PAHA HENKI: All those viking fans who call themselves pagan nowadays are mostly just fat alcoholics

Could You please tell more about Your projects, how they all begin? What albums, collaborations are/were the most interesting to You? What albums do You personally consider the best?

Hail and thanks for inviting me to this interview with you!

Well, I already started with playing various instruments at a pretty young age. When I was 15 I started a streetpunk band with a friend and was there the drummer first but soon we found a better one and I moved to bass. The band only lasted a few months and we don't recorded anything but my urge to express my feelings and visions in art never stopped and I wrote lyrics and poems since always anyway, I also always was interested in extreme and experimental music and so I started a noise project (Kindstod) soon after discovering the genre..this almost was to the same time when I discovered true black metal (I already listened to commercial bands like Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth etc. since many years before and also knew and liked some underground bands but somehow never digged deeper to discover the true essence until late 2013). Then, when I digged deep enough, I knew that it was possible to play the music you want without the very difficult search for band members. I then gathered my ideas, got a keyboard and also started to rehearse guitar a little more. I recorded the first Todesnacht tracks and also had a single rehearsal with a band as their drummer, but of course it don't worked cause they were one of those "hood instead of corpsepaint" / "we're occult but not blasphemic" posers.. I always worshipped the 90's, I hate most bands of this century.. The best and truest BM for me always were the scandinavian stuff of the late 80's / early 90's and for Germany the mighty legacy of the Teutonic Brotherhood and the Saarland Black Metal. Nowadays you find the truest bands of this century in Finland, there always also was a pretty insteresting scene in France and there are still many great projects from there. But anyway, back to Todesnacht, shortly after the rehearsal with this poser band I got locked-up in mental hospitals but luckily had the oppurity to take my guitar and a ancient mp3-player (that was able to record wav's) with me. So I recorded half of the stuff of the first demo there and also took there the cover picture. After my release I then finished the demo and released it on strictly limited tape somewhen in 2015. To this time I also met R and joined Per La Lumon as the vocalist, lyrics writter and somewhat of a manager. My first physical releases all came in 2015 and were "Aus dem Kerker..." by Todesnacht (tape), "GAS THE HUMANS/Promo 2015" by Kindstod (CDr) and "Search For The Highest Path Of Being/Promo 2015" by Per La Lumon (CDr).

I still think that some of them has some good songs but the newer stuff by Kindstod and Per La Lumon clearly is better, also I put Todesnacht on-hold to focus on Verwesung for a reason. Because of many problems in my life it really took long to finish the first Verwesung demo..the lyrics already were written in late 2013 but I first was able to record the tracks for them in late 2015.. The intro and outro also already were recorded in May 2015 with the help of Jeroen from Haat, Orodruin, etc.. Anyway, after finally finishing the release it already was 2016 and I released it on tape limited to 33 copies through the dear label Narbentage. I then finally had a little more time and freedom and so I right recorded much more of my visions that I had since a long time. This partly got even better until today and so I already released over 30 releases, much of them physically. I can't really say what the most interesting was for me but for sure it was nice to join Enbilulugugal and also doing a floppy split with them, getting visited by Vârcolac & Jeroen and always getting sent some awesome new Per La Lumon instrumentals by R.

I would say my best releases are the unfinished "Torture Chamber Fantasies" by Kindstod, "Ghoulish Blood" by Verwesung and "Self-tortured Solitude" by Per La Lumon.

Not the best but for sure the most interesting to check out if you like weird shit would be the "Kindstod/Dead Whore House" split and the "Dead Whore Collection" by well..Dead Whore House, the special physical version of it is sold-out now but of course you can still listen to the digital tracks.

What does Your bands' names mean?

Verwesung means putrefaction. The others don't matter cause they don't have a deep meaning, are too hard to translate or, if I don't founded the band, the name doesn't come from me.

Could You please tell about Your main influences – earlier and now. What music, books, films, other things impress You?

When I started Todesnacht, my first black metal project, I got the most inspired through bands like Mayhem, Burzum and Absurd (all in their early phases). When I then recorded the first demo the inspirations more drifted to Corneus, Morke, Ildjarn and maybe even some old Shining. But I put the project on hold when I founded Verwesung, I will reanimate it for some splits and maybe more soon through. Then it will be more in a depressive style in the drug-infested vein of swedish bands like Apati, Lifelover, Lepra and Ofdrykkja.. Before Todesnacht I also already had my Noise project called Kindstod that just was, and still is, a acoustic realization of the scum that surrounds me in my life and all the dirt in this world. Just pure filthy noise.. Of course I got inspired through artists like Merzbow, Whitehouse and early Weena Morloch too but I always only did what I wanted, this is why none of the releases sounds the same and the upcoming ones will be even more different. For most of my other active projects like Abgeschieden and Verwesung I take inspirations from the bloody history of mankind, horror movies from the b/w era, nature, certain artists I like and of course myself; my visions, feelings and experiences..

What is God/Gods to You? What is Your religion, philosophy, worldview?

There is no God. I'm my own God and I don't follow or believe in any religion. I like some aesthetics of Satanism but I don't believe in Satan or practise the occult very much. I also don't care about all this Pagan stuff, I'm united with nature anyway and I'm not really interested in any mythology, also all those viking fans who call themselves pagan nowadays are mostly just fat alcoholics who wouldn't even be able to survive in the battles they praise - they're just posers and if there are vikings in valhall then they laugh about them. But still there can always be some persons from every religion that I accept; don't means that some of their views maybe aren't stupid but I gave up in humanity anyway and as long as there will be humans religion will exist.

How do You call Your style?

You mean for Verwesung? I would call it Raw Vampyric Black Metal but I don't really  care much about subgenres of subgenres. I don't give a shit about quality, songwriting and all this stuff. I just write lyrics when I get inspired and rehearse when I feel like it; when I find some nice riffs while rehearsing I just record them, search for fitting lyrics and that's almost it.

What could You say about black metal, neofolk, dark ambient projects (now we have pretty much of them)? Which ones are the best, in Your opinion?

Well,those are all genres I like and (except for Neofolk) play myself. I have 2 dark ambient projects and 4 black metal projects, more are planned. The best Neofolk projects for me are Death In June and some works by Von Thronstahl and Germanen Blut; but there are also many other very good artists who sing in languages I can't sing-along easily to like e.g. Pyhä Kuolema. Dark Ambient for me isn't the same as normal Ambient or Dungeon Synth and so I will not say stuff like Burzum, Mortiis, Ildjarn, etc  here.. If you really wanna here dark and slow Ambient filled with a desperate suffering then listen to the hidden projects of the LLN and newer project who keep this tradition. For example the ones by the super-talented Maxime Taccardi and also my own project Pestilential Coffin.

Is our civilization still going down and down? Do You believe in any possible end of it? What could that be?

Yeah, of course. I don't think the world will suffer this bad from the plague called humanity for very much longer. In some dozend years I hope that WW3 will start and all big populated areas will be nuked away. Then only a few tribes in rural areas will remain and stay there cause the rest of the world will be like fucking Chernobyl.

Do You plan to come to Lithuania someday? What do You know about our culture and its music?

I don't plan it but you never know how the future will look like.  And to be honest, I don't know much about your culture and only know a very few bands like "Fuck Off And Die!" and "Luctus", but I only know those too cause of Kommander L.'s work in the Italian band Ivs Primae Noctis, who I'm a big fan of..so don't really know if you even count those cause it's only half Lithuanian..

Anyway, thanks for interviewing me and the interest in my work. Hail Nihil & Death To All!

Thank You.

​Link:

https://pahahenkiproductions.bandcamp.com