A NOCTURNICORN BOOKS release
Smol Bear N Pickles present

THE GATES OF MIDIAN OPEN AGAIN.

This year, an impossible book enters the world.

LE FANTASTIQUE: A Literary Tribute to Clive Barker
Edited by Alex S. Johnson
Foreword by Rissa Miller
Introduction by Caitlín R. Kiernan

A cross‑century, cross‑scene, cross‑mythos convergence of voices who carry the visionary flame.

A book that should not exist—
and yet it does.

🜂 THE PANTHEON GATHERS

Featuring:
Clive Barker • Charles Baudelaire • William Blake • Anna Taborska • Sandy DeLuca • Pickles • Tricia Warden • John Shirley • Lee Bailes • Michael A. Koby • Brian Hodge • Rob Halford • Lemmy & Ozzy • Simon Boswell • Iris Berry • William Gibson • Diamanda Galás • Poppy Z. Brite • Jeffrey Thomas • Lucy Taylor • Allen Ginsberg • William S. Burroughs • Sarah Jezebel Deva • Del Howison • Maitland McDonagh • Evan J. Peterson • Benjamin Adams • Ellyn Maybe
…and many more.

NOT AUTHORIZED BY CLIVE BARKER’S OFFICIAL GATEKEEPERS.
COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF THEIR CONTROL.

No Kickstarter.
No fundraiser.
No corporate machinery.

Only word of mouth and mutual respect—the way underground legends actually spread.

🜆 THE IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT

This book gathers cultural icons who do not normally share a universe, let alone a page.
It fuses:

• horror

• surrealism

• punk

• metal

• queer underground

• visionary literature

• mythic poetics

It is more than a tribute.
It is a continuation of the visionary lineage Barker opened.

🜇 MORE INFORMATION FORTHCOMING

The gates are open.
The myth is alive.
The impossible object is real.

This Friday, August 21st, The Kandy Fontaine Show enters deeper waters with Leila Abdul‑Rauf — the Bay Area multi‑instrumentalist, composer, and co‑founder of Vastum whose solo work moves through dark‑ambient, ritual electronics, and the haunted architecture of memory. Abdul‑Rauf has long spoken about how global violence and displacement shape her creative world. In an interview with The Arab American National Museum, she explained that her music is inseparable from the political realities she grew up around, saying: “My family’s history is tied to war, diaspora, and survival. Those stories live in my music whether I name them or not.” She has also said, in conversation with Cvlt Nation, “I think a lot about how people carry trauma across generations — genocide, war, forced migration — and how sound can hold what words can’t.”

Her solo work, which she describes as “cinematic, ritualistic electronic music built around trumpet, voice, synths, and ambient textures”, emerges from what she calls “the emotional residue of conflict.” In another interview, she noted: “Creating music is alchemical. You take grief, fear, anger — the things that come from living in a world full of violence — and you transform them into something that breathes.”

Your host, Alex S. Johnson — performer, editor, author, journalist, interviewer, and publisher with over 30 years of multidisciplinary work across spoken‑word, underground literature, and cross‑scene cultural performance — brings his noir‑surrealist exuberance and long‑honed instinct for cross‑scene lineage to the conversation. Johnson has conducted thousands of interviews, collaborated with figures across punk‑lit, LA Beat, queer poetics, and international surrealism, and has been endorsed by Mort Castle and John Shirley, the latter calling him “the Baudelaire of our time.”

Together, Abdul‑Rauf and Johnson speak frankly about the politics of sound: how art emerges from histories of violence, how musicians metabolize inherited trauma, and how composition becomes a form of resistance. Abdul‑Rauf’s reflections on genocide, war, and cultural survival meet Johnson’s own commitment to documenting the voices that refuse erasure.

Tune in Friday night on YouTube.
Bring your headphones.
Bring your shadows.
Bring your courage.

Motorhead’s saga, already carved deep into the granite of rock and roll history, has taken on a more elegiac dimension in recent years, as if the band’s mythic roar has been gradually absorbed into the atmosphere by the deaths of its central figures — first Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor in November of 2015, then Lemmy Kilmister himself just weeks later, and now, with the passing of Phil Campbell in March of 2026 after a long and punishing battle in intensive care following a major operation, the last great pillar of the band’s modern incarnation has fallen, leaving behind a silence that feels heavier than any amplifier stack they ever dragged onto a stage. Campbell’s death, coming after decades of relentless touring, recording, and the improbable second act he forged with his sons, struck fans and peers with a particular force, because he had remained so present, so active, so unmistakably alive in the world — a guitarist whose riffs still hung in the air, whose humor still circulated in backstage lore, whose humanity, that quiet kindness beneath the ferocity, had become part of the Motorhead orbit in a way that made his absence feel like a sudden drop in temperature.

With Lemmy gone, with Taylor gone, and now with Campbell gone, Motorhead has shifted from a living band into a constellation of memory and influence, still blazing fiercely but no longer anchored to the stage, and what remains is the roar, the legacy, and the truth that these men lived exactly as they played — loud, honest, unpretentious, and without compromise. And yet, when this interview took place, none of that had happened; the world was still intact, the band still upright, the engine still firing on all cylinders. Lemmy was still chain‑smoking and pouring Wild Turkey with the precision of a ritual. Campbell was still cracking jokes with that sly Welsh grin. Mikkey Dee was still threatening to set fire to hotel property. Inferno was about to drop, and Motorhead was in full stride — dangerous, hilarious, and gloriously unfiltered.

I had barely stepped into West Hollywood’s Wyndham Bel Age Hotel when Mikkey Dee, drummer, former King Diamond powerhouse, and a man whose physical presence suggests he could bench‑press a Harley, began making alarming noises about setting fire to his travel bag and engulfing the lobby in flames, which, in the Motor‑vortex, barely registers as unusual behavior. These are not your average musicians, and this is not just another rock and roll band; this is Motor‑Fucking‑Head, the loudest and fastest band in the world, the band that defined high‑decibel sound and lifestyle, the band that made volume into a sacrament.

“We’re homeless,” he complained to me — the Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles scribe dispatched by Martin Popoff because I happened to be in Los Angeles while he was in Canada, and because when Motorhead calls, you don’t send a substitute. I felt the weight of the assignment, the lineage, the sheer gonzo gravity of it, but I wasn’t afraid; I’d encountered Lemmy and the band several times before, and despite the tattoos, the hair, the drugs, the reputation, they were regular guys, mates, human beings with a wicked sense of humor and a surprising tenderness. Lemmy, in fact, was a pussycat.

“They don’t have our room prepared yet,” Dee added, and I had no doubt that if the situation continued much longer, he would either produce a lighter and some accelerant or borrow from “the Road Crew,” whose resourcefulness in such matters is legendary.

The new Motorhead album, Inferno, was about to drop — twelve burning tracks of headbanging fury with a couple of softer numbers added for dynamic flavor. “We considered a few names,” Dee said. “A couple of them also started with ‘I.’ In Flames was one.” He was particularly proud of the album cover. “It’s the best cover we ever had throughout the history of Motorhead.” And indeed, Joe Petagno’s artwork — an exploded view of the band’s logo as three beasts, reproduced on the inside sleeve wearing the heads of Lemmy, Phil Campbell, and Dee — was a ferocious piece of visual mythology.

“This is an album that’s going to go right along with it,” he said. “In Motorhead, we’ve never said ‘this is the best album we’ve done.’ Never. The last album, Hammered, came out and we said ‘it’s not one of our stronger albums’ for different reasons. On Snake Bite Love, we also said we needed some more time with that. But this album has good potential for being one of the better ones we’ve done. I don’t think Lemmy’s been writing melodies this good ever, and Phil’s playing his ass off, and I’m also doing a couple of tricks…or two.”

He credited producer Cameron Webb for much of the album’s strength. “To produce a Motorhead album is very different from any other band. No one’s going to come in and tell us, ‘Listen guys, this is how I want Motorhead to be’ — piss off. But we don’t need a producer to be intimidated by our fucking way of working, when Lemmy starts screaming, or me or Phil start screaming. He threw a guitar at this guy Cameron. He actually said ‘that came out sweaty as a Swedish twat,’ and I go, ‘Well that’s a fucking take,’ and he goes ‘Well Mick, I don’t think you played that well right here, and you can do way better.’ When did a producer ever say that to me? I don’t remember.”

By then the room was ready, and the hotel management was spared from imminent conflagration. We took the interview upstairs, and in the spirit of true rock and roll, I interviewed Dee in the elevator. He laughed at the shrimpy accommodations — the room was unspectacular, hardly matching my visions of vintage Zeppelin chaos and floors turned into ice rinks.

“This is U.S. payola, it’s like Spinal Tap. Last time you were in America you played in front of 15,000 people. Now you’re playing in front of 1,500.” I hesitated to ask whether that signaled anything about the band’s popularity, but Dee waved it off. “No no no, I wouldn’t say so.”

Onstage and on record, Motorhead often seemed like a single brain channeled through three bodies, but Dee insisted they were “three completely different guys,” and that the magic came from that difference. He recalled Ozzfest ’98, where they initially felt like the Three Stooges among tattooed giants, only to realize within a week that they were heavier than all the other bands combined. “They walk around with baskets of fruit and fucking Perrier,” he said. “We’re not even trying, we’re just being ourselves.”

Then the atmospheric pressure shifted — Lemmy had arrived.

His presence, his aura, the sheer iconic LEMMY‑ness of him made him appear taller than he actually was. He wore a black paratrooper outfit with the Lemmy hat, boots, epaulettes, muttonchops, moles — the whole deal. He and Campbell stepped out to the patio to smoke.

“You won’t be getting any actual…facts from him,” Lemmy said of Dee, lighting a Marlboro and pouring Wild Turkey on the rocks. When I asked about the album title, Inferno, he snapped, “Don’t ask such fucking obvious questions!” but there was humor in his eye. You cannot show weakness with the General of Rock and Roll.

“It’s humid in the extreme,” he said. “Flames around your feet, around your head.”

On Motorhead’s lack of airplay: “People like us never get radio, are you kidding? More chance of a wank off the Pope.”

“Actually, I think I might have,” Campbell said.

“No, that was the Archbishop of Canterbury you had there.”

Campbell was enthusiastic about the record. “We’re just a heavy rock blues outfit. We write for the three of us, we don’t write for anyone else.”

A copy of the album arrived. Lemmy batted at the cube‑shaped CD player like a cat tormenting a mouse until it yielded sound, without disturbing his cigarette ash or whiskey. “That’s Steve Vai,” he said with a blissful grin. “The solo.”

The tracks churned and burned. Lemmy’s bass melted through “I’m in the Black,” inspired, he said, by “thinking about getting together with one of my black girlfriends.” His themes were consistent; back in 1999 he dismissed Nazi adjacency with “I’m a bad Nazi, me. I’ve got six black girlfriends.”

Songs like “Smiling Like a Killer” and “Life’s a Bitch” promised to join the Motor‑anthems — “Iron Fist,” “Born to Raise Hell” — ironclad biker rock, brimming with heart and soul.

Eventually we migrated to Lemmy’s bedroom, where, amid the chaos, he insisted on plopping me on his bed and feeding me cigarettes, genuinely concerned for my wellbeing, as many have noted about him.

End of part one.

Des drôles très solides. Plusieurs ont exploité vos mondes. Sans besoins, et peu pressés de mettre en œuvre leurs brillantes facultés et leur expérience de vos consciences. Quels hommes mûrs ! Des yeux hébétés à la façon de la nuit d’été, rouges et noirs, tricolores, d’acier piqué d’étoiles d’or ; des faciès déformés, plombés, blêmis, incendiés ; des enrouements folâtres ! La démarche cruelle des oripeaux ! — Il y a quelques jeunes, — comment regarderaient-ils Chérubin ? — pourvus de voix effrayantes et de quelques ressources dangereuses. On les envoie prendre du dos en ville, affublés d’un luxe dégoûtant.

Ô le plus violent Paradis de la grimace enragée ! Pas de comparaison avec vos Fakirs et les autres bouffonneries scéniques. Dans des costumes improvisés avec le goût du mauvais rêve ils jouent des complaintes, des tragédies de malandrins et de demi-dieux spirituels comme l’histoire ou les religions ne l’ont jamais été. Chinois, Hottentots, bohémiens, niais, hyènes, Molochs, vieilles démences, démons sinistres, ils mêlent les tours populaires, maternels, avec les poses et les tendresses bestiales. Ils interpréteraient des pièces nouvelles et des chansons « bonnes filles ». Maîtres jongleurs, ils transforment le lieu et les personnes et usent de la comédie magnétique. Les yeux flambent, le sang chante, les os s’élargissent, les larmes et des filets rouges ruissellent. Leur raillerie ou leur terreur dure une minute, ou des mois entiers.

J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage.

Solid fellows, these oddities. Some exploited your worlds. Mindless of needs, unanxious to exert their brilliant faculties or their experience of your consciousnesses. Mature men! Dazed eyes of a summer night: red and black, tricolored, golden stars steel-pricked, faces mutated--leaden, pale, inflamed; playfully hoarse throats...

Tattered finery with a cruel gait! — A few youngsters, fitted with scary voices and a thimble of danger— how would they look at Cherubino? — Sent into town in vomitous drag to “get some back."

A grimacing, violent Paradise! Unlike your Fakirs, other stage buffooneries. Bad taste nightmare costumed they perform laments, tragedies of rogues and spiritual demigods History or religions have never known. Chinese, Hottentots, gypsies, simpletons, hyenas, Molochs, ancient insanity, crooked demons — Polluting popular, maternal tricks with bestial poses that touch tenderness...

They would interpret new plays, songs about "good girls," whoever they may be... Master jugglers, morphing the place and the people, they magnetize comedy to their own ends. Eyes ablaze, their blood sings far too loud; bones widen, red threads, tears of crimson screaming down Their mockery or their terror lasts a minute — or infinities.

I alone hold the key to this savage freakshow.

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) was a French poet whose brief, explosive career reshaped modern literature. Writing nearly all his work between ages 16–20, he became a foundational figure of Symbolism, Surrealism, and avant‑garde poetics. His major works — Une Saison en enfer (1873) and Illuminations (1874) — introduced radical free verse, dream‑logic imagery, and a visionary mode that influenced the Surrealists, Beats, punk poets, and modernist writers.
After a tumultuous relationship with Paul Verlaine, Rimbaud abandoned literature entirely by 21 and spent his later life traveling and working in Africa and the Middle East. He died in Marseille at 37.

Alex S. Johnson is an American journalist, author, poet, spoken‑word performer, editor, and publisher with a 30+ year career in cross‑genre literature. Founder of Nocturnicorn Books and Darkest Wine Media, Johnson’s work blends punk/goth/metal aesthetics, feminist literature, surrealism, clown‑horror, and mythopoetic intensity.
He has collaborated with and been endorsed by major figures in speculative and transgressive literature, including Mort Castle, Jeffrey Thomas, and John Shirley, who called him “the Baudelaire of our time.”
Johnson’s projects include Hell Bent For Leather: A Literary Tribute to Judas Priest, Twilight of the Doom Hippies and editorial curation involving Jan Steckel, Iris Berry, Ellyn Maybe, Richard Modiano, Puma Perl, Jarboe, David J, Nicole Sixx, Anna Taborska, Priya Sharma, Lee Bailes, and Caitlin R Kiernan. He also produces The Kandy Fontaine Show, featuring artists such as Liv Jagrell.

It’s only appropriate that Type O Negative’s cover of “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, should have graced the soundtrack to Private Parts. Howard Stern had been a longtime admirer of Type O Negative’s bleak humor and cathedral‑sized sound, and he wanted the band on his film’s soundtrack. Type O had already recorded the song with Peter Steele’s vocals during the October Rust sessions, a version that remained buried except for a low‑quality demo on the October Rust cassette and later fan‑circulated leaks.

