We caught up with Chthonic, the biggest black metal band to come out of Taiwan and asked them about the history of the band and what the future holds for Chthonic.

Can you give a brief history of the band for the people who have not heard of you?
Hope this won’t be too long:
CHTHONIC is derived from the Greek god of the underworld with the phonetic translation into Mandarin as Shan-ling.

CHTHONIC seeks to bring ancient legends and myth into the modern era. There is much sadness in this eastern island of Taiwan, especially some of Taiwan's lost history which extends back 1,000 years but was destroyed as Han Chinese came to the island 500 years ago. The arrival of this group subjugated native and aboriginal culture to the margins. Nearly 1,000 years of history disappeared as quickly as smoke and fire. With every spirit there are taboos, tales, and traditions. CHTHONIC seeks to resurrect these old spirits and legends, drawing inspiration and reviving these myths, as well as start building new legends.

Formed in 1995, CHTHONIC has recorded four albums. The first album, Where the Ancestors' Souls Gathered, describes a journey across the sea, with the "Black Water Ditch" referring to the Straits of Taiwan, and the difficult and daring passage from China to Taiwan. The group's second album, 9th Empyrean, deals with the subject of "Mother Isle Disintegrated, Aboriginal Gods Enthroned" or the epic battle between Chinese Han spirits and the spirit gods of Taiwan's aboriginal people. The third album, Relentless Recurrence, opens with percussion instruments, creating a cacophony to tell the story of local demon Na-Tao Ji and his story of revenge, transcending mortal limits, and releasing souls from purgatory.

After three year waiting, Seediqbale, the latest album from Chthonic, is full of lament, tragically heroic, and still gloomy. Chthonic's music tells the Taiwan true-history Wushe event and tragic hero Monarudao.

The Taiwan Seediq tribe, which live high in Mount Wushe, was fabled to be born from the fusion of big rocks and giant trees a thousand years ago. Only clansman that have passed the severe trial can be tattooed on the face, a mark for clansman to cross the rainbow bridge to join the ancient souls and receive internal life. In 1895 A.D., the Japanese started colonial governing Taiwan and banned the Seediq's traditional culture, which lasted a thousand years. Monarudao, the chief of the proper, led his people to fight against the Japanese soldiers, and begins this tragically and heroic story.

CHTHONIC was awarded "Best Rock Group" at the 14th Golden Music Awards, the Eastern Asian equivalent of a Grammy. The award was presented to the band by none other than the country's President Chen Shui-bian.

How did you first get into metal and what are the bands musical influences?
In early nineties, I have started to buy many death metal and thrash metal albums in some small record shops. And other kinds of heavy metal like doom metal, black metal, dark metal, gothic metal could be bought through internet from mid-nineties.
Emperor, Enslaved, Immortal, Dark Funeral, and Marduk are the band we liked the most when we first listened to black metal. However other bands like Slayer, Anthrax, Deicide, Iron Maiden, Overkill, S.O.D. , Megadeth have been our favorites for a long time as well.
And some Taiwan artists also have big influence on our music, like the rock artist Ta-Yo Lo, folk singer Cheng-Nen Tsai.

Seediq Bale has just been released in the UK, what was it like writing and recording this album?
We started with researching in the library and on internet about the information of Wu-She Incident that we have decided to write it as the concept of this album. And we divided it into about 10 chapters. Based on the theme and atmosphere in each chapter, we started to compose music. After music is done I write the lyrics to finish the song.

About the recording, It was good and smooth, Since three out of four of our albums were produced in the same studio, Borsing Recording, Denmark. And Everytime we record there, we improved ourselves a lot. When Chthonic was formed in 1996, there was no extreme metal scene in Taiwan, not to mention the studios capable of producing this kind of music. So when we were prepared for our first album, we compared some of the extreme metal albums we had and chose Illdisposed’s album, because we liked its recording quality. Then we hooked up with the studio who recorded that album and became good friends with the boss – Jan Borsing. He has been working with us since then, and give us many good advices for every albums.

