Celtic Frost founder, Tom Gabriel Warrior, is featured in a new interview with The Guardian. The following is an excerpt from the article...
Warrior didn’t have the happiest of childhoods, which came through in the music he made with his first band, the critically scorned Hellhammer (who nonetheless became a crucial influence on Norwegian black metal a few years later). Warrior sees Hellhammer songs, such as the desperately unpleasant "Satanic Rites", as screams at his upbringing: “Now, looking back as a 59-year-old, I see the song is hatred directed against my mother, who furnished me with the youth I lived,” he says.
Celtic Frost was his attempt, with Hellhammer co-conspirator Martin Eric Ain, to move beyond the constraints of pure noise. “We quickly realised that Hellhammer was extremely limited, and if we wanted to use the term art we would have to completely reconfigure our musical approach. On the last day of May 1984 we sat together and throughout the night designed a new band from scratch, literally with pen and paper.”
That band was Celtic Frost. Everything about this new outfit was to be different. Warrior and Ain wanted it to have the power and excitement of the thrash metal bands emerging in the US, but the ultimate intent was to not be constrained by metal’s self-imposed rules – an attitude shaped by the band’s geographical isolation from the mainstream metal scene. “It was a constant conflict, because we loved metal. At the same time, however, we were conflicted by feeling that metal is so limited, that there were albums with notes saying: ‘No keyboards on this album’, and so on, like it was something evil,” he recalls. “We felt, where are these unwritten laws that say you cannot combine a keyboard with metal, or you cannot combine classical music with metal? We didn’t want to accept this. We were anarchists.”
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The first Celtic Frost record, Morbid Tales, was ferocious and extreme. The second, To Mega Theiron, was a huge step forward. But the third, Into the Pandemonium, was the landmark – a dark and beautiful set that sounded like nothing else and confronted closed-minded metal fans by opening with a cover of Wall Of Voodoo’s new wave hit "Mexican Radio". Even the band name had been intended as a break from metal convention.
“Hellhammer, by the nature of its name, proclaimed ‘heavy metal’. There were bands like Slayer and Metallica, but given the concept of our new band, we wanted a name that left it open what we sounded like,” says Warrior. “Celtic Frost could also be a punk band or a new wave or a metal band. My mother said at the time, ‘It sounds like an aftershave.’ I could live with that.”
Read more at The Guardian.
On Friday, March 24 and Saturday, March 25, 2023, a worldwide contingent of music fans will convene at Houston's White Oak Music Hall as Pegstar Concerts presents the Hell's Heroes Festival. The two day music fest will showcase a hand-picked selection of international underground metal bands that includes both seminal, genre-pioneers, highly regarded modern day groups and more, in a can't-miss concert event.
Hell's Heroes is proud to announce the addition of a very special set to the 2023 festival. Swiss avant-garde extreme metal colossus Triptykon, featuring Celtic Frost founder Tom Gabriel Warrior will join the weekend's headlining acts, in an exclusive Celtic Frost tribute set. Triptykon will - for the very first time - tear through a set comprised completely of early Celtic Frost songs! This specifically selected set will pull from 1984's Morbid Tales and 1985's To Mega Therion LP’s, both unquestionable classics in the canon of heavy metal history. This titanic tumult will prove to be the ultimate example of a celebration of metal, by fans of metal, for fans of metal.
Bay Area death metal pioneers Possessed, Canadian speed metal kings Razor, English NWOBHM titans Demon, and East Coast power metal purveyors Leige Lord will also headline Hell's Heroes in what promises to be a headbanger's heaven.
To accommodate the addition of Triptykon, the festival has now been moved to a larger, outdoor stage at White Oak Music Hall and additional tickets are now available. Additionally, Houston metal/punk heavies Night Cobra, and Mexico's heavy metal heathensVoltax have also been added to the festival's bill. To purchase tickets for the Hell's Heroes Festival festival, head here.
Joining the headliners at Hell's Heroes 5 will be UK occult metal mavens Pagan Altar, British proto-thrash purveyors Satan, Utah trad-metal squad Visigoth, Manowar/Dictators founder Ross the Boss, California rippers Haunt, Swedish progressive rock unit Hällas, California heavy metal defenders Brocas Helm, Toronto rippers Skull Fist, Portland prog-metal vets Danava, Vancouver hypnotic heavy metal trio Spell, and more than a dozen more denizens of underground metal's very best.
The full lineup for the 2023 Hell's Heroes Festival is as follows: Triptykon (performing early Celtic Frost), Possessed, Razor, Demon, Leige Lord, Pagan Altar, Satan, Visigoth, Ross the Boss, Night Demon, Hällas, Brocas Helm, Skull Fist, Haunt, Night Cobra, Christian Mistress, Riot City, Danava, Goat Horn, Freeways, Spell, Tower, Morgul Blade, Natur, Century, Gatekeeper, Midnight Dice, Voltax,.
"We are honored to have Triptykon join the epic lineup for Hell's Heroes 2023," says festival organizer Christian Larson. "This is a really cool and diverse mix of the best metal bands from around the world. Special thanks to all of the bands, crews, and especially the fans, who allow gatherings like this to happen. See you at the show!" In addition to booking Hell's Heroes, Larson also performs as guitarist/vocalist for the melodic black metal band Necrofier, and is the lead singer of Houston heavy metal band Night Cobra.