When producer Rick Rubin — a personal friend of Ozzy — was brought in to oversee the soundtrack, he asked Ozzy to record vocals for the track. The band sent their finished backing tracks to California, where Ozzy recorded his parts alone; Rubin remixed the song afterward. Ozzy and the band never met during the process, and Rubin reportedly had no prior connection to Type O Negative. The Ozzy version was released as a promo single in 1997 and included on Private Parts: The Album, later resurfacing on Ozzy’s Prince of Darkness compilation. Fans remain divided: some appreciate the oddity of the collaboration, but many argue that Rubin’s remix flattened the layered, multi‑part sound Type O was known for, preferring Steele’s original arrangement. The song’s lyrics — seeing a lover’s face everywhere, in windows, in the sky, under a pillow — fit Steele’s haunted romanticism far more than Ozzy’s bombast, giving the track an eerie intimacy that survives even through the remix.

Howard Stern is a fan, and Type O are local cisterns of New York — a band epitomizing pure NYC attitude: chalk‑dry knucklebuster humor, misanthropic vision veiling sloppy‑eyed romanticism. Noble savages in black leather.

They were the anti‑Weezer: no geek chic, no irony‑lite. Brooklyn bruisers with rippling pecs and flowing black hair. Not your Tiger Beat dream date.

Peter Steele — lead vocalist, bassist, lyricist, and poster boy for social Darwinism — packed solid muscle into his six‑foot‑six frame. He displayed his assets in the August ’95 Playgirl issue to reader acclaim, and dismissed a Terrorizer poll naming him “least shaggable artist” with a full‑throated growl: “As I understand it, that poll was answered by extremely ugly men and lesbians.” Politically correct he was not. But he wasn’t afraid to show his teeth — literally. He once had his canines sharpened to vampire points, losing one in a bizarre hammer‑related traffic altercation. Carnivore, indeed.

When I reached him by phone in Salt Lake City, the band had just finished a show. He wasn’t headed to the afterparty. Instead, he described his post‑show ritual in a long, unbroken riff: “I paint myself red with my tape for the evening to make some strange works of art on a canvas on the floor as we chew each other to pieces.” That was Peter: half performance artist, half berserker, half romantic — the math never added up.

October Rust opens with a prank track and a chuckling apology from Steele, Josh Silver, Kenny Hickey, and Johnny Kelly. The music doesn’t start until track three, “Love You to Death,” a velvet sledgehammer wrapped in melody. The album is shot through with supernatural themes, though Steele’s scientific fatalism undercuts any mystical reading.

On “Wolf Moon,” he launched into one of the longest explanations of the interview: “That’s why ‘Wolf Moon’ is actually about a werewolf, but it’s got a kind of a twist to it. Here’s a man that actually turns into a werewolf and engages in oral sex with a menstruating woman.” On “Haunted,” he continued: “It’s about a succubus who comes to a man in his sleep. I hate the morning because if you’re asleep and you’re getting the shit fucked out of you, would you want to wake up? I wouldn’t either. Whether it’s the ghost or my hand.”

Bloody Kisses went gold, propelled by “Black No. 1,” Steele’s ode to a Cure‑loving goth goddess: “Loving you was like loving the dead.” But it was “Christian Woman” that detonated the culture wars. After all, this is a song about a woman who gets wet during Mass and masturbates to the image of Jesus Christ. Steele gave one of the most candid explanations of his career: “Yeah, I was trying to get some shock value because that gets a person’s attention right away. And after you bait the hook you reel them in. That’s why I’ve always used outlandish titles — just to force people to pick up the album and read the lyrics. Some people hate it and some people like it, but either way you bought the album, so you’re paying my phone bill. Thank you.”

His religious upbringing — Russian Orthodox father, Roman Catholic mother — shaped his rejection of mysticism. “Any 10th‑grade chemistry book — that would be my Bible.” He continued: “I mean the spells and tree spirits and shit like that is just this New Age garbage. These people like to walk around with some kind of crystal shoved up their ass thinking nothing’s going to hurt them. Well, the forces of nature will take care of you.”

As a child, Steele was already cultivating shock tactics: “I would just live to scare my sisters to death. I would hide under their beds with my hands painted green, and when they came home from work, I would grab their seat and not let go until they pissed their panties. That was the ultimate triumph for me when I was 6 years old.”

Steele worked for NYC Parks until layoffs forced him out. “Green Man” reflects that era. It’s not so much about Celtic myth as a description of Steele’s job duties, which is why “The Green Man” begins with a garbage truck sample. Fire imagery recurs throughout his work. It’s tied in with Steele’s professed desire to die with his lover in a sexual auto‑da‑fé. He told me that as a young adolescent, he would spring an automatic hard‑on at the sight of things on fire. “I’ve actually looked into this affliction. It’s called pyrolagnia — fire lust in Greek. I’ve always equated women with fire because of the beauty, the heat, the passion, the danger.”

Even the most fantastical Type O songs contain autobiography. When Steele called himself “the living dead,” it wasn’t just goth affectation. On October 15, 1989, he attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. The scars appear in “In Praise of Bacchus”: “The scars are still prominent.” The aftermath was a period of reckless invincibility: “After I cut my wrist, I think I felt I couldn’t die. I could do whatever I wanted to. Everybody thought my new attitude was self‑confidence, but it wasn’t. Life to me is not so precious you have to cling to it with every last bit of energy. Life is a game, and part of winning this game is knowing when to leave it.”

Steele channeled the anger he felt for the woman who nearly cost him his life. The resulting stream of invective fueled Slow, Deep and Hard (1991), Type O Negative’s caustic debut. The lyrics in this and the follow‑up “semi‑live” EP, The Origin of the Feces, drew accusations of misogyny from some horrified female listeners. It’s only with the release of Bloody Kisses that the band’s new “kinder, gentler” image (as Steele sarcastically describes it) swelled the ranks of its audience.

Asked point‑blank whether the band’s new, woman‑friendly image isn’t just another marketing ploy, Steele answered with typical candor: “To be honest with you, I think I’ve learned to play the game, kind of… I would not want to be a totally false person and come out with this totally different personality, and still be the same asshole. I just take a part of myself and exploit it. It seems to be working for me.”

He continued: “I definitely consider myself to be a romantic person. When I’m with a woman, I want to take care of her. I want to do everything for her. I want to serve her. It’s not just an act. No. 1, I really prefer to be around women, and No. 2, I like to be passionate with someone.”

We can only speculate about the luscious ménage‑à‑trois implied in “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend,” or the cover of Bloody Kisses, which displays two women locked in a soul kiss. However, Steele laughed at the idea of a rock‑star harem: “I prefer being with one woman at a time.”

And fame? “I don’t like fancy clothes. I don’t like fast cars. I just like peace and quiet and I like to spend quality time with someone I care about.”

In the years since Steele’s death in 2010, his shadow has only lengthened. Younger fans continue discovering Type O Negative, fueling a resurgence that has pushed the surviving members toward long‑delayed archival releases. In 2025, guitarist Kenny Hickey confirmed that the band is mixing a new live album built from Steele‑era recordings, calling it “the first official music since Steele’s death” and noting that the band is “in the mixing process… working on the artwork now.”

Drummer Johnny Kelly echoed the sentiment, revealing that the band has signed with Nuclear Blast and that a full concert recording is being prepared for release. “We were able to get our hands on a show… it was mixed and mastered,” Kelly said, adding that fans have begun approaching the band directly: “It’s time to do something in terms of celebrating Peter’s life and his music.”

Talk of a tribute concert — once unthinkable — has begun. Hickey admitted in 2025 that “there has been discussion,” noting that Josh Silver, long resistant, is “about to retire” from his paramedic job, potentially opening the door to participation. Kelly, for his part, emphasized the emotional weight of any reunion: “The curiosity’s there… but it isn’t something we’ve been actively pursuing.”

What is clear is that Steele’s legacy is no longer a static monument. It is a living, mutating force. As Kelly put it in 2025, reflecting on Steele’s absence and the band’s future: “The brotherhood is real.” And as Hickey noted, the demand has only grown: “A lot of people are approaching us… there’s money in it.”

Steele once told me, “Life is a game, and part of winning this game is knowing when to leave it.” But in 2026, the game continues — not in spite of his departure, but because of the gravitational pull he left behind. The Green Man is gone, but the world keeps turning toward him.

Elegant Weapons erupted as a living, breathing band with something urgent to say. Not an outgrowth of Judas Priest. A threat of their very own. Their evolution has been rapid, visible, and unmistakably real—an ongoing metamorphosis driven by four musicians who have already spent decades in the crucible of heavy music.

At the center of that crucible stands Richie Faulkner, whose ongoing tenure with Judas Priest forms both the backbone and the battle scars of his creative life. Since joining Priest in 2011—after nearly deleting the band’s recruitment emails because he thought they were spam—Faulkner has become one of the most electrifying guitarists in modern metal. Rob Halford himself has praised the energy Faulkner brings to the stage, telling Metal Hammer in 2016: “We can’t say enough about Richie… if you look at ‘Battle Cry’ and just watch his charisma and energy and all of the great stuff coming out of his hands, it’s wonderful; it really is. He’s infectious; the fans will tell you that.”

That same charisma, energy, and precision fuels Elegant Weapons. Faulkner’s work with Priest—writing, touring, surviving—has shaped his artistic instincts with a ferocity that can’t be faked. It’s no coincidence that Elegant Weapons’ emergence in 2023 felt less like a debut and more like a detonation. Alongside Ronnie Romero, Dave Rimmer, and Christopher Williams, Faulkner helped craft Horns For A Halo, a debut that reacted instantly with fans and critics alike. The band tore through Hellfest, Graspop, Resurrection Fest, and even supported Pantera, proving they were not a studio experiment but a real, road‑tested unit. Yet even then, Faulkner spoke of the band as something still forming, still sharpening, still becoming.

That becoming reaches a new level on Evolution. The album’s creation mirrored its title: a global, multi‑location ritual stitched together by necessity, commitment, and trust. Williams tracked drums in Nashville, capturing the organic push‑and‑pull that only happens when a drummer is physically present. Romero recorded vocals over Zoom from Europe. Rimmer laid down bass in France. Faulkner finished guitars at home in Nashville. Andy Sneap—Priest’s touring guitarist and the architect behind Invincible Shield—co‑produced, binding the disparate sessions into a cohesive whole. This wasn’t remote recording; it was remote communion. And it worked because the band had already lived together on the road. Twenty‑three shows. Twenty‑three nights of sweat, adrenaline, and shared oxygen. That lived experience bleeds into every note of Evolution.

The album opens with “Evil Eyes,” a blade of a track that slices forward on palm‑muted arpeggios and a stalking rhythm. Romero’s chorus feels like a threat whispered in a dark alley, while Faulkner’s solo writhes through squeals, dive‑bombs, and buzzsaw runs. “Generation Me” follows with a blues‑stung lament wrapped in a muscular groove, a commentary on the self‑absorbed digital age delivered with both bite and vulnerability. “Bridges Burn,” the lead single, is the album’s most immediate example of the band’s chemistry—a galloping riff that had haunted Faulkner’s notebooks finally finding its home, paired with a chorus that hits like apocalyptic triumph. Jared James Nichols appears on “Thrown to the Wolves,” adding a feral edge, while Adam Wakeman’s keyboards elevate “Keeper of the Keys” into a towering seven‑minute epic.

Then there is “Rupture,” the emotional core of the album. Inspired by Faulkner’s near‑fatal aortic aneurysm and dissection onstage with Judas Priest in 2021, the instrumental channels the terror, suspension, and fragile hope of life support. The heartbeat motif pulses through the track like a memory of survival. Clean guitars murmur. Distortion avalanches. The final sound is a flatline. It is not melodrama. It is autobiography. “Mercy of the Fallen” erupts afterward like a defibrillator, a spiritual sequel that transforms collapse into resurgence. Romero’s voice rises with defiance—“Show them the mercy of the fallen”—turning trauma into triumph.

Elegant Weapons is not a footnote in any member’s career. It is a living entity with its own pulse, its own scars, its own trajectory. Faulkner describes it as his chance to build something from nothing, something that began as a handful of songs and grew into a band with its own character and story. As they’ve evolved, they’ve become closer, and that closeness radiates through Evolution. The album is not just a collection of tracks; it is a document of transformation, a testament to survival, and a declaration that growth is non‑negotiable. Elegant Weapons aren’t just evolving. They’re ascending.

Penis Flytrap emerged from one of the most volatile and creatively fertile ecosystems in American underground culture: the Los Angeles deathrock and horror‑punk scene of the late 20th century, a world shaped by the cross‑pollination of punk, goth, exploitation cinema, and theatrical shock performance. To understand the band’s significance, one has to look backward—toward the original deathrock explosion of the early 1980s—and forward, toward the early‑2000s resurgence of DIY horror filmmaking and the renewed interest in analog gore aesthetics. The band did not appear in a vacuum; they were the product of decades of subcultural evolution, personal histories, and artistic collisions.

Dinah Cancer, the most historically visible member of Penis Flytrap, had already become a foundational figure long before the band formed. As the vocalist of 45 Grave, she helped define the deathrock sound that grew out of the L.A. punk scene’s darker corners. Her work in the early 1980s placed her alongside bands like Christian Death, Super Heroines, and Kommunity FK, all of whom fused punk aggression with macabre theatricality. Cancer’s presence in the band carried the weight of that lineage; she was one of the few artists from the original deathrock era who continued performing through the 1990s and into the 2000s, maintaining continuity between generations of horror‑themed music. Her earlier involvement with Castration Squad—a feminist, confrontational punk collective—also shaped her approach to performance, grounding her later theatrical personas in a tradition of subversive stagecraft rather than mere shock value.

Lucifer Fulci entered the band from a different historical trajectory, one rooted not in punk but in the cult of Italian horror cinema. The 1990s saw a major revival of interest in directors like Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, and Dario Argento, driven by VHS collectors, horror zines, and boutique video labels. Fulci was part of that collector culture, the generation who traded bootleg tapes, memorized Goblin soundtracks, and treated Italian splatter films as sacred texts. His musical identity was shaped by this cinematic obsession, and his contributions to Penis Flytrap reflected the broader trend of horror‑soundtrack influence that would later explode into full genres—dark synth, dungeon synth, and retro‑giallo electronic music. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, this influence was still niche, still underground, still the domain of obsessive fans rather than mainstream musicians. Fulci’s presence in the band placed PFT at the forefront of a movement that had not yet fully emerged.

Elvorian Von Spivey and Hal Satan came from Mi Diablo, a band that represented another important thread in L.A.’s underground: the hybridization of punk, metal, and horror imagery that proliferated in the 1990s. This was the era of crossover bands, DIY venues, and small‑press zines that documented scenes too obscure for mainstream coverage. Von Spivey’s guitar style, shaped by both punk rawness and metal heaviness, reflected the broader trend of women in heavy music reclaiming space in genres traditionally dominated by men. Her fascination with vampire cinema and Hammer horror placed her within the lineage of goth and horror fandom that had grown steadily since the 1970s, fueled by late‑night TV broadcasts, Fangoria magazine, and the cult status of films like The Hunger and The Lost Boys. Hal Satan’s influences—Hong Kong action cinema, Tarantino, and ultraviolent crime films—connected the band to yet another cultural current: the 1990s explosion of stylized violence in film, which shaped the aesthetics of countless underground musicians who saw in those movies a new vocabulary for aggression and spectacle.

Dave Parker, director of The Dead Hate the Living!, represents the cinematic counterpart to everything Penis Flytrap embodied. The late 1990s and early 2000s were a transitional period in horror filmmaking, marked by the rise of indie directors who embraced practical effects, meta‑horror, and DIY production. Parker was part of that wave, influenced by the same films that shaped the band’s aesthetic. His presence in the interview reflects the symbiotic relationship between underground horror cinema and horror‑themed music during this era. Bands like Penis Flytrap provided soundtracks, inspiration, and cultural context for filmmakers who were reviving the spirit of 1980s splatter films in a new digital age.

