Interview with Keith Dempe of Eternal Darkness Creation

Interview with Keith Dempe of Eternal Darkness Creations...conducted by Patrick Schroeder of Painful Reality zine...July 2004

1-Hails Keith! How has life been going? Please tell the readers a little about yourself...
HAILS to you Patrick and thank you and No Bullshit for this opportunity. Things have been going pretty well as of late, things with Eternal Darkness Creations are pretty much going at full throttle again, finally...since my hiatus back in 2000/2001, it took awhile to get back up to speed... As for information about myself, I’m a pretty boring sod, pretty much all I do is stuff with metal or music in genreral, I am a rabid tape trader for almost 20 years now, I’m 32 years old and have listened to metal for most of that, since I was about nine. I started Eternal Darkness Creation/Eternal Darkness zine back in the late 1980’s and have been consumed with it ever since...

2-You started your underground activities with Eternal Darkness zine. What gave you the idea to start a zine? How many issues did you release? Why did you finally stop the zine?
I started the zine back in 1989, its a pretty complicated story. This guy I used to know in Arizona (where I was living at the time) had the idea of starting a fanzine, he did one issue of it called Intense Power zine...he knew I was in touch with a lot of underground bands, so he had asked me to do some interviews and such, for the second issue of Intense Power...well I didn’t hear from Carl again for about a year and by that time I had a whole bunch of interviews and reviews done, so I decided just to put out my own zine, which surfaced in Fall of 1989. Over the course of the next 11 or12 years I published 13 issues, some good and some I don’t ever want to see again! The last couple (issues 10-12 specifically) were the only ones I can stomach looking at these days... Why did I stop? Well there were several reasons, one was the immense cost of paper because I’ve always did my zine via a xerox machine. Mainly because I didn’t have the $1000 up front to do it properly at someplace like the Small Publishers Co Op... Another reason was I was sick to death of dealing with these record company dipshits, because I like what I like, and what I don’t like I’m not afraid of saying so, and the last thing people from labels like Nuclear Blast, Martyr music and Century Media want is an honest zine editor...they want a dog that they throw scraps to and in return they give good reviews to the most vile of musical drivel... Pretty much that was it for Eternal Darkness zine, but I’ve continued on with the label and the mailorder.

3-Were there any other zines out at the same time Eternal Darkness zine was up and running? Are there any killer zines today that you enjoy reading? In your opinion what makes a good zine?
YES! There were many zine in the course of my 11 years as a zine editor that I WORSHIPPED, like Canadian Assault especially, In My Veins zine (France), Final Holocaust (Belgium), Sentinel Steel (US), Metalline (Belgium), Alliance of the Heretic/Heresy (Australia) I Hate Dave Mustaine zine, Acelzine, Voices From the Darkside (Germany) Slayer mag of corpse etc etc... Yea a lot of zines today are really good, like, again, Canadian Assault is my all time fave, Dauthus mag from Sweden is absolutely killer, Death By Metal, Painful Reality of corpse.,Hellish Massacre mag from Sweden, Gallery of the Grotesque zine, Metallic Warlust zine, Leather N Spikes zine, Fall to your Knees Pissing is excellent and so on and so forth. What make a good zine? Its in the writing I think, whether it is pressed on glossy offset pages or written with crayon on toilet paper, it is obvious whether or not the writer(s) have the heart of steel that is required in a real metal zine, its easy to tell, its like reading the self congratulatory bullocks they publish in Metal Maniacs as opposed to reading an underground zine that the editor gives his life and limb for...by in large if someone has the drive, patience and spirit to write and publish a zine himself for no profit and very little else, then its most likely that they have what it takes to gain my respect.

4-When did you decide to start the label? What releases are still available? Any upcoming releases the readers should look out for?
I started the label back in 1991 and it was pretty much just a small mailorder and a new compilation tape every year, in 1994 I got the opportunity to release one of my favorite band’s 3rd seven inch, Order From Chaos’ Live into Distant Fears 7” and then it was onward and downward from then... Most of the old compilation tapes are still available for the same price as when I released them ($3) and recently I have released some new stuff like Nekrosis’ “Deathraid” demo, Sempiternal “Forest of Omnot” demo and a couple other things...I also have 2 sort of anonymous sub labels that I release bootlegs from, always only $3 a piece, its mostly all live, rehearsal and demo stuff by great bands from the past. You can get my newsletter with the catalog free for the asking through the internet or snail mail.. If I may plug myself, my addresses are...Eternal Darkness Creations/ PO Box 268/ Coraopolis, PA 15108/ USA holocaustofdarkness@hotmail.com Yes I have some new tapes coming out soon...one is sort of an anthology cassette of the black/noise cult from California, Enbilulugugal which I’m excited about, I really respect what Izedis does and am proud to be able to release something of his... Also I will be working with a great band from Florida (by way of Canada) Capra Hircus who you may be familiar with from their “Goat Metal Assault” cassette ep which was released on the now defunct label War Hammer Records... Also I will FINALLY issue the second tape of the two part Anvil of Crom double cassette comp with bands like Barbatos, Capra Hircus, Enbilulugugal, Carcaroht, Bathym and many more...

