(interview done in 2000)

Their name is Wagchor, an unknown band coming from Finland and their style is (was?) (melodic) Black Metal without bass… I’ve interviewed one of the two members, but I really don’t know why this intie doesn’t convince me…  please read and you’ll understand what I mean!

Vanish: Wagchor is a pretty unknown band, since your whole discography consists of an unique demo, recorded  almost two years ago… would you introduce your band, Striga? A lot of time has passed since the recording of “Sodan Julistus”, what have you done in the meantime?

Striga: The band was formed at the beginning of 1996 by Kalervo, couple of months later I (Striga) joined the band and since then there has been only 2 members in the band. Couple of rehearsal recordings were made at 1996/1997, but then some personal disagreements came between me and Kalervo and the band was laying in the ice for about a year. In the end of 1998 we started to rehearse again and at february 1999 we marched to studio to record our first and the only official demotape entitled as “Sodan Julistus”. Since then nothing important has happened and at the moment some personal disagreements has come again between us, so it unfortunately seems the we will not continue the story of Wagchor anymore.

V. How many copies of the demo did you sell approximately? What has been the response among the underground meander? Did you receive (m)any good reviews? Have you received some contract-deals yet?

S. We have sold the demo about 400 copies now and the response has been fantastic! I have seen about 20 reviews now and only one of them was below average. Actually we received few very good deal offers from wellknown underground labels, but as it seems that days of Wagchor are over, I had to ignore all of them.

V. Is Wagchor your first band? Since how many years do you play and/or are you involved in Black Metal?

S. I have involved in black metal 8 years by now and also played in few bands, but Wagchor is a first black metal band which recorded something official. Besides Wagchor, I have recorded a demotape with true heavy metal band Funeral March at 1996 and my darkwave synth band Arthame at 1998. Funeral March doesn’t exist anymore, but with Arthame I have planned to continue in the near future. Demotape entitled as “Fiendish Symphonies” is still available.

V. Your music is both chaotic and melodic/melancholic… I guess your main influences come from Norwegian bands but there is also a lot personality… Tell me…

S. We both have listened Norwegian bands, that’s for sure, but I see our influences coming from many different bands from many different music genres as we both have very wide taste of music. Yet I can understand when people say, that they hear a bit of e.g. Emperor and Abigor (we have been most likely compared to these bands) influences in our art and I take it as a compliment. You see, that’s how music comes original, when you don’t listen one or two bands and try to copy them. I see Wagchor’s art as original and that’s good, ‘cause I don’t like to do music some others have done already earlier.

V. Beside your music, another thing that intrigued me is your look… for me it’s not as the usual bunch of clowns handling swords/daggers and looking pathetic, your look is very dark and scary… there’s a real necessity for you to use facepainting and looking so?

S. I pay a lot of attention on my photos, for me it’s the part of this art. Photos of the band should reflect the music of the band, thus they must look scary and dark as that’s way our music is. Corpsepaints are not a must for me as I have took some photos without them too, but they certainly give you a different mood.

V. Don’t you think that for play Black Metal and/or defining himself a black metaller the player should have a certain knowledge in occult matters or anyway it needs to be under the influence of a certain state of mind? Which is your position among this things?

S. I don’t understand your “certain state of mind”, but of course people involved in black metal should have knowledge of Satanism, Occultism et cetera. Yet, unlike most of other so called black metallers, I don’t see it necessary to be used on the bands lyrics, but most likely heavily antichristian and misanthropic ones. I have read about satanism, witchcraft, black magic et cetera for about 4 years by now and practised some rituals for about 3 years, but I see this subject too personal to talk about more (Sorry Striga, but this answer doesn’t convince me at all -Ed).

V. Kalervo is the main compositor in Wagchor, since he screams, write lyrics and play guitars and drums… why is not he to answer the interviews/letters? Why his address there isn’t? Please explain me why…

S. As far as I have understood, Kalervo simply has no interest towards underground and other promotion stuff. We answered 2 interviews tighter, but others are all answered by me as well as all the mail. Yet it’s ok for me, ‘cause I was already on the underground business (Contradictory term… what I can say? -Ed) long before joining Wagchor. Of course it’s a bit hard for me to answer some certain questions about our music, but so far everything has went quite fine.

V. What’s the meaning behing the word “Wagchor”? Is there any particular reason for you to have chosen it as the band-name? What’s the meaning for the title “Sodan Julistus”?

S. Wagchor is a name created by Kalervo himself and I can’t remember exactly how he explained it, but as far as I remember the name has somekind of misanthropic story. In my opinion the name suits quite well for our black art. “Sodan Julistus” is finnish and means “The Declaration Of War” and for whom did we declare war, that you can figure out from the burning church on the cover.

V. Two of the three lyrics are in finnish, so I can’t read them. Could you tell me of which matters they deal about?

S. The first one called “Läpi Pohjolan Jäätuulten…” is in English “Though The Icewinds of Pohjola…” and the other is the title-track. They are both quite simple blasphemy without any in-depth stories, but it’s hard for me to tell you anything else about them, thus let me just give you a translated example from “Läpi Pohjolan Jäätuulten…”: “Serpent tongue, the god of weakness. Those following him have changed their pride into lies. We the proud people, let us perish the arrogant god and his morbid folk, for their lives are more futile than of the son of the cockroach. Let the final judgement fall, until the world of filth is cleansed. Until the filth is nothing but their blood, flooding on as rivers…”. I hope this explains something.