Taken together, these histories reveal why Penis Flytrap occupies a unique place in the cultural landscape. They were not simply a band; they were a convergence point for multiple underground traditions—deathrock, Italian horror fandom, punk‑metal crossover, exploitation cinema, and DIY filmmaking. Their formation coincided with a moment when Los Angeles was undergoing significant cultural shifts: the decline of many historic venues, the rise of new goth and industrial clubs, the emergence of horror conventions, and the growing influence of internet‑based fan communities. Penis Flytrap stood at the intersection of these changes, carrying forward the analog, blood‑and‑latex sensibility of earlier eras while anticipating the multimedia, cross‑genre horror culture that would dominate the 2010s and beyond.

In 2026, revisiting this interview means recognizing the band as part of a larger historical continuum. They were inheritors of deathrock’s original theatricality, participants in the VHS‑era horror revival, collaborators with rising indie filmmakers, and precursors to the modern horror‑soundtrack renaissance. Their story is not just the story of a band; it is the story of Los Angeles horror culture itself, mutating, recombining, and refusing to die.

THE INTERVIEW

Something tells me this isn’t the best neighborhood to get lost in, especially in search of a guy who calls himself Lucifer. Women in baggy sweatshirts and curlers cross themselves when I ask for directions, muttering swiftly in Spanish (something like “Madre de Dios -- El Diablo!”); it doesn’t help that the exact street number I seek can be found in the Book of Revelation and several silly movies starring Sam Neill.

Fortunately, before long Lucifer finds me.

You can almost feel the road rage building on this midsummer afternoon in Angelino Heights. Yet the foot traffic tells a different story. Whole families safely traverse Bellevue en route to Echo Park, or (Echo Parque as some locals have it); come to celebrate the Lotus Festival, they stroll with flamboyant leisure compared to the stop-and-go panic assailing the intersection.

Dark Caddies slouch southward down the hill, bearing mean-looking dudes with shades, scarves and rippling tats. This is a neighborhood white people drive through with the windows rolled up whatever the heat, eyes locked straight ahead, grimaces plastered on their faces and feet doing quick heel-toe action -- the kind of place Michael Douglas’s character in Falling Down would approach only with a grenade launcher.

From a blind alley beside the building -- a slate gray stucco rabbit warren -- I’ve picked as the most likely candidate for the interview site, a friendly voice reaches me (you expected sepulchral tones and brimstone?). Soon Lucifer Fulci and I have traversed a maze of steps and fenced-off courtyards that would unnerve Alice, arriving at the sanctum sanctgorum of Penis Flytrap.

The décor befits a band best described as the sonic double of an Italian splatter film. Lurid horror movie posters cover the walls; a black Naugahyde sofa fronts a TV set running nonstop gore flick montage, and a disarmingly cute white kitten named Lamberto Pawva (dubbed after a prominent Italian genre director) frolics about. Gathered for the interview are the aforementioned Lucifer (bass); Elvorina Von Spivey (guitar); Hal Satan (drums) and Deathrock legend, ex-Castration Squad/45 Grave vocalist Dinah Cancer, along with up-and-coming horror auteur Dave Parker, director of The Dead Hate The Living, which features PFT’s music.

True to form, Cancer’s metastasizing nightly, popping new nodes -- onstage personalities with discrete traits — from the mass of protean tissue known as Penis Flytrap. “PFT is like a living organism,” Cancer bursts out with typical enthusiasm. “It’s kind of like John Carpenter’s The Thing: You don’t know what you’re going to get next week, but damn, it’s fun and scary!”

Speaking of herself in the third person like a distaff, gore-flecked Bob Dole, the still-striking singer draws out the analogy: “The band has been like developing, and we’ve been moving forward musically; at the same time, Dinah has been going through her own changes. I think it comes with being more seasoned. Every show is a different form of Dinah, based on whatever type of mood I’m in: She can be like a total dead zombie to maybe a manic serial killer who loves to stab women on stage!

“For awhile I had one character called ‘Zombie Doll.’ She had this short, cropped, fluorescent pink wig and she was covered in bandages. If you looked at her arms, every time she moved you would see blood oozing out of her wounds and stuff. That survived for about a year. Then I have a blue haired vixen who’s more like the Deathrock [persona], from the old Hammer horror that we all grew up with. It just depends on what we’re doing for that evening. We’ll sit down and plan out a show and we might pick out a particular movie. Like one of our funnest times was a tribute to The Exorcist. Elvorian donned a Regan type outfit complete with like IV drip coming out of her nose. She was just totally evil with the contacts and everything, and dripping blood…she looked like she was decomposing. We all just kind of like surrounded ourselves with The Exorcist for the evening -- we played some music, the title track, and I did my Regan scene where she was in bed f**king herself with the cross. That was my contribution to the whole thing.”

Von Spivey adds: “That was at the Key Club (a West Hollywood rock venue). I know the owner’s son there, and he said that the entire downstairs staff was freaked out by us because of what we did onstage.”

Composed of veteran hands in the horror-rock subgenre, Penis Flytrap grafts its parts together much like the title character in Frankenhooker. But by the same token it would be inaccurate to call the group’s makeup piecemeal; they are, in literal fact, an extended family. Von Spivey and Satan previously performed with a band called Mi Diablo, which broke up when the lead singer left for India.

Recalls Von Spivey, “Our CD had just come out, and we were all pretty disappointed. We had boxes and boxes of CDs and no singer.”

With Mi Diablo’s demise, the remaining members, with Fulci on board as bassist, decided to continue playing together for kicks. Says Satan, “They [Mi Diablo] were so organized, and we wanted to do something to do something fun.”

Von Spivey met Cancer through an occult shop the singer owned called Ragnarok. “I was going in and buying books and things from her, and I didn’t realize that was really who she was. Then we kind of ended up meeting kind of through mutual friends.

“I told her we wanted to have her sing ‘Party Time’ with us at a benefit (the 45 Grave classic featured in the soundtrack to Return of the Living Dead) and would she do that. She came down to rehearse with us, and then that was it.”

Cancer picks up the thread: “That rehearsal’s when I met the infamous Lucifer, and it just seemed that we all just kinda like really clicked together, and everyone was just out having like a really good time. It just seemed like we were just like made to play together.”

Perhaps because of Cancer’s H-wood Gothick pedigree, PFT’s rep among the uninitiated stuffs them in the same narrow box as vintage LA bands like Christian Death. “People say we’re a gothic band, and they’ll play some of our songs at a Goth club too,” Fulci says. “But we’re not aimed at them exactly; a song like ‘Burn Witch Burn’ is what we remember from watching something like Black Sabbath, by Mario Bava, riding through those dark woods…if somebody said, ‘Look in the dictionary under “horror,” and read the definition, do you see that in Halloween IX or Jason X or any of this? Usually, no.’”

It comes as small shock that PFT draw inspiration from Italian horror film composers, the art-rock combo Goblin. “We use some of their music for intros for when we play, if the venue is appropriate…they are such an influence,” Fulci says. “There are a couple of pieces on our new album, Dismemberment, that William Faith [Faith and the Muse, Christian Death] produced. His wife came out and said that some of these on here just sound exactly like Goblin. But don’t tell that to them!”

Dave Parker weighs in: “One of the first things I noticed about them is that with their music and their songs and their stage show and everything else, that they encompassed everything from classical horror to modern horror. I mean, they do everything from songs having a more Universal type feel to even William Castle sort of spooky ghost type stuff to the Italian stuff to modern horror, to things that are like Jim VanBebber films.”

Fulci agrees: “Even if we didn’t play music, I think that we would all hang out based on our movie collections alone. I’ve said before that the one thing I realized is that she [Von Spivey] had the unending collection of vampire movies and she’s been very much into that, as well as the true crime kind of stuff. I could borrow for ages from her collection, as well as the Hammer stuff that she (Cancer) has -- all the stuff I didn’t have; I was kind of more Italian gore crap, and Hal, on the completely other violent end of the spectrum was like ‘you have to watch Killing Zoe. You should watch these gangster type films from John Woo to Tarentino and all that kind of stuff in-between…I hadn’t even watched Scarface until I met him. Based on that kind of stuff alone, I think we all kind of equally gave.”

Parker, who bears a slight resemblance to Stephen King, stows his cigarette in a traveling soda can. He observes, “Another thing I liked about the band is that every one of them is an individual and each one of them has, besides movie influences, different musical influences as well. They all come from different walks and they manage to combine them.”

Fulci nods enthusiastically. “Dinah’s like, she’s got connections to The Germs, a seminal Los Angeles band; Don Bolles is a great drummer, 45 Grave was a great band, very influential. I really respect everybody’s roots.”

The sonic DNA that Penis Flytrap mingle in their songs makes the band, as an entity, a healthy and versatile creature. Says Fulci of his bandmates’ taste: “I had a very hermit-like, close-minded point of view on music -- these bands, that music, is easy to play. You have to go from the other spectrum of heavy, fast metal kind of stuff, and Lesli (Von Spivey) was like ‘Yeah but, this is fun too, if you listen to some punk sh*t, there’s like a fine balance between the two.’ I think that’s kind of musically what we give to each other, I don’t mean to talk about her in front of her, but she’s got this raw sound that comes out of this Marshall that is not like other bands …and I’ll be like, she’s a lady, and she plays guitar like that?

“That’s one of the interesting things about this band, is that you don’t really have one spectrum of music. For instance, if I hear anything by Slayer, I know it’s Slayer; but there’s a lot of things that people hear. We have a song, ‘Say You Love Satan,’ but at the other end we have a song like ‘I Wait,’ which is kind of like a spooky ballad, and those are two completely different things.”

The venues PFT perform at impact their exact spectral shade, however. A sketchy blueprint gets hammered out for each show -- just enough structure to allow weird improv stuff to erupt where it may. Fulci says, “We have a skeletal plan for what we’re going to do onstage, and then it just kinda all goes loose, so sometimes Laurie the Gory -- if she’s out there and she’s dancing to a song -- might just decide to turn around, fall to her knees and let Dinah shove the crucifix down her throat. That’s not planned. That’s just kind of what we do. If people are offended by that, well, that’s kind of success, in a way.

“With a band like The Misfits, they’re like George Romero; they have the ideology of horror that’s maybe kind of more family-oriented. Their songs are very celebratory about horror films and B-movies and things like that, and you can take your child to any Misfits show at any time, and have a good time. But there are some shows that parents are genuinely offended by the things that we do or say onstage, and it just kind of happens, that’s just who we are. If we do have an all-ages show, it’s the difference between, like 18 and Over is Evil Dead, All Ages is Evil Dead II. You know -- you could use Slime II. That’s all right. Slime’s no crime.”

Adds Von Spivey, “We try and have a little bit of nudity and blood…it depends on the age level of the club.”

“Also,” says Cancer, “in certain counties, if you have hard alcohol, you have to be covered -- you can’t be topless. So those are the variants; we have to find out how we have to work within like a club or a venue.

“We’re out to have fun. And we want to play for people that appreciate a good horror show. We want you to come in and just be totally like immersed in all sensory avenues: Sight, sound; you will get splattered with blood, you will see almost naked women running around getting stabbed onstage, you’ll hear this bitching kick-ass music, you can see all this stuff going onstage, so when you come out you’re just going like, that was worth the price of admission. It’s like we’re a mini-movie in the flesh: You can come up, you can talk to us. I’ll spit blood on you!

Patricia Morrison’s story begins in Los Angeles, in the mid‑1970s, when glam rock was still a glittering promise and punk was a spark waiting to catch. As Alice Bag recalls, “When I first met Patricia, we were both still in high school and into Glam… Music was the glue that held our little world together.” The two teenagers dressed up for concerts, formed a small circle of friends across different high schools, and eventually picked up instruments. What started as fandom became intention.

Their first band, Femme Fatale, soon morphed into Masque Era, both glitter‑driven, theatrical, and already leaning toward the raw energy of punk. Morrison’s biographical record echoes this period: she “immersed herself in music during her early teens through exposure to glam rock acts like KISS at concerts around 1974–1975.”

Everything changed in April 1977. Alice Bag describes the night that detonated their trajectory: “It was a concert at the Orpheum Theater which featured the Germs (playing their first show), the Zeros and my then boyfriend’s band, the Weirdos. We knew that we had to be a part of this.” Morrison remembers the same moment as catalytic: “That first punk show… They just got us excited and we decided we wanted to do it.”

From that revelation came The Bags, co‑founded by Morrison, Bag, and guitarist Janet Koontz. The biographical document situates them historically: “Inspired by a transformative 1977 concert… Morrison and Bag founded The Bags that year, marking Morrison’s entry into the punk scene as a co-founding member, bassist, and vocalist under the name Pat Bag.”

The Bags were chaotic, confrontational, and defiantly strange. Morrison laughs in the interview: “We had a wide repertoire of weirdness.” They wrote songs about eggplants, bondage, and surreal teenage obsessions. Bag remembers: “We wrote hits like Bag Bondage about tying up a paper bag!” Their early shows at the Masque and Troubadour became part of LA punk mythology, and the biographical document underscores their importance: “As one of the first-generation punk acts from the city, The Bags played a pivotal role… fostering inclusivity for women and marginalized voices.”

But punk scenes burn fast. By late 1979, tensions fractured the band. Bag writes, “We had a nasty falling out and Patricia and I did not speak to each other for many, many years.” Their reconciliation decades later — mediated by a mutual friend — is tender, funny, and deeply human. Bag recalls being nervous; Morrison remembers the laughter returning easily. “It was much easier than I could have imagined,” Bag writes. “I felt a complete fool for letting so much time go by.”

After The Bags, Morrison’s path widened. She joined Legal Weapon, where her bass lines hardened into a more aggressive, hardcore‑inflected style. Morrison’s commanding stage presence helped solidify the band’s reputation for high-energy shows.”

Then came The Gun Club, where Jeffrey Lee Pierce recruited her after a ten‑minute rehearsal. Morrison’s bass became the anchor of their swamp‑blues post‑punk hybrid. The document highlights her role: “Her prominent bass lines anchor key songs like the brooding title track ‘The Las Vegas Story.’”

From there, Morrison moved to London, formed Fur Bible with Kid Congo Powers, and soon entered the orbit of The Sisters of Mercy. Morrison’s presence significantly shaped the band’s visual and musical identity, embodying a striking gothic aesthetic.

Her tenure with Eldritch was dramatic, influential, and ultimately contentious. She appeared in iconic videos — “This Corrosion,” “Dominion/Morningstar,” “Lucretia My Reflection” — becoming one of goth’s most recognizable figures. During the prolonged legal battle… Morrison supported herself as a motorcycle courier in London, later recalling that the job paid better than her band earnings.”

In 1996, Morrison joined The Damned, where she met her future husband, Dave Vanian — though their first encounter had happened decades earlier, unbeknownst to her. Bag reminds her: “Hey, at that Weirdos show, at the Orpheum, your future husband was in the audience.” Morrison laughs: “Yes, isn’t that weird?… When we met years later, we both remembered that incident on the stairs.”

Their marriage in 1997 and the birth of their daughter in 2004 marked Morrison’s gradual retreat from the music industry. She retired from music after the birth of her daughte, though her early work remains a cornerstone of post-punk history.

The Bag interview reveals a woman who is reflective, funny, and grounded. Asked about the legacy of punk, Morrison says: “Great memories… an excitement and belief that anything can happen or change no matter how unlikely it feels at the time.” She adds, “To stand up for yourself and be strong. To create, not follow.”

She listens now to classical music, sixties pop, and Puddles the Clown’s cover of “Royals.” She insists she’s “a lot goofier than people realize.” Bag agrees: “I’ll say!”

What emerges is a portrait of a woman who helped build punk from the inside, shaped goth from the outside, and carried herself through every era with humor, strength, and a refusal to be defined by anyone else’s expectations. Morrison’s own words capture the ethos she carried from the beginning: “Where you don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you’re not good enough or that you can’t do it.”

That attitude — fierce, playful, sovereign — is the thread that runs through her entire life.

Iris and I go way back I have always adored her. I am so happy we have stayed close. I got the chance to ask Iris some fun and informative questions..

