1. Hello my friend, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.
Sarkastus: Hello, it's my pleasure too. I'm doing pretty well so far, apart from having a few minor health issues to sort out. Club parties in Berlin take a bit of a toll, haha. In the meantime, I moved back to my hometown with my daughter, a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in order to calm down a bit and to be able to concentrate on my own works again.
2. Kerker has been formed in 2001, however you was creating music since 1996. How much exposure did you have to extreme music growing up?
Sarkastus: I became interested in metal at the tender age of 11 when I saw the covers of Iron Maiden's Killers and The Number of the Beast in a department store. I ran home and broke my piggy bank to buy the two records. When I heard them, it was all over me. Other acquisitions quickly followed, Kreator, Slayer, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and finally Venom – At War with Satan. At the beginning of the 90s I quickly discovered death metal, but noticed that in between there were always bands popping up with a raucous sound that weren't mentioned everywhere in German magazines, such as Darkthrone, Burzum, Black Funeral, and Mayhem. This gave me the desire to do something similar because I was fascinated by this raw expression of darkness and loneliness, after all, even as a small child I was a real loner.
Verächter: Same story haha.Eddie from the Killers album stared at me from the shelf when I was 8 years old. It was immediately over for me. It quickly got harder and harder. First Thrash, then Death and finally, at the age of 15, Blackmetal. In the beginning, Blackmetal couldn't really convince me. But that changed very quickly.
3. Why you decided to resurrect this project 21 years later?
Sarkastus: When the lead guitarist of my former live band Via Obscura, which has been inactive since 2004, sent me and the remaining members a remastered version of our demo and asked whether we should still release it, I felt like doing the Screams from the slumbering Earth I also have to remaster it myself, since both recordings were recorded at the same time. It immediately occurred to me that at the time I actually intended to continue running Kerker. Verächter was playing with me at Via Obsura at the time and that's how we reconnected, so I spoke to him directly about it and he was immediately enthusiastic.
Verächter: Yeah, after listening the old Via Obscura i was thinking to myself: Fuck, I did that!!! Then a deep feeling of emptiness came over me and I made the decision to buy a drum kit again after 20 years.
4. How has your musical skills evolved over the years, and what has kept you inspired to continue creating music?
Sarkastus: I'll describe it like this: there were hard times when it was impossible to think about keeping a band going, but I realized that I could never live completely without creative expression. So I taught myself how to record using Steinberg software, and often worked online with different people on Tales from the Crypt radio plays, various soundtracks and German dubbing for short art films by various filmmakers. It was far from black metal, but at least it gave me the ability to produce Kerker myself in the future. And it was these hard times, the negative experiences from them, that brought me back to the dark black metal expression.
Verächter: I was inactive the whole time. It was all just in my head. I don't know why I didn't make music, I let myself drift in the wrong direction. That was a big mistake.
5. You´ve decided to record and release three albums and one demo, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical background that you went for on the recording?
Sarkastus: I try not to be influenced by other bands as much as possible, which of course isn't completely possible, after all everyone has their influences, but with Kerker that doesn't happen consciously. However, when I listen to my music objectively, I notice that I am heavily influenced by bands like Darkthrone, Burzum and Judas Iscariot.
6. Were there any elements of the recording that proved particularly troublesome? What were the main challenges you faced in learning to mix music and how did you overcome them?
Sarkastus: The only problem was people's unreliability or creative envy, which is why I concentrated on doing everything myself if possible. The technology, well, at some point I realized that I didn't have to learn superfluously to be able to realize extensive hi-end productions for Kerker. I work with digital means, but the approach could be called more analogue, it has to sound good when it's recorded , so I don't play tricks with digital options. For me, Cubase is a mixer, nothing more.
7. As the sole member behind Kerker, how do you manage the creative process of writing and composing music, lyrics, and playing multiple instruments?
Sarkastus: First of all I guess I should note that since Verächter's entry, Kerker has been made up of him and me, nothing happens without his input or consent. There's not much to manage, basically I just do what I do. Luckily, I am intuitively able to empathize with other instruments.
8. Can you give us a glimpse into the creative process behind your music? How do you typically approach songwriting and arranging?
Sarkastus: Mostly it's a feeling or a thought, often ideas come to me in the evening and then I pick up the guitar and play until a song flow is formed and then record it straight away. The texts are then created automatically, inspired by the respective sound.
9. This is basically a solo project, but in 2003 you met Verächter and you decided to work with him to play of the drums for the album “Screams from the Slumbering Earth”. Can you please elaborate?
Sarkastus: At the time I was working as a warehouse clerk in a large discotheque, but refused to give up my metal style. One day the boss told me to go to the warehouse because my new work colleague would be waiting for me. So I went and froze. In front of me stood a guy with long hair and, like me, he was wearing the Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger shirt. We looked at each other in disbelief, stared at each other's shirts and started laughing out loud. It was love at first sight, so to speak, hahahaha. Wasn`t it so, Verächter?
Verächter: Hahahaha, yeah, unbelievable. In a fucking shithouse full of Freaks and their bullshitmusic...
