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Heretoir is one of those cool bands I discovered when the “blackgaze” scene was taking shape. We had a great chat with Nathanael (whom we interviewed before during the Thränenkind / King Apathy era) about black metal, the antifascist scene, and the importance of mental health.
Tell us about how Heretoir was formed and what is the story behind the band’s name. I know that Eklatanz is a very experienced musician in the black metal scene, being a support for groups like Austere and Germ.
Heretoir is a post (black) metal band from Germany. We try to combine the eerie energy of black metal and the emotional intensity of post rock with the rhythmic force of melodic death metal. The bandname is a coinage based on the word “heretic”, meaning something like “choosing your own path in life” or “finding your own way”. The band was founded by David in 2006. A few years later I joined, since David and I were friends for quite some time and we realized, that we are very much interested in the same music. A bit later the line up was completed, and we played our first live shows. To this day we played with bands like Katatonia, Killswitch Engage, Alcest, Agalloch, Der Weg einer Freiheit and many more. Our new full-length called “Nightsphere” will be released on October 6th.
So, what influences your music? I’m listening to Nightsphere and I think it’s one of the most beautiful albums I’ve heard this year, with a really beautiful acoustic part and such dense, dark melodies.
Thank you very much for your kind words. “Nightsphere” is the first album of the band, which was created from a close collaboration of the band members. The goal was to tell a coherent story about a protagonist who experiences the destruction of the natural world and tries to deal with it. The lyrics are written in a kind of metaphorical style and tell the story of a mystical wanderer, who makes contact with the spirits of the wilderness to stand together with them against the industrialized world of the machines. Musically we wanted to create a dark and very melancholic mood, which should be both heavy and multilayered, as well as intense and emotionally stirring through the acoustic parts and dark atmospheres already mentioned by you. Inspirations for this were manifold. Hikes in the mountains and forests found their way into some songs. Movies, like “Into the wild” or “The Revenant”, and books, like “Twilight of the machines” by John Zerzan or “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau inspired the lyrics. Of course, there were also various bands that somehow left their traces in our music, early Ulver for example. We also collaborated with a close friend of ours, Hannes Stoltenburg, who played drums for Downfall of Gaia and King Apathy. He has an ambient band project called “Hide Hide Hide” and created the two really atmospheric ambient tracks of the record together with us.
I think we have succeeded in creating an interesting album, which hopefully will give many listeners a unique journey into the world of wilderness, darkness and the conflict between man and nature.
Talking about post-black metal, it’s a relatively “new” music genre and I see a lot of resistance from traditional black metal fans, because it incorporates influences from hardcore, shoegaze and post-rock. The scene has also been embracing a lot of women, with acts like Sylvaine (who is also my friend), Myrkur and Liturgy, with a trans woman. Do you feel that post-black metal is more inclusive and open? How is your relationship with more conventional black metal?
I think that the Post Black Metal scene is quite open-minded by Black Metal standards. Many people from the crust, hardcore and punk environment can be found in it . Musicians who feel repelled by some elements of old school black metal can express themselves in the Post BM scene and find musical ways to reinterpret black metal. This development is extremely valuable and very important. I am not sure if the black metal scene as a whole is really that much opposed to Post BM. I think quite some things changed during the last ten years or so. Personally, I am into Post BM, but I also appreciate old school black metal. Old Bathory albums are just as interesting to me as the early three Ulver classics (of course, later Bathory albums are also often on my playlist). I like to listen to Darkthrone, “Antichrist” by Gorgoroth is an almost perfect metal album and the classics by Mayhem, Belphegor or Dark Funeral are also amazing pieces of metal music. Of course, many intolerant people and nazis listen to Black Metal, but I think there are many black metallers who can really appreciate old school and Post BM alike. I guess ambivalence is always the important keyword in terms of dealing with black metal.
When I look at your current line-up, I realized a lot of people from King Apathy/Thränenkind (we’ve even interviewed Nathanael in the past, I honestly think he can’t remember that), which was an anarchist, anti-fascist, and anti-capitalist group. What do you think of the anarchist black metal scene? I’m asking because I see a movement in the black metal scene today to try not to associate themselves with imagery of a growing fascism that we can see in older bands, as well as fighting against issues of gender bias, speciesism, and social inequalities.
I think RABM and the anarchist black metal scene are an important and not to be underestimated counterweight to NSBM. Black metal is an important metal genre and I think it’s good for the scene that anarchist bands play at well-known festivals and reach an increasing audience. Anarchism and many of the original core messages of black metal fit very well together. Not to be ruled and dominated by others, to live free from the shackles of established power structures, to reject religions and their oppressive ideologies, and to seek and follow one’s own, self-determined path in life are all central themes in both anarchism and black metal. Mikhail Bakunin, one of the most important anarchist thinkers, even named Satan as the eternal rebel and liberator of mankind in his work “God and the State”. Therefore, I think that anarchism and black metal fit very well together.
Listening to Nightsphere, I notice something different about black metal. It sounds to me like a good post-metal album, something between Cult of Luna, Neurosis, Les Discrets and Alcest, but with lots of identity. How was the composition process? And its production?