What are the main themes on your current album 'Seediq Bale'?
The Taiwan Seediq-tribe, which live high in Mount Wushe, was fabled born from the fusion of big rocks and giant trees a thousand years ago. Only clansmen that have passed a severe trial can be tattooed on the face, a mark signifying clansmen may cross the rainbow bridge to join the ancient souls and receive eternal life.

In A.D.1895, the Japanese started governing colonial Taiwan. They banned the Seediq’s thousand-year tradition of face tattooing and cutting heads.

Monarudao, the chief of the proper, led his people to bow to the Japanese in order to survive under the suffering circumstance. Under the rule of the Japanese, the Seediq were forced to give up their land, religion, way of life, and their tattoo, the mark of honor and pride.

Monarudau once believed that his tribe would be preserved if they bowed their heads to the hegemony, but he finally realized that giving up everything - the pride and spirit - would cause the Seediq to vanish.

So Monarudau decided to change his attitude as a tribal chief and warrior. He encouraged the young to wear the tattoo on their faces, to be a real, proud Seediq bale, and fight against the Japanese ruler. In 1930, 27th October, the Wushe incident exploded. The Seediq killed all the Japanese on the mountain to regain their territory.

The Japanese colonial government was furious. They instigated hatred between different tribes to raise war against each other, while gathering a huge amount of modern soldiers and chemical weapons in order to terminate all tribes. Hence, the Seediq met enormous defeat against the Japanese army.

The women and children of Seediq all hanged themselves on trees, in order to let the Seediq warriors concentrate on fighting instead of worrying about their families. Unfortunately, the Seediq warriors went down one by one, or committed suicide. The last 298 Seediq were captured by the Japanese army at Chuan Island between Bac Gang stream and Mei Yuan stream. After being captured, the last Seediq chose to self-destruct.

Monarudao’s body was found four years later hanged at Maho Hill, legend telling that only half the body was decayed. The surviving Seediq believe that the half-decayed Monarudao has led his people across the rainbow bridge to their ancestors to obtain eternal life, and the other half will stay to look over the Seediq offspring. His eternal spirit of life will forever guide his people living in Taiwan.

What is your favourite track from 'Seediq Bale' and why?
* Quasi Putrefaction(the final song of this album)
This is the final song of Seediq Bale. During the war, thousands and thousands of Seediq people died or committed suicide and only about 200 survived. After the war, the body of the Seediq leader, Monarudao, was missed and when people found his body 2 years after the war, it was only half-corrupted. The Seediq people believed that half of him went back to the Ancestors’ source and half of him still stayed in the world to look after his people.
I like the concept and the musical arrangement of this song.

'Seediq Bale' seems a bit different with the way it has 4 video tracks before the music finally starts on track 5, what made you make the album this way?
We hope that people can have the music videos of this album, so we choose a way that our label recommended putting the videos into the disc.

Do you plan to release any of your previous albums in the UK?
Yes, there are some European labels dealing with us about releasing the whole catalogue in U.K.

You recently did a press day in England how did the day go?
It was very nice with all the journalists and had their photo scoop with metal magazine Terrorizer at Hyde Park near the Columbia Hotel where we lodged. We started off walking on the streets in London with our corpse paint make-up. In our winter coats at 0 degree Celsius, and fought the temperature with the sense of humour, which scared many pedestrians, kids and even animals.

Do you plan on doing a tour in the UK?
Yes, we are confirmed to play Wacken Open Air in Germany in August, hope to tour other cities in Europe, includes U.K..

I am yet to see Chthonic live, but what can we expect from your live show?
The power of beautiful, brutal, and oriental extreme metal.

Do your live shows different from when you play in your homeland to when you play a different part of the world?
Yes, we always sing some songs in the old days of ChthoniC only for Taiwanese fans. They are familiar the those oldies.

