How was "Dawn of the Suffering" received by the people and the press?

The reception for "Dawn Of The Suffering" was great! It was much better
than I would have ever thought it would have been, I mean, the style of
death metal that I play is one of the most obscure, extreme, and darkest
forms of metal out there, so I was very surprised to see the response it
got. "D.O.T.S" got great reviews from over 85 magazines and webzines world
wide, and many of the people that ordered it either directly from me or got
ut through stores or distro would write me back and let me know how much
they liked it, so I am grateful to everyone that has supported DARKNESS
ETERNAL and the debut CD thus far, hail to the underground!

You told me that you were entering the studio some time ago...How is the
new recording going?
Yes, that is correct. Actually, as I do this interview I am in the studio
recording the new DE CD. So far the recording is going good, I just
completed all of the drum tracks, and the drums sound great so far, and we
haven't even messed around with sound and eq's and stuff like that yet, so
hopefully the end result will be good. I will be completing all of the
guitar tracks (rhythm and leads) by the end of this week, and then I will
complete the bass tracks and all of the vocals. Hopefully the final
product, including mixing and mastering should be done in about 3 weeks from

now, that is the plan for now, so we'll see how that goes, I don't want to
rush anything because I want this to come out as good as possible, I plan to
make it better than "D.O.T.S" in every aspect. I will let everyone know
when the CD is finished via newsletters and my website at
www.deternal.darkgod.net.

Which is the concept behind the lyrics in "Dawn of the Suffering"?
The main concepts lyrically for "D.O.T.S" are very strong Anti-Christian and
Anti-organized religion sentiments, The hatred I have for the world, the
human race, and just life in general. "D.O.T.S" is just my total and honest
expression of my most dark and hateful emotions and feelings, it is a very
personal record, and the new one will be no different, in fact, it will take
everything that was on "D.O.T.S" a step up, as this one will be even more
hateful, more extreme, more unholy, and most importantly, DARKER than
"D.O.T.S". I base all of my lyrics on my life experiences, and with
"D.O.T.S" I went through many personal tragedies and I unleashed them on
that CD, and with the new one, it will be no different, I went through more
personal tragedy and all of it will show itself in a most obscure, extreme,
depressive, and hateful form on the new CD, I promise this!

Why is Darkness Eternal a solo band? Do you have side projects that
involve other people?

There are several reasons as to why DARKNESS ETERNAL consists of only just
me, one of them being that for last three to four years of my life, I didn't
have any time to find and compile actual members to form a live unit. I was
working a regular job from 60-84 hours a week, I barely had anytime to do DE
on my own as I was doing it, plus I had a lot going on in my personal life
at those times, so that made it very hard for me to make DE a live band.
Secondly, the scene here where I live is pretty small, and there aren't very
many people into the kind of dark death metal that I play, and for me if I
was ever to form a band, absolutely EVERY member of the band would have to
be 110% into this dark and obscure music that I play. They would have to
have their hearts into it and have to have a passion for dark and extreme
metal. Also one advantage to doing DE the way I am doing it right now, is
that I have 100% creative control from all aspects of the spectrum, and that
is a good thing for me because I am a visionary. People need to understand
that DARKNESS ETERNAL isn't a hobby for me or a "project", it is a way of
life for me, plain and simple! I live for my music, I live for metal, I
live for DARKNESS ETERNAL, and without these things I have absolutely no
reason to be on this wasteland called earth. DARKNESS ETERNAL is and always
will be my main priority, but currently I am playing bass for some good
friends of mine in a band called RMC. To try to make a long story short, I
used to play guitar for RMC, but when I tried to move to the USA, I had to
leave them, so they replaced me with a long time friend of mine (and one of
the best guitar players I've ever had the pleasure of jamming with). Well,
in the meantime, they were having serious problems with their long time bass
player, so just as things didn't work out for me in the US and I returned
back home to Canada, they had a split with the bassist and they phoned me
and asked me if I could fill in for him, so that is what I am doing right
now. They are all great guys, and the best musicians I've ever played with,
and I'm glad to be playing with them and helping them out right now.
Whether it lasts or not, I don't know, as my life is in disarray right now,
but we'll see, no matter what happens, RMC is a great band and they have
been good and loyal friends to me and I am glad to return the favor, but
like I said before DE is and always will be my main priority.

Are you doing all the artwork for Darkness Eternal?
No, I'm not doing the artwork this time around. I am proud and excited to
announce that Jonzig is doing the artwork for the next DE release. I had a
bit of a bigger budget (though not much bigger) to work with for this album,
so I stretched the money I had as much as I could and I decided that I
needed to get a pro artist for this release. As well as doing DE all by
myself, I have to fund EVERYTHING myself as well, that is a lot for just one
person, so for "D.O.T.S" I was forced to do the artwork myself to save
money. After considering several artist, I knew Jonzig was the right one
for me when I saw the amazing artwork he did for both Averse Sefira's CD's
"Homecoming March" and "Battle's Clarion". Those are some dark pieces of
work! Jonzig just sent me a sample of the artwork for the new DE release,
and it is amazing!!! It totally fits the concepts of DARKNESS ETERNAL and
the new CD and it is very dark and unholy! I am extremely happy with the
way he displayed my vision, and I'm sure all the sick metal freaks out there
will love the artwork for the new CD. You can check out Jonzig's work at
his website located at www.jonzig.com, he is a phenomenal artist.

How important are the slower passages for Darkness Eternal´s music?
They are extremely important. The doom passages in my music are definitely
a defining factor in the music, and I think mixing the elements that I do
for DE, using utter despair ridden doom passages mixed with unrelenting fast
dual guitar hatred and mystical clean sections is what separates DARKNESS
ETERNAL from a lot of the bands both in the underground and in the
mainstream. Doom has always been a style of metal that I both love and
appreciate, I know that it is a very hard style of music to get into for a
lot of people, and I'm talking about strict doom here, you know, bands like
THERGOTHON, EVOKEN, and WORSHIP, but some of the best stuff I've ever heard
is from the bands I've just mentioned. Unfortunately, a lot of people have
the mentality where "oh it is so slow and boring" and whatever else, but to
me that is the whole point. Sometimes you can speak more with two notes
held out for 20 seconds each, than you can with a million notes in 2
seconds. To me it's all about the atmosphere you can create within the
different realms of extremity. To many people, extreme is thought of as
blistering speed and hyper blasting speeds of 200 mph, but to me something
slow can be just as extreme, if not more extreme, as something fast and
technical. It's all about the mood you create with the riff. If a riff has
a dark and obscure feel to it, be it fastest of the fast or slowest of the
slow, it doesn't matter, because as long as it has that feeling to it, that
is all that matters to me. Everyone will see this in the new DE record, it
has both the fastest and slowest stuff I've ever done, and it is going to be
dark, obscure, and extreme in so many different ways. I will always strive
to improve and advance with DARKNESS ETERNAL, but the roots will ALWAYS
remain very firm, there will always be doom, and there will forever be the
DARKNESS in the music, that will never change.

Has your music been labeled in many different ways: death metal, black
metal, doom metal, etc?
Yes, my music has been labeled all of the above, and to tell you the truth,
I don't have much of a problem with that. I personally refer to my music as
unholy dark death metal, but it has certainly been called doom and even
black metal, especially in Europe and Asia I find it being referred to as
black metal a lot, and think that is because to them, "black metal" has a
little bit of a different definition there than it does here in the western
hemisphere. To a lot of people I talk to there, "black metal" is more a
definition of the anti-religious or satanic lyrical content in a bands
works, where as over here "black metal" is more a reference to the faster
style of playing and high-pitched screaming vocals. So since my lyrics are
very sacrilegious, they consider DE a black metal band, and like I said
before, that is fine. The doom reference is obvious as doom is very present
in my music and I am damn proud of it too! As long as people know that
DARKNESS ETERNAL stands for unholy depressive darkness, and the true metal
way, then they can call it whatever they want if the definition applies
accordingly.

Are you recording your new material at Rabid Hunchback Monkey Studios
with Stew Kirkwood?
Yes I am. Except the studio's name has changed now, it is now called
Stoogeo. I am once again working with Stew Kirkwood, and so far it is going
great. He is an amazing engineer, he really works hard and cares about his
craft, and I respect him so much for that. He is also very easy to work
with and very open-minded, he always listens to what you want and tries his
best to get you the sound you want. For never hearing death metal before, I
felt that he did a great job on "Dawn Of The Suffering", and I'm not the
only one that thought so either, I had many people contact me asking about
him, and when I told them that he wasn't a metal producer/engineer, they
couldn't believe it! So now that this is the second time for him working
with this style of music, it feels better and more natural for both of us.
Already the drum sound is great, and like I said before, as of this
interview, we haven't even touched the drum sound yet, so hopefully all the
instruments will sound great as well. Stew also upgraded his studio heavily
since the last DE record, we are working with a lot of new microphones and
equipment including a 24 track digital board this time, where as last time
we worked with a 16 track board. He has also learned a lot in the last year
and a half, and so with all these factors into play, I'm sure the next
record will sound great.

Do you think that the death/black/doom metal scene is growing in Canada?
Hmmmm, that's a very good question. Well, it does seem like it is on the
rise here lately, especially in the west. For a while it seemed like the
scene was dying here where I live, a lot of bands became inactive, or just
altogether broke up, but things look to be picking up again here. I just
recently found out that EXHUMED, MARDUK, KATAKLYSM, and DIABOLIC, are all
coming here within one month!! I don't think that has ever happened here in
Alberta before! If we got two good shows in a year, we were very lucky, but
now it is starting to look promising. As for the rest of Canada, it is very
hard for me to comment on the country as a whole, as I live in Alberta, but
it seems like it is picking up all over Canada. I know that Blasphemy
recently started up again and are playing shows in Vancouver, seems like
CRYPTOPSY and KATAKLYSM are doing well for themselves in Quebec, so the
situation looks pretty good right now. We'll see I guess, only time will
tell, but no matter what happens, DARKNESS ETERNAL will be around for as
long as I will be around.

Do you play Darkness Eternal´s material live? Do you have hired
musicians to do so?
No, unfortunately DARKNESS ETERNAL has never performed live and no one else
has ever been involved in DE except for me. As I said before, it would be
real hard for me to turn this into a live band, that doesn't mean it will
never happen, it just won't happen in the immediate future as I have far too
much to deal with right now in my personal life. But I have to admit, it
would be great to take DE on live stage and see how it would play out, I
know I would love to do it one day, but right now I am taking everything one
day at a time. Playing live would benefit DE so much, especially in
promoting the band and it's releases, for that there is no better promotion
than playing in front of a live audience. I would love to do a full scale
tour one day, even if it's not with DE. Also, in the last year I made a
pact with myself that I would see my favorite bands play live, no matter
what it took, and I did just that, traveling from South Carolina to New York
City, and that really got me itching to get up on stage and unleash my dark
fury. Watching bands like THE CHASM, IMMOLATION, INCANTATION, NILE, EVOKEN,
and DIABOLIC play live is just unreal! Right now the main priority for me
is to complete and release the new CD to the metal masses, and to promote it
as much as I can, and the rest I will take from there.

Which are your main influences as a musician?
My main influences as a musician are the great bands and legends such as THE
CHASM, INCANTATION, IMMOLATION, and AUTOPSY. Those are the bands that
really laid in the foundation for the kind of metal that I like to listen to
and play, which is dark, depressing, obscure, unholy, and hateful metal.
All of the bands that I mentioned above are all originators and innovators,
and all of them each have their own distinctive style, and I have so much
respect for each of those bands for what they do, and for the inspiration
that they have given me. While those bands are influences on me, I do like
to think that I have developed my own sound, and that will be even more
present on the new CD for sure, and I hope to continue to advance with DE.

Is Dark Salvation Productions your own label?
Well, I wouldn't really call it a label, as DARKNESS ETERNAL is the only
band under Dark Salvation Productions, and I'm not looking to start a label
or sign bands, because I have enough trouble running DE the way I am doing
it right now, I couldn't even imagine running a label, I know that is a lot
of hard work with little gain in most cases. I created Dark Salvation
Productions for just that reason, it is my production company. As I said
before, I not only write/arrange all of the music and lyrics and record all
of the instruments on the records, I also fund and pay for everything
involving DE. That means all the recording costs, all of the promotional
costs, all of the manufacturing costs, everything. So I felt that since I
am in control of DE both from a musical and a financial position, that I
would create Dark Salvation Productions to take care of the business end of
it all. So unless anything changes, I will keep doing things the way that
I'm doing them.

Anything more to add?
Thank you very much for the interview and great support you have given
DARKNESS ETERNAL Federico and Music Extreme, I truly appreciate it, keep up
the excellent work with your webzine. Thanks to all the true metal warriors
world wide that have support DE and it's cause. There are still copies of
"Dawn Of The Suffering" available, and if you'd like one you can get it for
$12 US (World) or $15 CAN (Canada) money order (make payable to George
Velaetis) or well concealed cash to: George Velaetis, P.O. Box 5002, Spruce
Grove AB, Canada, T7X 3A2. Also for the latest news on DARKNESS ETERNAL,
check out the official website at www.deternal.darkgod.net. The new
DARKNESS ETERNAL CD is scheduled for release in October/November 2001,
Prepare for Dark Salvation!!