This is an interview with Antiquity, a quite unknown Greek band. The man behind the band is also the creator of alot of good webpages concerning greek metal on the internet.

1. Hails Andreas. Your one-man project Antiquity is not yet a so well-known name in the Greek scene. Can you tell me what kind of music you play and the history of the band?

Hails Iskios! Antiquity was formed in 1995 by me (Antique) and a few local musicians friends of mine. Unfortunately, there weren’t many coincidencies between me and the rest of the band regarding music, so that, along with the undeniable fact of their lack of interest in working hard in the band made us split up. They did not identify themselves with the main concept behind the band (the greatness of the past, our ancient pagan empires, the rebound of Christendom...) neither and felt themselves uncomfortable with all the concepts and ideas related to the band. I did not want to spend centuries contacting new musicians and encouraging them into it all, so I decided to do it all by me myself and thus have an outlet for my waterfall-like creativity and talent. However, I have now joined forces with a talentful Spanish guitar player who is totally into the same interests as me, so he’s kind of my brother in-spirit. We are brethren, not only spiritually but also very physically. With him I do not only share the same pagan soul, but also the same racial archetype: same colour of skin, eye and hair. We share the same proud blood, the same noble spirit and the same übermensch thought. So I believe that we have met not by chance, but by the will of the Gods. Thus Antiquity has become a band of Greek/Roman blood (or simply a “European band” for the sake of simplicity).

2. Have you recorded anything for the public? If not when will it be? If yes how were the reactions?

Nothing unveiled yet for the masses. We have lots of home-recordings and rehearsals, yet nothing shall see the light of day until it reaches an Hellenic perfection. No matter how long it may take, it is my heritage to history and therefore shall be grandiosely bequethed upon eternity. I am only sure that the wait will be worth. To give you an idea, Antiquity is classical music with a metal spirit.

3. What do the songs talk about?

As you may guess, the topics are all those which are related to my thought and visions: The romanticism of our ancient lands, along with a dark and esotherical interest on the old Hellenic and Roman culture (Myths, folktales, legends, sagas...) and an outrageous rebound of Christianity. Antiquity is as a whole a hymn to the rebirth of the New Greek-Roman Pagan Empire.

I see Christianity as a weak and pathetic religion which is alien to our strong and proud European souls. It is nearly unbelievable how such an important and wide-spread religion has been built out of the bones of a sad jew vagabond who roamed by Judea 2000 years ago. How such a pathetic man has been turned to god by nearly 1500 millions people worldwide still remains to date one of the greatest misteries of history. I can’t believe my eyes, really; even my once proud Greek/Roman peoples do worship him! In ancient Greece or Rome neither a Greek nor a Roman would have a jew as god. But all this pride has been lost... Still indeed it is no more stupid to see a Chinese worshipping Herakles or Zeus than seeing a Greek worshipping Jesus or Jehovah.

Through Antiquity my hatred towards Christianity and its deeds is expressed. Antiquity is thus a tool to encourage all Europeans to fight against Jehovah and his agents.

Ancient Hellenic/Latin greatness... Antiquity is my quest for materializing our pagan magnificence into music. The main source of inspiration for Antiquity is the remains of what once it was. The dark embrace of the times bygone and the decrepit beauty of the ancient pagan temples mean a lot to me. Our gods haven’t died, but are dormant. Now they shall rise with fury in their eyes to defeat Jehovah...

It is thus no secret that Antiquity is a weapon against Christendom and a medium through which promote the renaissance of the ancient pagan cult. The splendour we Greeks and Romans reached in the ancient times has been turned to dust due to a bastard god some easterners brought into our lands. But now our time has come to take revenge and settle our empire back. With Antiquity I try to bring our fight an adequate soundtrack: Proud, majestic, grandiose. Hades awaits.

4. What are your emotions when you’re writing music and in what mood are you in when you are writing?

I don’t seek any particular mood to compose, instead I let my soul be driven by the muses. In fact, word “music” comes from Greek mousika, meaning “related to the muses”. So rather than a composer I am a channel for the Great Fathers (also known as “gods”) to express themselves. Thus I do not create music, but only materalize it; I simply give it shape for others to realize how supreme the ancient times were and what a great disaster for our land Christianity meant. Antiquity’s work is the beauty of the past made music, a channel through which Zeus/Juppiter touches the soul of the listener and calls him/her to join the battle against Jehovah. Antiquity is not a band, it’s a religion.