As already mentioned, “Nightsphere” is the first album that was written by all band members together. The intensified collaboration has noticeably excited everyone and led to many different creative ideas that give the album its very special mood. It also felt good for us as a band and bonded us together in the studio. Working with David and Justin from 1408 Productions was smooth, as it was with “Wastelands”, and their ideas shaped and ultimately rounded out the sound of the album.
I have seen that one of your lyrics is inspired by Stanley Diamond, a Marxist anthropologist and poet, who was particularly involved in criticizing colonialism and neo-colonialism and combating racism in his analysis of human relations. I was very keen to understand how much this sort of theory, analyzing power relations and the effect on colonized nations and countries, interests you? Especially because one of the things that has always drawn me to Heretoir, apart from the beauty of the songs, is their anti-fascist stance long before it was evidenced in recent years.
In the years after high school and through my work at university I got to know many exciting authors and highly interesting books. I have a wide range of interests, but the way nation states and the global capitalist economy affect people and the natural world has preoccupied me for more than ten years. The critique of industrialized civilization expressed by authors such as John Zerzan and Stanley Diamond has been a compelling analysis of the status quo for me since I first encountered their works, and I think it is central, if we want to realize a livable future on Earth, that the still widespread dogma of progress be deconstructed and the dark side of civilization, which in my opinion far outweighs the positive aspects, be examined more closely. Diamond’s “In search of the primitive” and Zerzan’s “Twilight of the machines” inspired me so much that some of their ideas have been incorporated into some lyrics and are even reflected in the song title of the first single of the upcoming album.
Many of Heretoir’s lyrics deal with deep and emotional themes. How do you choose the themes of your songs and what message do you want to convey to your listeners? Personally, they move me a lot because they bring not only melancholy, but a reflection on how the world is today.
Music has always been an outlet for me to get rid of aggression and negative feelings. Song lyrics and pieces of music as a means of expression are quite automatically shaped by the topics that occupy me myself. These can be very personal and emotional aspects of being human, but also questions about the role of modern, “civilized” mankind as the destroyer of the natural world. In general, I prefer lyrics that leave room for different interpretations. The lyrics of “Nightsphere” are a good example of that approach, they are inspired by very real problems of our time, but these are presented in a metaphorical and somewhat poetic way and tell a story, that brings all songs of the record together.
David and Nils also write lyrics and they have different approaches to writing lyrics for Heretoir. All in all, we have a quite diverse array of approaches, which keeps the lyrics interesting.
I read in another interview with you that there is a need to raise awareness about mental health, which has even taken many musicians because of depression. And your music talks a lot about sadness, melancholy and loneliness, all themes connected to mental states that can be associated with depression. How is this issue of talking about depression and other mental health issues important to you? I have a lot of friends who deal with depression and severe crises daily, and I’ve lost three friends who unfortunately couldn’t move on with their lives (and it’s something I always regret because I couldn’t do anything to save or help them).
I feel the need to talk about negative feelings. It helps me to stay sane in an insane society. Metal in general with its often dystopian, dark, and quite negative atmospheres is the perfect genre to deal with melancholy and depression. A lot of people think you get depressed when you listen to dark music, but I avoid depression by listening to depressive (black) metal and writing dark lyrics. I think it makes sense to talk about such topics publicly and in the songs, because many people feel the same and it creates a kind of community, which can be very helpful in different ways.
I have noticed a constant evolution in your sound, as I see that with every new song sounding less black metal and more something else. How would you describe this evolution?
This is not something that happens on purpose. Of course, you get older, you discover new music and draw inspirations from other things than ten years ago. Nevertheless, I really love black metal and it is still the genre, that inspires me the most, so I try to integrate black metal elements into the music of Heretoir. We know that a lot of our fans love black metal and I think you can hear the black metal inspirations on our new record quite clearly.
How do you see Heretoir’s position in the music scene today and how do you see the metal scene in the coming years?
I think we are a well-known band in Germany and more and more people from all over the world get to know our music. We worked hard to get to the position we have today. Our debut record has been re-released in 2023. We put out a new mini album in May. We played several festivals and three shows with Killswitch Engage in the summer, we will release our new record in less than two months, we will tour Europe in October, we will play a tour in South America in March, and we already confirmed festival/shows for 2024, so we are eager to play live and we work hard to bring our music to our fans. In the meantime, we are already working on new material for upcoming records. We are quite busy these days.
How the future metal scene will look like I don’t know. I hope that there will be a growing number of people, who can appreciate this music and the intensity and power of metal in general.
We’re a Brazilian music blog, so there’s always that inevitable question: do you know/like any Brazilian bands? If so, could you comment a bit about them?
Sepultura and Soulfly have been really important for me, and they were among the first metal bands I ever listened to. A few weeks ago, I saw Crypta live and I think, that they are a very impressive band, too. So, there are some classics and also new bands, that are very interesting and will shape the future of metal.
Taking advantage of the hook, could you also talk a little about what you’ve been listening to these days? Any band to recommend?
I am listening to Dark Funeral a lot. I think their latest record is amazing and there aren’t many bands, that released so many albums and are able to keep up the high quality of their music. Very impressing for me.
I want to thank you very much for your patience and I apologize for these long questions. This is a space to leave your considerations to our readers. Let’s go!
I think your questions were very interesting and I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about Heretoir and our music.
Related Links
https://www.facebook.com/heretoir/
https://www.instagram.com/heretoir_official/
https://heretoir.bandcamp.com/album/nightsphere