Namtaru. Interview with Namtar

Interview by Jay Parker

Hi this is Jay reporting from Bogota Colombia Today I’m fortunate enough to be talking to my dear friend Namtar from the mighty monster of US Black Metal, Namtaru Hails my brother, thanks for taking the time out to talk to us...

1) Tell us about Namtaru? Who is in the current line-up? When, where and why was the band formed?

Namtaru was formed in 1995 by myself and ex-singer Azael (R.I.P.) in the early years I started writing a lot of the songs that were on my EP The Plagues Of Namtar which I wrote all music and Azael and I wrote the lyrics, I wrote these songs as a teenager and started with lyrics about hatred of the human race and Satan, as my occult studies grew I later changed the lyrical content towards the Necromicon, The works of Kenneth Grant, Alester Crowley, The Ancient alien books of Zachariah Sitchin, Chaos magick, Enochian magick and dug as deep into the occult as possible, by 1996 I was introduced to Blood Storm which I later joined starting on bass guitar and later Lead guitar, all of the members of Blood Storm minus Mezzadurus joined me in Namtaru and later that year also all of the same members started doing Perverseraph which was another one of my bands created by me and Shaitan originally, Azael left Namtaru and later died and I eliminated his vocal track and became the lead singer of Namtaru as well. The Plagues Of Namtar EP was released in 1997 by Gothic Records based in California and later a remastered split with Namtaru and Perverseraph on the same release together by WW3 Records. As of now we have my drummer of 16 years now Ben “Damon” Fahy and will be joining up with the singer/guitarist Necrodermous Hammerhord of Deceiverion and also his bassist Chris Chamberlin, this will be the first full lineup in many years as myself and Ben have done the last few releases together, after all of the egos of some members who were later eliminated, and one I wish death on in the most gruesome manner as possible so I can piss on his grave for betrayal that is far past forgiveness!

2) Give us a quick run through your discography (some real gems there mate), from first to last, and please tell our readers where than can buy them...

I started with The Plagues Of Namtar EP, then toured with Blood Storm and Perverseraph for many years and since we were doing 2 bands with the same members, we decided to make both bands one and being the bigger man, I chose to put the name Namtaru to rest for a long while and all of our songs became Perverseraph songs from that day forward, we restarted Namtaru in 2019 when we recorded the Ancient Serpent 7 inch which was 2 songs I had written many years before and felt they should be released, we also recorded a 3rd song Precognitive Sentient intelligence which would not fit on the 7 inch and is available on the CD version of Ancient Serpent and The King Of Black compilation between USBM and Indonesia. In 2020 we did a split with the mighty Legio Inferi from Colombia, we tried something new and wrote these songs as we went along and added more and more until we had our 4 tracks for the split titled “ That is not dead which can eternal lie “ , this was something we just had fun with and consider it to be an experiment in writing and it’s probably the most Low Fi recording we ever did, after that we did a USBM tribute to Darkthrone and did the song ‘Beholding the throne of might” followed by this song that was on our own compilation this year “Blasphemous Plagues of the underground volume 1” between my label Plague Demon Records and our partner label Blasphemous Creations Of Hell Records, This song which I did a remix of will also be on this compilation for Inside the darkness titled “ Hymn To The Ancient Ones” and was written and recorded by myself and Wvlfgar of Isataii/ Kvlt Of Odium/Neckrium, this was an unexpected but amazing collaboration between Wvlfgar and myself. Now I am writing songs for our first full length album coming later this year. All of the releases are available through my label Plague Demon Records.

3) Describe your music in 5 words.

Occultism, Nihilism, Hatred, Death and Chaos.

4) Whats brewing at the moment with Namtaru man? I understand you’re working on some new stuff?

Yes, as I said in the above question, we have some new blood in the band returning to a full lineup, this will be our first full length album and will be released later this year. I will not reveal the name of the album yet, but it’s all in the works right now.

5) What are your plans for the future? are you planning to tour again?

It’s not something I would be opposed to especially with the new lineup, I’ll definitely be doing a few full length albums and can see us at least doing some shows here and there, if not tours we’ll see what the cards hold as we progress.

6) What is the inspiration behind the music and lyrics? Who writes what? How do you get the songs together?

I write everything so far lyrically and musically then bring what i got to Ben for the drums, the inspiration of my lyrics are occultism in many directions and my hate of the human race, the songs come very easy and naturally to me as I have been at this for a long time now.

7) Tell us about your equipment... what instruments do you use? and what kind of recording gear? Where do you record? What guitar tunings do you use?

