Fields Of The Nephilim rose throughout goth’s 80s heyday, trying like a cross between Victorian undertakers and the celebrities of a spaghetti western. In 2012, as they ready to launch dwell CD/DVD, Steel Hammer caught up with singer and sole unique remaining member Carl McCoy to speak mysticism, metallic and unlucky ‘drug’ busts.
There’s at all times a sample in life. Simply because you may’t see the sample, it doesn’t imply there isn’t one. It means you might be standing too near the topic to make it out otherwise you haven’t studied it for lengthy sufficient. The 28-year profession of English gothic rock band Fields Of The Nephilim can appear unusual – maybe stuffed with fallacious turns and missed alternatives when taken at face worth. To see a sample within the chaos, one has to pay shut consideration.
They shaped in Hertfordshire in 1984, incorporating parts of psychedelic rock and heavy metallic into the period’s predominantly post-punk, goth sound, drawing on Victorian artwork and spaghetti westerns for his or her putting picture and delving into the occult for his or her philosophy. They needed to be “the choice to the choice”, and their first album, Dawnrazor (1986), and early singles equivalent to Moonchild and Psychonaut, gave the UK scene a much-needed shot within the arm, revitalizing the sound by introducing metallic’s energy and urgency into the sonic combine. Not solely would they be an affect on goth metallic acts equivalent to Paradise Misplaced and Nevermore, however on later excessive metallic teams equivalent to Cradle Of Filth and Behemoth. However after they had been on the peak of their reputation and their powers after the discharge of Elizium in 1990, they fell aside in disarray.
The inventive driving power behind the band, singer Carl McCoy, had at all times been in poor health comfy with being a rock star, but it surely appeared that now he had began retreating right into a world the place he had little contact together with his viewers. He could have gained a formidable diploma of inventive management by withdrawing from folks, however at what value? Working primarily on his personal, he could have recorded the incredible industrial demise metallic album Zoon in 1993 beneath the title Nefilim, however it might be three years till it noticed the sunshine of day and Fields themselves wouldn’t return correctly till the discharge of Mourning Solar in 2005.
By this time, Carl had deserted touring in favour of one-off gigs with nameless session gamers he known as “ghost musicians”. However one thing else was happening. Between their rebirth and a pair of sold-out Hammer-sponsored nights at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire dubbed the Ceremonies in late 2008, there was a year-long sequence of gigs held across the globe. Followers and informal observers alike may very well be forgiven for pondering these exhibits had been chosen at random, however concerns like when the venue was most cost-effective or when sure street crews had been free had been furthest from Carl’s thoughts.
After they took to the stage in Helsinki, Finland, on December 29, 2007, it wasn’t a coincidence that it was additionally the anniversary of the demise of the Russian visionary mystic Grigori Rasputin. On March 15, 2008, the band travelled to Poland to play Warsaw’s Stodola venue. Once more, no coincidence that this was the anniversary of the demise of HP Lovecraft, the writer chargeable for the best occult fiction ever and an enormous affect on Carl’s lyrics. After they performed within the Greek metropolis of Athens on March 21, it coincided with The Equinox Of The Gods, or the New Yr within the Thelemic Calendar, Carl’s faith of selection. This sample could be continued till the ultimate Ceremony itself, which was on July 13, 2008, the birthday of John Dee, the black magician employed by Queen Elizabeth I as astrologer and necromancer.
The rebirth of Nephilim was a colossal magickal ritual, traversing the globe in area and protecting a few years in time. It was supposed to harness the ability of their followers and historical past itself to assist resurrect the group as a brand new entity for the twenty first Century.
Carl, who’s at all times refused to speak immediately about his perception within the occult and ritual magick, admits that the string of live shows had been a part of a much bigger plan: “Nephilim gigs are completely different to happening The Canine & Duck to get drunk and watch an AC/DC tribute band. I take a special method to what Nephilim live shows are and what they imply. They’re a ritual as a result of they’re collaborations with the viewers – we turn out to be like one. Once we play dwell there isn’t a longer a ‘them’ and an ‘us’ as a result of our viewers is kind of particular. The entire exhibits that we’ve performed over the previous couple of years, as much as the Ceremonies occasions at Shepherd’s Bush, have been held on particular dates. I’ve by no means talked about this to anybody earlier than however I’ve received a document of plenty of births and deaths of inspirational folks. It was a part of a much bigger plan.”
Carl, who’s much more all the way down to earth than his austere picture suggests, permits himself a little bit chortle, when his obsessive fanbase, who pore over all the pieces he does in forensic element, are talked about. “Yeah, not even they realised,” he admits. “Nobody discovered. I’ve by no means talked about it prior to now.”
