the bands. Nowadays with all these downloads if you don’t tour and sell merch, you are going to be broke. Back then we were selling proper albums and cds, in addition to touring and selling merchandise.”

- How did you go from Satanic music to Islam?

“I wouldn’t call Ancient Music Satanic, it was anti-religious yes, but none of us were or are Satanist. We just wanted to piss Christians off I guess. We wanted to smash the dogmas. When I was in Ancient I didn’t believe in God, or at least not in the Christian God. I have always been spiritual though, I believed there was more to this life, I believe in souls and ghosts and that there would be other dimensions out there. I had my own theories about destiny, about the universe and was doing some research into these things on scientific books to prove my own theories. I started to study physics, chemistry, astrophysics, quantum physics and found some common patterns there which were also present in some of the world’s religions. Like for example how we would return to our Creator after death and how there are invisible things and beings from other dimensions that come here and interfere with ours. I started to see things from a different angle. While I was doing these studies I came across some other musicians who listened to my crazy theories and happened to me muslims. They told me that a lot of what I was saying was the same in the Qur’an. I couldn’t believe it, I could not understand how a religion would have a book saying similar things to the theories of someone like me. So I looked into it. I read the Qur’an. I approached it with a lot of curiosity and when I came across all those scientific bits that explain the creation of the universe and how it is expand ing, the concept of time and space and how human beings were created, the djinns and all of that it just blew me away. It was like the pieces of the puzzle all started to fall into place and it all started to make sense to me and just had become muslim. Now, most people are very ignorant when it comes to Islam. They don’t understand it. They think Islam is the same as arab culture. Actually far from, in a way. We shouldn’t judge a religion by a culture or not even

by its followers. Because people often mix their own culture and tradition with the message and It all gets distorted. I have just studied the message in the book and that is all that counts to me. I understood it.”

- Do your Muslim friends know about your Black Metal past?

“Yes of course they do. I also appeared in many magazines talking about this, both music magazines and more general mags. I got interviewed by Zaman newspaper in Turkey once, which is a major national newspaper and had hundreds and hundreds of emails from Turkey, people wanted me to appear at music festivals there, people drawing me and sending me gifts. Even several Metal bands from Indonesia, Malaysia contact me and sent me gifts, such as their t-shirts and cds! People can be fans of Black Metal and be Muslim as well. How strange this is! That’s because Black Metal music doesn’t necessarily mean you are Satanic. You can like the music and even play this music and not be Satanic.”

- Can you tell our readers about the day you were nearly killed?

“I don’t want to get into much details as it really hurts me to think about it and I don’t want to be involved in possible police investigations as I am not sure after all these years that all the homicides these people did have all been solved. I won’t mention any names. Back in the mid 90’s I use to hang out at popular metal pub. A lot of musicians used to hang out there. Cristina of Lacuna Coil, used to work there as a waitress in those days. I made friends with some guys who had a brutal Death Metal bands. We were not close friends or anything but we used to hang out on weekends. One night after some beers, we just went in the car and one of them suggested we would go to the woods. I felt super excited about it. I was like “Oh yes! How cool! Yes, let’s go to the woods, wow I have never been in the woods at night!”. One of these guys, who sat next to me in back of the car, suddenly became pale and agitated. He started to say to his friends “ No... no... no”. I think he used to fancy me actually. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to go as I really wanted to. It is like he wanted to stop the others from taking me there. The others didn’t look happy, they looked so serious. We were driving like crazy on the highway blasting out Deicide at full volume and banging our heads in the car. I was actually sitting on a freaking hammer on the back, seat. There was also a rope there and some other tools like some kind of little shovel or something. I didn’t make too much of it back then, I thought they were just working tools and guess the guy was using this car for some kind of manual work. All of a sudden, while we were driving on that highway I suddenly remember that was a band of friends of mine playing that night at a club. They would normally let me in the club for free, so I told the guys about the show and changed their mind. I said “Actually come with me to the gig, if you come with me they will let you in for free! We can go to the woods another time”. So they turned around the car and we went to the show instead. But they only let me in for free and they didn’t want to pay for it, so they just dropped me off and went their way. I never saw them again. I don’t remember why I stopped hanging out with them, I think it was one day I was walking in Milan with another friend and they mocked him for no reason. That really bugged me. Anyway, to cut the story short, a good 10 years later when I was living in Sweden I started to receive tons of emails from Italy from old common friends. They told me that there was this big thing on TV going on for months about a criminal investigations and that those guys I was in the car with that time, who wanted to take me to the woods had actually been convicted for murder. They had murdered some guys, one of them was even one of their band members, killed them with a hammer and thrown them into a grave they had previously been digging in the same woods were they were going to take me to. Their bodies had been found as I said about a decade later. This was not a sole episode. It was a pure Satanic cult who committed lots of murders. I could have been one of those unfortunate souls. I know now, for a fact, the guy who fancied me, who kept saying no, was trying to save my life”

- Is your music career over? What do you do now?

“My latest album, “Delightful Suicides” came out in 2005, it was my own project with Aphazel called Dreamlike Horror. After that I have recorded some vocals for various artists but it was mostly dark electronic music with a real edge to it. While in Egypt I wrote about 10 new songs fir a new Dreamlike Horror album and I really wanted to release it as a video concept, almost like some kind of short film where the song intertwined one into the other. I am still very interested in this and I might do it one day, maybe even by myself as I have got a professional camera now or as a collaboration. Unfortunately, I have lost all the music files but my ex might still have them on his pc. I also lost all my recording equipment in a terrible house fire some years ago in Sweden and I never bothered to get new one again. Then I had my son who turned my life upside down, in a good way that is. So these days apart from being a mom, I am actually home creating art. During this pandemic I have discovered I can draw and I have started an Instagram art account where I sell my portraits and take orders on commissions. I mostly draw musicians; I am pleased to say I have sold quite a few already. Please check it out: instagram.com/hayamdk_art

- Do you ever get recognized when out shopping?

“Sometimes. Not so much in the UK, mostly in Eastern Europe Egypt, Sweden and Italy in particular. In Italy people know me a bit better because I used to work for Rock TV as a presenter. There was a time I was more known for Rock TV than for my music.” “But it’s all people my age or older. New generations don’t know me really as I have been absent from magazines and the public eye for a while. I think this was sort of related to my question about underground stars have it easier than mainstream stars.”

- Do you have a message for our readers?

“Yes. Listen to the music you want but don’t flirt too much with evil. It’s all fun and games until it touches you from close, like it did to me. Keep it light hearted, keep it fun. Let it be about the music and the music only. Trust your guts always. If you feel bad vibes, just walk away.”

Thank you for your time.

“Thank you for this interesting interview.”