Glen Benton is the face of Satanic dying steel. Actually… having branded an inverted move on his brow in his early days of fronting Tampa’s Deicide. Throughout his 35-year campaign, Glen has riled up numerous Christians, but in addition animal rights activists – after he shot a squirrel all through an interview with the NME in 1992, he won dying threats, and a display in Stockholm was once bombed.
A couple of years later, Republican senator Bob Dole condemned the Florida dying steel scene for threatening to “undermine our personality as a country”. Glen’s additionally a 56-year-old father of 2, and speaks of the myriad scrapes he’s ended up in with the flippancy of a person who has realized to not take issues too significantly.
BE WHO YOU’RE BORN TO BE
“I used to be at all times known as ‘the evil little bastard’ in my circle of relatives. I simply fell into it, and it’s the personality I’ve had ever since I used to be a bit of child, via faculty and thru the entirety else. I don’t even truly know why, however do I am getting off on elevating eyebrows and ruffling feathers? Fuck yeah, I do! Fifty-six years previous and I nonetheless love getting a response out of people. Most youngsters insurrection, and I sought after to battle the powers.”
YOU DON’T NEED DOGMA TO BE A GOOD PERSON
“Faith is a three-legged canine, and it’s on its means out. I believe other folks know the way to regard every different, and don’t desire a e book filled with bullshit to inform them tips on how to do it. I believe we’re all finding out as a species not to step on every different’s feet and who’re the toe-steppers. Everyone knows who the gamers within the recreation are.”
USE WHAT YOU KNOW
“When I used to be 8 years previous and compelled towards my will to take part within the Christmas play on the church my mom was once a Sunday faculty trainer at, I used to be making a song on the entrance of the church pondering, ‘How did I am getting myself into this shit?’ My father’s facet of the circle of relatives had been Catholic and my mom’s Lutheran, so I were given the worst of each worlds. It’s overwhelmed into me, so I will’t sing about anything. If I attempt to sing about different issues, I draw a whole clean. I let the universe discuss via me, and if I’ve to power it, it simply gained’t come.”
THE 80S FLORIDA METAL SCENE WAS AN ARMS RACE
“Again then, we had been all looking to outline our personal sounds and pictures. I don’t wanna say there was once unfriendly pageant, however I don’t wanna say there was once pleasant pageant both. We had been all competing for the entrance seat. It began with Savatage and Nasty Savage. You had the California thrash factor happening with Possessed and we needed to outdo that. My purpose was once to be heavier, vocally particularly.”
KNOW WHEN TO QUIT
“I didn’t suppose enjoying displays with rotting meat as a part of our set-up was once gonna purpose that a lot of a shitstorm. Inside of 3 displays of that stuff I had the government bearing down on me, so it was once an overly short-lived second in Deicide historical past.”
IMPULSES CAN BE HONEST
“I believe I used to be handiest 22 after I burned the inverted move into my brow. The spirit moved me, guy! To this present day, I don’t know what the fuck I used to be pondering, however I knew that I have been christened Catholic as a kid, and I felt that the easiest way to care for that might be my symbolic means of taking that Catholic mark off of my pores and skin. I’ve at all times been that child within the image who’s were given that twisted glance and the smile on his face, and after I were given to an age the place I may just get started being me, I simply began being me. Now that my two sons are each grown and stale on the planet, I in finding myself again to being that man once more, the man that branded the move on his brow.”
BALANCING MUSIC WITH FATHERHOOD IS TOUGH
“I don’t suppose other folks realise, as a result of I don’t discuss an excessive amount of about my non-public existence, however the entire issues previously the place we’ve needed to cancel excursions and other folks have pointed their palms, those had been all finished within the identify of my youngsters. Once I needed to get custody of my youngest son he was once stolen from me and brought out of state, and I needed to cross get him and produce him house. I used to be a unmarried man elevating him alone and a large number of other folks don’t perceive this shit, on best of being who I’m and doing what I do.”