We’re speaking to him at present as a result of now you can also see and listen to the fruits of his seven-year labour. The 2 last gigs had been recorded and filmed and are being launched as a CD/DVD field set. “The Ceremonies undertaking is about crystallising a time limit which embodies magical moments created by Fields Of The Nephilim,” he reveals. “Having centered on the dwell parts over the previous couple of years, this represents a closure and regeneration. Ceremonies is a illustration of the place we at the moment are, from this level we transfer ahead. We proceed to evolve.”
The rationale it’s taken so lengthy to seem isn’t that Carl has been ready for planets to align, however just because he insists on doing most issues himself. “I don’t assume changing into self-sufficient as a musician, producer and editor was one thing I supposed to do,” he muses. “It’s plenty of work. Again when the primary incarnation of The Nephilim disbanded in 1991, I needed to do a undertaking on my own and have management over my imaginative and prescient. I did initially embody a few producers on the time and I wasn’t proud of the outcomes. They couldn’t image the place I used to be coming from, in order that’s the place it began.”
When requested if he thinks the occult ritual for ending one interval of the band’s historical past and kickstarting one other has labored he pauses for a very long time earlier than saying: “I really feel like I’ve been trapped in limbo for a really very long time, however now it’s time to maneuver on. I really feel it’s time to do what I do finest, which is producing new music and getting on the market and performing dwell. It’s been a very long time for the reason that band began and I do wish to go ahead reasonably than backwards.
In sensible phrases, does this imply that there’s going to be new album?
“There will probably be new materials, however whether or not that seems as an LP immediately or a sequence of EPs, I don’t know,” he solutions. “I sort of like the concept of EPs, however I don’t know. I’ve been talking to my label, EMI, about this. I’ve been engaged on new materials for the final 4 months, and now it’s time to get within the studio, get my head down and get some new music out. I ought to have one thing out in six months’ time. That sounds about real looking to me.”
Carl’s religious journey via life has been an advanced and particular person one. And that, as he doesn’t thoughts telling you, is the entire level. He merely needs his followers to assume for themselves. In very free phrases he’s a follower of latest age faith/religious philosophy of Thelema. A century in the past, infamous magician, free thinker, drug fiend and high flight mountaineer Aleister Crowley had a imaginative and prescient which grew to become the premise of Thelema and its bible, The Guide Of The Regulation. Crowley’s anarchic concept was that the twentieth Century would see the start of a brand new period of morality ruled by one rule solely: Do what thou wilt shall be the entire of the legislation.
Followers, or Thelemites, are speculated to rid themselves of outdoor conditioning and the needs of their ego and observe their one true will. Carl nonetheless sees himself as a religious particular person with magickal and shamanic beliefs: “I’ve at all times seen myself as a religious particular person regardless of how wanky that sounds. I’ve at all times felt like that. I don’t know if it’s something to do with my upbringing [as a Jehovah’s Witness] or simply the best way I’m, however nothing adjustments round me and the particular person you see on stage is the true me.”
Fortunately he ignores us once we ask if he’s the true McCoy on stage, and continues: “The particular person off the stage is the one who is making an attempt to get on in life and be sociable. Individuals presume that you just get on stage and placed on this persona. Nah! It’s the opposite manner spherical. The particular person onstage is the true me. That’s the place I really feel extra comfy. I don’t assume after I’m on stage. This can be a shamanic way of living but it surely’s in a pure manner. It’s not compelled or one thing I’ve to examine or share with anybody.”
Hopefully if you happen to join with metallic on a deeper, philosophical or ethical stage, that is one thing which may be chiming with your personal perception system. Steel’s fascination with Satanism is a really complicated factor and will by no means be taken at face worth or be generalised as only one factor, however for many people, the Satan exists solely as a metaphor for the exertion of self- will in opposition to energy constructions of faith and different types of authority that stamp down on individualism and rise up. That is one thing that sounds eerily acquainted to Crowley and Thelema.
“Loosely I’d agree that these philosophies are comparable,” Carl concedes cautiously. “The factor for me is that it’s extra of a person method. Crowley I suppose was comparable in that respect. I definitely discover there may be nothing I need from [my occult beliefs]. It’s not about me gaining issues. The end result I would like from my beliefs is merely inspiration. If my beliefs can encourage me creatively and so they can encourage the Nephilim viewers as nicely, then I feel that’s my goal in life, as a result of that in flip conjures up me.”
“There isn’t a hurt in it,” he insists. “I’m not dabbling with folks’s heads an excessive amount of. I’ve spent my life following my very own path seeing the place it’ll take me however there has by no means been any sense of, ‘Oh, I need to learn this guide and forged this spell’ as a result of that’s simply the writing of males. You will need to assume for your self.” He provides that maybe the largest hyperlink between Nephilim and metallic is thru the sound not the philosophy. “It’s an perspective factor,” he notes. “We needed to get the grittiness into our music proper from the start. Zoon [the band’s most overtly metal statement] might be the album I’m most proud of. That and The Nephilim, they’re the one ones I’m going again to.”