5-You also started a side label called Hounds of Tindalos. When did you start this label up? How is it different from Eternal Darkness?
I started Hounds of Tindalos Productions back in 2002... Eternal Darkness Creations is the “most legititmate” of my labels, which is to release NEW music from bands I am trying to help promote and music I believe in and like... Hounds of Tindalos has a much different aim.... I have been tape trading for many many years and have a ton of great live shows by already established acts like Slayer, Voivod, Sarcofago, all of the old greats who have since either sold their souls to the almighty dollar or disappeared altogether...I have always been a big fan of bootlegs so I decided to make a label with the strict guidelines of releasing old live shows, rehearsals and sometimes demo material by these old greats who have sold out... These are total diy products which are basically sold at cost ($3 a pop for 50-90 minutes of great old shit)... I’ve since elaborated on the whole idea by starting yet ANOTHER sub label called the Cursed Order of the Nine Riders which is basically the same deal but with bands that (in my mind at least) HAVEN’T sold out and still deserve at least my respect...so far on Hounds I have 7 tapes out and on the Cursed Order I’ve only gotten around to getting the Death SS bootleg out...

6-As if your 2 labels didn’t keep you busy enough you also do compilation tapes. How many have you released?
Well the comp tapes really pretty much fall under the perview of Eternal Darkness Creations (the label)...I started doing them back in 1991 as an accompaniment to Eternal Darkness Fanzine... I’ve released 7 so far...what is strange and ultimately a lot of fun is looking back on these tapes (that I got permission from the bands to use-usually they were interviewed in ED mag) and seeing how these old demos have reached obscurity and sometimes notoriety, like Burzum, he (Varg) let me use some songs on the third one, some other bands that I’ve featured are Beherit, Nocturnus, Order From Chaos, Liege Lord, Vital Remains, Grave, Old Funeral, Impaled Nazarene, etc etc etc...most all of them are still available and the ones that aren’t will soon be remastered and rereleased. Three bucks a piece, how can you lose?

7-If any bands reading this might be interested. What styles of metal do you put on the comp?
Well I have pretty broad tastes, there are great bands (in my opinion) in a lot of different forms of metal, so basically I just have to be impressed with the band’s music (which isn’t really that hard to do) and I’ll ask for permission... but I try to loosely stick to black/death metal, doom metal, old heavy metal, old style thrash...no Pantera types or new “core” types, ABSOLUTELY no NU metal, or leftist punk crap...

8-Considering you have been a part of the scene since the late 1980’s. I was interested in your opinion. In your eyes what is a “true” metal head? What is your definition of a poser?
Actually I’ve given this a lot of thought as of late... A true metalhead is someone who lives for metal, gets up in the morning with listening to metal in the front of his head, even if you have an important job, or even worse, a female, metal is always somewhere in your consciousness... You needn’t answer letters all day or tape trade avidly, because to many people, they have to eventually grow up (unlike me, I seem to live a life of perpetual adolescence-haha), but even so metal can still be an important part of your life...in addition you must live life by a particular code of honor... I think anyway... to gain importance or fame by your own accomplishments, not by who you know or who you’re screwing or by some unseemly notoreity, not to lie and sell out or bogart on your mates...this kind of thing...all the while have metal in your consciousness... A poser? Well this covers A LOT of what you see in metal mags these days (again in my own admittedly pigheaded view) These metal bands “posing” whether it be in gore or the modern day idea of what corpsepaint is or in this goofy crap that Kovenant wear...ITS POSING...Its all rock star mumbo jumbo and in my opinion, poserish...and I’m not saying this because I’m forever relegated to the bottom rung of the metal scene food chain, I don’t envy them their fame, but this posing and rock star pontificating makes me sick in my stomach... In addition, bands and people that have gained great fame by publicity stunts...the one that makes me sickest is Vikernes and him killing Euronymous...Hey I love the first three and a half Burzum albums as much as the next self respecting metalhead, but I don’t believe FOR ONE MINUTE that he killed Euronymous because he was a homo or he was a communist or whatever story he dreamt up....he killed him because he had a plan to become famous, he’s spent a lot of time in jail, sure, but when he eventually comes out and in these ensueing 11 years he’s reached the PINNACLE of fame that scene scene allows for... For someone who claims to be a great Aryan warrior, this is a seemingly very Jewish move, to me at least... Anyway the scene is littered with these kind of stories...Cradle of Filth and the Vestial Masturbation shirt debacle, the Norweigain church burnings and all of this kind of crap that has sold out all of us old black metal fans by making our kult into fodder for mall rats... in my opinion this is poserdom at its finest.... oof kinda went off there...

9-In your opinion what is the best and worst thing about the underground?
The best thing, BY FAR, is the sense of belonging to a group of people I’ve never met face to face...the kinship of we heretics who, by in large, have been ostracized by the public at large, we black sheep of our blood families but find something thicker in the metalblood we share with our fellow metalheads when we introduce them to a great new band or an obscure demo or a new way of thinking...This is what the best thing to me is... even preceeding the music. The worst thing...anyone who knows me is sick to death of this I’m sure, but its these “major players”, in the underground, the twits who try to dictate to us what is good in their assumption of what metal is... metal groupies, who mostly by way of their feminine wiles, get some minor record company position or a staff job on a toilet paper magazine like Metal Maniacs and suddenly think they’re above everyone of us “minor” players and small potatoes in the scene.... and proceed to cut our throats and sell us out... That and this new breed of black metal kid who has graduated from Limp Biskit to Graveland by way of the internet and is suddenly more evil than thou, and thusly (in their own mind) better than the rest of us bums...

10-Well my friend I am out of questions, do you have any final comments?
I want to sincerely thank you, Patrick, for always giving me such killer support in your great zine, and also to No Bullshit, who hopefully after reading this literary will still wanna print it, for the exposure!!


ETERNAL DARKNESS CREATION
P.O BOX 268 CORAOPOLIS , PA 15108 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
holocaustofdarkness@hotmail.com