Plague Demon Records. Interview with Jim «Namtar Axarcuth» Downey

Interview by Jay Parker

Hi Jim hope this finds you well. Here is the interview for Inside the darkness. This is Jay reporting from Bogota Colombia. Today I’ll be talking to Jim “ Namtar Axarcuth” Downey owner and founder of the diabolically delightful US label, Plague Demon Records...

1) Hi Jim, thanks for taking the time to talk to us... tell us plague demon... when /where/ why did you set up the label?

I pulled Plague Demon Records together after a lifelong dream to not only be a musician, but to also help out our once mighty scene that seemed to be coming back to life, and giving bands what I never got, a label that won’t lie to you! From the biggest to the smallest almost every label we ever signed with in all 3 of my career bands being Namtaru, Perverseraph, and Blood Storm has lied to us and breached contract, except for Gothic records from California as well as WW3 records who was run by the same great guy, my friend Enrique Chavez. I was actually going to start my label a year before I did, but was doing a release with Afterworld Records (Namta ru-Ancient Serpent -7inch) and didn’t wanna step on the guys’ toes, so I waited a whole year for my record to come out and week one of my release, this guy goes and harasses the beautiful and very awesome Kelly Tee with insane drunken ramblings, which we will not discuss the inappropriate stuff he said, but he sank his own ship. Bad move on his part, but he turned over all 500 copies of my NAMTARU 7 inch to me. And then some, He knew he was done and I told him I was starting my own label. So in the long run I became friends with Kelly Tee for apologizing on behalf of the bands mostly Namtaru and The Primitive as I was in constant contact with the mighty Jim Roe on how we should handle the situation, Afterworld Records big screw up. And had quite a bit of stock for the label to begin with, it was a good place to start. In the very beginning i found Caezar Lazo who now does Blaspherion, Moribundus Christus and Ritual Possession, and also in the beginning I found Peter Bohm and Alvarez, these were my 2 first bands and my very close brothers I speak with as often as possible, Caezar and I speak daily he is that guy that always sends you videos of his songs hahaha! I love it brother keep the videos coming! And Peter and I speak to as often as possible, it’s hard for him most of the year because of his seasonal job. But they both helped me greatly in the beginning stages of the label we threw ideas all around and came out on top! Those 2 guys will forever be my brothers no matter what happens! But year 1 for Plague Demon Records was awesome we did 16 phenomenal releases and had one of the greatest graphic artists in the world Keith Simpson who will always be a friend and a part of the family to us at PDR. Year 2 was very impressive I joined forces with Blasphemous Creations Of Hell Records run by war brother Chuck Manganiello with another 28 releases and for part of the year we had Wyl from ASMODAEN BLOOD COVEN doing the graphic art we ended the year with catalog number PDR042. So things have been going excellent the first 2 years of the label. We later wound up with no graphic artist and Chuck and I learned some helpful art programs and we do the layouts and adds ourselves as we were growing tired of people leaving on us. My goal in the beginning was to only release black metal bands but my mind got changed by bands like Alvarez, Blood Temptation Booze Serpent, I Misanthrope and Goatthornsskullbonecrusher. I heard their albums and had to pick them up, they are all elite bands, from all over the world, all great! stand up! and get shit done without the ego’s, type of people, My kind of people. I have had the awesome pleasure of having so many great bands released on my label. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better group of bands and personalities that I interact with on a daily basis. I have seen a great bit of support from friends and metal Tyrants far and wide! We all support each other in this scene. So we all help each other or we fall!

2) Give us a run through of the bands that you’re working with at the moment.

Man that’s a long list but here we go. Of course I release my own Namtaru releases, Alvarez (Austria/ Czech republic), Blaspherion (USA), Deceiverion, Old Pagan (Germany), Ritual Possession, Moribundus Christus, Legio Inferi (Colombia ), Serpent Ov Old, Blood Temptation, Kvlt Ov Odium, Booze Serpent (Turkey), Svartmass, Valefar, Selvmord, Himetuks Himi N, Goatthornsskullbonecrusher, Eirik, Morkhgrat, Lawrence Wallace (Serpent Ov Old), I Misanthrope, Primordial Serpent, Frozen Fortress, Aeigort, Isataii, Nekcrium, Sisters Memon (UK/ Poland), Bloodrust, Howling, Absentia, Indre Mørke, Temple Of Gorgon, Zwetwezen, Necroroots (Mexico), Thale (Norway), Pestalagon Presmitrius, Charon Kruk, Yaldabaoth and 4 releases a month from now to October which I won’t reveal just yet. Hopefully I didn’t forget anyone. But every band we have released is excellent to say the least!