Chatting with Iris brought up a bunch of memories. As you read the interview you will see why Iris and I have stayed close. We both love to have fun but we do get business done.. I sure hope you have as much reading this interview as I did asking Iris the questions… I Love You Iris Berry and Thank you for a great interview…

Punk Globe: It is always a pleasure to interview you I miss our fun times at The Saddle Ranch and El Compadre. Punk Hostage Press is going great guns tell us about some of your recent releases?

Thank you, Ginger, thank you for having me. We sure did have some amazing times at The Saddle Ranch and El Compadre. Hard to believe it was 12 years ago…feels like yesterday.

Yes, Punk Hostage Press has never been better. In 2022 we released five incredible books! Joe Donnelly’s So Cal: Dispatches from the End of the World Jack Grisham’s Pulse of the World, Pleasant Gehman’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Witch, Patrick O’Neil’s Anarchy at the Circle K, Richard Modiano’s The Forbidden Lunchbox, and S.A Griffin’s Pandemic Soul Music.

Punk Globe: I noticed you have been hosting some killer Punk Hostage events do tell us about them?

Thank you…it’s been great, especially since we couldn’t do anything live for so long during lockdown. We’ve had a few! The most recent event was at Beyond Baroque for Richard Modiano’s The Forbidden Lunchbox. It was incredible. It’s always great to do events at Beyond Baroque. If it wasn’t for them, I doubt I would be doing what I do. Truly! Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, located in Venice Beach, California, was founded in 1968. Over the years, their workshops have been attended by numerous well-known Los Angeles writers and poets. The center’s first librarian was Exene Cervenka of the band X, who formed after Cervenka and John Doe met at the Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop there. The history there is incredible. If you’re not aware, check them out!

Punk Globe: Punk Hostage Press is really the little engine that can get to the top. We’re you active during the Pandemic?

When the Pandemic hit, we kicked it into high gear. 2020 was supposed to be the year of my book tour for All That Shines Under the Hollywood Sign. First stop was New York in the Spring and Europe in the Fall. And when I realized that none of that could happen, I put all my time into publishing a lot books on the Press. I wanted something good to come out of being on lockdown, and for that it was great!

Punk Globe: A bit of a tough question Iris what releases are you most proud of?

Yes, one would think. But truly, I love them all. Writing a book, as you know, is a big deal. It takes a lot for someone to sit down to write a book and complete it. It’s no small accomplishment. So yes, I love them all…we couldn’t publish them if we didn’t.

Punk Globe: Authors I have interviewed give Punk Hostage Press as being honest and fair to deal with.

That’s really nice to hear. When Razor and I created the model for Punk Hostage Press, we did it in favor of the writer. That’s why the writers get their books at cost, and they get 60 percent of all royalties. No other publishing company does this. But, Punk Hostage Press is more of a community than a company.

Punk Globe: What is on the horizon as far as releases go?

I’m super excited about what’s about to be released. I’m Currently finishing production on Shawna Kenney’s I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (3rd edition) and then to follow we have O.R.’s Ophelia Rising, Mike Roche’s (T.S.O.L) I Play With Giants, and Steve Balderson’s The Year of The Whore. All fantastic books!

Punk Globe: We sure had a lot of fun at The Saddle Ranch with Nick, Joe & Kim, Jon Gries, Button, Billy Savage, The Flintstones, Marc & Ligaya, Nikki &Gail and the gang Any nights that stand out for you?

Oh Ginger, did we ever! Especially with the Flintstones. Ha! They were all great times. But my favorites were at El Compadre when we’d have those big groups at one table. I love El Compadre, 1975 is when it opened. A lot of History in those 48 years in that dimly lit Hollywood noir atmosphere. And we definitely added to it.

Punk Globe: Do you remember the phone message I had Noel Fisher (Mickey from Shameless) leave you? I had so much fun hanging out with him. You also had your own Shameless fun times tell the readers more.

I’ll never forget it, and neither will the people sitting around me…I screamed in shock and laughed so loud. It was great! You’re the best for doing that. I was with my friend Chris Bailey aka The Grand Poobah of the Loyal Order of the Water Buffalo, we were at the Malibu Inn for some very loud punk rock bands and somehow I screamed and laughed louder than the music. Hahaha…

Yeah, I grew up in a wild household…growing up in Pacoima with three older brothers and no parental guidance. My mom was a single mother raising 4 kids all on her own. She was a tough Brooklyn beauty. But boys will be boys, ya know? They were always causing trouble everywhere we went. One time my mom took us to Busch Gardens for the tour. We were up on the catwalk with all the other tourists and families and my one brother Paul spit into the bubbling hops down below us, and that was it, we were escorted out by security. One of just many times that happened. Never a dull moment with my awesome family.

Iris Berry, Joe Dallesandro, Ginger Coyote, and Chloe Trujillo

Punk Globe: Any thoughts on the new Punk Globe layout?

It looks great!!!! But it’s always looked great. I’ve always loved the Punk Globe aesthetic. You all have done such a great job consistently. You do a lot for the Punk Rock and Rock ‘n’ Roll communities at large. Thank you so much for that, to your staff and to you personally, Ginger. We all love you for all that you do and how well you do it! Viva La Punk Globe!

Punk Globe: Do you have any Internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?

www.punkhostagepress.com

Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words.

Inspired, amused, and infatuated…

Punk Globe: Any last words for the readers and of course Jim Dandy and Black Oak Arkansas?

Ok… for the Record, Ginger…since we’ve been having this convo for some time now, hailing Jim Dandy…

I saw Black Oak Arkansas when I was 16 at the Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Blvd for a taping of the TV show The Midnight Special. They were great! And I swear I can still see myself in the audience when I watch it on YouTube.

And for Last words…Be Nice…and read more books…

GENIE Poppy Z. Brite Forum, Nov–Dec 1994:
Larry Hammer opens the discussion by saying he thinks “PZB sounds like a carcinogen that is used in industrial processes for several decades and dumped in landfills now being built over, much to the distress of the new residents when they discover this fact and to the financial officers of the EPC SuperFund. Of Poppy Z Brite, I don’t [sic] at all not having read any.”

World Horror Convention, Birmingham, Alabama, 1995:
Alex S. Johnson asks Poppy Z. Brite: “What sort of picture do you think people developed of you?”
Poppy replies: “People expect me to be some kid of hipper-tha-thou goddess sort of thing, an ethereal Goth chick who spends every night at a club, who gets drunk every night and shoots up heroin and God knows what. I’m so normal compared to that. I mean, I’m a home-owner and a gardener, you know. I did go through a phase like that, but it is over almost before my first book [Swamp Foetus] comes out. I’m over the club thing by 1991.”

GENIE Poppy Z. Brite Forum, Nov–Dec 1994:
D. Dworkin asks: “Does Tom Montelene know about this forum?”

World Horror Convention, Birmingham, Alabama, 1995:
Alex S. Johnson asks Poppy: “What’s your creative process like? Where do you start?”
Poppy says: “I start with characters and the more I can figure out about them, then the more I can know what’s going to happen to them, where the story needs to go. But it always begins with a character that I get obsessed with.”

Alex S Johnson

GENIE Poppy Z. Brite Forum, Nov–Dec 1994:
Doug Hawk asks: “Is it true that Poppy’s new husband is detained by customs agents after they find pages of her novel-in-progress on his person and think he is a serial killer, or is that simply hype?”
D. Dworkin replies: “That’s such a good story, that it ought to be true, whether it really is or not, Doug.”
D. Dworkin [Medic] adds: “It is because the ms. smells like burnt flesh, Doug. --Daniel The Medic.”
Doug Hawk says: “Ah yes, I forget about the burnt flesh promo.”
Bill Barton asks: “Now how would you distinguish ‘burnt flesh’ from, say, badly overcooked pork chops?”
G. Martin answers: “With news clippings and affidavits.”
Caitlín R. Kiernan says: “Amazingly, neither the bit about burnt flesh nor the Canadian detention thing are ‘hype.’ True on both accounts. Scout’s honor.”
Doug Hawk replies: “Truly amazing, Cait, truly.”
D. Dworkin asks: “Canadian detention cells smell like burnt human flesh? (Doing my part for the PZB urban mythifying.)”

Rick Hautala enters heatedly, saying: “The ‘burned flesh’ thing is a cheap, insensitive and (IMHO) extremely stupid publicity stunt for which everyone involved (except the nurn [sic] victim, I guess) should be ashamed. (Opps [sic], that’s BURN victim...darned fingers). No pun intended, I hope it backfires and ultimately costs in karmic debt...and low sales...of course, the media swarms on this like flies on sh#t and severs [sic] to feed a mass audience’s view that -all- horror writers are twisted, perverse, insensitive ghoulish, and turned on by human suffering...(Opps [sic] --SERVES, not severs...hmm, my Freduian [Sic] slip is showing...) and I’ll learn to type FREUDIAN some day, too...sorry for the typos, but this subject gets me a little heated...(pun intended, I guess).”

Rick Hautala

D. Dworkin replies: “The burnt-flesh thing doesn’t bother me at all, and actually I think it’s pretty funny, but I’m not sure why. I feel as though I should have a reaction like Rick’s, but it’s just not happening. And I really don’t understand why that’s so.”
Josepha Sherman says: “Rick: THANK you. I think I am the only one revolted by the idea of someone delighting in and profiting from a human being dying in agony.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan responds sharply: “I honestly don’t think that Poppy’s reaction to the ‘burned flesh’ thing is ever intended as a publicity stunt. I think it is a pretty cool response to an absurd event. And so what if her reaction is ‘insensitive?’ This dork sets himself on fire. Is there a prescribed way that we’re supposed to respond to something like this? Since when is it our job to reassure the public that we’re really all well-adjusted members of society? Your (or anyone else’s) image is not Poppy’s responsibility.”

World Horror Convention, Birmingham, Alabama, 1995:
Alex S. Johnson asks Poppy: “Do your obsessions ever lead you off in directions you don’t anticipate?”
Poppy says: “All the time. That’s how I plot. I never know what’s going to happen more than a couple of chapters in advance. I keep a lot of notes but that’s the closest thing I get to outlining. And a lot of those notes are: ‘Well what if this happened, what if that happened.’”

Alex S. Johnson asks: “Do you ever worry about everything being poised on this risky method? That things might misfire, or not go how you planned them to go?”
Poppy replies: “I think that is happening as much as two-thirds of the way through Exquisite Corpse. I look back on it now and I’m proud of it, but I hate it while I’m working on it. It’s really the hardest book I’ve ever written. Then when Dell dumps it and it bounces around from house to house, I get to the point where I think, maybe this book just sucks and nobody’s telling me. Maybe I just spend two years of my life writing a book I can’t sell. The major part of my income comes from writing novels and I sink my savings into a house, so it is scary. But I don’t have an alternative at hand, unless I’m going to start writing non-fiction stuff, like the Courtney Love book. It’s kind of comforting to have a project ahead of me whose plot is already laid out but would be too limiting to have that all the time.”

GENIE Poppy Z. Brite Forum, Nov–Dec 1994:
Rick Hautala quotes from a DARK DESTINY BOOKS catalog letter: “I’m convinced Barry Levin’s catalog listing is the thing that will finally catapult me to fame beyond my wildest dreams...I think it’s great that Levin is able to make tons of money off of a sick, vile event involving my books...No, I am certainly not upset that Levin is capitalizing on this crispy-fried tragedy. The only thing that upsets me is that not once, not twice but THREE TIMES, he calls Drawing Blood a vampire novel. IT IS NOT!II...still, if you are going to sell a book for $600, it seems to me that you ought to go for accuracy in the catalog listing.”
Rick adds: “I always think ‘artists’ and ‘writers’ are supposed to be sensative, and that art (much less ‘Art’) is supposed to enlighten and improve the human condition or at least the way we look at it. Such nihilism (did I -really-spell that coreectly [Sic]) goes against every fiber in my being. Damn! I feel like I’m not saying what I really mean. I’ll go have a cup of tea and try to calm down. Sh*t like this makes me feel ill.”

Scott Edelman says: “I must admit, Rick, that I, too, am revolted when I get the catalog in the mail. I feel that this crosses my own invisible line between fascination and revulsion. I would no more want anything to do with this book than I would want anything to do with a book bound in human skin, or a lampshade made out of some poor unfortunate who dies in a concentration camp. If something like that occurs to one of my books, I try to obtain the copies so that they can be destroyed. This crosses a line between fiction and reality I do not wish to cross. Reading about serial killers is one thing. Inviting them to my house is something else. Owning a book that reeks of burnt human flesh goes too far for me, I’m afraid, and I have written some of some pretty disgusting things [Sic].”

Caitlín R. Kiernan replies: “We’re not talking about Nazi souvenirs, guys. We’re talking about the actions of someone that Poppy has no control over. Nor does she have control over Barry Levin’s sell or the sum the book brings him. Therefore, it is not a publicity stunt, in that she certainly has no hand in setting this thing up. Whether or not her apparent opportunism is evidence that she’s a little ghoul is another question. But no-one is victimized, except the owners of the destroyed stock and damaged building. I think it’s also important not to confuse Poppy with the fruit loop who pays $600 for a copy of Drawing Blood.

Seems to me there are at least three sorts of horror writers. Those who stand at the edge of the pit and peer cautiously over the edge, writing about the half-glimpses through the mist. Those who’ve actually (well, who’ve) been to the bottom and bring back their observations. And those who live at the bottom. It’s a personal decision we each have to make, which sort we’ll be. And I can only speak for myself, but I find the latter two far more interesting.

What upsets me here is that there seems to be a sentiment expressed that it’s all right for horror writers to write their nasty little stories, but down inside we should all be Captain Kangaroo. That we are ultimately charged with the reaffirmation of all things good and normal, that perhaps our role is only to offer morality tales to support some ethical status quo. That may be true a hundred years ago, but I’d hope that we’ve gone a little beyond Victorian/Protestant sensibilities. And, ultimately, you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. If there’s any sort of message here, it’s only that Rick Hautala and Poppy Z. Brite might not make good roommates. She has a perfect right to express her opinion, and, as I say before, she’s liable for no one’s public image but her own.”

Biographical Notes

Alex S. Johnson — American horror, bizarro, and experimental writer; journalist; editor; cultural commentator; author of Bad Sunset, Jason X: Death Moon, Wicked Candy, Doctor Flesh; editor of Axes of Evil; interviewer of avant‑garde and underground figures across literature, film, and extreme music.

Poppy Z. Brite (Billy Martin) — Born 1967; American author associated with gothic, queer, and splatterpunk fiction; known for Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, Exquisite Corpse; a defining voice of 1990s dark counterculture.

Caitlín R. Kiernan — Born 1964; Irish‑born American writer, paleontologist, and cultural critic; author of Silk, Threshold, The Red Tree, The Drowning Girl; major figure in dark fantasy and weird fiction.

Rick Hautala — 1949–2013; American horror novelist; author of Night Stone, Cold Whisper, The Wildman; Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

To be continued.

Publishing since 2002, Faherty has written 25+ books and 90+ short stories, with major works including Carnival of Fear (2010), Ghosts of Coronado Bay (2011), The Burning Time (2012), The Cure (2015), Ragman (2023), and The Wakening (2022). Ghosts of Coronado Bay and The Cure were Bram Stoker Award finalists, while The Burning Time was an ITW Thriller Award finalist.

A longtime HWA Trustee (2011–2022), Faherty created the association’s YA literacy, library, and comics programs, partnering with creators such as Ray Billingsley, Amber Benson, Richard Christy, Mark Tatulli, and Scott Nickel. He currently manages the HWA Mentorship Program and also mentors for SFWA.

Now based in North Carolina’s Cape Fear region, Faherty cites influences including Karl Edward Wagner, Charles L. Grant, Rick Hautala, Manly Wade Wellman, and Stephen King, and often jokes that growing up beside a 17th‑century cemetery “explains a lot.” He is also, by family lineage, a relative of Mary Shelley.

In assembling Exquisite Corpus: Tales and Poetry in the Vein of Poppy Z. Brite, it felt essential to include not only fiction and poetry shaped by Brite’s influence, but also voices from the lineage that made such influence possible. JG Faherty, one of horror’s most quietly steadfast craftsmen, arrived with a generosity that mirrors the very spirit of the anthology.

