Although not currently known for its black metal scene, Italy may very well change that with the advent of more bands like Nefarium.  In existence for over a decade now, Nefarium has just unleashed its third full-length album, Ad Discipulum.  Though the band clearly is influenced by the speed and brutality of the Swedish bands like Marduk and Dark Funeral, they bring their own unique atmosphere to the proceedings as well.  Guitarist/vocalist Carnifex fleshes out the details behind this wicked assembly…

With the new album coming out, what can Nefarium fans expect this time around?
Our best goal is to bring Nefarium as an extreme metal reality on a international scene, we simply would like to spread our musical ideas, through albums and concerts to find more disciples to share a common idea of Black Metal based on devotion and spiritual introspection.  We wish that our music could be listened and considered as simply and good Black Metal so Ad Discipulum can be considered black, fast and hellish bastard!  A clear statement against the church and Jesus Christ’s word through priests’ sermons and his deputy on earth, the pope Benedictus XVI.

Did you approach the writing and recording any differently this time around?
The bigger difference between Ad Discipulum and Nefarium’s older releases is about the final sound and there are also some innovations about the music style.  We chose to avoid an artificial sound of the drum due to the current tendency of using exaggerated triggers, risking a less precise tom’s feelings, but surely a more natural [sound].  We marked a global style, more original [than] our previous releases.  We think that Ad Discipulum’s songs are easier to be assimilated by the listeners, even if the whole album is really fast and aggressive.

How was it mixing the album with Andy LaRocque?
When Nefarium discussed the first time about Ad Discipulum’s sound, wishing to obtain something new, we decided we should move to Sonic Train Studios and collaborate with a non-Black Metal producer, basically to remark the dynamic and natural style of Garghuf’s drumming.  We basically wanted to distinguish Nefarium’s sound from the latest Scandinavian fast metal productions.  Today we’re proud because when we started to work on Ad Discipulum, we absolutely wanted to follow our own way and we think with this new album, we have finally found a precise Nefarium sound.  Andy LaRocque gave us good suggestions about the final production and we really appreciated his professional way of working in the studio.

I thought it was cool you hooked up with Wildness Perversion from Mortuary Drape for a guest spot on this album.  How did that come about?
In the new album Ad Discipulum, we have collaborated with Wildness Perversion of Mortuary Drape as vocalist and Archaon, the guitarist of Norwegian band 1349 for some guitar solos parts.  Wildness Perversion lives and play with his band  in the extreme north of Italy, not so far from our town and we shared the stage the first time in 2001 when we started a good relationship.  We consider Mortuary Drape a cult band, they played since 1986 and during the years, their music inspired Nefarium’s style.  Vocal participation of Wildness Perversion emphasized the dark atmosphere thanks to Latin speeches… It is a cold and sick descent into hell.  The choice to call to participate the two guest members in the recordings has honored ourselves and has tried to bring conceptually Nefarium closer to those bands that contributed to the development of the metal scene.

This is your second album with Agonia Records, so I assume they are doing things right so far.  How has your experience with various record labels been so far?
Ad Discipulum is the second album after Haeretichristus that we released on Agonia Records and we are still proud to work with the Polish label.  We already appreciated the choice of this label about its bands, extreme and talented, and to be a member of that "angry" crew, has certainly helped us to grow and become more secure.  Our album are distributed worldwide and Agonia is working very well with us, and for our part we try to cooperate in promotional phase.  Our first official release in 2001 was a 7” called “Avernus” and it was out on a small Italian label, Maggot Records.  After that, we released Praesidium, our first full-length and the CD was produced by the Swedish Downfall Records.  Even if those two labels were quite small and totally independent, we didn’t have any particular problems and we always received a sincere support.

Will Ad Discipulum be unleashed on vinyl as well?
The album is now produced in digipak and I know some Russian label is printing an MC version.  We have not yet talked about any vinyl release, but we’re pretty sure Agonia will soon consider this option.

I understand that you just finished a tour with Dark Funeral.  How did that go and what cities/countries were the most memorable?
The tour with Dark Funeral has been a really good experience and even if we feel quite tired after 40 dates through Europe, we can’t wait to start to tour again.  In general, the crowd seemed to appreciate Nefarium’s concerts, but I can remember particularly good shows in Munich at the Markthalle venue, in Annecy, France in a concert hall called La Brise Glace, and at Hammer Fest in England.  Nefarium’s primary thought concerns the communicative aspect and on those stages we’ve got a particular feelings of anger and violence able to strongly link the band to the crowd.  We invite you to take a look to www.myspace.com/nefarium to check out some live show pictures...

Do you have any plans for further touring now that the album is out?
At the moment we are focusing all our efforts on Ad Discipulum promotion and we will start soon the recordings of a blasphemic video-clip for a song called “Hands Bleeding Fear.”  Nefarium will continue to play live shows in Europe to spread a message of rage and anger and we hope we will be again on the road before 2011.

Do you have a decent size fan base in the USA yet?  Any plans to tour here?
We are trying to play more and more concerts basically outside Italy where the local bands are poorly supported and the organizers are often not up to [par?].  A good promotion work is spreading Nefarium’s music also to your country and we already have a good number of media supporters, like webzines and radio.  We really hope to spread soon our music also in US, but the cost of flight tickets is quite expensive and we need to work more to be better known and to finally find some good agency that could bring Nefarium to US.  A tour there should be great!

You guys seem to play live a lot, which is not necessarily the norm in the black metal scene.  Would you like to release a live album or DVD at some point?
We love playing live, and every time we are on a stage we feel a particular sensation, the contact with fans is very important.  The past year we had only 5 concerts and this year after the European [tour], I guess we will play not a lot of gigs.  We prefer to play few but good concerts, and even if we still are a not so well-known band, our uncompromising music requires professional sound on stage.  It’s undoubtedly hard to play live so fast, so we practice a lot before every single concert.  A good show depends on the sounds that technicians could set and most part of times we could luckily offer a good performance.  In 2009, we took a professional video from a Paris concert at La Locomotive and even now we’re working on a video-clip for one of the Ad Discipulum songs and it will require a lot of time, a live DVD, but it’s one of Nefarium future goals.

We’ve been seeing a great deal of black metal bands coming out of France lately but not so much from Italy.  How would you describe the current scene there?
We live in a small town on the Alps close to France and people here have restrict mentality like Italians in general are…For two times Nefarium appeared on local newspapers accused of act of vandalism linked to Satanism and Black Metal is not considered a kind of music, but just a childish attitude here in Italy,  that’s why there aren’t well-known extreme and fast bands.  We probably better know French metal scene.  Anyway we like the music of Italian Hour of Penance, a professional band from the south of Italy that [plays] strong death metal in Behemoth style.

With the prevalence of Catholicism in Italy, is it more difficult for a band like Nefarium to exist?  Do you ever get hassled by religious groups or fanatics about your lyrics and image?
In Italy, Catholicism is everywhere and the Vatican has a massive control over schools, media, work and music of course, so we better know the worst side of this religion than the people that live in foreign countries.  Nefarium appeared many times in Italian newspapers in sections talking about satanic sects and we already have had some police‘s visits because we usually bring on stage human skulls and I guess someone wanted to know who was the owner of that skull’s head before to become an item for the microphone stand...eh eh eh...  We also had some problems in Poland where the first version of our previous Haeretichristus inlay CD was banned and the printing phase was delayed.  We had to change a crucified catholic god of pig head with the simpler Nefarium logo.  Anyway, new images in Ad Discipulum inlay will be even stronger as the tracklist: “Servus Servorum Satanae (Benedictus XVI)” or “The Bastard Son of Satan (Jesus Christ)” will probably catch the attention of authorities.

A lot of religions focus a great deal on the concepts of good and evil.  Do you believe these things actually exist or are they just man-made constructs to help keep the masses in line?
We believe that about the simple theory of opposites can not be a constructive force, without an antithesis of equal strength, with the particularity, about Nefarium, to exist and develop in a slow, but steady.  The meaning of "good," which for many people is an innate human aspect, about us it's governed by a power opposite that has always feared, fought and converted for convenience only.  We also believe that the concept of Christ, as focus of their religion, extends to any alleged prophets teaching through confusing methods, inculcating values sometimes trivial and childish and sometimes hypocritical.  Religion in general is a human weakness!

The album art for Ad Discipulum is excellent - it appears more minimal but also more symbolic.  Can you explain a bit about the image and what is meant to be conveyed?
Thanks for your words, Ad Discipulum’s cover has been taken from a paint made on oil technique by Adventor, the guitarist of the band and only then modified by me with digital software.  The paint represents a whole of Episcopal elements surrounded by serpents representing the corruption of the social side of the Catholic religion and it wants to describe the hand over censored and hidden Catholic clergy, and more generally the precarious position of religious institutions usually corruptible and unhealthy.  It perfectly fits our Ad Discipulum main concept.

Could you give me a run-down on what gear you use (guitar, amp, etc.) and what you like best about it?
We use Randall amps and we just got endorsements with Schecter guitars and Warwick bass guitars.  The sound wall that is perceived in our songs does not aim to displace, but wants to carry the listener inside of our concept of Black Metal.  Our music is very fast so we need to obtain a powerful but quite clean final sound, with light distortion and little reverb effects.  With current Nefarium’s equipment, we obtained a personal style and the melody could scan individual instruments.

How important is the image of the band (the corpse paint, etc.) and is it something that you plan to refine or evolve as time goes on?
For Nefarium, everything concerning the image is very important so that during our gigs we usually propose what a true Black Metal concert requires: face-painting, leather, upside-down crosses and a lot of aggression.  For example, I usually wear an original priest’s red robe.  I’ve bought it from the Vatican store in Rome saying I was a true priest...  Guitar and bass players wear old centurion items like the Roman “cingulum” but we are still working on new ideas to bring on stage.  We need to create a particular and dark atmosphere to emphasize our music.  We bring on stage human skulls, their smell is so particular and I guess we will have soon more human bones.  Every time we are on a stage we feel a strong sensation that we’d like to communicate with our fans through rage and chaos and we need to obtain a stronger visual impact also on stage.

With several releases under your belt now, do you find that you are more inspired than ever when it comes to working on new material?
We wish that our music could be listened and considered as simply and good Black Metal,  and that could still give to listeners a particular feelings of anger and violence, that are slowly coming unless in many bands.  We simply like to play and to record albums like Ad Discipulum or Haeretichristus and the support we daily receive from Nefarium’s listeners push the band to do better every day.  The music we compose is the bridge to express our thoughts and to well understand ourselves through our deepest feelings, so we feel always inspired, because Black Metal is our life.

What are the band’s plans for the rest of 2010?
Adventor is already starting to compose new guitar riffs and we hope to record the next album during first months of next year.  We wish to be able to better develop our skills through a constant engagement and even more we would like to place Nefarium in the international scene as a solid and convincing reality.  The new video-clip is waiting for us, we will play more European dates and we will soon plan another tour.  Way to hell is still long and we will work hard to illuminate the path to a special place in the first row in front of Infernal Beast…REGE SATHANAS

www.myspace.com/nefarium