It is not everyday that you can have a long talk with Dee Dee Altar from GRIM MONOLITH. Yes, Grim Monolith is from Italy and is being active since 2003. It’s a long journey. The project has three full ambuns, the last one “Intempesta Nox” is one od the greatests releaes from 2011. Following a path of independance in Black Metal, Grim Monolith is not tied to “left” or “right” in politics and Dee Dee is clar about this when he says GM is not a political band. So we talked a lot about metal, music, influences, Italy, the plans for the future, the fucking pandemic COVID-19, the new trends on Black Metal and what keeps it true or not. I recommend you read this interview and share to people that truly supports Black metal. Will there be a new Grim Monolith album? Only time will tell, so far, we could talk to the masterind of Grim Monolith, a figure that has a lot of influence and plays in a lot of other projects like Children Of Technology and Bunker 66.
Ladies and gentlemen, GRIM MONOLITH!
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GRIM MONOLITH is around since 2003, am I right? So how has this journey been since you guys started the project?
Yes, correct. I was 17 years old and had a natural need to do riffs and form a band. Here in Messina, Sicily, it was and still is not easy to find metal obsessed freaks so I had to struggle a lot to find people willing to rehearse and having more or less the same visions I had back then. We startet as a 4 piece, our first songs were more black thrash oriented but as soon as Dverg, our first guitar player, left the band, we immediately switched to raw black metal inspired by Bathory’s third album and all the 90’s 2nd wave of black metal. In 2005 Saevus, our first bass player, left the band too, because his bigot parents forced him to stop with metal (!) as they were schocked by the news about the “Bestie di Satana”, a bunch of not so smart guys in northern Italy involved in satanism, drugs, murders and metal music back in those years. I laugh a lot when I think of this today, but at the time I felt sad and angry as fuck… I lost a friend, a bandmate and I became even more stubborn. That’s basically when things got more serious with Grim Monolith. I forced (haha!) Urgud to play guitar and Rog became also the bass player. The unholy Venom-like trio formula worked great for us.
The first album entitled “Grim Monolith” was released in 2007 and in sequence you released “Mooncrowned”. What could you say about those albums? In which points are they similar and how are they different from each other?
Our first album was recorded almost live in the rehearsal room, only vocals and bass were recorded separately if I remember correctly. It’s the rawest shit we’ve ever done and it surely has that feeling full of youth, anger and spleen, it’s a maelstrom of those typical moods when you’re in your early twenties. It’s pretty naive but has one of my favorite GM songs “The Idiom of the Sibilant Waves”. With “Mooncrowned” we decided to record the album in a “professional” way, with a friend of me helping us to record it properly in his studio/rehearsal room on separate tracks. It was for sure a step forward and I remember it spread quite a bit in the underground. Those are very different albums because of the more thought-through approach of the second one, but the spirit was the same.
You have been in other projects like Children Of Technology, its a mix of Thrash Metal and Punk, kind of post-apocalyptic. What influenced you to be part of this project? Ando which other projects you took part in?
My main band is Bunker 66 since 2007, it’s kinda Venom/early Slayer/Celtic Frost/Motörhead worship, we just released our new album called “Beyond the Help of Prayers”. I joined Children of Technology a couple of years ago and we recorded the “Written Destiny” album together, we know each other since many years and I was happy to join them after their previous drummer left. I also play in Noia since 2016, black thrash stuff, our new album “Desolating Blaze” will be out this year. Other bands I play in are Humanoidz from the Deep, a Misfits inspired horror punk band and Temptress, 80’s melancholic heavy metal inspired by Heavy Load, Randy and the likes. As you may notice all my free time is dedicated to music eheh.
The first time I listened to GRIM MONOLITH was on Intempesta Nox and I was very impressed by the Black Metal you do. It’s raw but also has an atmosphere. Do you consider this album an evolution from the first ones?
It’s the only GM album I listen to on a regular basis, I’m still very proud of it. It’s for sure an evolution compared to the previous two, me and Urgud were on fire and new riffs came constantly in our heads. I remember that we mostly did it at my home, we were not rehearsing that much together with Rog as he was about to move to another town and things got difficult to organize, but fortunately we managed to record it again in the same studio as “Mooncrowned” that in those years became also the rehearsal room for Bunker 66. The sound was exactly what I was longing for, it’s so eerie and nocturnal, hails go to Mordor aka Bone Incinerator (Bunker 66 guitar player back then) who totally understood my musical visions and brought them to life, he was like a fourth member of the band during those recording sessions.
After the last album, we were expecting a new one, but you released a great compilation with the first albums. Did you decide bring them to the light after the success of Intempesta Nox?
Dark Ritual Tapes got in touch asking me if I would like to do a tape containing the first two albums, and I said “why not?!”. It was done five years after “Intempesta Nox” and it was just an idea of Dark Ritual Tapes which I was very happy about, cheers to him!
You have just one split released called “Memento Mori” with Rovina. How this partnership happened? It has been the last release from Rovina so far.
I think that that split tape is pretty useless because it contains two songs already contained in “Mooncrowned”. Rovina got in touch with us via e-mail and for them two already released GM songs were ok, I just said “alright” without thinking too much about it.
Are there any plans for a new album in 2021? It’s been a while that we don’t see any new materials from Grim Monolith and the band is fucking amazing!
Grim Monolith is on hold since many years, we are frozen… but never say never! I am very busy with Bunker 66 and the other bands I play with and my job for sure doesn’t help me to get more free time, I want to be 20 again!