“Happy to be here,” he said, “and doubly happy whenever I can pay tribute to my friend Peter and shine a light on him for new readers.” His memories of Straub form a bridge between eras: the gothic elegance of Straub’s generation, the decadent transgression of Brite’s, and the contemporary writers who grew from both.

When Faherty thinks of Straub, the first thing that rises is sensory and immediate. “His smile,” he says. “He had a smile that was infectious. And he was a happy guy, so he was always smiling.” Their friendship began at World Horror 2005 in New York City, Faherty’s first convention. He was a newcomer, still absorbing the shock of proximity to his idols. “A couple of people noticed I was a newbie and took me out on the balcony to meet people. One of them turned out to be Peter. I was awestruck — especially since one of the other writers was Jack Ketchum — but it was such a friendly, casual atmosphere that I quickly felt at ease. Sipping whiskey with great writers and great people is a sure-fire way to lose your jitters.” The ease of that night became the foundation of something deeper. “I knew it was something more than professional a few years later when I got invited out for drinks with him and a few other writers and we discussed working on a writing project together. Sadly, it never came to fruition, but the invitation said everything.”

Faherty resists the temptation to mythologize what Straub saw in him. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing,” he says with a laugh. “I know he enjoyed my writing — he critiqued a novel for me once — and he trusted me as an editor. But I’ve always trusted my talents. It wasn’t the kind of friendship where he opened my eyes about myself; more like the kind where we just enjoyed hanging out, discussing writing, and talking about our favorite whiskeys and TV shows.” Yet Straub’s feedback carried a particular clarity. “He knew how to beta read in a way that identified all the problems with no sugar coating, but at the same time he provided praise when he liked something.”

Their conversations often drifted toward the emotional mechanics of the writing life. “More times than I can count,” Faherty says. “A lot of our conversations involved how to act professional in this business, how to not let rejections get you down, how to enjoy life, and to remember there’s more to life than just writing.” Straub’s approach to horror, he notes, was defined by patience and precision. “He was methodic, took his time, paid attention to the details. You will never read a Straub novel and find plot holes or endings that feel rushed.” Faherty remembers reading Julia and If You Could See Me Now in the summer of 1979. “I loved how he did such a slow build without losing the reader’s interest. That, my friends, is masterful writing.”

In the context of Exquisite Corpus, Straub’s admiration for Poppy Z. Brite becomes a vital thread. Though Faherty doesn’t recall discussing Brite’s work directly, he understands the connection intuitively. “Peter was a fan of good writing, and Brite’s work is obviously outstanding. So it’s not surprising he respected Brite’s stuff. Plus Peter was a big champion of all the 1990s transgressive, rebellious horror.” Straub saw that wave as a necessary rupture. “He loved it. Big fan of it because of its rebellious nature and how it helped revive horror’s popularity, open it up to new audiences. The fact that he wrote the intro to Brite’s short story collection demonstrates the respect he had for the writer and the work.”

For readers who only know Straub as a towering figure, Faherty offers a revelation that feels almost tender. “He was a huge fan of the TV show Glee.” He loved music, good scotch, jokes, and the ritual of conventions — the chance to reconnect with friends he rarely saw otherwise. His kindness often arrived in small gestures. Faherty recalls a moment from 2007: “We took a selfie together that was part of a joke. He asked me to send him two copies, which I thought odd. I signed both and mailed them to him. To my shock, he signed one and sent it back — that was his intention the whole time. I’d have never asked him to do it, but he knew it would mean a lot to me. I still have that pic on my shelf.”

Straub’s influence on Faherty’s trajectory is inseparable from the constellation of mentors who shaped him: F. Paul Wilson, Thomas Monteleone, Jack Ketchum, Jonathan Maberry, Deborah LeBlanc, Stephen Jones, Douglas Winter, and Straub himself. “Without them, I wouldn’t be the writer or person that I am today. As much as they taught me about writing and publishing, they also taught me the importance of giving back to the writer community.” Straub’s belief in him mattered. “It definitely helped my confidence multiple times.” And his stylistic imprint lingers. “Any story that has a slow build probably has elements of Peter and Charles Grant in it.”

As for Straub’s legacy, Faherty imagines it simply: “I can’t speak as to what he hoped his legacy would be, but I imagine at least part of it would be that he hoped to provide enjoyment for his readers.” What it is, however, is monumental. “Anyone who knows horror knows that Peter Straub is a titan in the genre, a true legend. Books like Ghost Story, Koko, Floating Dragon, Shadowland, Lost Boy Lost Girl… and so many others… will live on as classics. And for those of us who knew him, his legacy will be that of a friend, a teacher, and a powerful voice for horror.”

Faherty hopes future generations will continue to learn from him. “I pray that people continue to not only read him, but also learn from him. Study his writing, because his books are a masterclass in writing.” He worries that younger writers who dismiss pre‑2010 literature may miss the foundations entirely. “One can only hope that as they get older and more experienced, they change their attitudes and read deeply, not just their peers but those that came before them. Just like we all did.”

If he could preserve one thing for future readers, it wouldn’t be a lesson or a moment. “None of those. I would preserve his books and stories and make them required reading.” Faherty doesn’t feel Straub’s presence while writing — “When I write, I don’t think about anything but the story” — but he feels it everywhere else. “I never go to a horror convention where I don’t miss him, and when I and his other old friends get together at those events, we always raise a toast to him.” What he misses most are the human details: “His smile, his jokes, his anecdotes.”

And if Straub were here to see this interview, placed in an anthology honoring the very aesthetic he championed? Faherty doesn’t hesitate. “Knowing Peter? He’d blush, say he doesn’t deserve the high praise, thank everyone, and say we should be focusing more on Brite than him.”

Charlee Jacob with author John Everson

When I interviewed Charlee Jacob around the release of This Symbiotic Fascination, I felt as though her career as a horror writer had been forming for decades like a gravitational anomaly—something dense, invisible, and irresistible. It loomed behind her life like a black hole, warping everything around it, pulling her inexorably into its vortex. By the time we spoke, she had already crossed the event horizon.

She told me that seven years before our conversation, her father had died, and in the aftermath she began experiencing sudden visions of him—warnings, premonitions—weeks before the car accident that would leave her debilitated and stuck at home. “I told Jim about it,” she said, “and he said ‘Maybe this is ridiculous, but maybe the forces wanted you to quit working so you could write.’ And I’m going ‘Well, that sounds ridiculous, but—Okay!’”

The accident forced her into a kind of enforced solitude, and writing became the only outlet for the psychic turbulence that had been building since childhood. Her first published short story was “September Street” in The Dallas Observer, but before she could write anything she felt was truly publishable, she had to spend two years writing a novel purely as therapy. “I had some real problems as a kid, things I don’t want to go into. Things to do with my mother. And it created a lot of baggage. The character in that first book was based on me. It’s about a girl who wakes up after a horrible accident when she was 7 and can’t remember what happened. After my father died my mother started really ragging on him. I started thinking, why is she doing this? And then you start piercing things together, remembering things. And those were things I started writing in the book.”

Even after years of writing, she said she couldn’t get past certain internal barriers. “Certain hurdles...it was like trying to feel Braille through a stone wall, and there was no way to do that. And now all of a sudden it’s like, I can’t stop writing. It’s really great. I no longer feel like I’m...how do you put that? I sound like I’m talking to a shrink for the first time in my life...probably always needed one.” I joked that was going to be my next question. She laughed. “No, I’ve never been in therapy. I probably should have been, but I was raised in a weird family. I had a lot of trouble as a kid. As a child I even attempted suicide. My parents sat me down and said ‘now we’re going to lock you in a closet.’”

At that point the interview swung straight into Carrie country.

“My mother was really hot on the Southern aristocracy...it was like something out of a Tennessee Williams play, or Eugene O Neill...Morning Becomes Electra. Until recently, my life was horribly repressed. Even though it sure didn’t seem like it. There was always this view of Southern womanhood...you just did not do certain things. I didn’t even see a black person until I was 16. That’s how segregated we were. I knew there was that other area on the other side of the tracks. When you would read a Lovecraft short story, you knew that was what he was talking about. And it’s not at all the same, but you had this spooky feeling about it. And you come to find out it’s not like that, and your perspective on life channges...I have to admit that I did some drugs back in the early 70s...my first husband was heavily into it. Here the guy was an epileptic...and he was into acid! He also thought he was the reincarnation of Alistair Crowley. My second husband is the boy next door. He’s psychic, which is interesting, but he’s got his feet on the ground, I love that. All of a sudden, I don’t know if it’s because I broke up with my first husband and my father died, or I met this other guy who’s a Yankee from a completely different world, but the repression’s gone. We’re not trapped in the same Faulkneresque, crumbling mansion.”

Her fiction reflects that liberation. Jacob’s stories fall on the blade’s edge between terror and pleasure. Kidnapped heiresses get it on with the slimy corpses of Civil War soldiers, and were‑kids are initiated into the tribe of circus freaks in a bloody, erotic rite of passage, literally sucking up to their elders. She told me, “Modern society’s interest in horror seems to be a lot more sexual. My ancestors did read horror, but a lot of them were cautionary tales. Maybe we just have this luxury of seeing the dark as something attractive. It can be a lover with a smile drawn in blood, or maybe just a trickle of it between the breasts, or a feral bridegroom, in Tawne’s case. You would not have seen our ancestors going outside their door into the darkness, kinked up with the idea that ‘Oh, I’m going to be ravished by a pack of wolves.’ Or your great-grandmother’s hanging outside Vlad’s castle to get his autograph and ‘Maybe he’ll impale me...oh...’”

When I asked about the S&M dynamic in stories like “The Bloom” from Bizarre Dreams, she said, “Maybe it’s because I read all that De Sade when I was 16. That’s the only thing I can conceive of as being the reason. Even though I’ve always been fascinated by violence I’ve not always myself been very violent. I did hit a guy in a movie theater, once, and that was only because he wouldn’t shut up. Everybody had already asked him to, and when I finally did something about it, he started ranting about ‘Well you must be on your period.’ And who got kicked out? He did. I don’t normally hit people. And it was with my fist...not a chainsaw.”

When I asked whether she felt her writing had substantially improved over the four years she’d been writing so steadily, she said, “I like to think I’ve improved. I don’t know whether I have or not. I think my characterization has gotten clearer, and I think I do a lot less simply expounding and tell the story more.” She admitted, “I’ve always had a tendency to be terribly preachy, and I know that comes across in This Symbiotic Fascination. But if you can’t preach in your own novels, what good is it? I think my poetry’s really come a long way. But I tell you...it hasn’t come anywhere as long as it’s got to go.”

Finally, I asked her what she wanted as a writer. Her answer was pure Charlee Jacob:
“I want to be someone on a big enough scale I’m going to give a lot of people nightmares. The best things I read give me nightmares. You can wake up and go, ‘Oh my God that was horrible, but ooh, that was neat!’ I like the idea of the nightmare. It’s not safe, but it gets you thinking.”

That was Charlee at the moment her debut novel emerged: liberated, haunted, ecstatic, and finally able to write without the stone wall between her and her own past. The black hole had stopped pulling her inward and started radiating.

But unlike many of their peers, Satyr and Frost were never content to stay frozen in place. As the 2000s dawned, they began steering Satyricon into new territory: leaner, more groove‑driven, more rhythmically disciplined, less concerned with orthodoxy and more with impact. Rebel Extravaganza hinted at the shift; Volcano detonated it. That album didn’t just win awards—it announced that Satyricon had entered a new phase, one where black metal could be muscular, hypnotic, even catchy without losing its venom. It was the sound of a band refusing to calcify.

By the time Now, Diabolical arrived, Satyricon were deep into their metamorphosis. They were sharpening their songwriting into something almost architectural: strict frameworks, no tempo changes, riffs engineered like precision machinery. They were also pushing harder into the North American market, hoping to carve out space in a landscape dominated by pop‑culture fixtures like Jessica Simpson—then an omnipresent reality‑TV star and tabloid darling whose bubblegum empire represented everything Satyricon’s disciplined darkness stood against. Whether the black‑metal juggernaut could flatten that kind of mainstream fluff was an open question, but it was certainly part of the ambition.

The two principals of Satyricon, Frost and Satyr, are among the most dedicated craftsmen in metal today. Listening to Satyr talk about his composing method, you might think he was describing the calibration of some exquisite race‑car engine rather than a black‑metal tune. He’s intensely attentive to challenging the assumptions and conventions of the genre and ramping up the quality grade—as well as what he calls the “razorblade factor.”

Satyr reflects: “I think there may be different techniques used in different genres. In black metal, quite often it’s a riff marathon, the way I see it. It depends also on what kind of black metal; that’s one of the great things about the genre: its versatility. It can be so many different things. You have bands that are extremely progressive, and bands that are very naked and straightforward.”

Satyricon’s then‑current album Now, Diabolical is deliberately organized around a handful of themes. “As far as the technique that we used, it maybe has a little bit more in common with rock music, but a much more disciplined and maybe a more fanatical approach. It’s more like we try to make the songs have an extremely solid framework, so that they would be somehow strict and authoritative. The way of doing that was to try, instead of having tempo changes, which makes a song pretty loose, to have rhythm changes. There’s a big difference between tempo and rhythm changes and it’s important people realise that! On this record there isn’t even a tempo change… every time we tried doing that, I felt that this solid thing was pulling apart.”

He continues: “As far as setting a standard and creating the feel that we were looking for in every song, it was important to try and circle the song around one or two main themes that were going to carry the song on its shoulders, and tonally and musically and tempo‑wise build everything to fit with those parts. I think that this is not so unusual in, for example, rock music, but we took it a lot farther. This is not an experiment; I thought that this is what we had to do to make the songs come out the way we wanted them to.”

Comparing the approach the duo took on their last release, Volcano, with the current platter, Satyr says, “I think working on Volcano was a source of inspiration for what we did now. I don’t see these records as similar records, but I see Now, Diabolical as a logical step as far as, you know… where do you go after Volcano? We discovered many many interesting things working on Volcano that I wanted to investigate further, sonically and thematically.”

He adds: “Being effective in making music is a lot about defining what is it that I want to do: Where do I want to go with the stuff I’m doing now? If you have a well‑developed consciousness about what you are trying to achieve, combine that with a good work ethic and a bit of talent, then you can do it. The problem is that when you sort of stumble around, you’re not quite sure what you’re doing; that’s not the way it works for us at least. I need to have my eyes locked on the target.”

End of Part One.

When Bloodsongs magazine released Issue #9 in the late 1990s, its pages captured a moment when horror’s underground was mutating into something stranger, more volatile, and more psychologically unrestrained. Nestled among interviews with figures from the extreme‑music world, the issue featured Alex S. Johnson’s conversation with Charlee Jacob—an interview conducted at the exact moment her debut novel This Symbiotic Fascination (Necro Publications, 1997) was beginning to circulate through the small‑press horror scene. The issue also contained Jacob’s short story “Fire,” a piece that remained uncollected for more than twenty‑five years until its recent republication on The Smol Bear Review, where its molten, surreal intensity feels newly resonant.

Jacob, born Nell Anne Jacob on June 2, 1952 in Texas, began her writing life as a poet under the name Charlee Carter Broach before adopting the name that would define her career. Her early work fused bodily extremity with metaphysical dread, drawing on childhood fascinations with dinosaur bones and desert landscapes, the sensory shock of heat and Tabasco, and a lifelong engagement with psychic and spiritual imagery. By the time of the Bloodsongs interview, she had stepped fully into the realm of hardcore horror, shaping a voice that was both brutal and lyrical, surreal and emotionally charged. This Symbiotic Fascination—soon nominated for both the International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel—announced her as a major force in transgressive horror.

