AKERCOCKE's MENDONCA Discusses Controversy Surrounding 'Antichrist' CD

Metal Hammer magazine has just spoken to AKERCOCKE's Jason Mendonca about the furor surrounding the band's latest album, "Antichrist". Jason talks candidly about the fact that the U.S. printing press refused to print their booklet, how the Irish Catholic Church are up in arms about it, and how the BBC will be holding a debate with Jason and some religious heads about the new album. An excerpt follows:

Metal Hammer: Tell us about the U.S. printing press saying they won't print your CD booklet because it's satanic.

Jason: That's just ugly. That's censorship. No matter how you look at it it's really ugly. And it smacks of fascism to me. I wonder what other works of art — we are art which ever way you look at it — is barred from the good people of the United States of America. What else they're obstructed from seeing in their so-called democracy. It's thoroughly un-American and thoroughly undemocratic actually.

Metal Hammer: What was it they were so offended by?

Jason: I don't know. I've had a thumb through the booklet and I can't see anything that is overtly anti-Christian at all.

Metal Hammer: Do you think it was over-sensitive self-censorship on behalf of the printing press?

Jason: Someone sees the word "antichrist" and amongst the ignorant masses you get some form of moral hysteria [laughs] it's comical. I thought the U.S. was the land of the free. To try and cast any negative light on a minority view point such as ours is surely against their much vaunted and beheld first amendment.

Metal Hammer: Tell us about the media's involvement:

Jason: I think the album has caused a bit of a stir amongst certain circles in Northern Ireland, and the BBC got wind of this and have set up a debate between us and some people who I imagine are quite incensed by our mere existence. I won't comment any more on that until I've spoken to the gentlemen.

Metal Hammer: Surely there's satanic stuff all the time, why has this issue blown up around you guys this time?

Jason: I don't know. I think it's extraordinary. I wonder if whether periodically, under the guise credibility and in the interest of maintaining viewer ratings, this is just an easy shot at trying to put some sort of tabloid angle on something which in essence is rather innocuous. I'm quite amused to be honest. Anyone who took the trouble to research AKERCOCKE would actually know that we've stated openly in the past — ten years — that we're anything but anti-Christian.

Read the entire interview at this location.