1. Hi, guys! For first tell me more about the band.

– Ia! We are SATURNIAN MIST from Tampere, FINLAND and we play OCCULT BLACK METAL OF DEATH. We are seven member band with three or four drummers (depends if I play percussions too while I’m doing vocals, most of the time yes) and our main goal is to combine the working with the occult and artistic expression into one package. SATURNIAN MIST was formed in 2006 by me and fra. Chaoswind and ever since we have spread chaos magick in the form of black metal. To the date, We have released two full length albums ”Gnostikoi Ha-Shaitan” (2011) and ”Chaos Magick” (2015), which was released by legendary Candlelight Records in May and now we are going for first tour in Eastern Europe in November 2015 titled Chaos is the law tour to celebrate the release of our second album Chaos Magick.

2. What you’re put like meaning in this name?

– I have been always obsessed with the archetype of the Devil and the Occult, from the very yearly age, so it was natural to name your band to represent the things you want to write about. As I believe that ”the Devil” is an archetype, and it has equivalencies in all cultures, like Saturn God in Roman mythology, Kronos in Greek, Loki In Norsk, Samael, Seth in Egypt, Louhi etc…. I liked the ”Saturn” very much because it also was given name to one planet of our solar system, and it was also used in Hermetic and Alchemical symbolic systems. Most of the deities tends to have strings attached to religions that too excessively emphasis the idea of personal gods, which I don’t want to support, and with so many symbolic ways to interpret with still ”The Devil” on the bottom – ”Saturn” grew up very fast to my aesthetic and philosophical liking. I also found out that term ”Saturnian” was also a long lost poetic form of Romans, which patterns are still unknown to modern world and also that it was used in the context ”Reign of Saturn God” in the old world. More I searched, more I found reasons to use it to describe our band. Mist in turn was just good thing to symbolize ”Aura”. But, more the time passes, I always find new ways to interpret the name and it grows with us.

3. In Greek mythology, Saturn is known as Kronos, lord of the time who was responsible for the death of everything material. At the same time, Saturn was honored as a necessary element to achieve enlightenment? What is the

symbolism personally for you, as far as you have a song „Golden Age of Saturn“?

– What I said in the earlier question was good preludium for this then, heh. I believe that the universe (and the truth) is the same for everyone from it’s fundamental core but we as separate beings with individual consciousness are lacking skills to perceive it as it is. All the nations, cultures, people tries to perceive and describe this ”the world as it is” and thus the religions and mythologies are being born. Like said, Saturn is Kronos. Same essence, different name by different religion/culture. I just choose to use ”Saturn” for the aforementioned reasons which I prematurely explained in question 2, and through this symbol I approach the very archetype that in the hindmost reality don’t have a name. All the names and forms are man made. I have developed very personal relationship to many different symbolic beings and forces of the nature, but I think Saturn, Satan and Shiva are the most important ones for me.

4. In your texts you have everything, Chaos, Voodoo, Hinduism, Satanism. To which gods you’re pray in the end? Where do you think are the roots of today’s beliefs (I don’t like a lot the word religions)?

– Why I use, combine and mix the elements of different belief systems, religions and mythologies are actually based on the same assumption that my assumption of the verity of the archetypal core of the ”world as it is” i.e. that every God has it’s equivalent in other cultures and so on. For me, Hinduism, Voodoo for instance are just mythological and metaphorical languages equal to Gnosticism/Neoplatonism/Ancient Greek or what not. They are same things in their core, with only different cultural preferences that could be easily reduced to survivalism and geographical location of the culture in question. To answer the question, I ”pray” the ”gods” that are behind these names, because the names only refers, points direction and pushes the buttons of your brains. This is kind of principle of Chaos Magick itself, and that’s why my relationships with the ”gods” (I want to say ”gods” not god, because word god is very misleading and easily understood through some Christian Jehovah belief system) develops while I develop, but the one has been always the same is the obsession towards the archetype of the (so called) Devil, to which I referred above with three of the most important ones, Saturn, Satan and Shiva (which I believe to be the same essence, described only with different names & cultural backgrounds)

5. Do you think the old cults and beliefs are revive or more free access to information create some „fashion“. People tend to decorate themselves with the symbols and to talk about mysticism, not even aware of the meaning?

– Trends, fashions come and go, there are always people who just want to go with the flow and don’t think themselves. Our music is not for them. I don’t think old cults and beliefs are making come back as they were back in the days. Everything that was truthful, meaningful, significant and useful will come back alive from these old world teachings to develop the errors in modern thinking, and on the other way looked, the meaningful and useful things of modern thinking will help to understand the errors of the past world teachings better. Knowledge is cumulative thing, it builds on the top of the earlier, and sometimes one step ahead forces you to take two step back to see if the first step was right or not if you allow me to rip off this Buddhist wisdom directly. At least I don’t want them to return as they are, but more refined, improved and adjusted. Thesis, Antithesis -> Synthesis. The next step of spiritual and mental evolution is the one Chaos Magick (philosophy) is paving now, everybody who are into these kind of things, should search out what ”Chaos Magick” is.

