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Black Anvil Are Heavily Armed and Just Waiting for You to Talk Shit

The NYC black metal brawlers talk brass knuckles, 9/11, and KISS.

Here’s a straight-up fact for you: Black Anvil have written some of the most vicious and satisfying black metal laid to tape in the last few years. Formed in 2007 by vocalist/bassist Paul Delaney, guitarist Gary Bennett and drummer Raeph Glicken—all ex-members of NYC hardcore outfit Kill Your Idols—Black Anvil deliver their blackened goods sans corpsepaint but with a distinct New York edge. The provocative artwork for their third and latest album, Hail Death, includes a Metastazis-penned illustration of Satan falling from the World Trade Center, while the album itself features an unlikely cover of KISS’s “Under the Rose” from their universally reviled record Music from the Elder. Too soon for 9/11-baiting, you cry? Music From The Elder sucks donkey dicks, you moan? Delaney says you can fuck right off. Among other things.

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[Note: Black Anvil will be playing Hail Death in its entirety at St. Vitus in Brooklyn on July 20th. Buy tickets here.]

Noisey: You, Gary, and Raeph were all in Kill Your Idols. Black Anvil is obviously a lot different sonically, but does it feel that different when you’re basically playing with the same guys?
Paul Delaney: It’s just as natural doing this now as it was doing Kill Your Idols back then. There are differences, of course—we’re all in a completely different place personally and on a different page musically. And there’re also different people in charge of the words and music. I mean, there’s a reason Kill Your Idols broke up. [Laughs] We did five reunion shows last year, and let’s just say other people’s old habits resurfaced quick. I can’t relate to that shit anymore.

You mean Kill Your Idols or the hardcore scene in general?
Both. There are some bands I’ll always love, like Madball. Agnostic Front will always be an important band to me. There’s even some newer bands, like Suburban Scum from New Jersey—I fucking love them. But for the most part, I feel like I’ve heard it before.

Does the self-appointed “true black metal” crowd not take Black Anvil seriously because you used to be in a hardcore band?
Every interview I’ve done, the first question is, “Why did you switch to black metal?” I’ve seen two reviews of the new record so far, and both of them say, “I can hear their hardcore roots coming through.” You tell me where you hear hardcore coming through. I hear more punk on a Bathory record than I do on Hail Death. [Laughs] People are just unoriginal in what they say and really don’t do their research.

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All the Black Anvil records are killer, but Hail Death feels like it has more of a cohesive vision. Does that make sense?
That makes a lot of sense. In actuality, the first record was just the three of us psyched to be in a band together again. The second one was like, “Alright, we gotta write another record.” With this one, we were in the zone.

How so?
Well, a lot of shit kinda stalled us, which turned out to be a good thing. We demoed a bunch of songs and sat on them for a while because I had to fucking move twice and Gary had a kid. So life got in the way. But that turned out being good because we were able to let the songs grow and figure out what was necessary and what wasn’t. It was a good weeding out process. We’re usually in such a rush to get things done, and it’s always right down to the wire. This time we actually finished with time to spare, which is a first for us.

You had enough time to learn KISS’ “Under The Rose.” Thousands of bands have covered KISS, but pretty much no one covers anything off of Music From The Elder.
Dude, I got that record when I went to Japan with my mom in 1988. She used to collect and sell toys. Me and her and her ex-boyfriend went to Japan for like a week. I found Music From The Elder on cassette, and it had that extra strip of paper around it, that OBI thing, that Japanese CDs and albums have. I’d never seen a cassette like that, so I got it. I was like ten or 11 and I loved Kiss but it was the first time I’d heard that album. So that one just sorta stuck with me and never wore off. I don’t love every song on that record, but I think it’s great.

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How’d you convince the other guys to do it?
I’m the guy in the van who puts stuff on just to piss people off. I’ll put on St. Anger or make everyone listen to the radio hits off of Load and Re-Load that I like. I get real cranky and become a tyrant. [Laughs] So one time I put Music From The Elder on and Raeph was like, “We should cover this.” I was just like, “Done.” It wasn’t even a conversation.

