METAL HELL: Do you view EMISARRIES as the next chapter for MELECHESH?

ASHMEDI: It’s a very intricate album. In a way it has the best elements from our debut, Djjinn & Sphinx albums. A step forward, guitar wise & drum wise it’s corresponding together very well. More matured, more dimensions to the album. I’m telling you also what the press so far is saying in their opinion as well. The song writing has improved. Basically Sphinx created a big buzz & Emissaries is living up to the expectations & beyond. I’m very passionate about this & I think it’s our most accomplished work, lyrically & musically.

MH: Do you try to intentionally give each album its own sound & personality?

ASHMEDI: Every album basically does have its own sound & feeling, it’s all Melechesh. Every song varies in Melechesh but it’s something I don’t think about consciously, you just develop. I limit myself less and that’s how the music starts to flow and this is the case precisely with the Emissaries album.

MH: Have you further explored the Mesapotamian themes on this CD?

ASHMEDI: Absolutely, I’m very immersed in it. On this album a lot of the themes resurged as always. We used new dimensions to it in the sense of we got actual Sumerian & Acadian words there written to us by a linguist that’s a fan of the band. Also there are really personal texts there as well and I also put my own view or outcome to such stories or tales. I don’t just recite or something like that, I get the theme, I put my own conclusion, I put my own interpretation. The Sumerian themes are very deep & it’s very complex & I’m very involved in it but I also added a cabalistic track and a song about my perception of the city of Jerusalem in the sense that it is an occult place & the feeling I have from it is occult & hence I feel I had to express that in a song because people get the wrong ideas about it & use the monotheistic religions & they just fight over it & I say that it belongs to none of them.

MH: Was it planned from the beginning to carve out your own style or did that come later?

ASHMEDI: Actually if you hear our first rehearsal tape you’ll hear it was raw black metal but it had the Mediterranean drum patterns so since day one we wanted to do black metal with Mediterranean drum patterns, but with time you start refining it & developing it & that’s exactly what we did. It literally became almost it’s own style, with a unique sound. We sound like no one else. If people compare us they’re obviously mistaken cause we do sound like ourselves, yet it’s not alienating, it’s not experimental, it’s credible extreme metal.

MH: Are you very demanding of yourself musically to create something totally unique?

ASHMEDI: I’m very demanding yeah. I set the bar very high yes, but not to be unique. The unique part is just part of the formula. It just happens to be like that. I don’t make a riff and go no it’s not unique enough. It has to be Melechesh, it has to feel right & you cannot explain it more than that, but the bar is very high.  It’s not good enough maybe, I say that or something like that. And the ear developed & then the whole writing process developed, but I don’t go this is not unique enough, but I do say this has to be better & even better. I do have high standards, I’m very demanding, to the point that it’s un-healthy to me.

MH: Do you see that metal can be a true form of art & a highly intellectual form of art at that?

ASHMEDI: Metal can be many things. Metal is a broad word. It could be a release. It could be entertainment. It could be a lifestyle. It could be a religion. It could be many things to many people & I’m not there to define it. What I can say is even the rawest o the raw of black metal or grindcore still has artistic value. Some bands do have intellectual value as well & some have nothing more than entertainment. In either case it depends on how you look at it, just like an art house movie versus a cartoon series for the sheer entertainment. It’s a very broad world.

MH: A lot of people under-estimate metal bands but there’s a lot of variation within metal itself.

ASHMEDI: Indeed, but also many intelligent people do see that in metal there’s an association with classical music, an intensity or a tribal feeling in a way that stems from the core need of a human for certain rhythms & not necessarily aggressions but a very instinctive expression, but not many people are analyzing it on that level but it is recognized & of course there is the more simple approach of not considering that. It’s such a vast world on its own. You need a case study of it basically.

MH: And musician sort of fans would almost see it in a different way than the fans that don’t play.

ASHMEDI: Yeah, it is different & also many of the musicians listen to many kinds of music, not just metal. I listen to a lot of kinds of music but I create metal, in my own way & I think many musicians tend to do that as well.

MH: Have any band ever inspired you to look into their lyrical content in an educational way?

ASHMEDI: I don’t know, I appreciated many of the bands that had good lyrics but they are so vast and diverse they’re completely not comparable, but as a musician I’m sure I’ve been somehow shaped or triggered by music that I grew up listening to in the metal world. It’s there, all musicians get influenced, it’s a constant evolution. The idea is it’s okay (to have influences) but try to also develop it & put your own touch on it, why not, from my point of view that’s how it is but of course I’ve been influenced by things like any other person.

MH: Did you consider printing explanations of lyrics & instruments this time around?

ASHMEDI: We’ve done that on Sphinx. If you put the CD on the computer there’s a whole multimedia file with a micro web site & there’s explanations about the instruments and the lyrics. We’ve done that with Sphinx & it was really nice & people liked it but on this album, we already explained the instruments & such before, we didn’t feel the need to do it again.

MH: Does the fact that you’ve carved your own path make it easier to know where you’re headed?

ASHMEDI: No, because we don’t think about it like that, we just take it, I wouldn’t say a day at a time but it’s a phase. I don’t know how I’m gonna react & compose in the future. I’m already having some signs. Some songs are very in the vein of Emissaries and some are completely different worlds, so it’s hard to tell.

MH: Do you think the atmosphere in black metal is more important than the technique?

ASHMEDI: I think belief is important. I guess belief is part of the attitude. You don’t have to pretend, it all has to be sincere. So long as it’s sincere and credible you can hear it in the music that it’s sincere and credible & that I guess separates the boys from the men? Or something like that, I don’t know, but it’s all about how sincere & how true to yourself you are and how much you believe in it.

MH: A lot of bands have the image but don’t have the personality & it falls short.

ASHMEDI: You said it. It falls short then. People will appreciate the music & the technique but maybe they will find that there is no depth beyond that. With the depth, it’s all by choice. If you wanna dig in more it’s nice to have substance there. It’s completely optional. If they feel like they wanna explore more it’s there, if they don’t the music is there anyway.

MH: How would you compare the different countires you’ve been based out of? Do you think your surroundings inspire the outcome of the albums?

ASHMEDI: I don’t know, I’m not actually sure. I’m living in Holland & that’s very un-inspirational in the sense of mythological and surrealistic thinking, but it did not hinder me, as a matter of fact some of my best works are from while living there. It’s all what’s in your head and you need to draw your inspiration from there I suppose, although visiting places like Jerusalem was very significant. It kind of re-charges you, but in the end Sphinx and Emissaries were written while I’m in the Netherlands, so it didn’t affect it negatively, they are my best works I guess.We started in Jerusalem back in ’93 but in ’98 we moved to Amsterdam & then the other guitar player, Moloch, moved to France, but now he is living in the USA. Not long ago he moved to the USA. This is not easy but it works I guess.

MH: Does the band operate through him coming there to record?

ASHMEDI: So far how we work is I write most of the music, he brings his riffs, we meet & exchange the ideas, I make the demos, everybody learns those demos and then we meet for periodical rehearsals & it works. With many bands they’re all living in the same streets theoretically & they don’t come up with anything special. It’s all up to the individual I suppose.

MH: How would you compare your guitar style to Moloch?

ASHMEDI: Well,  most of the songs are written by me. I cannot rationalize it. This is the way I write. Moloch has also got a different approach. He tends to sometimes make guitar leads, which sound like he’s playing a traditional instrument, and the way he is picking on it & such. When it comes to riffing it’s rather similar but when it comes to that he has that dimension. I tend to have a hectic technical eastern embedded in the metal approach.

MH: What’s your approach to writing solos?

ASHMEDI: We don’t do a lot of leads but everything is improvised. It’s not scientifically figured out, you just close your eyes & feel it. That’s what we’ve done so far & there are leads (where) I’m sitting in the studio (saying) like excuse me, give me another channel, okay I’m gonna try this & I close my eyes and I try it & I’m like I like this and I’m gonna keep it and this is what is gonna happen with it. The rhythms and the drums are 100 percent thought out but leads & vocal approaches are done on the spot based on feeling and which works for me. We experimented in the studio, we spent months there just recording.

MH: Do you find that the first few takes are the ones you keep?

ASHMEDI: Usually yes, I just don’t worry about it. I relax and try to do a few takes, but different even. There are many alternative parts we never used. There’s some hidden tracks and little textures and noises I make with the guitar, sometimes they’re very subtle-y mixed in. But the music, the rhythm is extremely deep, the rest is instinctive compositions but with the guitars the initial rhythms are all very well thought of.

MH: What inspired covering “Gyroscope” by The Tea Party?

ASHMEDI: I think they’re a great band, they’re under-rated in Europe at least & in parts of America they’re not known. I thought many bands take a metal song & cover it again & put it in the end of the album. We did that with “Babylon Fell”, but we never used that as a cover to put on the album, we did that because some record company requested us to do a Celtic Frost song for a tribute CD & we did put our own touch in the middle of it & then on the American version (of Spynx) it was added but “Gyroscope” is a conscious artistic decision. It’s a band I like, I think they have a lot to offer & I wanna share it with the metal people. I think it’s turning a lot of people who are open minded, not just to metal, to listen to it. We took an non-metal rock song which has this deep feeling, we made it into the Melechesh style. We don’t call it a cover, it’s an adaptation & they gave us full permission to change whatever we wanted and they like it. I feel it’s an accomplished work & it became a song for Melechesh & we put it in the middle of the album.

MH: What inspired some of the other lyrics? Was this a conceptual vibe?

ASHMEDI: Nah, we have a theme we indulge ourselves in, the Sumerian Mesapotamian mythology & occult & magic and its cosmic connection, about the origins of mankind, but also there are songs about the kabala & a song about or relations to Jerusalem, but I put my own interpretations in as well.

MH: Were you drawn to the occult prior to being a metal fan?

ASHMEDI: Ever since I can remember I had the same questions I have now & they’re about humanity, the kinds of behaviour, surrealistic things, I can pretty much relate to the occult. I was very conscious and drawn to it since a very young age, but it doesn’t consume my life. It’s only there. I accept it.

MH: You mentioned Celtic Frost. What are your opinions on their latest record?

ASHMEDI: I like it. It has a value that it’s made. Some albums are not necessary, they’re made for the sake of making it. But this has a value, it’s good they made it. It’s an album, which can stand out in their career. It’s a credible piece of music. It has some value. I like it.

MH: I caught them live a few weeks ago.

ASHMEDI: I heard they were in the states & many people saw them, I haven’t seen them yet. I haven’t been much to shows, but I should.

MH: In general do you think there’s still a lot of progression possible in metal?

ASHMEDI: I don’t think metal should only be progressive, I think also being traditional & basic gives great pleasure. It pleases me a lot when I hear a basic raw black metal song, so long as it’s done with feelings & with the right intentions and not just because they like the music, delivered properly. I’m not talking about great production, I’m just talking about (being) credible & the same with heavy metal. I don’t believe it only has to be progressive but I think creativity has no limits and you can go many places with it.

MH: Do you see the future of metal in songwriting more than all out aggression?

ASHMEDI: I don’t think it’s with extremity. I don’t think you should get heavier & heavier & heavier, I don’t think that’s the rule. What I’m trying to say is you can do many things, like with dynamics, with the songwriting approaches, with the influences you add to it, with the meta-morphing evolution, it’s not necessarily how heavy it gets, eventually it could just become white noise, like just constant monotone, if you keep going faster & faster & faster & faster, heaviness can be described in many ways, not just speed, it could be dynamics, it could be grooves, it could be grooves, it could be the bass guitar taking over, it could be the drums taking over, there’s so much that really it’s limitless.

MH: Bands who are really recognizable are more known for their songs & not their heaviness.

ASHMEDI: Yeah, as I said there are so many colors to the music. I think in the end it’s nice to have a band that’s recognizable even if it’s just a normal genre & repetitive but still they have their own little touch. I appreciate that personally.

MH: Who came up with the concept for the cover artwork for Emissaries?

ASHMEDI: I did, I worked with a cover artist. His name is John Coldheart from the U.K. He did a great job. We discussed it a lot. It’s relating to a lot of song titles and he captured the feeling. We worked quite long on it & I think he captured the moment.

MH: I could picture that on a vinyl.

ASHMEDI: Yeah, I think it’s gonna be on the vinyl from the inside & on the inside you’ll see the (?????). There’s gonna be a limited gatefold LP.

MH: Are you planning a video?

ASHMEDI: Yeah we’re thinking about it, it’s just getting the right conditions. We hope we can do it because personally I’d love to express the music in a video but we will have to wait & see about that right now. It’s not planned yet, but I am talking to the label about it.

MH: Are there any touring plans?

ASHMEDI: We are considering tours & we are negotiating. Who knows, maybe we’ll come to the states, we’re kind of thinking about it. I think it’ll happen.

MH: Are there any other future plans?

ASHMEDI: No, we’ve covered it. We’ve just released a new album & that’s the future & playing live & we’re gonna keep on composing.