Her career expanded rapidly. Jacob published novels including Haunter (2003), Soma (2004), Vestal (2005), and Dread in the Beast (2005), the last earning her the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in a tie with David Morrell’s Creepers. Her poetry collections—Sineater (2005), The Desert (2004), Flowers from a Dark Star (2000)—established her as one of the most decorated poets in horror literature, earning her two Bram Stoker Awards for Best Poetry Collection, first for Sineater and later for Vectors (2008), a collaboration with Marge Simon. Her long poem “Hugo Schizophrenica” placed third in the Rhysling Awards in 2004, marking her recognition within the speculative poetry community. Across fiction and poetry, she received multiple Stoker nominations from 1997 through 2014, reflecting sustained critical acclaim. Editors of major anthologies recognized her work as among the best of its era: Stephen Jones selected her story “Flesh of Leaves, Bones of Desire” for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: Volume Twelve, and Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling included her narrative poem “Skin” in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection, positioning her firmly within the canon of late‑20th‑century dark literature.

Her peers praised her with a fervor reserved for the rare writer who expands the boundaries of a genre. Edward Lee wrote of her: “Charlee Jacob is one of the most powerful, original voices in horror today. Her work is a fever dream of beauty and brutality.” Brian Hodge described her prose as “hallucinatory, visceral, and unforgettable—language pushed to its breaking point and then made to sing.” Tom Piccirilli called her “a visionary of the grotesque, a poet of the damned, and one of the most fearless writers working today.” Brian Keene praised her as “raw, uncompromising, and utterly unique—nobody writes like Charlee Jacob.” These blurbs, drawn from published introductions, reviews, and promotional materials surrounding her major releases, form a chorus of admiration from some of the most influential voices in contemporary horror.

Jacob died on July 14, 2019 at the age of 67, leaving behind a body of work that continues to resonate with readers drawn to the outer edges of horror. The republication of “Fire” on The Smol Bear Review and the renewed interest in her early interviews—including the Bloodsongs #9 conversation—mark a return to the moment when her voice was first crystallizing, when she was growing, as Johnson’s title suggests, from a world of dinosaur bones, Tabasco, and psychic energy into one of the most distinctive and decorated authors the genre has produced.

At 41, Charlee Jacob (with a hard “g”) has cut a bloody swathe through the world of small-press horror, publishing a massive 326 poems and 134 short stories over the past four years.

Her work has appeared in the anthologies Bending the Landscape (White Wolf), Bizarre Dreams (BadBoy), and Women Who Run with the Werewolves as well as in such publications as Wicked Mystic, Into the Darkness and Palace Corbie. Not to mention a whole laundry list of zines too long to list here.

Born in Wichita Falls, Kansas, she now lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex with her husband Jim and four cats. Like fellow Texan Joe R. Lansdale, not to mention such Southern-fried comrades-in-darkness as Poppy Z Brite and Lucy Taylor, Jacob has the alchemist’s touch, morphing fear into fascination and dread into a dark, delicious poetry.

Her fiction stirs the hot metallic taste of blood and the zip of Southwestern cuisine into a dish that’s both savory and laden with taboo—with plenty of bones for seasoning.

While trading in such archetypal forms as werewolves and vampires, Jacob incorporates elements of her own native American heritage, pansexual gender-bending, Asian exoticism and the dark caress of S&M role-play into fiction that stretches these traditional figures to the furthest limit.

Jacob’s debut novel, This Symbiotic Fascination (Necro Publications), introduces a bizarre menagerie of ghouls—shapeshifters and zaftig vampires—that are definitely not Cosmo ready. This is definitely not Transylvania 90210.

Can a serial-rapist werewolf find true happiness with a full-figured bloodsucker? Can violent acts be expiated through further violence? What is the true nature of evil, and does intention count? These are just some of the questions raised by the novel. It’s disturbing, intense and ultra-graphic, a study in extremes. It’s also one of the outstanding debut novels of the year, and merits a large readership.

To prepare for my recent interview with Ms Jacob, I had to pretty much start from scratch. Not much has been written about her, and she’d never done a “live” interview (conducted by phone) before this. My only clue involved her taste for Tabasco sauce and chocolate, an intriguing tidbit from her Wicked Mystic bio. So I decided to start there.

“Not together though,” Jacob explains. “I think when I mentioned my taste for Tabasco and chocolate, it had to do with the fact that I have an addictive personality. Since my mother and brother were both alcoholics, I tend to steer away from that. So I eat things like chocolate, which is a harmless addiction—except where your hips are concerned—and extremely spicy foods, which I crave. But that’s some suffering I can put up with.

“I like things that tend to go beyond the edge, because my life has always been very strange, or very tame, depending on how I was living at the time. Now it’s very tame, but it wasn’t always.”

Speaking of things beyond the edge, I ask her about the violent shape-shifter Arcan, a lead character in This Symbiotic Fascination. Arcan roams about with a triad of animals inside him—a cat, a wolf and a ghoul—fueling his unnatural hungers and jostling for dominance with his ego.

“Don’t ask me why I chose those three. I just didn’t want to go with the standard werewolf. I wanted somebody who had entities within him, which I could sort of understand, having had a mother who was not that sane anyway.

“His [Arcan’s] mother was a shifter. At least a partial shifter. And she couldn’t deal with it. She put it in him, and he’s actually trying to get ahold of it so he can take some responsibility. And even though these animals, these creatures, create his crimes, he still feels he has to take responsibility for his actions. Tawne, the vampire in the story, even has to take responsibility for her actions at the end of it. A lot of my work has to do with taking responsibility.”

While Arcan does take responsibility for his crimes of rape and mutilation, he goes about it in a very problematic way, attacking members of a woman’s group that have banded together due to their shared victimization.

“He knows he has their souls,” Jacob says. “He’s trying to find a way they can get their souls back, and the only way they can do that is to take them. But he is demented. And he can’t act beyond an animalistic way. That animal is part of him. He is a born killer in this respect.

She explains that Arcan, while capable of evil acts, is not evil by choice. “He doesn’t really intend to do evil. He really can’t help himself. Whereas the cop in the book, Denise Cross, is intentionally evil. You wouldn’t see her looking for salvation.”

Arcan’s lover Tawne is a vampire with heft—at one point in the novel she’s booted from a Goth club by its pale, scrawny denizens. It’s Jacob’s sly revenge on the “parade of gorgeous flesh” that winds through hip, post-punk inflected vampire texts like Nancy Collin’s Sunglasses After Dark.

“I couldn’t understand why you had to be a Spandex model to rise from the dead,” Jacob snarks. “I get this view of the Reaper, standing there with this list of prerequisites. The vampires in Nancy Collins’ novels, which I parody in the book, are pushing the same emblem of a physical criteria that I find grossly unacceptable. I ran into the same mentality in high school. If you weren’t slender and wearing the latest fashions, you couldn’t hang with the ‘in’ crowd. I was never in the ‘in’ crowd. It’s not a beauty contest.”

A self-described “unpopular kid,” Jacob says her childhood encompassed elements of life that few have seen outside of the movies. Her parents were paleontologists, and dinosaur digs formed a routine part of her growing up. However, while flicks like Jurassic Park foster romantic notions of the profession, Jacob finds it boring.

“My parents pushed me so hard in the direction of science; they had my whole life planned out for me. I was supposed to get my doctorate by the time I was 22, and nonsense of this nature.”

While excavating ancient bones was hardly Jacob’s notion of a good time, she enjoyed time away from the city and wandered away from digs to explore on her own.

“I could be in a wooded copse where nobody had ever been, except maybe Indians a long time ago. I would find areas that might have been their spiritual places. You would swear you could hear ghosts in the trees. We would be in places that were desert plateaus, very sere areas, and they were either so hot you had an epiphany of hell or so cold, the winds were sideways.”

On her forays, Jacob was nearly bitten by rattlers and narrowly avoided being mauled by a marauding cougar. “My parents didn’t know most of this,” she says. “They would probably have gone berserk if they’d known I was there. But they were so intent on digging up their dinosaur bones. You had to be unbelievably careful. You’d sit in the same spot for weeks. They wouldn’t even know I was gone.”

Jacob formed her taste for weird literature early, latching onto Homer and the zoo of mythical beasts and monsters found in The Iliad and The Odyssey. She soon discovered Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant. Later, when her family moved to Oklahoma, she gleaned Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft from the slim pickings at local bookstores.

At 16, Jacob came across an author whose philosophy of personal freedom and sexual abandon would strongly impact her artistic sensibility. “That was Marquis de Sade. I got into that. Not because of the sexuality, but because they were so bizarre.”

Given her family life, Jacob’s choice of subject matter might seem pre-ordained. “My mother was intensely psychic…she was not what I would refer to as sane. She had nightmares so intense she later turned to alcoholism just to knock herself out, to go to sleep. She was a very strange lady. And I guess I’m strange too. I guess I inherited that, but I try to lean toward living a somewhat saner life.”

At times Jacob believes she’s also inherited her mother’s psychic gifts. “I sound like a kook talking about this. I have on occasion been able to tell when people were going to die. I remember an incident when I was about 20, living in Norman, Oklahoma. I walked to work one morning and there was a kitten in a tree. I was trying to find the kitten’s owner so I went up and knocked on the door. A very nice older lady came to the door and said it wasn’t her kitten. I got a sudden flash that this woman was going to die, and very soon. And very violently. I’m walking away thinking, “You should have told her that.”

A week later, Jacob was suddenly stricken ill while at work. Walking home, she saw the same nice old woman face-down on the lawn and next to her husband’s body. “He had been threatening her for many months,” she says. “And he had shotgunned her to death, then turned it on himself. The police were all over the place. I got the impression I had gotten sick at work just so I could be forced to see this. Which is ridiculous, but, nevertheless, maybe it’s not.”

It was this kind of heritage—an upbringing straight out of a Southern Gothic novel, with attendant night terrors and sudden death visions—that pushed her toward writing.
End of Part One

The historical context deepens when viewed from the present. Gossow’s retirement from performing—her decision to step away from the physical toll and constant travel—has become one of the most significant pivots in modern metal. She addressed it with the same directness that marked her years onstage, saying, “It’s not ME! … I am really excited to be involved in this new chapter as the manager.” Her shift into management didn’t diminish her influence; it redirected it. She remains a decisive force behind Arch Enemy’s evolution, shaping the band’s future with the same intensity she once brought to the microphone.

Since replacing Arch Enemy’s original frontman, Johan Liiva, in 2001, Angela Gossow’s teutonic good looks and ferocious pipes have given Michael Amott’s post-Carcass death metal machine an eye-catching, charismatic focus, as Arch Enemy hurl their arc of sonic demolition into an unknown future. Angela takes a moment from her busy schedule to talk with me about the new EP, Dead Eyes See No Future, and metal past, passing and to come.

Titled after a song from the Anthems of Rebellion slab, the EP contains three live originals from a Paris concert and three covers: “Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth, “Kill With Power” by Manowar, and “Incarnated Solvent Abuse” (if you guessed Carcass, you would be correct).

Angela says “Well, this choice is a bit obvious because Michael Amott [Arch Enemy founder/guitarist] was in Carcass, and he actually wrote that song-so it’s almost an Arch Enemy song. And it was very easy for us to play, because it’s kind of the way we write. They have all these weird melodies going on, the way they put the riffs together. It’s extreme, but catchy at the same time.

“For me it’s basically a Carcass tribute because I think they’re a fantastic band and it’s a shame they split up, and all hope’s lost that they’re ever going to reform. I think it’s kind of beautiful to pay tribute to just a great band that has influenced a lot of death metal bands. This is a big name on the scene even after ten or 15 years of absence.

“Megadeth is obviously an all-time favorite of anybody who loves metal, I think, because Dave Mustaine is a must-have guitar player in your record collection. They have written wonderful tunes, basically influenced the whole thrash metal scene, and set the standard for guitar playing very high.”

“In Arch Enemy,” Gossow continues, “I think that Michael and Chris [Amott, guitarist] have a bit of the same guitar style as well. They’ve always been big Dave Mustaine fans, and this is why they wanted to do a Megadeth song.”

Angela praised Mustaine’s “courage,” exemplified by the [then-current] Megadeth album, The System Has Failes.

“He’s obviously abandoned the mainstream thing he’s been on for a couple of years, and basically going back to who he is. I think it’s very encouraging for bands as well to turn around and do something more extreme after twenty years than you have done for the last couple of albums.”

The Manowar cover can be credited to Archers skinsman Daniel Erlandson. “He loves their early stuff. Back then, they were a bit more raw and grinding. Obviously, what they did on the original album wasn’t so tight, really, and they didn’t have the production standards. Basically, we took that song and made it tight and it almost sounds like an Arch Enemy song. It’s brutal, and I was very surprised that it turned out like this.”

So there you have it—some of the essential ingredients slopping it up in Arch Enemy’s metal alembic. “You could say we’re carrying the flame of metal,” Angela says. “We try to keep it pretty pure. At least that’s how we want to be seen. There’s not going to be much synthesizer in Arch Enemy songs. We try to keep it very metal. The dominant factor has to be guitar melodies, crazy solos and chunky riffs.”

When Metal Hammer first ran this vintage Lemmy interview, Motörhead were in one of their most ferocious periods. The band had just released their double live album Everything Louder than Everything Else, captured on the 1991–92 tour and issued at a moment when Motörhead were still proving, night after night, that volume and velocity were non‑negotiable. They were gearing up for another run of shows, still living on the road, still operating on the principle that the next gig mattered more than anything behind them.

That’s the atmosphere this interview comes from: Lemmy in full stride, sharp, funny, unsentimental, and completely focused on keeping the band moving. He wasn’t interested in mythmaking; he was interested in playing. The conversation you’re about to revisit catches him exactly there — grounded, blunt, and fully committed to the work.

In the years since, the story has taken on a different weight. Lemmy died on December 28, 2015, just two days after learning he had an extremely aggressive cancer. He passed at home in Los Angeles, with his favorite Rainbow Bar & Grill arcade machine brought to his side. Motörhead manager Todd Singerman described those final moments with the kind of clarity Lemmy himself always used: when the doctor delivered the diagnosis, he broke down crying, while Lemmy stayed steady and told him it was alright. Singerman later said, “How did he face death? Like a champ.”

Phil Campbell, who had stood beside Lemmy for more than thirty years, said that if Lemmy were still alive, nothing would have changed: “We’d be playing in Motörhead… We never talked about the end, we always talked about the next album, the next tour, the next gig.” Mikkey Dee echoed him, refusing to frame Lemmy’s death as tragic: “Lemmy lived 70 years on his premise, his way.” And Saxon’s Biff Byford — one of Lemmy’s oldest comrades — noted that while Lemmy probably would have preferred to die on the road, going quickly at home, playing a videogame, was “exactly the way he lived.”

Even after death, Lemmy remained unmistakably himself. He had arranged for portions of his ashes to be placed inside bullets and given to his closest friends — a gesture so perfectly in character that it felt like one last joke, one last nod, one last piece of him handed over. Riki Rachtman shared his bullet publicly, saying he was “literally brought to tears.” Tennis legend Pat Cash posted another, gifted to Ugly Kid Joe’s Whitfield Crane. Each bullet came with a letter explaining that Lemmy had many acquaintances but very few he considered family — and that receiving a bullet meant you were one of them.

Other portions of his ashes have been placed at spots he loved: the Rainbow Bar & Grill in West Hollywood, Stringfellows in London, Hellfest, Wacken, Bloodstock, and his hometown of Burslem. At Stringfellows, Phil Campbell remembered how Lemmy would finish rehearsal, jump in a cab, and head straight there — “Lem’ loved it here.” These ongoing “Lemmy Forever” ceremonies continue to place his ashes in venues and festivals around the world, keeping him permanently among fans, friends, and noise.

A decade on, Lemmy’s legacy stands untouched. Tribute albums, anniversary issues of Metal Hammer, and global memorials all circle back to the same truth: Lemmy didn’t just play rock’n’roll — he was rock’n’roll. His influence still bridges punk and metal, still shapes new bands, still reminds musicians that authenticity hits harder than any amplifier.

This interview, recovered from the era when Motörhead were tearing across continents with Everything Louder than Everything Else as their rallying cry, is a snapshot of Lemmy before the legend fully hardened — when he was still flesh and blood, still laughing, still touring, still raising hell. It returns now under the title No Sleep Till Ash‑Bullets, in honor of the man who lived loudly, died quickly, and left pieces of himself — literally — in the hands of those he loved.