V. In the demo cover there’s a picture showing a burning church. An unusual thing for a young band, don’t you think? Why did you think to a similar picture for the cover for “Sodan Julistus”?

S. Actually, from my point of view, the cover picture was pretty typical thing to do, but we decided to use it anyway as it’s such a great photo. This idea to use it just came to mind immediately when I saw it on the local newspaper, you shouls see it fullcoloured, it looks fantastic! It also suits very well for the title “The Declaration Of War” as I already stated few questions above. Horna also used the same picture at their “Sota”-7”ep, but it doesn’t matter us or them.

V. Ok, maybe I’m getting exaggerated with this question ( the most frequent in this issue), but I don’t care: what’s your (personal?) definition for the word “art”? Do you define yourself an artist? In what circumstances the music is not art for you?

S. Art is everything you do when you discharge your deepest inner thoughts on something, music. Paintings, poems, photographs, whatever. I sure do see myself as an artist and that’s something you can never change in your life. The music is not art if it doesn’t reflect the heart of the composer. Thus means, if you just copy other bands and don’t follow your inner voice, it can’t be called as an art anymore.

V. Rating from 1 to 10: how much the music is important for you? What point do you want to reach with your music and/orwith Wagchor? Where do you want to arrive? What would you do if a day someone will (hypothetically) offer a deal to appear on Mtv with a videoclip like Cradle Of Filth or Dark Funeral have done? What do you think about this commercialization of those Black Metal bands?

S. Music is my lifestyle, if that’s what you mean! Yet in Wagchor or Arthame, it’s just a part of the art, but it must be perfect as well as everything else, other wise it can ruin the concept. I see no reason for not making popular black metal (Hmm… -Ed) and being on Mtv etc. (Aaaarrgghh!!! -Ed) as long as it doesn’t change anything in the art of the band and I really mean anything. Yet when bands like Dimmu Burger come softer and softer all the time just because of money and fame, it totally ruins the atmosphere of black metal and can’t be called as black metal anymore. The music must stay as black as it was before coming popular, that way it would be just great to spread our message to bigger audience (Twisted, twisted, very twisted thought… -Ed). I respect Cradle Of Filth, their music is still excellent, no matter how popular they are (even if they aren’t black metal –no more?-… aha ha ha!!! -Ed).

V. What is the “Crush The World” campaign of which you speak in the inside-cover of the demo?

S. It’s not a real campaign with a lot of people or anything, but just a metaphor of what we think about the world and the most of people here; everlasting hate. Hate with us, join our campaign and make this world suffer by it’s own mistakes!

V. Since the people who surround you (I mean relatives, but mostly fellow townspersons) know you’re involved in a band playing so-called “satanic music” (I really hate this term who bigot christians use to generalize all kind of music dealing with darkness), what do you think they think about you? Maybe that you’re insane, or better that you do any strange rites? Do you care of the judgement of the fucking people about yourself and/or your involvement in a band like Wagchor?

S. I see Finland as quite as free country, thus my outside look hasn’t caused much of troubles, but some of course. For example when this famous “devil worshipping”-murder happened few years ago near to my town, I was attacked by few people while I was walking at the town, just because for them I looked like a “ritual murderer”. I also have been at police interrogation about few crimes against christianity, but never got a sentence. I have a permanent job, quite understanding parents, few friends and I really don’t discuss with people I don’t know better. It’s quite easy for me to live the way I have chosen.

V. As elsewhere, in Finland there’ll be the true bands and the fake stupid bands. What finnish bands do you support? What finnish bands do you denigrate? Would you name those bands?

S. There are lots of great bands coming from Finland. Thyrane, Alghazanth, Enochian Crescent, Bloodhammer, Barathrum (Do you really think I don’t know this band? -Ed), Thy Serpent, Gloomy Grim and Kyprian’s Circle just to mention few of them. Fake bands come and go as everywhere and obviously I despise them all, but I don’t like to mention their names, just to avoid misunderstandings.

V. Ever heard of a finnish B/M band called Azazel? They released a discreet Mcd in '95 for a small label (Holocaust Rec.) here in Italy, after that they disappeared… do you know something about them?

 

S. Yeah, I remember that bunch of drunken maniacs. Their “Crusify The Jesus Christ Again”-demo was excellent, but I didn’t really liked their Mcd as it was ruined by awful production. I haven’t heard about them since I met few of them (Didn’t was Azazel composed by three members? How many persons do you mean with “few”?  -Ed) at local rock festivals, so I can’t say if they are even alive anymore or not.

V. Thanks Striga, this interview is unfortunately turning to the end… please illuminate myself telling me your future plans and say some last words…

Well, thanks a lot for you Alessandro about this great interview! As I said already before, it seems there are no future plans for Wagchor. My personal plans is to continue with Arthame and trying to gather a new band as well as continue with my Ichor distribution. People feel free to order Wagchor’s “Sodan Julistus”-demo ’99 or Arthame’s “Fiendish Symphonies”-demo ’98, both are still available by 5Usd (Europe)/ 6Usd (Elsewhere). Also ask for free Ichor distribution list. Life is not fun. All the human endanger the happiness of ours. It must stop. We appeal in particular to the youth of today. Never stop dying. There are better thing than life (Aha ha ha  ha!!! If life is not fun… Kill Yourself!!! Ha ha aha ha!!! -Ed). Support the “Crush The World”-campaign!

Wagchor/Arthame

c/o Striga

P. O. Box 43

01620 Vantaa - Finland

(Note: As you can read this band is gone, so I guess that after more or less 3 years after this interview the address is no more valid!!)