In an interview with Headbangers Lifestyle at this year’s Alcatraz Hard Rock & Metal Festival, which was held earlier this month in Kortrijk, Belgium, BEHEMOTH mastermind Adam “Nergal” Darski talked about the “God = Dog”, the controversial first single and video from BEHEMOTH‘s upcoming album, “I Loved You At Your Darkest”.
He said: “Well, it’s a very complex process, because it started with us making this photo session that was very religious-inspired — like religious topics, classic paintings from Caravaggio, Memling and others. We are actors in this… Basically, the whole booklet looks like that — it’s all paintings, but they are reinterpreted by us. [It’s] pretty literal, so if I’m a crucified Jesus, I’m a crucified Jesus; I’m not Jesus with a dick out. It’s not obnoxious in any way — it’s very literal, it’s very direct. And I think it’s beautiful; it’s aesthetically really stunning. Then we brought elements of that to that video, and we made it what it is.”
“‘God = Dog’ is… There’s some controversy about the title, but what can I say? From simple… Just inverse ‘god’ and it gives you ‘dog,’ and that’s the simplest way to explain the title, but, obviously, it goes deeper than this. It refers to Aleister Crowley‘s philosophy, and there’s a quote from ‘The Book Of The Law’ which goes like that: ‘Is a God to live in a dog? No! But the highest are of us.’ And that’s a part of it — it’s a section of the song. And then again, go into the lyrics, make up your mind and build your own world there, because I don’t wanna f*cking spoil it.”
Polish extreme metallers will release their new album, I Loved You At Your Darkest, on October 5 via Nuclear Blast (Europe) and Metal Blade Records (North America). While it certainly seems an unlikely title for a black metal band, its origin might surprise fans even more than the words themselves. “It’s a verse from the Bible,” frontman Nergal reveals. “It’s actually a quote from Jesus Christ himself. For BEHEMOTH to use it as the basis of our record, it’s sacrilege to the extreme.”