One of the things that all the Black Anvil records have in common is that they’re genuinely vicious-sounding. With some bands, the anger seems contrived—or it’s of the crybaby, “Mom, the pool’s dirty!” variety. But you sound really fucking pissed.
[Laughs] I love hearing this shit. Finally someone gets it. We are pissed. That angry cut just comes natural to us. It’s sort of always looming. It goes with the territory of this shitty fuckin’ life.

I imagine living in New York doesn’t make things any easier.
Yeah, especially now. We all grew up here, which is completely different than people who came here to go to college who start bands or people who move to Brooklyn and start bands. When we all started going to shows, a lot of shit would go down. Just taking the train to and from CB’s and walking home at one in the morning was fuckin’ sketchy. I grew up in Jamaica, Queens. There were definitely times when I’d see a group of people turn a corner coming towards me and I’d cut through a yard instead. Or you’d tough it out and carry a box-cutter. It was literally like that. And I don’t mean it in a tough-guy way. That was what you’d have to do, or you’d get fucked up.

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Did you carry a box-cutter?
Oh, yeah. [Laughs] Of course. All sorts of weapons, over time. Right now in the car I’ve got a set of brass knuckles and a little bat in the back.

Have you ever been attacked?
I got jumped once. I got a gun pulled on me, I got clocked, and I got robbed. There’s nothing you can do when you see a gun come out. But there was all sorts of shit to look out for. Being a dumb-ass kid, I used to steal people’s bikes, set things on fire, all kinds of stupid shit. I hung out with all Puerto Rican graffiti writers, and we were all assholes. But the flipside is that New York is not what it used to be. It’s easier to get good coffee, but you’ve got annoyances of a different kind. I miss the edge that New York had, but at the same time I like a good cup of coffee. [Laughs] But we still dabble in shit. There’s some element of scumbag in our lives, ways to earn money and things like that. Luckily, we still have an element of savage in us.

Speaking of New York, the artwork for Hail Death is ballsy. The back cover of the vinyl—and the CD booklet—is an illustration of Satan falling from the World Trade Center.
Yeah, it’s pretty jarring. It was done by Metastazis from Paris, who’s done stuff for Behemoth, Alcest, and Watain. The first thing I saw by him that really stood out was an Antaeus record called Blood Libels. I loved the CD and reached out to him. He wrote back and ended up doing our second record, Triumvirate, and just created this universe for us. So for this one we just sent him the music and the lyrics and told him to do his thing. He just gets it. He’s really into the New York thing, keeping it urban, but with sort of a religious feel. When I saw what he came up with for Hail Death, I knew it would tick people off. But it should. We’re a black metal band from New York. We don’t need to push buttons just to push ’em—we do that on a daily basis just by existing. [Laughs] But I can’t speak to why he created that image. I guess he just had it in his head. I can’t say it was my idea.

The record isn’t out yet, but have you gotten much feedback about that particular image?
A couple of people at the label and certain friends have been like, “Oh…” [Laughs] But fuck it, you know? I had a cousin die in the World Trade Center. Kill Your Idols were on tour when that happened. We were at a Motel 6 in Ogden, Utah. So I know what it was like to finally get in touch with my mother, after the phones were jammed all day, and find out that my cousin Bernard was missing. He was on the 115th floor, so he never had a chance. But the political aspect of it is something I don’t even think about anymore. I’m sure there’s more to it than meets the eye, but we’re not a political band.

Your record probably won’t be on the radars of too many people who would get really bent out of shape about that sort of thing. But it’s funny because the introduction to Mad Men, which is one of the most popular shows on television…
Yeah. I’ve never seen the show, but somebody just sent me a photo of a billboard for it today: It’s a guy falling out of a building. That’s actually gonna be my get-out-of-jail-free card—how many people watch Mad Men, you know? But if anyone says anything about the artwork for our record, it’s gonna be all Internet bullshit, and those people can fuck off.

J. Bennett is in no way related to Black Anvil guitarist Gary Bennett. As far as he knows.