BEHEMOTH Frontman Talks About Canadian Border Problems

ABORT magazine's Alxs Ness recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Adam "Nergal" Darski of Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

ABORT: You guys were slated to play three dates on the Summer Slaughter tour, with one in Edmonton and one in Calgary…

Nergal: Yeah, we had to cancel that because we had problems at the border. Actually, one of our passports was missing this chip; we didn't even know about it. We didn't realize it, actually, because a few days earlier we were allowed to enter the country. I mean, by mistake, they probably just didn't even notice this, because they let us into the country to do these two shows, and next time we wanted to enter, they told us we were missing the chip and we just can't do this. Yeah, shit happens, you know. I guess we're gonna try to make it up to these people, do this full tour that we're scheduling right now with SEPTICFLESH.

ABORT: Have you ever had any other issues crossing the border in the past?

Nergal: To be honest, from all the crazy stories about Canadian borders, nothing really bad had ever happened to us and it's always been pretty smooth and no problems whatsoever. So this is like the first time where we've been rejected to enter the country, which we were all bummed out about it. We really wanted to do these two shows. But well, what can I do. Sometimes there are things that are bigger than you.

ABORT: How's [the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival] going so far?

Nergal: So far so good. We just did three shows. The first one was pretty rough for everyone, I guess. It was pretty shitty for us. But the last two shows — we did L.A yesterday and then San Francisco was the second day — was great, really great. I mean, like smooth, great response. I don't know how many people were there, but it was pretty fucking packed; 10,000 people each show turnout. It's awesome. It's great to be part of this tour; it's just massive, it's killer, you know. It's a great deal being on tour with CANNIBAL CORPSE, SLAYER, and some other bands that we know and are good friends with… it's just a good feeling, a good vibe.

ABORT: You're releasing your newest album August 11, 2009 titled "Evangelion". What should fans expect from this release?

Nergal: BEHEMOTH in its finest form, to be honest. I mean seriously, this record… the songwriting and arrangement and the lyrics and everything is just put together so nicely, so intelligently. Honestly [with] "The Apostasy", I wasn't entirely happy, but this one feels totally different. The vibe is so different. We're definitely on fire. It feels like this is the right time to really explore our potential and just reach out to the next level. Not just popularity and sales and stuff. Because I'm pretty sure that having Metal Blade backing us up now and Nuclear Blast in Europe, it's going to go nothing but great. Artistically it's definitely the strongest effort, that's for sure.

Behind-the-scenes footage from the making of BEHEMOTH's "Ov Fire And The Void" video can be viewed below. The clip was shot in Wroclaw with director Dariusz Szermanowicz and Grupa 13.