How have you been busy during the Pandemic COVID-19? Italy was very affected last year. How are things there now?
Weird times! When it was possible to get outside of town I was busy recording the new Bunker 66 album and in August 2020 I managed to go to Florence and record the new Noia album. We even managed to play one gig near Naples with Bunker 66 in September 2020 but things got worse again and concerts weren’t allowed anymore. And here we are, May 2021, will this ever end?! Italy had a rough 2020, things seem to be a bit better now, fingers crossed for the future!
One thing I realized on your albums is that you don’t have like ten-minute songs. The songs are 3 minute songs and they really deliver the message. How does your creative process work? What comes first the lyrics or the background? And what are the lyrics about? What inspires you?
“Less is more” is what I chose for most of the music I create, it’s not even a choice because it’s always been this way, it’s a natural process. I remember first doing the riffs for GM songs, then the lyrics. On the first albums the lyrics dealt more with fantasy topics, I did create a sort of imaginary realm inspired by the woods and hills surrounding Messina, like a southern version of Immortal’s “Blashyrkh” haha! Demons, forests, darkness… very naive stuff… with “Mooncrowned” and “Intempesta Nox” the lyrics became way more mature and were about personal feelings and emotions, well hidden by metaphors and very romantic, I was living in a dreamworld! Still I am a litte bit…
If you could COVER a song from a Black Metal band which would you choose and why?
We did some gigs with GM in the past and we also played some covers during those gigs. I remember “Deathcrush”, “Elisabeth Bathory” and “Transilvanian Hunger”. Those are groundbreaking songs for sure. Today I would choose “A Call from the Grave” because it has set so many standards, unending hails to Quorthon, 90’s Norwegian black metal was already existing in Sweden in the 80’s eheh!
What are your main influences in the Black Metal scene? And what do you think of “nowadays” bands? I mean you can record a full album on your bedroom and use the internet to promote it.
My main influences when it comes to GM are Bathory and Darkthrone but basically all the black metal classics of the 80s and 90s were very important for us. An overlooked record that shaped my riffs back then was Ancient’s “Svartalvheim”, I love that album! I have to admit that I don’t know much about nowadays black metal, the only album I bought lately is MGLA’s “Exercises in Futility”, brilliant! I also enjoy some of those bands from the Nidaros/Trondheim area like Mare, Vemod… also the last Vargrav album is pretty cool, total early Emperor worship! Also the last Inquisition albums are very good in my opinion. Oh, I got some nice primitive old school black metal vibes with the first Occvlta album “Night Without End”.
Which Italian bands do you support and which ones would you recommend?
I totally recommend you “Hail to the Necrodoom” by Gargoyle, this is for sure one of the best albums from Italy I listened to during these last months. Same goes for Hellcrash and their “Krvcifix Invertör” album, early Venom worship at its best. If you like the first Slayer album you should check Insane’s “Wait and Pray”, it’s like “Show no Mercy” part 2! Of course I love all the Italian classics like Schizo’s “Main Frame Collapse”, Necrodeath’s first two albums, Bulldozer’s 80’s stuff, Mortuary Drape, early Death SS and so on… I listen to a lot of different music, the list would be endless!
Could you make a top 5 Black Metal album from all time?
Arrrghhh I would need a top 20! Anyway, I’ll try, there you go:
1- De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
2- Under the Sign of the Black Mark
3- Transilvanian Hunger
4- Svartalvheim
5- Pure Holocaust
Which album (in metal) would you like to have recorded/ and why?
I thought about this for many years, first albums by Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Candlemass and Bathory jumped into my mind but suddenly…flash before my eyes! “Ride the Lightning” is the answer… why? Because it has everything what you need in it, aggression (Fight Fire with Fire), epic vibes (The Call of Ktulu, For Whom the Bell Tolls), catchy refrains (Escape) and a power ballad for all the romantics out there (Fade to Black) haha!
Is Grim Monolith on social media? Do you consider it important for promotion or to use it as a business itself?
No, I remember me and Rog having also some discussions about having a Myspace or not back then eheh. In my opinion black metal is everything you won’t find on social media and it’s still the same for me. I know that the times have changed but when it comes to GM I prefer not let social networks interfere with the otherworldly art that black metal should be, at least for me. That being said, social networks are fore sure very important for promoting a band, almost all the information about the bands we love are now on there, I don’t know if this is good or bad but it is what it is.
We talked about your partnership with Rovina, they have the NSBM moviment on their veins. Is Grim Monolith attached to any political view or position?
Grim Monolith is not and never will be a political band. At the time I did not know that Rovina was a NSBM band and I had no clue about it until a couple of years ago, when some people let me notice it. I had for sure refused a split tape together if I had known, blame it on my superficiality back then. As I mentioned in the previous answer, black metal is otherwordly art for me and politics are the opposite, they’re so human… I still can’t understand what politics have to do with black metal, which is for outsiders and outsiders are not welcome in totalitarian regimes, therefore NSBM is quite a paradox for me. All hail sweet freedom!
Which book do you always keep on your nightstand and which record have you just listened to?
Books change constantly, I’ve actually finished reading “Confess”, Rob Halford’s autobiography, it’s one of the best I’ve read so far, such a great read! Next up is Marky Ramone’s autobiography. The last record I’ve listened to is Cursed Moon’s “Rite of Darkness”.
Thank you very much! If you could send us a message it would be great.
Thank YOU! It’s great that Grim Monolith are still remembered after all these years!
