It gets a bad rap but being damned ain’t such a bad thing. Head out to any metal show on a Saturday night and follow it up with a visit to church the next morning and tell me who you’d rather spend five minutes with, let alone an eternity. Besides, can you even imagine how much more worthwhile the battle of the bands in Lucifer’s domain would be than whatever pious circle jerk they’ve got going on up in the other place? When you think about it, joining the legions of the damned makes way more sense than that other option.
Formed in 1992 as Occult, the Netherlands’ Legion of the Damned has been the blasphemous soundtrack to the life of many metalheads over the years. With their killer mix of death and thrash metal, and lyrics that would make Jerry Falwell rise from the dead just to have his decrepit heart shit out on him again, Legion of the Damned more than lived up to their name. Add to that a consistency that most bands could learn something from, Legion of the Damned has become a stalwart mainstay in extreme metal. Metal Plague recently caught up with frontman Maurice Swinkels to chat about the pleasures of damnation.
First off, how did Legion of the Damned get started? What led to the name change from Occult and do you consider Legion of the Damned a continuation of Occult or a completely other entity?
Maurice: Long story short: Occult was heading against a wall. Many did not really understand what we were, based on the name and logo: Black metal! Hearing the music: Thrash Metal…so when we recorded Malevolent Rapture with Occult and found a new label and manager he said we should change the name and start all over as a “new” band, so we decided to take this one song’s name: Legion of the Damned, and there ‘ya have it [laughs]. I consider Legion of the Damned just Occult, especially if you hear Feel the Blade, which was originally recorded under the name Occult and released as Elegy for the Weak.
What got you guys into extreme metal in the first place and who were some of the important bands for getting you into the genre?
Maurice: For me personally, I had a cousin who was at that time 17-18 years old, I was 11 or 12, he was listening to Possessed, Anthrax, Maiden, S.O.D. etc…Slayer, Exodus….once my parents visited his parents I got to see his room with posters and heard the music. I was blown away by it. He recorded a cassette for me with some early Venom, Possessed, and so I continued and started the love for this music. When we started Occult, we were influenced by many underground bands such as Sathanas, Acheron and Samael.
What’s the music writing process like for the band? Has that changed at all over the years?
Maurice: It has never really changed. It’s based on jamming together in our rehearsal room, that which is great stays, which sucks goes away, and from there on we build each song.
How do you come up with the lyrics for the band? Do you ever have trouble coming up with ideas and are there things you use frequently for inspiration?
Maurice: For Legion of the Damned I don’t write lyrics. I used to write all lyrics for the Occult albums, but once I started my business in 2003 I did not find any time to do so anymore and I asked a friend if he could check if he could do lyrics. I was also curious how someone else would write the lyrics for Legion, and so he did which resulted in the Feel the Blade album, first album with his lyrics on it, and we were blown away so we kept asking him to do lyrics for us, up till today.
I love the first Legion of the Damned record, Malevolent Rapture. What was writing/recording that one like? Was it pretty similar to the process with Occult or was it a whole new experience? Did you learn anything from the experience that you took to future recordings? Looking back on it, what are your thoughts today on the Legion of the Damned debut?
Maurice: That was a lot of fun (beers) and quickly recorded, I think the whole album in 10-12 days, including mixing. We were enthusiastic about Andy Classen’s sound, THIS was the sound we were after for years with Occult trying a lot of studios and producers, so from then on we kept going to [Andy] Classen as he made the Legion sound. I still love that album, it has a ton of energy and I still love playing these songs live. It’s the most popular album of [ours] I think.
Three of you have been together for many years. What makes your partnership so strong and how do you keep a healthy band dynamic?
Maurice: Right. Erik [Fleuren] and I started the band. Harold [Gielen] [has been] in the band since 2006. I have been doing the band with Erik for 33 years, we started the band as hobby and it’s still a hobby, nothing is a “must,” so we keep the spirit alive. Erik and I are on the same levels when it comes to thoughts of having the band and so there is never really arguments.
