Interview mit David Nuss von Sabbath Assembly

Thanks for taking the time to do this special. How are you feeling so soon after the release of your new album?
Hello! This is the drummer David Nuss. We are just back from a three week EU-tour and are feeling excited about the new songs. We played three from „A Letter of Red“ and looking out to the audience we could see they were connecting well. The new songs all have strong rhythms, classic melodies, and subtle harmonic artistry. Headbanging is encouraged.

This special is all about the occult rock. Do you see yourself as part of this genre?
Yes! This band started in the most authentically occult way in that our first four albums are dedicated to the Process Church of the Final Judgment, an esoteric cult group from the 60s and 70s that worshipped both Christ and Satan. They walked the streets in black robes with German Shepard dogs recruiting the youth to reconcile opposing spiritual forces in order to attain gnostic enlightenment. “Sabbath Assembly” is the name of their highest and holiest mass.

Do you even see occult rock as a genre in its own right?
Yes, these themes have totally blown up to the point where it has become a style unto itself.

Coven’s „Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls“ is regarded as the initial spark of the occult rock genre. Why do you think this album is so important?
At the time of that album’s release, Satanism had not penetrated into the culture of recorded music, so the Coven album truly broke new ground. As with Anton LeVay’s brand of Satanism, there is a carnivalesque quality to this record. That seems to have been an acceptable way for these subversive ideas to enter the realm of public discourse, and while clearly not the end goal, was a strong first step.

Is the occupation with the occult or spiritual topics in general for you a serious philosophy and part of your life or do you see this more as an interesting topic for poetry?
In the larger sense, occultism for us is connected to the idea of trusting the spiritual guide within, unique to every person, rather than one explained by an organized or dogmatic system. Occultism crosses very much into how we live as individuals and how we make music, following our own muse. This occult approach keeps our sound unique from album to album, and malleable according to our interests at the time.

Some of your earlier Songs are cover versions of hymns of the „Process Church Of The Final Judgement“. What do or did you have in common with this denomination?
My own spiritual path has been more oriented to the East, so I interpreted the “Christ/Satan unity” of the Process Church as a kind of Western version of the Taoist yin/yang symbol, similar to hatha yoga -“ha” meaning “sun,” and “tha” meaning “moon.” So much of organized religion, and therefore mainstream politics, depends on the creation of an enemy, the separation of dark and light. What I have in common with the Process is this idea of peace through unification.

At the beginning there were only a handful of bands that could be assigned to the genre of occult rock, the scene was small but all the more intense. Especially in the last years there was a flood of new bands. Do you see this more critically as a dilution of the genre or as an exciting revitalization
When SABBATH ASSEMBLY started I don’t think the term “Occult Rock” existed, or at least we hadn’t heard it yet, and it’s been exciting to see the flood of bands over the last years. I totally support the spread of occult ideology in its true form, meaning that the message encourages people to think unconventionally and to question existing forms. The danger is that “Occult Rock” becomes ossified as a genre that is closed off to new ideas, which would be against the definition of the term itself. Innovation is the root of occultism; stagnation is its death. Therefore to copy Coven is not the point. The point is to find your own sound. This is why we have slowly evolved away from the Process hymns over the years and into our own unique territory.

Occult symbolisms and texts now run through almost all areas of pop culture. What was a taboo in the 60s and 70s is now acceptable. Where do you think in our modern society the continuing, ever growing fascination for the mystical comes from?
First of all, anything the brings down the Catholic Church and mainstream Christian denominations is something I support. Politically and socially these institutions only serve to reinforce backward and anachronistic ideas. If occult symbols in pop culture lead to or reflect the downfall of the Church, I am in support of it. As these religions die, people are becoming more interested in mysticism, for example through the use of psychedelic plants. Mainstream Christianity forgot that its religion was born of visionaries, and I believe our modern society is now giving birth to an entire new legion of mystics through occult music. We support this!

Would you like to see something more secret and serious attached to the subject again?
As I listen to new bands I am hearing new ideas and real risks being taken in the music, and this is more important than whether an occult band stays “secret.” Each new bands starts as a secret, and as they move beyond this we may forget their humble origins. Sabbath Assembly played with Ghost in a small room on their first tour; even they were once unknown! And speaking of Ghost on the question of whether occultism is “serious”— I don’t see Ghost as any different than Coven or say, Kiss, who I would also call thematically “occult” at times in their early, early career. It’s OK to be occult and still have fun!

The preoccupation with occult or dark spiritual themes in music can unfortunately also lead to problems for the bands in some parts of the world. Have you ever had to fight with such problems?
Most of the problems I hear about have to do with bands being as politically and socially backward as the Church, denouncing certain races or sexual and gender preferences. These bands should have problems. I don’t agree that their concerts should be cancelled because I am in favor of the free marketplace of ideas, but they should be ready to be protested and have their beliefs publicly acknowledged. We have not encountered any problems with protesters, but I think our views tend to be more progressive.

The video for your song „Exit“ contains scenes from the Christian end-time movie „Thief In The Night“ from the 1970s. Why did you choose this film as your source?
That movie was something that a church I went to as a boy made us watch to scare us into thinking we were going to hell for listening to heavy metal, having sex, meditating, and all sorts of fun things. So I wanted to re-edit the film without dialogue to illustrate the confusion that can come from this way of thinking. “Exit” is a Process hymn and our interpretation is that the “Exit From Despair” sung about in the chorus can come from the reconciliation of heaven and hell, rather than the perpetuation of the fear and paranoia based on the separation of the two.

Are there other movies or books that have influenced you?
Carl Jung is a huge influence across all his writings, as well as William Blake. Ingmar Bergman and Tarkovsky films are important to us as well.

Bands like Coven or The Devil’s Blood saw concerts as a kind of ritual or black mass and have designed their live shows accordingly, while you do without incense, blood or dead animals on stage. Why did you choose this kind of stage show?
We love the austerity of performances like AC/DC in the 70s when the presentation was just the band and a few lights. People now are so used to being entertained that bands feel they need to create a three ring circus just to keep people from staring at their phones during a gig. Our idea is that the music speaks for itself, as do we as musicians, so let’s keep the focus on the intimate exchange that can happen when there’s not a lot of fanfare.

Contrary to the trend towards modernization in many areas of music, many bands of the occult or retro rock genre try to create as original a sound as possible and like to use retro equipment. Which equipment or means do you use?
We actually don’t buy into that approach at all. Kevin our guitarist doesn’t even own an amp, and I’ll play on literally any drum set you put in front of me. Our songs are not dependent on the type of equipment but rather on the quality of the writing and the performance.

Thank you for the interview! Please let us do a short brainstorming in the end of this interview.
What comes in your mind first reading the following terms:
Best album of the 70s: Heart “Little Queen”
Aleister Crowley: Inspired Jimmy Page to make his best albums!
Audio Books: Love them. Listening to Russell Brand’s “Addiction” now.
Craft-Beer: We prefer whiskey!

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