3) What was the last album you released and what is the next one to be released?

The last album was actually a compilation of all new songs, never released before by 26 bands on the PDR/BCHR roster called Blasphemous Plagues Of The Underground Volume 1- on digital download and 2 disk CD package. I must say this compilation destroys all by far every band turned in a beyond excellent song for this compilation and the awesome Sisters Memon has 2 songs on there! My next release will be Himetuks Himi N, this kid has given me 2 releases in less than a year he actually waited from the age of 16 to 18 to be on the label, his first message to me was” I want to be on your label”, this kid is awesome and bringing great melodic black metal to the fucking table, he is also doing something quite different, his writings are based on Native American folk lore and beliefs which I myself find quite unique, followed by Isataii for the 2nd release by us as well and Charon Kruk who joins us for their first release for the month of January, all kick ass, killer, and amazing bands and people!

4) What is your approach as a producer? Many albums today sound so over produced, in my opinion the band loses a lot of character... personally, I much prefer the old school sound, it’s so much ‘truer’ I think… do you try and keep that old school feel or does each band have a different direction sound wise?

I go for whatever is excellent to me personally, some have a great production, some sound like they were recorded in a cave with a lowfi sound including my own release with Legio Inferi (Colombia) it was a last minute decision to put Namtaru on there and we came up with the most low-fi release of my career but we wrote it as we went along it was more of an experiment in writing, we were never so unprepared and inventive and it turned out great for what it was. So I would say it goes on a case by case scenario, but all of our bands capture a beautifully executed old school sound in my opinion!

5) Tell us how you’ve adapted and survived during these last 2 years? How has all this madness affected Plague Demon and your bands?

Well honestly if anything is going right for me in life the last 2 years it’s my label and bands, outside of that life is a fucking shit show. I would just like to say I believe were all being led into some New World Order and the sheeple need to open their eyes to what’s going on, I would like to give a big fuck you to, COVID, vaccines, human waste and American television scare tactics, I’m tired of all of it and the time to stand up and give a big fuck you to all of our countries leaders and take a fucking stand is now! Stop giving your freedoms away. We are all going to wind up dead or enslaved by rich filthy millionaires who want nothing but your death and numbers, fuck them all with the biggest fist up the ass!!! To quote Destroyer 666 Aware, Beware, War!!!!!

6) With the current resurgence in popularity of cassettes and vinyl, do you see a brighter future for smaller record labels?

Hell yes! We must all support each other in these dark days. If we allow one another to fall, we will have no scene, there’s a lot of great labels and bands today. I am seeing more and more great underground bands and labels and I support you all. Put out all of these great bands, get your name out there and for all the fans, fuck this digital age, you new comers have no idea what the great days of metal were like. Buy CD, cassette and vinyl. If you truly support your scene buy your favorite albums in physical format, or at very least buy digital very often as we the labels get raped on digital sales. Stand together and rise together Mighty Metal Tyrants!!!

7) Tell your best and worst experience working as a record label...

My best experience was probably starting the label and my partnership with BCHRECORDS , it was a great choice we made together to work as 2 separate label’s, that work together as one, our partnership brings a lot more to the table as we are 2 working together and we can pull a bit more off such as Chuck has been doing our weekly radio show Blasphemous Plagues Of Hell, which I will eventually take over every other week and I’m constantly searching for bigger and better for all of us as a whole, I have great ideas and find all the best ways for us to do more in every direction within reason for our budgets and it cuts costs in half which allows us both to bring more awesome releases to our killer followers and fans, and my worst experience is a hard thing to answer for me as I haven’t had any problems, besides the awful costs of shipping, especially overseas and just so you all know I’m working on a way for us to open shop in Europe and other great continent’s I find trustworthy people in, in the near future. As well as the great people my partner in chaos Chuck finds for us to work with. All i can say is if you’re unreliable don’t bother to reach out because we are all about spreading the Plague to all around the world and if you fuck with the Demon you get the horns!!!

8) As an old school metalhead, you’ve seen many things change over time... tell us your opinion on the evolution of metal, and where you think it will go in the future...