Alex S Johnson: Do you think your fascination with the Nazi era has been misunderstood by fans or writers?

Lemmy Kilmister: It’s been misunderstood by a few people. But then again, whatever you do will also be understood by a couple of people. I mean my lifestyle is just so fucking un-Nazi-esque, I must be the worst Nazi anybody’s ever seen! ‘He’s got black girlfriends,’ know what I mean? I’m a rotten Nazi, me. So they can all like relax. I’m not going after them with a black suit on.

ASJ: You wrote a song as a counter-move to the charge that you’re always writing pro-war songs—”Dogs of War.” I never thought of your songs as being pro-war, honestly. What was the reception to the song?

LK: It didn’t work. And “Assassin” was quite vicious, really, but I mean it depends on whether you read the words…which I’m sure nobody reads the fucking words. I don’t know why we keep them on the albums.

ASJ: I read the words.

LK: I’m sure you’re a minority. I mean on CD’s the fucking print’s too small, it’ll drive you out of your mind trying to read it. I don’t like CD’s, and they’re starting to fuck up badly, aren’t they, these magic inventions that we’re never going to wear out and all that…run a car over it but it’s still going to play…

ASJ: Vinyl versus CD’s?

LK: I think vinyl sounds better. Yeah, when it went ‘ka-chee’ into the beginning…that was kind of exciting all by itself! Also you could put a great sleeve on one of those. What can you do with a CD? The sleeve’s only six inches square…

ASJ: You really had a slot for commercial success with that Ozzy duet on March or Die…

LK: I was just writing songs for him, you know. That was like more money than I made on Motörhead in 15 years. You gotta take it.

ASJ: It was stupid for Sony not to push your Ozzy duet (“I Ain’t No Nice Guy”)

LK: I know, fucking hopeless.

ASJ: On your new live album the intent was to get down the live lineup and to capture your last couple of albums for CMC,

LK: I think it’s the best one yet. And also let’s just say the CMC albums needed some representation and the like. We have to include the old stuff too, because that’s what people want

ASJ: Any songs you plan to strike from the list?

LK: “Metropolis” and “Stay Clean” I think have seen enough time.

ASJ: So where are you with songs like “Iron Fist”?

LK: I’m all right with it. I went through a period where I really got sick of them, but then I came around again, so they were all right again.

ASJ: What are the cycles for songs? How long does it take to get sick of something and then go back to loving it again?

LK: Some songs you play them for half a tour, and then you have to get rid of them because it’s too awful. I don’t know what it is. The most unlikely songs turn out to be good onstage; for example, “Bad Woman” from Bastards would have been a great stage song, and we really wanted to do it, and it just didn’t work out. I think it was like the piano actually, on stage…

ASJ: When I saw you on the 1996 Sacrifice tour, Rickenbacker had just put out the Lemmy signature bass. How did you feel about that at the time? I know you really felt it was overdue…

LK: Well yeah, but it’s ok. It’s nice of them, anyway. They haven’t got it actually on the fucking market yet. How long ago was that one, three years ago? They’re slow. Rickenbacker is. It’s like trotting a dinosaur with a lolly stick.

ASJ: I read that you aren’t very hot on the new Marshalls…

LK: I like the old ones. They were better, I think. It’s like the old joke about how many elderly folk singers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

ASJ: How many?

LK: Six. One to do it and five to sing about how much better the old one was!

ASJ: Do you own a vacuum amp?

LK: No. I never used the low end much anyway. I’ve always been more of a guitarist, really.

ASJ: Your bass style is unique…

LK: I play on account of it will just go “blur” over everything…it just sounds like a mass.

ASJ: On the last few albums you’ve actually tightened up the sound, the production is better, the songs are exceptionally well-constructed even by Motörhead standards, and it’s funny, because most bands hit a peak and then either die or retread, but you continue to improve.

LK: In a way they do us a favor by not buying our albums, because they make us hungry and pissed off, which is very good for a band! I think that’s probably saved our fucking life, paradoxically! I just wish they’d saved it with more luxury involved…

ASJ: How do you feel you’ve developed as musicians?

LK: Beyond all recognition, really. Our lyrics are better mostly anyway, and I don’t even think about playing the bass anymore…it’s so natural to me…almost automatic. Having said that, though, it’s occasionally interesting to do a song like “Sacrifice” or “Assassin”

ASJ: How so?

LK: Well, if we let our drummer, Mikkey Dee, write the time signature, we’re all in trouble…’cause drummers are not as other men, know what I mean?

ASJ: A strange breed…

LK: All you do to earn your living as a drummer is sit on a stool and whack your hands downward…

ASJ: Would you compare Mikkey to Philthy Phil, your on and off drummer from between 75 and 92?

LK: I don’t know. I think this is a classic lineup. I just think it hasn’t had fifteen years to grow on you yet…

ASJ: You’re 53. What does it feel like to be a standard-bearer of rock and roll?

LK: It feels all right. It suits me. I didn’t realize it would change from being a young hopeful to standard bearer at the time, but I mean that’s what you are, even if you’re a young hopeful, if you believe in what you do.

ASJ: What do you want to be remembered for?

LK: My not-giving-upness. Honesty, or something. Integrity, at least. Not selling out, even if we die in poverty…I’m sure we’re going to do a Vincent Van Gogh…we’ll die in fucking abject poverty, and then in 20 years we’ll become objects d’art and worth fucking millions!

ASJ: No doubt.

LK: I did a film in 1987 called Eat the Rich. The entire soundtrack was Motörhead songs. Needless to say, it failed miserably.

ASJ: How do you feel about your cameo in Richard Stanley’s dystopian future horror film Hardware?

LK: Very bad overdubbing for the vocals, and I just couldn’t get into it, and they didn’t have much time, so it looks like I’ve got a speech impediment! It was a rush job, and they made the total mistake of giving me whiskey before I did the thing..give somebody a bottle of whiskey at 7:00 in the morning, you’ll be crawling till 2:00 in the afternoon!

ASJ: Has your lifestyle changed at all over the years?

LK: Not much. As far as you’d notice.

ASJ: How do you account for your incredible longevity as a human man, considering what you’ve subjected your body to?

LK: Pure luck. Just luck. I’ve seen people jump into my lifestyle, coast on for a couple of years, and then go out, like Raven.

ASJ: It works for you.

LK: Yeah, I mean whatever you do every day is normal for you. Whereas it might not be normal for Mr and Mrs Stay at Home Housewife. It’s fine with me, but I’m sure I couldn’t live their lives either!

ASJ: Over the last four years you’ve had a real renaissance. You hit a slump and then you came right back.

LK: It’s really odd in America, because we can’t get radio time, we’re never gonna get it. And we’re never going to get a lot of play on fucking MTV, you know. Moron TV as I call it. So we get a short tour every year…maybe. And the year before we didn’t really tour in the U.S…it’s really odd to tour as well, so we don’t get any coverage at all. All we get is a sort of ‘nice personality’ thing. I do want to get the band across as contenders, instead of those guys who were so great then…

ASJ: You’ve stuck around…and the albums just keep getting better.

LK: And nobody gives a fuck…so we’ll just keep making them until they do give a fuck!

ASJ: What would be a sign of success for you?

LK: I would really just like to piss everybody off by going up the American charts…We did it in England all those years ago..we went straight to Number One, the band that was going to fail in three months, and we really shoved it up their ass and snapped it off. I’d just like to do that in America too, ‘cause I’ve got a few people I’d like to refuse entrance to my after show, know what I mean?

ASJ: Thanks for the interview, Lemmy. It was a real pleasure.

LK: I’ll tell you one thing…you don’t have any competition!

Please enjoy “Can’t Catch Me,” a song by Lemmy Kilmister, performed by Lita Ford (THE RUNAWAYS)

That context matters even more now, with the benefit of nearly two decades of hindsight. Deva’s departure from Cradle of Filth in 2009 marked the end of a 14‑year tenure that helped define the band’s signature blend of gothic excess and operatic grandeur. Her work across Dusk and Her Embrace, Cruelty and the Beast, Midian, Nymphetamine, and Thornography remains foundational to the group’s sound, and her contributions—often uncredited in the broader metal discourse—were instrumental in shaping the genre’s acceptance of classical and choral elements.

But God Has a Plan for Us All was the first time listeners heard Deva’s voice as the emotional center rather than the atmospheric frame. Angtoria’s orchestral sweep, co-written with Chris Rehn, gave her a platform for narrative vulnerability and thematic intensity that Cradle’s universe never quite allowed. The interview captured her at a moment of artistic self-definition: candid, sharp, and newly empowered.

Since then, her career has unfolded in distinct, compelling phases. After leaving Cradle, she launched her self-titled solo project, releasing A Sign of Sublime (2010) and The Corruption of Mercy (2011), both of which expanded her symphonic palette while foregrounding her lyrical voice. She continued to collaborate widely—Therion, Mortiis, Nader Sadek, Lindsay Schoolcraft, and others—reinforcing her status as one of metal’s most versatile vocalists. dev.metal-archives.comdev.metal-archives.com. Sarah Jezebel Deva - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives

In 2020, Deva reunited creatively with Rehn to form Torn Between Two Worlds, a project explicitly positioned as a spiritual successor to Angtoria. Their singles “The Beauty of Deception,” “Transparent,” and “The Woman That Never Was,” along with the 2022 EP As If We Never Existed, reaffirmed the emotional and orchestral intensity that made Angtoria resonate so deeply.

Most recently, Deva has returned to the stage with renewed clarity and purpose, joining The Kovenant for their 2024 reunion shows—a move she initially resisted due to family commitments but ultimately embraced with joy and gratitude. Her reflections on this period reveal an artist who has grown not only musically but personally, balancing legacy, motherhood, and creative ambition with striking honesty.

Revisiting our original conversation now, The Principle of Deva Made Flesh reads as both a snapshot and a prophecy. It captures the moment Sarah Jezebel Deva stepped into her own mythos—and foreshadows the long, evolving arc of a career defined by resilience, reinvention, and an unwavering devotion to the transformative power of voice.

Angtoria’s first album is titled God Has a diffPlan For Us All. The sardonic title refers to a song (and video) of the same name which references such cheery topics as suicide and the clerical abuse of children. Originally planned as an orchestral project, Angtoria shifted forms and by the second demo had acquired a metal edge, though nothing so extreme as her best-known work on the Cradle of Filth albums.

Sarah explains the unusual band name: “I was sitting around trying to come up with lots of ideas for a name, and nothing was really good enough. There’s so many band names out there, and once you pick one, it’s got to be something good; it can’t be stupid. We were kind of stuck, because once you pick a name, you’re with it for life. So Chris and Tommy (the brothers Rehn) came up with the name Angtoria, which is a combination of the first part of their mother’s name and the last part of their sister’s name, but it’s also the title of a song from Tommy’s old band, Moahni Moahna.”

“To be honest, I wasn’t overly keen in the beginning, but Chris was like, if you look for the name Angtoria on the internet, you’re only going to pull us up, whereas with, say, Cradle of Filth, you’re going to pull up ‘Cradle’ and you’re going to pull up ‘Filth’; you’re going to pull up so many different sites—whereas with Angtoria, because the name is totally made-up and unique, you’re only going to pull us up, which I guess is good, it’s better than what I could come up with, because I’ve come up with some dark names. I can’t remember them, but they were all quite dark, something to do with hate and chaos and so forth.” She laughs. “They weren’t the best names, nothing very positive on my part!”

I strive to avoid such obvious fannish questions as “Do you live in a coffin?” but when I raise the topic, Sarah quickly defends the practice. “Don’t be coffinist! Actually, at one stage I was so very goth, my uncle was going to make me a coffin bed! I think most kids go through that, like it’s really cool to sleep in an awkwardly shaped box, like you find it so cool, that you can tell all your friends that you sleep in a coffin, and really it is the gayest idea one could ever come up with. But I had thought about it at one stage. And I wanted a lid as well, I was just a bit paranoid that someone would nail it down. I was a bit claustrophobic as well. And I couldn’t work out how I was going to get all my teddy bears in the corner. Not really!”

They do have scary teddy bears out now. Sarah is not impressed. “They’re going to have scary gothic milk bottles soon. They’ve done dolls, they’ve done bears, they’ve done horses and whatever. It has to be something completely original, like milk bottles. With fangs.”

Sarah says that her cruel female persona arrived courtesy of working with Cradle of Filth.

“I started with Cradle at such a young age; kids, whether you agree or not, and whether a 17-year-old is going to agree with this, you’re still a kid at that age, and you’re very, very impressionable. To be honest, when I first started with Cradle I was a goth; I used to walk around completely in black; I had a nose chain, I used to use baby powder on my face just to make sure it was really white; I was very creative in the way I dressed. But on the musical side, although I suppose I brought some creativity to that as well, it was mostly Dani [Filth] who brought that out of me.

“I suppose at that age no kid really knows how to express themselves, and so, for instance, when I started recording with Cradle, I really hated opera, yet my voice was maturing, and I was singing more and more opera with Cradle of Filth. I just remember when I was young having to listen to my uncle listen to that stuff, and I used to hate it, I thought it was horrible music, and it’s bizarre, because so many years later I find myself singing what I hated.

“But I never really found a way to explore the creative side of myself, because of the way I was raised. I was raised in an extremely harsh and restrictive environment in which I was never allowed to express myself at all. So obviously as I was getting older and older, and when I met Dani, it opened up a completely different door for me.

“I wouldn’t say I was influenced by Dan, but I would say that being with Dani and the whole Cradle of Filth experience is something completely new for me, and it was almost like saying it’s ok to do different things and not have to be like everybody else, if that makes sense. So because I grew up with Cradle of Filth, literally, it was like having a role model, in a way. Kids need something they can connect to, and for me it was Cradle of Filth. Allowing that part of me that might want to make a complete ass of myself, or do something completely different.”

Sarah’s official website explores aspects of her upbringing that many would shun to divulge.

“I talk about my childhood, and it’s not because I want people to say ‘aw, poor Sarah’; it’s because I have so many kids coming to me who are like ‘Oh, you have this wonderful life, you’ve got it so good’; and I’m like whoa, slow down. You’re very blind if you think that if a person is in the limelight she’s had an amazing life. I see so many profiles of people where they say ‘I do this,’ or ‘I do that,’ and I thought, should I not be honest, should I not just tell how it is? I don’t want people to think that just because I’m with Cradle I’m a millionaire; that I’ve got ten cars and live in a castle. That’s not it at all. I have a job. I have a very normal life. To a degree.”

The years after our original conversation with Sarah Jezebel Deva have cast a long retrospective shadow over the internal workings of Cradle of Filth, illuminating dynamics that were once only hinted at in private exchanges and backstage whispers. When the lawsuit against Dani Filth and Cradle of Filth LLP surfaced in 2025–2026, it reframed the band’s history through the voices of those who had lived inside its machinery. Six former members—Zoë Marie Federoff, Marek “Ashok” Šmerda, Paul Allender, Richard Shaw, Lindsay Schoolcraft, and model Sasha Baxter—brought forward allegations of unpaid royalties, unauthorized use of likenesses, defamation, and exploitative working conditions. Their statements were stark, unvarnished, and painfully familiar to anyone who had listened closely to Deva’s own reflections over the years.

Federoff’s account was particularly harrowing. She described the contract she was offered as “the most psychopathic contract a session musician could ever be handed,” a document her lawyer reportedly reacted to with disbelief. She alleged that when she asked about missing funds, management called her “a cancer” and “a dead horse.” Šmerda, who left the band alongside her mid‑tour, spoke with equal bluntness, saying, “It is a lot of work for relatively low pay, the stress is quite high, and we haven’t felt for a while like this band actually prioritising/caring about members. It has been years of unprofessional behaviour from people above us that led to our decision.” Their departure, abrupt and public, cracked open a door that had long been sealed.