KEEP IT SIMPLE
“I realized that essentially the most simplistic concepts are one of the vital biggest, and that simplicity is the important thing to rock’n’roll. Other people wish to be entertained, and I wish to write track that individuals can kick the shit out of one another to, no longer the place you’ve got to take a seat there and determine all of it out. We’re no longer Crimson Floyd, for god’s sake.”
PREPARE TO BE SENSATIONALISED
“Senator Bob Dole made point out people, and I got here house from the grocery store and there was once a information truck sitting on my entrance backyard. They sought after my response to Bob Dole’s response to someone else’s fucking response, and I informed them to get the fuck off my assets.”
NOT ALL PRESS IS GOOD PRESS
“[A bomb went off at our show in Stockholm in 1992], however I’ve blown up larger shit in my yard, and there was once overreaction from the government and the click that supposed I didn’t get to do my gig. The lovers were given the tip of the poop stick on that one.”
FIND YOUR FAMILY, AND YOUR SENSE OF HUMOUR
“[Drummer] Steve Asheim has been on this band with me for just about 40 years, and we’ve smoked a large number of weed in combination, that’s needless to say. I used to be going via my photos the opposite day and I discovered this certainly one of Steve perhaps a 12 months once we met, when he was once 16 years previous and I used to be 18. We know the way to make every different chuckle, we yell on the tv in combination once we’re on excursion.
We’re a few previous indignant backyard gnomes. Steve was once at all times the mediator again within the day, and I felt unhealthy for him as a result of he was once at all times put in the course of the horseshit that we needed to submit with again then. Now he doesn’t must, as a result of we’ve made this an overly harmonious factor the place there’s no longer a damaging phrase or any person feeling harm. If you’ll be able to’t chuckle at this shit, you’re going to throw your self off a construction.”
I WON’T BACK DOWN ON RELIGION JUST TO APPEASE PEOPLE
“I believe what’s necessary is solely being true to at least one’s self and completing what you began. I’m no longer gonna bail out of who and what I’m simply to placate individuals who can’t revel in it for what it’s. I’m no longer making a song about what you will have to imagine in, it’s about me. It’s no longer your agony, it’s no longer your ache, and I will’t shield my illness. Experience it if you wish to. The wonderful thing about this global is we will exchange the channel. I don’t like to look at the inside track as a result of I believe like I’m being stabbed to the dying, so I don’t watch the inside track! It’s fucking easy. For those who don’t like Deicide, do me a favour: flip it off.”
THE HEAT WILL MOVE OFF YOU
“I believed there was once an actual parenting drawback happening in Norway [when the church burnings and murders happened in the black metal scene], however in the USA the ones guys didn’t equivalent an empty pickle jar. So far as the non secular proper right here within the States is going, Marilyn Manson took the ones off my again.”
METAL NEEDS ITS CHARACTERS
“I used to be an enormous Ronnie James Dio fan, in addition to an Ozzy one. The trade presently truly wishes other folks with personalities. All of the greats are demise off and we want extra individuals who can cross in the market and shake other folks up. There was once a second when there was once an excessive amount of track to be fed on, and there’s such a lot in the market that truly you’ll be able to’t separate the rest. That’s why I’m pronouncing you want the ones guys, your Ozzys and Rob Halfords and Lemmys who aren’t afraid to be in the market.”
GIVING A SHIT IS OVERRATED
“While you get to my age, you truly get this truly sturdy, profound ‘I don’t give a fuck about the rest’ power. I don’t chase other folks’s happiness. I’ve already raised two youngsters who’re off on the planet, so now the fucking ATM is closed, and I’m again to being ruthless Glen once more. My oldsters are useless, everyone in my circle of relatives is useless, the ethical police don’t give a fuck about me anymore, so I don’t have any one to reply to to. I’m an evil empty nester.”
Banished By means of Sin is out now by means of Reigning Phoenix. Deicide play Bloodstock in August.