I definitely come from a day when the scene was alive, exciting, and thriving, I had a great many awesome experiences, more than most these days, but for a while I was growing bored with bands and our once great scene, as many of them that lead the way in the beginning are boring as all fucking hell, don’t get me wrong some still kill it but most are either repetitive, I mean how many albums can you write about Satan or chopping up bodies? Try opening your minds to a whole other world of occultism and study, read, and grow, look past the box that Christianity put inside your head and see the bigger picture! I guess that’s a whole other topic of discussion. But then out of the ashes of war thousands of great bands started emerging, bands that made me feel as though the Black/Death metal scene was born again through Chaos, something has awoken in these new bands that was missing for year’s! What brought it I can’t say and it can’t be these fucking millennials because you can’t even speak your mind in a free country like the USA without someone’s pussy hurting, that’s right I said it! So what caused this, maybe the fucked up state of the world we all live in, maybe these new great bands are fueled by the hatred of today’s world. Whatever it is I’m fucking loving it! So as a whole I see our underground scene emerging victorious in the end. I’m hearing stuff that should have come out in the 80’s and 90’s and if everyone just does their part in supporting new bands and labels. Our mighty metal scene will thrive once again!

9) Now you’ve got a very impressive catalogue at Plague Demon, some great looking cds and vinyls and some belting bands from all over the world... choose three of the very best to recommend to our readers. Why did you choose them?

OK PLAGUE DEMON RECORDS bands I just have to say you all rule!!! But if I had to pick I would have to go with the bands that do the most foot work on their own and help me as much as I help them! So number 1 would be my brother Geist with his 2 bands on my label BLOOD TEMPTATION and TEMPLE OF GORGON, 2nd would have to be the mighty female fronted (Natalia) and equally as great male musician/ movie writer Martin Daniels and their awesome creation SISTERS MEMON, 3RD my brother from Germany, Machosias and his 2 bands OLD PAGAN and GOATTHORNSSKULLBONECRUSHER and I’m gonna have to add a 4th band here with the awesome WVLGAR and his bands KVLT OF ODIUM, ISATAII and NEKCRIUM. But I must say it was very hard for me to choose, as we now have 45 great releases and each and every one as good as the next so check out our whole catalogue of bands!

10) Is there any band that you would like to work with but have been unable to?

I haven’t quite hit that road block yet! I haven’t asked anyone out of my league quite yet and I will clarify that in a moment, I have a very great history myself with Namtaru, Perverseraph and Blood Storm. I realized from the start some bands I know quite well, are living off of their music, or running a label themselves so why would I being a newer label try to pick up a band who’s needs I can’t quite meet yet, keyword YET. I have great plans for the future of PLAGUE DEMON RECORDS/ BCHRECORDS we will continue the barrage of releases and awesome bands!!! I do all I can for our bands, and as with all things in life sometimes we run a bit off schedule, or sometimes I change the schedule and my partner Chuck probably hates me for it hahaha, as he writes up the schedule for all releases as he is more organized then myself, then i break it, but only for the greater good of the labels and especially for pre-existing bands. But I trust more in the bands we already have then the bands who are equally as good but more known at the moment, to rise up and take off. I work very hard to promote and take these bands to the next level and as we grow they grow with us, and I will say this one last time! We the creator’s and fans of underground metal must unite, help each other out, spread each other’s word’s, songs, art and albums! Metal is might. Let’s take the world by storm together!!! This will only be achieved by uniting and supporting our fellow bands and independent and underground labels!!!

11) Tell us about the equipment you use... what kind of studio set up do you have?

I have built my studio up quite a bit at home, I guess almost everyone has a studio in their house these days. So what I’m using to record is actually a free DAW now CAKEWALK by Bandlab but at the time I aquired it was still a $600 program put out by Sonar, so I believe I have a bit more to work with then the free version but its equal to any other DAW out there today. I can use my old zoom 16 Track, 8 input, digital recorder as an interface as well as a Tascam interface I have bought. I run this through my laptop with a 50-inch monitor and Mackie studio speakers. Which gives off such an amazing sound. I have 12 guitars of which I really only use 2 being my Ibanez 6 and 7 string RG’s, Marshall halfstacks, 4 basses to choose from, and quite a few drumsets including an electric drumset for those times when the neighbors may call the cops and I may have to tell them to piss off hahaha but seriously! I have been working on some new songs for a 6 band split and a full length for Namtaru this year and I have released nothing done in my own studio yet other than some mixing and mastering of others songs. We have done our last few releases in my other guitar player John (Shaitan) Litchko’s studio he calls The War Room. And the Darkthrone cover we did for the USBM Tribute To Darkthrone and compilation song for Blasphemous Plagues Of The Underground volume 1 titled HYMN TO THE ANCIENT ONES were done on my old 16 track recorder, so you will hear the outcome of my own studio in the upcoming Namtaru releases.