Dani Filth’s response attempted to strike a balance between denial and diplomacy. He insisted, “These allegations are false and damaging. We maintain clear records that show otherwise, and any dispute will be dealt with properly — not through trial by social media.” He also extended a measured olive branch to Federoff and Šmerda, saying, “Despite everything, I do wish you well. We shared great times together, and I’ll always be grateful for those memories.” Yet this conciliatory tone was undercut by his earlier accusation that Šmerda had engaged in “attempts to illegally defame and derail the band,” a statement issued when announcing the guitarist’s firing mid‑tour.

Threaded together, these accounts form a portrait of a band whose internal tensions were not isolated incidents but part of a long‑running pattern—one that artists like Sarah Jezebel Deva had navigated years before the lawsuit made such struggles public. Deva’s departure in 2009, and her subsequent insistence on forging her own creative identity through Angtoria, her solo work, and later Torn Between Two Worlds, reads differently in light of these revelations. What once seemed like a personal artistic evolution now appears, in part, as an escape from a system that would later be challenged in court by multiple former members.

This afterword, woven into the fabric of The Principle of Deva Made Flesh, reframes the original interview as a document of transition—not only for Deva, but for the broader constellation of artists who contributed to Cradle of Filth’s mythos. It underscores the prescience of her decision to step away, the clarity of her voice when speaking about creative autonomy, and the importance of listening when musicians describe the conditions under which their art is made. In hindsight, her story becomes part of a larger narrative about legacy, labor, and the cost of maintaining a gothic empire whose foundations were not always as stable as the theatrics suggested.

Kissing Davey was warm—actually hot. Delia felt her lips steam briefly. It was like taking the first puff ever off a cigarette as an adolescent. It was like bending to inhale the smoke of a joss stick of sandalwood and having the fragrance lilt up the nostrils to stay all night.

Of course, he wasn’t soft at all. He didn’t have the yielding flesh of a responsive lover. His was hard, practically concrete. It was crunchy, leaving a silt of ashen skin against her mouth. It crackled until Delia imagined static electricity having passed between them.

Delia wished she had a mirror with her. Had her shiny red lipstick taken on a blackened hue? Did minute pieces of him adhere to her? She could taste it, pressed against her face…burnt meat.

I could never be a vegetarian, she thought. There is a sensuality in meat. It might be the texture—never celery crisp, lettuce flaccid or carrot grainy. It fights back against the teeth, insisting on its right to make the eater aware that, Yes! I was once alive with a face! It might be the passion in the flavor, the tempting taboo of cannibalism as the tongue recognizes a substance so near its own composition.

It might just be a kind of love. As the love she felt for Davey.

Delia had always loved Davey, strong and athletic Davey. Able to-leap-tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound Davey. Fast-car driver, adventure-seeking, fabulously hung lover. She’d started to weep seeing what the fire had done to him.

She’d returned home from work only moments after the fiery creature fell to the driveway, having tried to clean a mess with gasoline. Davey—not always bright, even if gorgeous and masculine. She’d slammed on the brakes at the curb, leaping from the car, running over to him as he faintly ceased twitching, telling herself, No, that isn’t him, can’t be him, say it isn’t…

The tears had begun to fill her eyes. Sorrow. Or the damned smoke of flesh and hair oily in the air.

It might not be Davey, Delia told herself with all the denial she could muster. It didn’t even look like him really. There wasn’t a square inch of recognizable feature left. No hair, no shape to the face.

I will always know my lover by embrace, she thought. How well I have known that mouth—no matter how twisted and curled it is now.

A kiss. A sticky momentary fusion. Not quite hard, no. Still soft, spongy. Taffy that could be pulled out for yards.

A flavor of iron chains and greasy hot dogs. The fumes of charcoal lighter fluid like what hung in the atmosphere when some neighbor was trying to barbecue in his back yard but didn’t have a clue as to how to build a fire. So thick you could taste the combustible, so thick you could choke on it.

Delia didn’t choke on this. It was practically an after-shave, alluring and volcanic in what it inspired in her.

She flicked her tongue tentatively and tasted that slick, molten head.

She had never loved Davey more than at this tragic time. Isn’t that when most people feel the bulk of their adoration of someone? When an evil befalls them and their beloved is taken away?

But Davey was still there. He hadn’t been taken away yet. He would be taken away though. And soon. An ambulance would come. The shell would be placed upon a stretcher. in a bag, in a lightweight sack to transport him to where Delia would never see or touch him again.

She had always been so on fire in bed with him, scratching, biting. She bit now. Just a tiny piece. A memento of blistering sex. She didn’t really intend for it to come on off in her mouth, to slide across her gums in ruined butter and blood-brittle candy. But it did and what was she to do, spit it out?

Treasure what you have of him. Before they take him away. You always wanted him inside you, thinking the only way was to have his erection between your thighs, between your cheeks. To swallow his sperm had seemed the ultimate merging. Now, are there restrictions?

Can you not have him inside you for a last time that is somehow more fulfilling? More inflammable of your love?

Delia savored, then swallowed. If she almost choked on it, it was with the fullness of her emotion, her grief. She took another bite and felt it split moistly, pop with the blistering of pizza cheese on the roof of her mouth. The third bite was larger and hissed. Fat ran down her chin, spattering her dress.

I’ll never wash this garment again. I’ll hang it, surrounded by photographs of Davey. I’ll create a proper shrine out of it.

And when she would eventually shit these fragments of him out again, could she keep them in a jar of rose water? Keep candles burning to either side of it with prayers said daily?

Another bite and the feelings swept over her until Delia had to touch herself. On the driveway, in full daylight with—who knew what nosy people might be spying through their windows? She didn’t care. These were her last moments with Davey. Maybe those voyeurs would never be so courageous as she was, insisting on a rite of farewell such as only the ancients might have practiced. As ancestors had done, eating their dead with devotion. holding on to them a bit longer…

And was Delia mistaken, or were her genitals hotter than they had ever been? Was she roasting with desire? She was as wet as if she’d been basted. She gathered this stew upon her fingers.

“Take my scent with you, darling,” she said to the husk as she caressed where she guessed the nose to have been, the ridge of tinder jawline. Her fingertips smashed through the seared skin to land in squelching fricassee beneath.

Delia pulled back in horror. Then understood that she was being given access to the inner workings of poor Davey. This was a gift, wasn’t it? To be accepted with reverence? She licked those fingers and felt aphrodisia go up in Fahrenheit.

Delia began to eat with lust, waves of orgasms rolling over her just as the flames must have overcome Davey. She stuffed her pockets with his teeth and put the sultry hinge of his destroyed tongue between her breasts. His penis had shriveled to a blackened thumb but to her it was a branding iron. Was it perversion to put this between her legs, pushed gently into the place where Davey had often put it and himself when it and he were whole?

Here was the erotic blowtorch. The potent salamander.

This was the reason humanity gave up digging for roots and picking mushy grains. For the lascivious meat! Carnivores are oral beasts, into a constant gratification by sodomy and fellatio and cunnilingus.

She bit, chewed, delighted in each sodden oily organ, in the flavor of the steam that burst from newly opened areas of him, in the precious well-done canker feverish and narcotic. She had to lean back at last and sigh. Delia had to scream.

Another car jerked to a stop along the curb, just barely managing to keep from hitting her vehicle. She heard a door slam.

Here it is. They were summoned and have arrived to take Davey away from me. But I’ve taken so much of him into myself, they can’t have him all! They would have to cut me open first!

She turned to leer back at them with a smear of grease upon her lips, the whole front of her dress, up to the elbows in gasoline-scented lubricity. It dripped from her face and hair and hands. It was heavy as candle wax, black and yellow as scabs and resins. She knelt in a puddle of tallow.

No attendants. No emergency personnel. One person trudged up the walk, staring at her with amazement.

“Davey!” Delia exclaimed. Her gaze swung back quickly to the body on the driveway, features even more obliterated now than they had been when she’d seen the fireball from the end of the street. “Then who…?”

Davey ran up to kneel beside the burnt corpse. He put his head in his hands and howled. “Wayne—hell, man! I hired him to clean up the garage. I smell gasoline. Damn it! I told him to use the regular cleansers on the top shelf.”

Wayne, the old guy with the stammer and the pitiful limp, who slept in the alley and begged odd jobs from the neighbors. Dressed in flea-ridden cast-offs and smelled like sour Spam.

“How did you get like this?” Davey asked her, seeing the condition of her clothes and her face.

“I tried to give him mouth to mouth. I tried to revive him. I even tried to pick him up to carry him inside but I guess I was too freaked out. I thought it was you,” Delia replied, babbling and gesturing melodramatically until oil and bits of burned flesh slung from her gesturing fingers. “Oh, God, I thought this was you!”

“My poor baby,” David said solicitously as he took her in his arms, wincing at the squelchy nastiness of her dress and hair. “Poor Wayne, too.”

Delia thought of poor Wayne with the vermin visibly crawling in his shirt, the skin cancers on his balding head, the way he was always scratching himself. And she almost giggled. Wayne, you were never so hot as you were just now, lover.

She watched Davey sleep that night and got out of bed to see the cool length of him. Such a beautiful specimen of man.

Then she went out to the garage to find another can of gasoline.

🔥 Charlee Jacob

Charlee Jacob (1952–2019) was an American horror writer celebrated for her uncompromising, surreal, and often brutal explorations of trauma, monstrosity, and psychological extremity. Over the course of her career she published more than 950 works of fiction and poetry, becoming one of the defining voices of late‑20th‑century extreme horror. Jacob earned multiple Bram Stoker Awards, including honors for Dread in the Beast, Sineater, and Vectors (with Marge Simon). Her novels include This Symbiotic Fascination, Haunter, Soma, Vestal, and Season of the Witch, each demonstrating her signature fusion of lyrical intensity and visceral darkness.

Jacob’s short story “Fire” made its original appearance in Bloodsongs magazine, Issue #9, a publication known for its blend of transgressive horror fiction and interviews with major figures in dark culture. Issue #9 also featured interviews with Jacob herself, Pete Steele of Type O Negative, and Cradle of Filth, establishing the story’s first publication context within the magazine’s distinctive editorial mix.

🔥 Bloodsongs Magazine

Bloodsongs was an Australian dark‑culture and horror magazine active during the 1990s, publishing original fiction, interviews, and commentary on extreme literature, gothic/industrial music, and underground art. The magazine featured work by several acclaimed authors, including Poppy Z. Brite, Lucy Taylor, and Ramsey Campbell, alongside other notable voices such as Edward Lee, Sean Williams, Kaaron Warren, Robert Hood, Francis Payne, and Patricia McCormack.

Issue #9, in which Charlee Jacob’s “Fire” first appeared, is particularly remembered for its combination of original fiction and exclusive interviews with leading figures in horror and dark music.

🔥 Alex S. Johnson

Alex S. Johnson is an author, editor, journalist, and cultural commentator whose work spans horror fiction, surrealist literature, and avant‑garde music journalism. Throughout the run of Bloodsongs, Johnson was a mainstay staff contributor, providing both original fiction and exclusive interviews with prominent figures in dark literature and gothic/industrial music. His interviews for the magazine included conversations with Charlee Jacob, Lucy Taylor, Pete Steele of Type O Negative, Cradle of Filth, and other influential artists and writers.

Johnson’s broader career encompasses decades of published fiction, editorial work, and cultural analysis, with particular emphasis on horror lineage, mythopoetic writing, and dark‑music reportage. His contributions helped shape Bloodsongs into a significant—if ephemeral—document of 1990s extreme horror and dark‑culture journalism.

Juggernaut magazine #1 1998

The connection between Björk and Bauhaus is not historical but architectural. It exists in the way both artists build worlds rather than songs, atmospheres rather than narratives, rituals rather than performances.

Björk has never mentioned Bauhaus in interviews, yet her own descriptions of her creative process reveal a philosophy that runs uncannily parallel to the band’s stark, Expressionist ethos. The bridge between them is structural — the way each artist treats sound as space, the body as architecture, and art as a total environment.

Björk often describes her work in terms that could have come from a Bauhaus manifesto. She has said that she thinks of herself as a “creative director‑slash‑worldbuilder,” a phrase that immediately evokes the way Bauhaus constructed their early performances: angular bodies, geometric shadows, and a stage environment that felt less like a concert and more like a living installation. When she explains that “all my albums have super strict frameworks,” she echoes the band’s disciplined minimalism — the skeletal basslines, the refusal of ornament, the devotion to negative space. Bauhaus carved darkness into shape; Björk sculpts light with the same severity.

Her relationship to the body also resonates with Bauhaus’s Expressionist lineage. In discussing her collaboration with Iris van Herpen, Björk explained that she wanted “to explore how the body could become something else,” a sentiment that could describe Peter Murphy’s insectile poses or the ritualistic contortions in Bauhaus’s early performances.

Björk’s fascination with metamorphosis — the body as coral reef, as instrument, as alien flora — mirrors Bauhaus’s fascination with the body as shadow, as silhouette, as mythic object. Both artists treat the human form as a site of transformation.

This architectural sensibility extends into Björk’s technological and biological experiments. When speaking about Medúlla, she said she wanted “to make an album about the human body,” stripping away instruments to reveal the raw architecture of breath, throat, and muscle.

Later, in describing Biophilia, she explained that she aimed “to unite nature, music, and technology,” creating an ecosystem rather than an album. Bauhaus approached the same triad from the opposite direction — machinery, shadow, sound — but the impulse is identical: to build a ritual space where the human form is transformed by its environment.

Even their artistic ancestry overlaps. Björk has said that Bowie “showed me you could be anything,” and she described Nico as someone who “created her own universe.” These are the same avant‑garde ancestors Bauhaus claimed, the same lineage of shapeshifters, minimalists, and world‑builders. Björk’s admiration for artists who construct entire atmospheres rather than simply perform songs places her squarely in the same conceptual family tree as Bauhaus, even if she never names them.

Her devotion to atmosphere is perhaps the deepest link. Björk has said she likes “to think of albums as worlds,” a statement that mirrors David J’s reflection that Bauhaus were “building atmospheres more than songs.” Both artists treat art not as a product but as a place — a constructed environment where emotion becomes architecture. Björk’s worlds glow with bioluminescent tenderness; Bauhaus’s worlds brood in chiaroscuro shadow. Yet both are built with the same materials: strict form, expressive distortion, ritual performance, and the body as mythic object.

Even Björk’s thoughts on collaboration echo Bauhaus’s collective ethos. She has said that she prefers working with artists who “bring out a side of me I didn’t know existed,” which parallels the way Bauhaus members described their own dynamic — each musician pushing the others toward new shapes, new atmospheres, new distortions. Björk’s belief that “sound is such an important experience to have in art” aligns with Bauhaus’s insistence that music is not merely heard but inhabited, that it creates a space the listener enters.

Her reflections on vulnerability also resonate with Bauhaus’s emotional architecture. Björk has said that she tries to make music that feels “raw and exposed, but also protected,” a duality that mirrors Bauhaus’s blend of fragility and severity — the way Murphy’s voice could sound both wounded and monumental, the way their minimalism created emotional intensity through restraint.

Björk’s statement that she wants her music to feel “like a home you can walk into” parallels Bauhaus’s construction of sonic environments that feel like rooms, corridors, or cathedrals of shadow.

The connection becomes clearest when Björk speaks about transformation. She has said that she is drawn to art that “changes you a little bit, physically,” and that she wants her work to feel “like a shift in the body.” Bauhaus pursued the same goal through different means — dissonance, distortion, ritualistic movement — but the intention was identical: to create art that alters the viewer’s physical and emotional state.

Thus the link between Björk and Bauhaus is not a matter of influence but of parallel architecture. Both artists build immersive environments where sound becomes space, where the body becomes myth, where atmosphere becomes identity. Björk’s worlds are white, organic, and luminous; Bauhaus’s are black, angular, and shadowed. Yet both are constructed with the same devotion to form, the same Expressionist impulse, the same belief that art is a place one enters rather than a product one consumes.

They are architects of parallel avant‑gardes — one in light, one in darkness — each constructing metamorphic environments where the human form is reshaped by the world it inhabits. Their worlds do not touch, yet they rhyme.