Sarkastus: After work we drank a few Jack Daniels Cola together and had a closer chat. He offered me that he played drums in a black metal band called Via Obscura and that band was looking for a rhythm guitarist. A hint of fate, so to speak. I auditioned for the band and was accepted straight away. But Verächter and I had somewhat different plans, as we were both into the more original sound, and so we added Kerker rehearsals to every Via Obscura rehearsal, with the excuse of being able to warm up. And that's how the songs for Screams from the slumbering earth came about. When it came to recording the Via Obscura demo, the lead guitarist canceled the first day of recording due to illness, and Verächter and I immediately took the opportunity to use the day to record our songs with the help of Martin E. Haurand.
10. When you sit down and rehearse, does it go smooth or and you do full songs or do you really have to insist on certain parts all the time?
Sarkastus: It mostly depends on the respective situation. My ideas actually always arise in lonely times. I play the guitar and let whatever happens happen. And then the basic structure of the songs is already finished. When I work with Verächter, I play him the ideas and he then contributes. In general, I don't believe in editing the original ideas over and over again because the authenticity is lost. We're not Metallica after all, hahahaha.
11. In a world where metal can often be dismissed as mere aesthetics, your music carries a deeper meaning. What sentiments do you hope to convey through your artistic expression?
Sarkastus: Well, I don't think aesthetics is bad, but I think there's a difference between art and pure entertainment music, art always conveys a subliminal message, the truth behind the veil of lies. No fantasy stories. And we're concerned with the dark truth.
12. Black metal often delves into dark and controversial subject matter. How does Kerker approach these themes in your lyrics and music, and what message do you hope to convey to your listeners?
Sarkastus: We try to put the dark truth to music, without imaginative clichés. Even the vampire texts are realistic, after all, society is mostly about vampirism. Vampires are not mythical creatures, but normal people, and that needs to be made clear.
13. And what about inspiration outside of black metal and music in general? What else fuels your inspiration? What kind of art do you enjoy in your spare time? Literature, cinematography, theatre?
Sarkastus: I draw my inspiration mainly from my own life, nature, and the behavior of the people around me. But I also read a lot, e.g. Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Grant, H.P. Lovecraft, Ernest Hemingway, C.G. Jung, Thomas Karlsson, and so on. At the same time, I paint in acrylic myself and enjoy looking at works by Dali, Monet, but also other artists. As far as films go, mostly horror and period films.
Verächter: I don't really get inspired by anything else. It just has to blast. I'm probably an art philistine anyway.
14. Are there any plans for collaboration with other artists or musicians in the future, and if so, what excites you about the potential of those collaborations?
Sarkastus: Not really, Kerker always consisted essentially of Me, Verächter and our producer and fan Martin E. Haurand. And it will probably stay that way. We're a bit conservative there. If I wanted something different, I would join other bands, but Kerker remains Kerker.
Verächter: I have another project in planning with a good friend from Wuppertal. It's going to be a bit faster overall than Kerker, but it's still in its infancy.
15. Black metal as a genre has been considered a philosophy by some, while some others consider it an avenue to express their anti-religious sentiments. What are your views on black metal as a whole?
Sarkastus: Hard to say from today's perspective. Maybe because the German scene didn't have so many murderous scandals? Maybe because the Scandinavian bands understood better how to promote themselves, with image and scandals attracting more people than pure music? It's not known exactly. Well, we are no longer in the early 90s and we can see that even the scandalous bands of the time have become more fan-friendly. But I think that thanks to the media, the names of these bands stay in people's minds longer than those of bands that just want to play.
17. You are pretty mature and experienced person, how do you see the scene nowadays in comparison to what happened a decade and even two decades ago?
Sarkastus: Ah, the good old then and now question, haha. I think back then it was more about your own expression, your own visions, than about letting record companies show you how to reach the largest possible audience and thus huge sales figures. Back then, each band had a pretty unique sound and you could tell each band from the other relatively quickly. Please don't take it against me, but these days I often can't even tell whether the new Abigor or Mayhem is playing. That's why I even took a break from new publications for a long time in order to be able to concentrate more on my own visions. Maybe that's why Kerker sound the way they do. I had to laugh a few years ago when I saw a funny home video on YouTube from Tiamat's Johan Edlund in which he said: The 80s want their metal back. I think he was right about that.
Verächter: I'm not interested in the outside stuff. What matters to me is just the music, the art itself.
18. Also, how do you feel you have developed as musician and do you think you look at music a little differently now that you’re older?
Sarkastus: All I can say is that everyone will hopefully develop further in some way. Back then, I often wanted to implement things that I wasn't yet able to do, so many ideas only remained in my head. Back then, people looked outwards more, but the older you get, the more you think about yourself. Today I can do exactly what I want and don't think about it so much anymore and do it it is easy. Of Vampires, Darkness and Pest, for example, only cost me 2 weeks of life, I did everything myself, I only called in the old Kerker producer for the mastering. Even with lyrics, I no longer think about what sounds best, but rather use the words that come out of me. And so it is with the coverartworks I create by myself, too.
19. And now we have finally come to the end of this interview, do you have some important words for our readers.
Sarkastus: Stay heavy and always true to the thing,and please listen and download our albums.
Verächter: Don´t waste time, live your dream, buy our albums... ...salut...
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