The most recent album, Poison Chalice, was a killer addition to the discography. How was the writing/recording for that one? What was the goal with the eighth album and what has the response been like for you?
Maurice: The response has been killer so far. [It’s the] first album with [our] new guitar player Fabian [Verweij] and it turned out really well. We took a longer process, of course, by writing new songs, and we went to a different studio and producer, all for the better. The recording took longer as we had breaks in-between, we never had that with Classen as we had to travel some hours, so we stayed in that studio. With the new studio we could go home in between, [which was] especially good when doing vocals.
I wanted to ask about the lyrical/musical inspiration behind a few tracks on that latest record. What’s the story behind that opener, “Saints in Torment?” I thought that was a killer way to set the pace for the record.
Maurice: “Saints in Torment” are the observations of a mocking disbeliever, full of wrathful irreverence, who is relishing in the torment of the saints. A deserving fate for ignorants worshippers of a careless, distant God who abandoned his so-called children. Let the whip rain down, the thorns rip the brows and the arrows pierce the flesh. The final ecstacy of death before they succumb in the darkness of their senseless death.
How about the story behind “Skulls Adorn the Traitor’s Gate?”
Maurice: “Skulls Adorn the Traitors’ Gate” is a slightly more melodic song whose lyrics deal with intrigue and treason and ruthless power struggles behind the walls around the throne. Those who lose perish and their skulls adorn the traitors’ gate. The skulls of the decapitated are placed in the gate, fallen and their thirst for power unquenched. A perilous warning to those who desire the throne.
What about the origin of “Chimes of Flagellation?”
Maurice: “Chimes of Flagellation,” just as with “Beheading of the Godhead,” these lyrics carve deep into the darkest part of man’s consciousness. Ever since the earliest of times, man has searched for a meaning of existence. Obscure scrolls of monstrous revelations earthed upon us, shaping some kind of purpose to help us deal with the flaws of life and the triumphs of death. Throughout the complexity within our inner human galaxy, both powers of light & dark are always to be found in their ecstatic dance. Just for some of us, the dark is always in the lead.
I really love that title track too and thought it was a strong choice for a closer. How did you come up with that one and was it always intended to close the record?
Maurice: “The Poison Chalice” praises the dangerous fruits of the left-hand path and is straightforward, heavy, and furious death thrash. It is a praise of the left-hand path, a path of dangers and forbidden delights, and as such lyrically touching ground similar to “Son of the Jackal,” “Diabolist” and “Palace of Sin.” It is further left to personal interpretation but we took this song as last one as it is our title song of the album, but we didn’t want to close the album with a lesser song of course. It has a good Slayer vibe to it.
With such a strong back catalogue and killer new material, how hard is it to put together a setlist these days? Are there any tracks you haven’t played live in awhile that you’d like to work back into the setlist?
Maurice: Yeah that’s always an issue because we have a ton of killer tracks that we never played live before but it’s usually also lack of time in rehearsing, as in other bands that live from doing their music they can practice a lot. We all have our daytime jobs so usually we play the stuff people wanna hear such as “Cult of the Dead,” “Legion of the Damned” and such…we also play four new songs, but I would love to play other songs too.
I really dug the cover to that record too. Who does your album artwork and how much direction did you give them for this piece?
Maurice: Our lyrics writer writes a concept in great detail and then the designer makes something out of it. For the last two albums, we had the same designer [Gyula Havancsák] and he did a great job so far. Of course when first concept is done we tweak things here and there and sometimes the label also has a say in it.
Lastly, what’s next for Legion of the Damned? What are your plans for the rest of 2024?
Maurice: Playing shows basically. Still a lot of great shows to go: Mexico Metal Fest, Chile Metal Fest, PartySan, Hellfest, Alcatraz, Brutal Assault..but we also started writing new songs, so we will see.
Photo at top: Poison Chalice album cover as discussed in the article above.
Check out the band’s official website here. Follow Legion of the Damed on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify.