DEICIDE

(adj.) To kill god

Deicide. The name is synonymous with violence, satanism, animal abuse and general uncompromising obnoxiousness that got band vilified by the press and provoked death threats from animal rights groups and a bombing in Oslo. Deicide's response was to arm themselves in their onslaught of the planet and it seemed likely that their prophecy that they would die at 32 would come true. Then nothing. The years passed and all remained quiet until recently when a new deal was announced and I got to meet the man once labelled as evil incarnate: Glenn Benton.

-Shan Siva

So you're now on Earache after many years with Roadrunner.
Glenn: Earache gave us the record deal we were looking for. It¡¦s just great to be off Roadrunner man. I'm tired of Roadrunner. No promotion. No co-operation. Basically they're no longer a metal label, they're just into what happens to be in. I haven't changed, I'm the same person - just getting older. No spikey red hair har har!

Well Morbid Angel don't have red hair but they seem to have become massively successful while you guys still seem to be underground.
Glenn: Maybe we just didn't get the same opportunities. Maybe we're just not so good at kissing ass, cutting people merchandising deals or opening for some punk band on tour when they're not even paying us enough money to pay for our fuel. So what if they've got a big crowd, that doesn't make us a bigger band, just a cheaper one. Were you at the Dynamo the year we were supposed to play?

Yes, they told us you guys had an argument with the organisers and walked off.
Glenn: No, that wasn't the situation. What happened was that one of our flights got delayed by a day which meant that instead of arriving 12 hours before we were meant to play, we got there 30 minutes before they told us we were due to go on. No shower, no food, no soundcheck. Nothing. We get there and its like "you're on in 15 minutes" and our fuckin gear hadn't even arrived. Steve's drumkit was still in the bus in the parking lot.

Yeah, in fairness I guess the DOA guys weren't imaginative enough to just give you an alternative slot.
Glenn: It just wasn't humanly possible and we were disappointed too. Everybody just blamed it on us of course.

You guys have been together many years, what's kept you together?

Glenn: What else would we do except Deicide? This is what we do. I don't have a job, I just do my thing, ride my Harley....and drink har har! I live out in North Florida which is woods and country so I don't even bother with a helmet man, I just ride. We're into doing our thing and keeping it simple, that's why we've stayed together as a band all this time. Just staying away from the bad side of the business. We have our ups and downs but when it comes to the band each of us knows who we are. Roadrunner have a way of destroying bands by breaking them up financially. We outlasted them, we never put ourselves in a position where we owed them and therefore they had control no over the band.

Tell us about the "mark' - is it true you have to keep re branding it?
Glenn: Yeah, in fact I was gonna do it recently but I discovered another form of pain - from body piercing instead har har!

Do you still have the same anti Christian views?
Glenn: We all do and I think that's again why we¡¦re all still together. I'm an ordained Satanist, not by LaVey's church but by people on the East Coast and its not Hollywood Satanism. I'm not looking to convert anyone but those people are totally into Deicide man, so let's say they're definitely not Christians har har. You do the math brother... a lot of Anton's stuff, like his black mass, was taken from other places and people in order to establish his religion. But I was never into the leotards and theatricals - that's Hollywood Satanism. What I believe in is using my mind and not stupidity and ignorance so it's anti God and anti Christian. It's not about killing babies but against the mentality that says "If you do that, you're gonna go to Hell". Its about expressing yourself without saying a word and letting them know where you are so you don't have them propositioning you for God. If you look at me, you just know that I'm not into going to church on Sunday morning har har! They need new members to keep their bank accounts full and they need people to believe their lie but I do as I wilt. It's not about getting drunk and burning up a church or spraying Deicide lyrics on the side of a school or killing the neighbor's dog and blaming it on us, that's not Satanism but adolescence fuelled by childhood rebellion and confusion at that age. You see anybody my age doing that?! It gives the Christian communities a reason to label us the way they do and lump us all together and make us look cheap, stupid and dangerous. We're into exposing the negative realities of Christianity but in an intellectual way.

The metal world seems to have a lotta different scenes these days!
Glenn: We were just a metal band when we started. It wasn't about black metal, doom metal or death metal then although we were actually labelled a death metal band at first. We didn't care for labels. C'mon man, I don't even know what the "death" thing is all about, I don't even write lyrics or sing about death, I just write the shit that comes outta me. Be it the spirit speaking thru me or whatever you wanna call it har har! That's how I write lyrics, just by letting my twisted fuckin imagination run wild.

Do you still kick people in?
Glenn: Yeah, I used to go to shows, get in the pit and fuck people up! Eric still fucks stage divers up, like last night! Look, if you wanna stage dive, fine. Get up onstage and dive off but don't stand around dancing, bouncing into our shit, tripping over our pedals and fucking our set up cos then we're gonna fuck you up.

So the band is the same, what about the music?
Glenn: The new material is more like the old shit you like, the first 2 albums. Its gonna be less repetitious but with more texture, not the back peddling bullshit we did on the last 2 albums for Roadrunner. Those 2 albums are redundant. We even contemplated writing a country album just so we could hand it to 'em and say "here ya go".

How come you guys are still alive - didn¡¦t you have a suicide pact to die at 32?
Glenn: Yeah, yeah...ok, we were doing this interview and we made a mistake of doing it in a bar so before we even started we were all fuckin hammered. We were just rambling and talkin shit and generally being fuckin lunatics and this guy was just calmly writing it all down - the premonitions of Isaiah 3 or whatever har har har har!

And what about the animal torture allegations?
Glenn: Hur hur, y'know it seems to be ok if you take a rat trap to kill mice in your house right?

Seems reasonable I suppose.
Glenn: Man, I didn't do anything worse than that!

Uh oh.
Glenn: I did this interview for NME (dweeb music paper) and they drove out to meet me at my parent's house. At the time we had a problem with squirrels getting into the attic, chewing all the electrical conduit in the house and exposing all the wires. I managed to get the whole family (of squirrels) out without killing any of them except for this one persistent fucker. Everytime I'd block the hole thru which they came this guy would somehow get back in and it became a sorta battle between us. I tried to catch him and he¡¦d get away and this went on for a while. So, I'm doing this interview with these British guys and we're sitting out in the backyard which had a clothes line going across it and then this fucker comes out, strolls along the line and just fuckin sits there! This is no lie, he's just perched on the line, watching the interview. So I got my pellet gun right, and "bang!", took him right out and he hits the ground har har. All the NME guys were totally horrified and the next thing was all this Glenn Benton "animal killer" shit but what these people don't realise is that I live in the country and that's how people are there. I mean, there's millions of squirrels out there, you ain't gonna miss one man.....

It sounds like you've had to deal with the same shit as guys like Chris Barnes.
Glenn: Cool, me and Chris Barnes are both from the same town, Buffalo. It's a dump man, seriously, it's all in the water. A lotta pollution. It's a really depressed place with a fuckin supreme high in unemployment. But I go back occasionally to see my brother cos he's a fireman and I just dread the place y'know. He loves it up there though but it just seems run down, shitty...he's the good brother and I'm the bad one har har!

How has Deicide affected your family and friends?
Glenn: I'm divorced. That says it all right there doesn't it? I guess it was mutual but I do my own thing and even my new girlfriend understands that. I am who I am. Its jeans, t-shirt and Harley boots no matter where I go. You wanna dress for the occasion, fine. Just don't ask me even if its the fucking Bahamas!!!

No kiddin' the Bahamas?!
Glenn: Yeah bro, har har so there I was on the beach, sitting on an ATV in jeans, a t-shirt and Harley boots har har!

Man, it's been a pleasure - and I survived!
Glenn: No problem, thanks for giving me the opportunity to set the record straight.