I’ll try to explain this further: my musical work is the result of a “state of possession”. Zeus/Juppiter and the other Gods are the possessors while I am the possessed. Thus Antiquity’s songs are not exactly mine, as I am only a channel for the Gods to express themselves through art. So their work is more than music, it’s rather a mystical message for the wise to understand. A message sent by them to those who still haven’t been entirely rotten by the overwhelming Christian spiritual black death. It’s a call on us to realize that Christianity is but a spiritual enslavement and thus a spiritual Holy War is needed in order to retrieve our former and original pagan freedom. We must unleash our European souls, which in reality are pagan, from the oppression of the yoke of Jehovah. If you have really a European soul, then it is only normal that you refuse Christianity and wish to upheaval the pagan religions, the TRUE religions of Europe. If you are European, then you’ll surely feel urged from within to wage this war. We’ll fight and end up this war victorious or dead. We have no fear, for the Gods are on our side. Victory or Death. Zeus within my breast.

5. What kind of instruments and samples do you use?

All melodies are akin to classical music, but everything is played with synths and computers. I use no drums because I want to bring no importance to rhythm and thus concentrate all importance in the melodies. Everybody can create a rhythm -it’s easy, simple and repetitive, even computer can!- but not everybody can create a beautiful melody. That makes the difference!

6. What kind of inspirations do you have with Antiquity and what groups do you listen to?

As I stated above, Antiquity is the work of the Gods. Inspiration comes from them and our grandiose Greek/Roman culture that was decapitated by the god of the Eastern deserts. Christianity has destroyed everything that was ours, both physically and psychically. All we built was turned into ashes by Jehovah’s command. I quote their holiest book, the Bible; the words of Jehovah to His people:

“Ye shall not worship their gods, nor imitate their works, instead ye shall destroy their statues” - Deut. XXIII, 24

“Raze all those places at which the peoples ye have to conquer worshipped their gods on the high mountains and hills, and at the shade of all leafy tree” - Deut. XII, 2

“Destroy their altars and destroy their statues, set their profane forests ablaze, crumble them and erase their names off those places... and there ye shall offer thy holocausts and victims” - Deut. XII, 3-6

“Ye shall exterminate all the peoples your Lord will put you in your hands. Your eyes shall have no mercy for them, nor serve their gods” - Deut. VIII, 16

“Greeks and Barbarians, so I preach the Gospel, also to those of Rome... and the anger of God will be unleashed from the heaven upon those men... who are pested with every kind of iniquity, malice, fornication, selfishness, perversity... full of homicides, malignant, infamous, enemies of God, outrageous, soberb, viced men... and who deserve... eternal... death”. - St. Paul’s epistole to the Romans, Chapter I, 14-32

After these statements (and there are many, many more throughtout their Holy Book), what else can one say? They show clearly who are the enemies of the European peoples, traditions and religion.

Please note that these are not “ancient” excerpts from an “ancient” book with no importance in today’s world: These excerpts belong to the Bible, the book hundreds of millions of people follow NOW and HERE!!! It is nothing “old” or anything, it is as actual and as real as the churches that are built throughout our Europe. It is not only actual but also is a holy book, meaning by “holy” that its followers do not read it as a novel, but blindy believe in it as it is a matter of faith! It leads Jehovah’s followers in life, both in moral and in their very deeds!

Anyone with a minimum knowledge of history and particularly the phase of the christianization of Europe knows that Christians destroyed the pagan sites and built their synagogues (afterwards called “churches”) in their places. The Vatican itself is built over ancient Roman pagan temples. In the Parthenon in Athens a church was built. In the city where I live, the Roman amphitheatre (were my Forefathers brought Christians to the lions) has been desecrated by a church built in the middle of it. And this is not only in the south of Europe, but also in the north, in the center, in the east and in the west. Throughout our mighty Europe our pagan holy sites have been desecrated by Jehovah’s servant nation.

They also threw to the inquistion’s fire the pagan symbols and killed at the stake those who refused Christianity labelling them as “witches” when in reality were pagan priests and priestess or druids. In nowadays world, the prosecution follows. Christians forbid Paganism labelling it as “satanism”.

Everything which was commanded upon His people by the jealous god has efficiently been made reality. But he who killed by the sword will die by the sword. Or, as Kassandra says in an ancient Greek legend, “those who conquered my fatherland are sentenced by the gods”.

As for the groups I listen to, they are too many to mention. Since I was a kid I have listened to Metal, so for years I’ve been buying CDs and dubbing tapes, so I have accumulated a vast collection of metal albums, with a majority of the extremest genres around (black, death, doom...)

A small (yet representative) list follows with some of my fave metal bands: Nightfall, Danzig, Thou Art Lord. Satyricon, Type O’Negative, Enslaved, Necromantia, Morbid Angel, Theatre Of Tragedy, Rotting Christ, Burzum, Amorphis, Dissection, Septic Flesh, Impaled Nazarene, Misanthrope, Hecate Enthroned, Legion Of Doom, Paradise Lost, Kaveiros, Cradle Of Filth, Marduk, Ancient, Sentenced, Death, Bal-Sagoth, Swordmaster, Dimmu Borgir, Ancient Rites, Manowar, Immortal, Lacrimosa, Emperor, Christ Agony, Tiamat, Elend, Gorefest... the list would be endless.

Besides metal I also love classical music: Vivaldi, Wagner, Beethoven, Verdi, Mozart, Rossini, Bach, Haendel, Corelli, Tchaikowsky... I am also into extreme ritual rave/trance music. I also like techno composers such as Vangelis (greek cybergod) or Jean-Michel Jarre. And sometimes I also listen to European folk music, especially greek (Theodorakis, Delinikolas, Hadjidakis...). Music I hate as hell: rap, hip-hop, reggae, rasta and pop music. It enflames my hatred and my proud Greek/Roman blood boils in burning hate!!!

7. What do you do in the days except doing music for Antiquity? I have noticed that you do a lot of pages with greek content for the internet. Tell me about your works!

Besides working in Antiquity I run many other things. Mornings I work as a graphical operor in a graphical / web firm, and on the afternoons I attend classes at the Uni, at which I study Business Management. Spare time (when had) is destined to booze and hobbies such as computeering, reading (mostly philosophy, religious anthropology and ancient history), navigating by the Net, creating webpages (as explained furtherly in the following paragraph) and travelling on vacations. I also collaborate with several zines of the known world and beyond.

Regarding your second question, as I advanced previously, yes I’ve done a good load of webpages about Greek metal as result of my devote love for anything which comes from my mighty Fatherland. I run Webzine Metalzin, a bilingual e-zine that now has reached its third issue on the WWW (before it was on printed paper). I have also done Hades: Pure Hellenic Black Art, which is a website dedicated to the Hellenic black metal scene, and built web homepages for Thou Art Lord, Astarte, Legion Of Doom, Elysian Fields, Kaveiros, Naer Mataron, Thorn and Vorphalack. I have also built famous mag Metali-k.o.’s homesite on the Net. All has been done through my creative entity Styx Productions.

Programming is sometimes boring, but the result uses to please me. When you check it out and see that everything works alright, you can hardly avoid feeling satisfied. I have also studied at my hometown’s school of graphical arts, so it helps too. It is true although that some of my websites do not have a high level concerning the artwork, but I think that what you say is by far more important than how you say it. Anyway I always try to improve them as much as I can... ...but I do not always have enough time!

8. What about the Greek metal scene? What is good and what is worse. I mean in both musical and political statements?

The Greek black / death / doom metal scene is with no doubt one of the best worldwide if not the best. I’ve travelled by most of western European countries and nowhere have I found as much devotion and mania for metal music, and even more for metal’s extremist genres such as black, death, goth, grind, doom and so on as in Greece. Metal culture is deep in the souls of the Greeks. This in not by chance. The reasons for such a tremendous success of metal in Hellas are connected with our blood and roots. Metal demands passion, strength and creativity. We all Hellenes have these characteristics in our collective soul. In fact they are the characteristics that together shape our archetype. Even word “metal” is greek-origined! So we know better than anyone else what is it all about!

Our like for metal comes from the deep within of our very souls, not only musically but also lyrically: lyrically the traditional black metal topics such as satanism, paganism, the ancient gods, mythology, romanticism towards the past, rebellion against God/Jehovah and desolate landscapes belong tou our very Greek nature. In the eyes of the Christians, we the true (pagan) Hellenes have the hell in ourselves. For instance, they are convinced that we the pagans worship Satan disguised in several different gods such as Zeus, Aris, Hermes, Uranos..., all our pagan gods. In fact their Satan is nothing but a pathetic parody of our very god Pan, the half-goat half-man horny and hairy pagan god of the forests. Satan is just a satanization of our pagan god Pan, and his characteristics are those of Pan. Or Cernunnos, for the Celts (all Indo-European pagan religions have the same gods under different names and/or attributes)

As for politics, it is true that many bands in the black metal scene promote fascist/nazi ideas under their music, and in Greece too, but this, far from being purely bad or purely good, it appears only normal if we explore the roots of both movements (fascism and black metal).

Let me remind you that black metal evolved from Satanism to Paganism and untimely Nationalism. From here we’re very close to Fascism or Nazism. As most people know, Fascism was an age of pagan revival and of the unleashment of the true instincts of European man, repressed when not asphyxiated by Christianity with its moral dogmas. This is not my opinion, but of famous Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, who saw in Fascism the revival of Zeus/Juppiter in Italy and, to a lesser extent, in Greece, Spain and Portugal and of Odin/Wotan in Germany. Both Mussolini and Hitler were anti-Christian, yet disguised it for diplomatic reasons. Also Italian fascist philosophers such as Gentile (whose books were included in the Vatican’s list of prohibited books) or Evola (who hated Christianity as explained in his book “Imperialismo Pagano” - do I need to translate the title?) and German fascist hierarchs such as Alfred Rosenberg (whose books were also included in the Vatican’s list of prohibited books) and Martin Bormann were fanatical anti-Christians.

As everybody knows, black metal is by definition anti-Christian. Also black metal is an extreme musical genre and therefore demands an extreme ideology. And what is more extreme in our contemporary civilized, Christian and democratic western world than claiming to be satanist and fascist? Youth is by definition rebel, and as Christianity and Democracy are the establishment, then it is only normal that youth rebels against the established and likes Satanism/Paganism and Fascism, i.e. their opposites.

I can’t understand how words “fascism” or “nazism” causes such hysteria in our times. The established system criminalizes fascism as if it was pure evil. Far from being nazi, I believe that democracy is no better than fascism or anything; it is man who is good or evil (if that dualism does exist), but not ideas! Human deeds are subjected to moral, but ideas are not! In fact, we Europeans cannot refuse fascism as it is part of us, part of our own past! We all have fathers, grandfathers or onkles who were fascist. I myself have! All my friends have! Indeed all Europeans have! So fascism is not the “work of the devil” as current media presents it, but the work of our fathers! So when I see reports on the TV about Fascism or Nazism, does that mean that my grandfathers were evil and merciless assassins? No way! People do not behave according to beliefs, but to the times in which they live! In fact, can we judge the behaviour ofa person away from his ambient? Would that analysis be fair? Please, I can’t believe how modern political correctness and democracy oversimplifies all things splitting things into “good” and “evil” as opposed polarities when in reality both are different sides of the same coin! I don’t believe the gubernamental shit displayed on the mass-media, and surely Adolf Hitler is no more evil than the Pope, than Mother Theresa of Calcutta or than me myself!

Besides, there is a curious and explycit connection behind black metal and fascism that I find interesting and revealing about the links between black metal and fascism: the uniform. The usual heavy metal but concretely blackmetaller’s dress consists of black clothes with pagan and/or satanic paraphernalia and skulls or other dark imaginaria. In fascism occurs the same. The arditi, the elite troops of the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, wore in black (they were called “camise nere”, meaning “black shirts”) and had skulls in their uniforms. The worship of death is something characteristic of the southern Europeans. This image was afterwards copied in the German fascist movement, Nazism, when the “totenkopf” (“skullhead”) wore also black uniforms with skulls as insignia. This not only counts for image, but also for the psychic forces that drive blackmetallers and fascists. Read more about the psychological interpretations of Fascism if you are interested; I won’t explain any furher here because this is an interview with Antiquity, not a historical essay!!!

9. Any last words?

Crush the world of Jehovah!!! Await the rise of the new Greek-Roman Empire. Hail And Kill!!!

Antiquity's homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/1430/Antiquity.html Antiquity e-mail:
antiquity@usa.net