6. Are you called you Satanists and what in general means for you the definition of „Satanist“?

– I see myself as a Satanist, yes, but seen through the archetypal and occult world view I briefly have described earlier in this interview. Even I have respect for LaVeyn Satanism, I don’t see myself as LaVeyn, nor traditional Theistic Satanist either. Ethically, I see ”Satan” and therefore ”The Devil” as a symbol enlightened individualism and of rebellion towards spiritual authorities on the quest of being ”the master of your own house”, but also as metaphysical essence of everything that is seemingly dangerous and destructive but in the end, creative towards more better forms. If you read the myths regarding the Satan, smart reader cannot go without noticing that Satan is in a way a symbol of idealism and ”to worship the Devil” is to be idealist and ”to worship God” is to be realist (to take sort of a given, that to worship God is to submit). This needs to be taken in very metaphorical way and not literally of course. It is only anyway a term among the others, I could be easily call myself as ”Saturnist” as well as ”Satanist”, but why bother cos ”Satanism” has some established reputation and ethical connotations that I do not want to get rid from myself. Besides, it is nice that name ”Satan” still is terrifying and provoking, even we are supposed to live in secular Europe.

7. Black metal in Finland is very distinctive as sound. Fan of the style would hardly go wrong with Swedish or Norwegian black for example. What do you think distinguishes it from the rest of the black metal scene?

– This is kind of hard to answer for couple of reasons. I don’t tend to think things via these kind of glasses. I perceive bands as individual acts, not as part of any scenes. And also, we are not the most typical Finnish black metal ourselves either and have kind of little resemblance to this traditional Finnish black metal sound anymore music wise I think (after we made our demo in 2008 of course, I think the critics who think that we still continue this way are blinded by the fact that we had Horna, Sargeist, Azazel and ex-Baptism connection within in our line-up), as we combine elements of voodoo music, death metal and traditional heavy metal to our black metal sound. But, from the top of my head, maybe it’s the certain distinctive melancholic undertone that lies deep within every Finnish ”mindscape” and culture.

8. In essence, the Swedish and Norwegian black are anti-christian, the basis of their idea is a return to old Nordic cults. Kalevala, however, is a very different epos. What Finnish black metal bands sing in addition to mysticism and occult magic systems? 🙂

– Probably sex (if you believe Oscar Wilde that everything is about sex but that sex is about power)  , winter war and forests. I don’t know, I just follow and remember the things that interests me hahah, and rest I forgot almost immediately.

9. Im wonder how you found and contacted with Belgarath and how did you came to collaboration for this concert?

– As the Bulgarian shows are part of our Chaos Is The Law Tour in order to celebrate and promote our second full-length album Chaos Magick, our booking agency RTA (all hail Kris & co!) did all the bookings and therefore connected us to all bands who play with us.

11. You will play with Moribund Oblivion. Do you know them before and are you familiar with their art?

– Unfortunately the Eastern European scene is not so much known in Finland besides Poland and Ukraine ones (don’t know actually why), so no, but I checked them out when the shows were in planning phase. Lots of interesting bands are playing with us during our tour and looking forward to it.

12. Tell me more about the work on your new album „Chaos Magick“? The ideas behind and the messages?

– We wanted to make soundtrack to Chaos Magick that is actually a real philosophical and occult movement which we relate ourselves very much but of course with our own left-hand-path-ish interpretation of it. Musically we wanted to compose appropriate equivalent to the thematic side. As we have Shamanistic, Voodoo and Oriental influences there besides the obvious ones, we added those too to the music with very chaos-oriented way, as you can see with the varied use of string instruments and extra percussions. But same as with Chaos Magick, it is only chaotic on its surface – but there is order hidden when you take a closer look, we wanted to compose a musical outfit similar to this. For thematic/ message side, I don’t want to interpret it on behalf of the listener because I don’t want the artist to interpret the lyrics on behalf of me when I myself get known to new music fork instance, the way listener perceives it is more personal and truthful and the best art has different ways to be experienced and interpreted – but you get a gist of what it is also based on this interview I think. You read the lyrics, you get the message… probably, (haha). The titular song ”Chaos Magick” gives some microcosmic definition of the whole album’s thematic side:

”I was here in the dawn of time
All my parts existed before me
Every atom and every monad
I carry with my body, mind and soul
remember the undivided origin
which emanated the seven rays
of creation

Reality is stranger than fiction
that is a lie through which the truth is told
Is a Man a mistake of God?
Or a God a mistake of Man?

This shall end now!

O’ Jupiter, the father of thunderstorms
O’ mightly Lilith, reveal these doors
Thy Black Sun, alight the waters below
612, do mark the essence of chaos

The thousand faces of yours
alight with thousand names
Only look from you and my heart is burnt
Descend into my soul and make it your own
I shall break down and become the One

Reality is stranger than fiction
that is a lie through which the truth is told
Are we the children of Gods?
Or are the Gods children of ours?

Leviathan – O’ master of the seas
O’ Samael – the bringer of knowledge
O’ Lucifer – the brightest of the all stars
Under the great shadow you are the one
The one and same being
dwelling above and below
churning through the wheels of time
veiling the Bornless One
sitting on the throne inside our heads
which contents are all around the world

Saturns-Chronos is rising, rising, rising again
O’ Mangala – Shall open all these doors
O’ Kali-Ma – Shall destroy all the worlds
Lord Ahriman – makes a vision of the perfect world
where all Gods have died and the gates are open
into the unmanifested
into the final peace
Avichi-Nirvana
Apatheia
Death”
– Chaos Magick (Saturnian Mist)

13. So 9th of November Ruse and 10th of November Sofia. For what to prepare themselfs Bulgarian fans? I hope you will bring with you that awesome T-shirts with the Black sun and some other merch stuffs?

– Prepare for re-definition of chaos in the form of black metal. Or buy our releases, either way is cool. And yes, we have lots of merchandise with us during the whole tour, so save some cash. See you VERY SOON.

Some last words and thank you for that interview!

– Thank you for in-depth interview. Chaos is the Law!