Philip A. Wickstrand is a contributing freelance writer for Metal Psalter Webzine. He conducted this interview with vocalist Freddy Lim at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR on October 12, 2009.

Not very many Metal bands from Asia get much press in North America or Europe. Sure, there will be mention of a band from Japan every now and then, but for the most part, the rest of the continent is ignored, save for Taiwan's CHTHONIC. Taking the European melodic Black Metal approach and adding elements unique to their geography, CHTHONIC are paving the way for other Asian Metal bands to make their name outside of their own continent while delivering a great live show and excellent albums to Metal fans worldwide.

Phil: Let's talk a little bit about the new album, Mirror of Retribution - tell us about the song writing process and some of the new elements you've tried to incorporate.

Freddy: It's just like the earlier albums - we picked out the concept first, so all of the members, we talked about the concept - what we want to write of this album and then we tried to separate the concept into different chapters and then normally Jesse, the guitarist, and I , we will pick some of the chapters and we started to write. So Jesse and I are the main people who started some new songs and then all the other members will work together after we've started some material. This concept… we wanted to write about this concept for several years. Then we found out that a lot of critics and fans, they were very interested in the scene and philosophy of the Oriental hell. So this album, we tried to reveal, to show the whole scene of Oriental hell, which includes ten courts of hell, eighteen levels of hell and then hundreds of small levels of hell. So we started with this concept and then we tried to connect it to the Taiwanese history, which is the 228 Massacre in 1947, so we make the story more meaningful because we didn't want to write an album like a tour guide, to guide everybody "Okay, this is the first court of hell and the second hell" - that's like tour information. Not like that - we need a story, so we need a character from Taiwanese history who wants to sacrifice himself to go to hell, to change the history, so it makes the story more fruitful and meaningful. In this album, we used a lot of different elements of Metal since there are lots of different kinds of things in the Oriental hell, like mountain of knives. In the mountain of knives, we feel like we need more blastbeats, more Black Metal stuff, so in the first song, "Blooming Blades", which describes more scenes about the mountain of knives. And in the other hells, like Guan hell or some demon bulls' hells, some of the other things - we describe all these hells in "Venom In My Veins" and so we use more Thrash stuff to describe this kind of hell. So we try to use different kinds of Metal elements, different kinds of Metal rhythms or structures to describe different kinds of hell.

Phil: What would be some of your favorite tracks off the album?

Freddy: The title (track) "Mirror of Retribution".

Phil: Why?

Freddy: We had more different flows and with different kinds of feelings compared to the earlier albums and Mirror of Retribution, especially the song "Mirror of Retribution",  we tried to put different emotions in one song - there's some slow parts, fast parts and some mid-tempo parts in the song. I love the song very much.

Phil: Tell us about the cover art and what it specifically represents about the album.

Freddy: Okay. The cover art is the main character in the story, named Tsing-guan and that's the hands of Tsing-guan. The ending of the story is Tsing-guan got captured by Hell's armies and then he was chained in front of (the) mirror of retribution and stayed there for billions and billions of years 'til the whole universe collapsed and ghosts and gods erased. Gone. So he is the last soul. That's his curse - he will be the last soul in the universe, so he's struggling in the void and his memory about the earth and his country and nothing. So we tried to have the art that can represent his struggling and his pain.

Phil: Tell us why you changed the band's logo on this album.

Freddy: [laughs] We (did it) to help the fans and their friends to spell the name of the band. [laughter] The old logo, we love the old logo very much - actually, that's my favorite one. We have slightly changed the logo a couple times, but the one before this one was my favorite. But the people cannot figure it out which part is which letter, so we have (done it) to help the people recognize the C-H-T-H-O-N-I-C to do it over and over and over again. That's pretty annoying. So we feel like before this album… actually, we have the artwork with the old logo almost done and then we just feel like "No, we don't want to explain and to do the same thing again - just try to make it easy and then talked with our friend who does our artwork and he feels the same way - "Yeah, we should do something like that" and then let the promoter, let the fans, let the label, easily to show the letters of the name, so that's it.

Phil: Tell us about the filming of the video for "Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains".