I use my Marshall JCM 900 amp with my 3 favorite guitars my Ibanez RG 6 string, Ibanez RG 7 string and LTD viper. I use a fender bass, and Ben has an amazing Sonar - Phonics drum set, most of our recordings are done in Bens house 2 and a half hours away from me in the mountains of Pennsylvania and I also record my parts in my own home studio using the Cakewalk DAW and also my older 16 track digital recorder which I have used for the split with Legio Inferi and Beholding the throne of might on the USBM tribute to Darkthrone. I now tune in D standard, The Plagues Of Namtar EP was done in E standard, but I will continue using both in my recordings depending on the song.

8) You have been around for a while Mr. Namtar, and travelled around a bit too... tell us about the best and worst experiences you’ve had as a band.

That’s a really hard question, I got to meet and tour with almost every band I have ever listened to, so I would say that was awesome for me and then later just became normal, but I had some really great times with a lot of amazing bands, the worst but also one of the best times I had ever had was when we toured the USA with Enthroned, and Sol Evil in my time with Blood Storm, the reason I’m saying it was one of the worst times is the guy who put the tour together didn’t know what the hell he was doing and we had either slept in the tour vans or an awesome amount of friends reached out to other friends who put us up in their homes in almost every state we went to, also we had to eat McDonald’s shit food 3 times a day which had us all sick and I cannot eat to this day or we stole food from many places and were supposed to be driven back to Philadelphia at the end of the tour in California and wound up taking a bus back to Philly which took 3 and a half days , so on one hand it was one of the best times and on another one of the worst times I have ever had.

9) What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you on tour?

Shit this one is hard as well, we were all jokers and many of the bands we played with were as well, so a lot of funny things happened over the years, but I won’t say any names, but I once depants someone from quite a big band while he was on stage and in his spikes and corpse paint he was standing there in his heart boxers, which he was a good sport about and laughed himself, but it was hilarious!

10) What’s the Black Metal scene like in Philly USA? Recommend some bands, old and new.

Old bands mostly man a lot of people moved out of Philadelphia due to its crime rate and murder sprees, but i know Blood Storm is still in Philadelphia, my ex guitarist did the death metal band Necrotion, Perverseraph, Namtaru, then the bands that live on the outskirts of Philly Deceiverion, Crucifier, Serpent Ov Old, in the old days we always hung out with Alex Boulks now with immolation as well as original drummer Craig Smilowski of Immolation, Goreaphobia, these days I don’t really know of any other Black Metal bands in Philly other than Namtaru and Blood Storm.

11) How do think this big old oak that we call Black Metal will grow and evolve over the next decade? Do you think the scene is doing well at the moment?

I see a lot of talented bands these days emerging from everywhere around the world, it’s really inspiring, I get to release some of the most awesome bands of today’s scene with Plague Demon Records ,but it’s a whole new scene compared to the old days man, I also hear of these Black Metal hipster bands, all I can say is take your man bun out of your hair and do us all a favor and kill yourselves, all these people now days want you to not say this or that or you will be labeled horribly in some way, let’s be real our music is Chaos and built on hatred , death and the occult in one way or another, so to the panzie generation all I can say is fuck off and grow some balls fuckers!

12) What’s your BM favourite album of all time and why?

Aww man your throwing some hard questions at me hahaha I can tell you this much some of my all-time favorite albums are Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion, Kreator - Pleasure to kill, Sodom - Sodomy and lust, Darkthrone - A blaze in the nothern sky and Goatlord, Enslaved - Bloodheim, Impaled Nazarene- Tol corpt norz norz norz just to name a few. There’s many more but I really don’t think I can pick just one album especially in Black Metal there has been so many amazing bands over the years.

13) Do you have any wise words of wisdom for new bands and musicians that are reading?

All I can tell you is in the beginning for me and all of my career bands, we went as extreme and over the top as possible and approached things like we invented it, we owned that shit, that may sound a little egotistical, but if you want it bad enough own it like you invented it, if you’re playing out live make it as extreme and out of this world as possible, and don’t be a dick, respect your fans and supporters in every way possible, without them you are nothing, and do as much footwork as possible, even when you’re on a label, work as hard as you can to get your music out there, us labels work very hard for our bands, but when you have so many as we do now, there’s only so much time in a day for us to get things done, and we all have real life issues to deal with as well, whether its work or family or both. But be imaginative, there is a lot more bands today then when I started out and to be heard you have to stand out. Also don’t be a pussy, speak your mind and fuck the normal folk, they’re all sheeple, you will always be hated by someone, so fuck it speak your mind and stand for what you believe in!

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

I would like to thank all of my supporters for Namtaru and my label Plague Demon Records you all rule! I would also like to thank all of the bands I represent, and all the labels, zines, distros and friends I have made along the way especially my partner label Blasphemous Creations Of Hell Records, and Masters of Kaos Productions, also Black Metal is not a fashion show, it’s a way of life, if you want to play in the underground please get a noose and rid the world of the weak!!! Hail to all you true Black Metal tyrants out there!!!!

Thanks to the mighty master of darkness and desecration, Namtar Hail The US Metal Hordes 666