12) As a musician/producer/ label owner with nearly 30 years’ experience, you must have run into some strange and colorful characters over the years in the business... tell us a funny story...

Man I have so many awesome and funny stories to tell this is a hard choice and colorful characters don’t even scratch the surface of some of the people I have met in my career! But I want to save some stories for my upcoming writings for Inside The Darkness as that will be the basis of my writings. So I’ll be a good sport and tell you a story where the laugh was on me, to save further stories for future writings. So while traveling often with Blood Storm, we would mess with each other and break each other’s balls to pass the time, we were all pranksters. What else do bands have to do while driving almost 24 hours a day. We were all good sports and able to laugh at each other and ourselves (well most of us anyway hahaha), a few bands we played and toured with told us that they were waiting for a fight to break out for the things we said and did to each other and other bands wound up sharing our sense of humor such as Enthroned who fit right in with us. So we were on a 3-day drive in a minivan from Philadelphia PA to San Antonio TX to play the Sacrifice Of The Nazarene Child Festival put together by Alex from Thornspawn, sleeping was a hard thing to do when crushed in a minivan for 3 days with 7 people and all of our equipment. So I finally fell into a deep sleep where I wasn’t waking up for anything after about a day and a half drive and we pulled up to a rest stop to use the bathroom, as I awoke everyone in the car was hysterically laughing, which set off the alarm in my head, what did they do to me while sleeping? I looked down to see the socks almost completely burned off of my feet and saw the video camera sitting in the middle console, picked it up and rewound it only to see Frank (Teloc Coraxo) Gamble spraying my socks with a flammable aerosol liquid and lighting my feet on fire over and over again, I never even budged, I just played there sleeping still as can be with my feet on fire, over and over again while everyone laughed, only to wake up with burnt socks and no clue what happened, until I found the video camera. I had to laugh because it was something I would have laughed at had I been on the other side of the joke and revenge always came later when the next person fell asleep, sometimes we would wait days to pull another prank on each other and we all loved to laugh as much as possible. Although many didn’t understand us, it was how we passed the time and I’m sure someone out there has the video and laugh’s when they see it. Just know I’m laughing along with you. A day in the life of touring with Blood Storm hahaha!

13) Do you have any words of wisdom for up and coming labels/producers looking to achieve your level of success?

Well honestly I feel we have a long way to go still, we have come a long way in just 2 years as a label, I don’t know if any other labels have done 45 releases in 2 years? So I can’t really compare it to anyone else because I’m only keeping track of my own accomplishments. But I definitely feel we have grown worldwide in a very short period of time, and if I was anyone else would people still look at the label the way they do? I am a humble guy, I can’t stand egos or shit talkers, I do like to laugh and pull practical jokes but only with people who I’m comfortable with. So as a label and a band I would say only work with people you know aren’t going to pull the ego trips on you, there’s enough big heads in the world, don’t feed into the bullshit of others who are usually just jealous of what you are accomplishing, and when the going gets tough ,push harder to achieve your goals the word “can’t” is a poisonous word that I have no time for in my vocabulary, you can do anything you set your mind and heart on, always follow your gut instincts they are usually right and never stop growing as a band, a person, a label or anything you aspire to be. Times are tough all around these days, just do your best and keep pushing through the assholes who want you to fail, and give them a big middle finger and a smile when you accomplish your goals!

14) Would you like to add anything for our readers?

I would just like to say support underground labels, bands, smaller distro’s and record shops, help the little guy’s live their dreams!!!! Also I would like to thank you Jay for the killer interview and all that we will achieve together in the future, there’s no other music in the world that brings people together like our mighty metal scene! World strong we are all united for the same cause! Hails and thanks to Inside The Darkness and all metal supporters across this wretched world!!! May the great old ones rise up to devour all of humanity for we are the true Plague!!!

Thanks Jim for taking the time to talk to us, we congratulate you on the amazing job you’re doing at Plague Demon and may your success continue!! All Hail the Plague Demon!!! 666