Azamoth (check their Myspace site here) is a black metal band hailing from Jerusalem. Azamoth, incidentally, means “bones’ in Hebrew. A few months ago, they toured Europe with Lord Belial, Dark Fortress and Born of Sin. This interview was written a few weeks after they came back. Scorch, the lead vocalist and bass player, was kind enough to answer my questions.

MI: You’re one of the first Israeli unsigned bands to tour Europe. Has that made a difference in your fan base here?

SCORCH: Well I don’t know about that, I guess it had to affect it in some way because people look at it as an impressive achievement and become more interested in everything concerning the band.

MI: How did you get the gig with Lord Belial?

SCORCH: The Guys of Lord Belial and me are good friends for several years already. I even visited them in Sweden and stayed at Thomas’ (vocals/guitar) place. I was the person who organized the whole tour thingy (through Bruchstein Records) so it was only a matter of asking them to be the headliners. With Dark Fortress it was a bit different, they had to be booked like any other band. And Born of Sin are just good friends of the Lord Belial guys (some are even relatives), and I already knew 2 of them from online chats, so they just fit extremely well for the slot of the 2nd supporting act.

MI: Was touring Europe all it was cracked up to be?

SCORCH: Touring in itself was pretty much as imagined, tons of booze, tons of uhm… other “fun stuff”, no groupies though hehehe… the tour was a bit disappointing at a few points. Most of the fuck-ups were due to Bruchstein Records- fuck-ups of bad organization. The main buzz-killer of the tour was when Mathias’ (vocalist of Dark Fortress) health forced Dark Fortress to quit the tour after the gig in Munich.

MI: How big were the audiences out there?

SCORCH: The audiences varied a lot. If I’d have to estimate, they were in the range of 50-200. But hey, it’s Europe… They have a “big gig” every day, so the audience is just thinking “Shall I go see Gorgoroth today? naaaah…. there’s a Gorgoroth gig next week anyway, today I’ll go see 1349…”.

MI: Did you get any shit about being from Israel?

SCORCH: Hmm, Well as far as I remember, and I don’t remember much, I don’t recall any (negative) thing concerning us being from Israel.

MI: Why do you think there’s such a huge black metal scene in Israel being that it’s such a well, monotheistic country?

SCORCH: First of all I don’t see how you got to “HUGE” I’d define it as “Micro-mini-small”… but each to his own I guess. I think Black metal is mainly about rebellion, and mainly against religion, so it would make sense that the more religious the country is, the more people will want to rebel against the illusion people call “Religion”.

MI: I know you have a tattoo of ‘Thor’ on his arms in runes. Are you all that strongly into it? Except Gidi Schwarz (the drummer), I know he doesn’t care.