What was it like plaing the metal meltdown festival in America?
Audience in Eastern Asia are calmer, they also have mosh pit but more than half of them are too afraid to jump into it and some people even hate it. They usually just listen quietly or sing with the band or observe the player’s technique.
So, it’s a very different experience for us to play in Metal Meltdown. When the music starts and in two seconds – it’s like “BOOM!!”, everybody just went nuts! It’s hard to get used to it when we first saw that in Metal Meltdown. Simply put, in Eastern Asia, it’s crazier on the stage than off the stage, and in the States, it’s crazier off the stage than on the stage.

You have been confirmed to play Wacken Open Air festival in Germany at the start of august are you pleased to be playing such a huge festival?
Yes, we are looking forward to playing in Wacken!

Is there many bands you want to check out inbetween your set at Wacken?
We might play in other country's right after Wacken, so we don’t expect to have chance to check out other shows in Wacken. But if possible, we would love to see Iced Earth, Cannibal Corpse, Enslaved, Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Sacred Reich, Samael, Sodom, Vader, Therion.

Are you playing any other festivals across the world this summer?
Haven’t confirmed yet, but hopefully to play more, of course.

your well know for wearing Corpse paint have you all had the same style design since you formed back in 1995 or do you change it every so often?
We have tried to improve our make-up all the time. In the beginning, we just felt cool to have make-up like immortal, marduk, dark funeral…etc., but soon we found western kind of make-up didn’t fit in our oriental faces. The scales of our faces are very different from western people. So it didn’t look good at all.
And then, we searched in our own culture, our make-up now originates more from the "Eight Generals", who appear in religious parades based on Taiwanese folklore. When these deities wear corpse paint, they are empowered with the eight Taoist spirits to be the judge of good and evil. Therefore, Chthonic gradually incorporates our corpse paint with the influence of the "Eight Generals", such as the reverse hook emphasis on the corners of the mouth, etc.
This kind of make-up fits more into the spirit and concept of our music. We might improve more with our own culture in the future.

your also well know for using a oriental Er-hu in your music what first made you want to use this instrument?
In 1997, while we were writing some critical parts of our songs, Freddy insisted on using an alternative instrument which can best express sadness. “Oriental 2-string Violin” is a common traditional instrument in many Eastern Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea, China, Hong-Kong and Singapore. What is special about it is its plaintive, sad tone. So Freddy decided to learn from a traditional musician and started to play it in Chthonic’s music

Is being in chthonic your full time job? or do you all have jobs when the bands not on the road?
Each Member of ChthoniC has different jobs, but all are relative to music, some teach instruments, some work in some labels.

Can you recommend any other good bands from Asia worth checking out?
Yes, check them out:
Magane from Japan.
Anthelion from Taiwan.

Can you recommend any good films Asian horror films?
There are too many good horror movies here, check these 2 out:
The Ring. (Japan)
Art of the devil. (Thailand)

How is the metal scene in Taiwan?
In nineties, many record stores in Taiwan started to sell death metal and thrash metal albums, other kinds of heavy metal like doom metal, black metal, dark metal, gothic metal became popular in Europe & US, too. In the meantime the Internet era began, allowing Taiwanese fans to buy much more CDs than before from the online stores like Dark Symphony, CD World. And the first Taiwanese Extreme Metal Band, ChthoniC, formed in 1995, and the scene here just getting bigger and bigger, but I don't think it's big as in U.S or Europe..
I think some people know that we won the “Best Band” award in the Golden Melody Awards, which is considered as the Eastern Asian Grammy Awards, so they feel like the metal scene here is very big. But I don't think so.
Music awards in Eastern Asia doesn’t have the specific awards for each music genre like Grammy does. Golden Melody Awards put all the bands of different style together to compete for the Best Band award. It’s actually very unfair. In the year before Chthonic, a pop idol band won it and in the next year after Chthonic won, this award went to a pop folk band. I think the fact that Chthonic won the award means that people’s taste of music in Eastern Asia became less limited and more diverse. But I wouldn’t say that extreme metal already became the pop music here. Even in Scandinavia it’s not the case, either.

Thanks for your time... Is there a message you want to leave for your fans reading this?
No! thank you very much!

Interview by Trigger