Freddy: Before we filmed that video, we talked a lot about which song we should pick and then and then we decided to film "Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains" because it's shorter, but with almost all the elements of the band, like the Oriental pentatonic scale and some Asian minor scales, so feel like that's a song that's short but sweet for the fans. And then our good friend, a director in Taiwan, he started to think about what to do and what should we do, about how we should do it and we decided to do it the ocean because in (the) 228 Massacre, the Chinese army came from the north coast of Taiwan and then started the Massacre in Taiwan, so for that, we started from that scene. And then it takes more than sixteen hours to film that. We started from two o'clock in the morning to do the makeup and then finished the makeup at like five and then started to work on the scene. Then we started to shoot at eight and finished at eight PM. All of us, our skin got burned, after we removed all the makeups, we found out… wow. All red. So it was very painful. But the result of the video turned out very great - the director and all of us were very satisfied.

Phil: I especially like the Asian instruments in the video - that is awesome.

Freddy: Yeah, thank you. That's why we picked that song, because we used that, we called hena, we use hena in lots of places in that song.

Phil: Have you ever thought of perhaps being part of Paganfest or ones of the tours that come through the U.S. with Folk Metal bands?

Freddy: Yeah, of course, like maybe ENSIFERUM or some other bands. It would be a great idea, but it depends on the opportunity. But we are good friends with ENSIFERUM and we would love to tour with some Folk Metal bands.

Phil: How's your relationship with Spinefarm going so far?

Freddy: Quite good. Since we signed a contract with Spinefarm U.K., I believe the main chapter in (the) UK.., they are very strong there. Apparently, they have made a lot of advertisements for the album in (the) U.K. and in the U.S., they have just established Spinefarm U.S., not for a long time. So I think they are still in the process to try to do the right thing and try to do more promotion. And I was very glad to know that they were in our Key Club show and they enjoyed that show very much. They say they want to do more promotion.

Phil: Tell us about the importance of Taiwanese identity for you and the rest of the band.

Freddy: I think that's the most important thing in each of the members. Taiwan has been occupied Holland, Spain, Japan and China and now for all of the Taiwanese want citizens to remain independent, to protect our nation. That's the most important thing for us. We don't want to be a part of other countries again, we don't want to be the low grade citizens in other countries, so I think that's very important for us. And that's a very strong emotion in Taiwan for all the people in different areas; not matter like the baseball player, even now some of the Taiwanese baseball players, they in major league baseball in the U.S. and there are lots of Taiwanese players answer the journalists if the journalist ask them 'oh, you're Chinese?' And then the Taiwanese players will answer them that 'no, if I am Chinese, then you are English or you are British'. [laughter] And then the journalists understand. So I think that's very sensitive and very important for all of the Taiwanese citizens.

Phil: I can understand that a lot, 'cause I work with a lot of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants - the last thing you ever want to say to a Ukrainian is "Oh, you're Russian, right?" [laughter]

Freddy: Yeah, that's kind of the same thing.

Phil: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Freddy: There are lots of very good Asian Metal bands - in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China and I think it's worth a lot for the Metal fans to do some search on MySpace or online to find out. And you will see, other Asian Metal bands, they have lots of different things from compared to the Western Metal bands and it's worth it to check it out.

ChthoniC's Freddy Lim

May 27, 2010

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Formed: 1995
Taipei, Taiwan
Label: Spinefarm Records
Genre: Melodic Black Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Freddy Lim (Left Face of Maradou):
                                                    Vocals
Jesse Liu (The Infernal):  Guitar
Doris Yeh (Thunder Tears):  Bass &
                                     Backing Vocals
CJ Kao (Dispersed Fingers):
                              Keyboards & Piano
Dani Wang (Azathothian Hands): 
                                                     Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Where the Ancestors' Souls
                                   Gathered (1999)
9th Empyrean (2000)
Relentless Recurrence (2002)
Best of/Compilation, (2002)
Spread the Qi 1995-2002
                                         (DVD - 2003)
Satan's Horns EP (2003)
Seediq Bale (2005)
Anthology: A Decade On The
                                         Throne (2006)
A Decade on the Throne: Live (2006)
Pandemonium: Best of/Compilation
                                                        (2007)
Mirror of Retribution (2009)

PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)