“Crowley was misunderstood,” he provides, interesting to anybody studying this piece who’s within the so-called darkish arts. “All folks learn about is ‘The Nice Beast’, however there was extra to him than that. By all means learn his writings, however it’s important to carry out your personal understanding of it, not another person’s standpoint.”
As for being particular about his personal occult practices, Carl is as coy as ever and can solely say: “I’ve my very own methods of formality magick. I’ve my very own rituals that I carry out however not within the typical manner that most individuals would think about. We’re not all Victorians, are we?”
So he doesn’t put on a wizard’s hat?
“No, I put on a pillow case! Ha ha ha!”
The affect of Fields Of The Nephilim stems not simply from their music and magick however via their extremely particular person picture. If goth was a style that prided itself on individualism, then The Neff had been essentially the most particular person of the lot. A long time earlier than you might purchase various clothes off the peg in shops, the Nephilim created their very own look in true DIY vogue.
“I used to be at all times impressed by plenty of Victorian imagery and movies like As soon as Upon A Time In The West,” Carl explains: “The mix was Jack The Ripper meets The Man With No Identify. I used to make my very own hats. I’d vogue them from high hats and Stetsons and stitch all of them collectively. You couldn’t really get garments just like the stuff we wore. I don’t assume we really went out and purchased something other than the apparent stuff like boots. I got here from a motorcycle background so I at all times had shitty previous leathers that I may use. The coats and the hats had been fairly important on the time however we used to throw them collectively ourselves.”
And it wasn’t simply the floor-length coats that the band bequeathed to the goth scene of the final 20 years. It has turn out to be common for artists to put on bizarre contact lenses, however when The Nephilim kickstarted this craze within the 80s it was exceptional. “I used to get mine from a man who made them for BBC dramas,” admits Carl. “It was very a lot to do with my grandfather. I used to appear like him besides he was blond with very pale eyes. I had this previous photograph of him and I had some lenses made so I may look extra like him. I suppose I used to be at all times one for not desirous to be seen. It’s what all of it comes all the way down to, the hats with extensive brims, the contact lenses, shades… I’m nonetheless the identical actually; I’m nonetheless primarily a shy child, regardless that I’ve picked a humorous profession for some- one who doesn’t like being recognised. I used to be hiding behind all these issues. I nonetheless am.”
However maybe essentially the most particular person side of the Nephilim look was created by utilizing the common-or-garden bread-making ingredient, flour. Should you went to see the band within the 80s, you couldn’t come out of the venue with out being coated within the stuff. Followers would take luggage of the powder to gigs to toss over one another and into the air, and between that and the dry ice it was typically troublesome to see various ft in entrance of you whereas they had been taking part in. When the phrase ‘flour’ is talked about, Carl begins laughing.
“It was a part of our dressing down factor,” he chuckles. “We hated glam bands, so we needed to look as dirty as potential. Additionally, there have been some very eccentric folks within the lineup and none of us had been alike, and if you happen to put us in a room collectively you wouldn’t know we had been in a band. We had been doing a photoshoot in the future and we had some clay mud with us, and we coated ourselves in it simply so we’d look extra like a gang. Then we began utilizing flour and it stayed with us. We used to like going to events the place different bands had been there. You’d know we’d been there as a result of there could be flour handprints on the backs of individuals’s jackets and round their shoulders. It was correct dressing down and other people stayed away from us due to it.”
Which brings us neatly to one of many extra unlikely sounding tales that has hooked up itself to the band. Didn’t The Nephilim’s use of flour find yourself with them because the wrongful victims of a large drug bust?
“Yeah!,” he laughs once more. “We received nicked in Nottingham Rock Metropolis by the police who thought it was cocaine. The followers used to place the flour in little plastic luggage to take it to the gigs so they may coat themselves with it. Among the bandmembers had followers again on the lodge with them that evening and within the morning one of many cleaners discovered one in every of these polythene luggage with a ball of white powder in it. So the police got here down and so they received onto the tour bus and so they discovered 12lbs of these items. Ha ha! So all of us received arrested and received carted away.”
So that they thought they’d discovered 12lb of cocaine! They need to’ve been on the brink of take the remainder of the month off…
“I do know, we received half a web page in The Every day Mirror for that one!”
Beat out the flour, brush off the mud, knock out the grime. Look nearer and nearer beneath till you may see the sample rising from the chaos.
Initially printed in Steel Hammer subject 228, February 2012