Taipei Metal

Interview: Behemoth - Part 2

Here Freddy Lim, front man of Chthonic, who was also at the table with us, joined in the conversation.

Freddy Lim: Before the Olympic Games Beijing was much more open. There were lots of places that you can go. But during the Olympic Games they forced lots of places to close.
 
N: To save energy.
 
FL: Not to save energy. To be secure. They want to be secure.
 
N: Of course. It has a lot to do with people being in a group somewhere and talking about things and sharing views. They want to keep people separated in their homes. After they're done with their work, I don’t know how many hours they work in China, I wouldn’t be surprised if they work 12, 14 hours per day, I’m just guessing here, I don’t know their politics, but the government wants them to go back home, have dinner and go to bed. That’s it. That’s why when we were traveling through Beijing we saw these huge fucking skyscrapers, blocks of flats, and there was no lights in the windows. There was no one, not even a dog in the street. It was scary. It looked like an abandoned city. That’s insane. But I’m not here to talk shit about China. I just want to say it’s worth going to China.
 
TM: Was that your first time?
 
N: Yes, and we want to go back. We want to play in Hong Kong, which is different. But yeah, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing we want to do again. We want to do it for sure.
 
TM: When you go to China do they put clamps on the things you say on stage? Can you do your usual bible tearing thing?
 
N: That’s a funny story. Because they’d be selling, I don’t know what’s that, it’s this red book with Mao on the front. I know nothing about it. But I’d be laughing “You know what, these people don’t give a fuck about Christianity. Maybe we should buy this book and tear it up on stage.” They’re like, “You know what, you don’t want to sentence yourself to death.” It was just a joke. But I know for a fact that there’s no strip clubs in Beijing. There’s no prostitution. These funny things that are an integral part of the free world are not a part of China, the Chinese world. When I was introducing “I Got Erection” I’d be talking freely about sex and I remember saying “I don’t know if you guys are allowed to talk about sex aloud.” Then I bit my tongue. I thought, “What if there’s some officers in the crowd?” You can never guess. It’s so easy to get banned.
 
At this point the tour manager, Vladim, a very friendly and diminutive Belarusian, relates a story about Nergal asking how to say “Fuck Mao” in Chinese, before being informed by Vladim that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do so in communist China.
 
N: I would never say that. I come from a different world. I have experience with communism because I was born in ’77 and Poland was communist until ’89 so even from my childhood I remember all the restrictions. There was nothing in the stores. They had like three products on the shelves. I know the story. I can really be sympathetic and I can feel for these people. I really hope that we brought some joy to these people. That’s all. I remember when there was shows in the 80’s in Poland, there was very few shows. But it was a fucking big celebration. Ours was just 300 people but I bet that every person that left the venue had a big fucking smile on their face. That was the whole point.
 
TM: It’s the same here because international touring metal bands will only come once every three months or so.
 
N: That’s still a lot. I mean, this country, Taiwan is so distant from… I mean where is Taiwan? Look at the map. It’s not Holland. Holland is also a small country. You’ve got the center of the world here, you’ve got the U.S. and Europe and you’ve got Thailand here, sorry Taiwan, or even Thailand or fucking Indonesia. So we tried to build something around our Aussie and New Zealand tours. But we had no connections whatsoever, so we couldn’t do it. But it’s cool to be here.
 
TM: What’s your status in Poland right now? Are you guys still in trouble over what happened in 2007 when you tore the pages out of the bible?

N: Yeah the situation is that this guy, who is also a politician, and I have nothing good to say about politicians in general, but this guy gives a bad name to bad politicians, he tried to bring me to court  again. He failed again. And he did this interview on the Net where during a 20-minute interview he called me “criminal” 26 times. So I decided it's a double-edged sword. If he's fighting with a sword he has to be aware that it may have consequences. So I actually tried to bring him to court for calling me a criminal. So let's see what happens. All his attempts to punish us this way or another failed. So now I cross my fingers and I'm doing my best for him to pay the penalty for calling me a criminal officially.

TM: Is he attempting to put you in jail or just stop you from performing?

N: He's saying I deserve two years, maybe not in jail but maybe I should so some social work or something like that. Bullshit. Come on. We live in a free world and I don't give a fuck. I regret nothing of course. There was 700 people in the venue that night and they just found one person that felt offended. And I was like...

TM: Why were they there?

N: Exactly. If you're going to a Behemoth show, that has an album called The Apostasy and the tour is called The Apostasy Tour you must be an idiot coming to the show. I never enter churches during celebrations because I easily get annoyed and irritated. Why should I enter? I like going to churches if they're nice and just watch things and stuff, I'm just simply interested, but I avoid places where I get irritated. If I do things like that and I talk my words to the audience, I really believe that these people are aware of the fact they're at a Behemoth show. They're paying money to be there so the last thing I want to do is offend my own people. So I would never imagine some idiot there, one idiot. So next time I'll be more careful.

TM: Maybe just ask if there's any idiots in the crowd.

N: Yeah I should do that first maybe. I should watch my mouth. Anyway, I did that bible thing because it came out very spontaneously in the U.S. once. And I remember people actually fighting and the crowd was divided.