Orion of Behemoth

Orion: Not at all.

Bella: It’s a porn site. It’s kind of a tattooed, punk rock, goth metal chick porn site, and the girls on BurningAngel love you. So do you have a favorite porn star?

Orion: Wow, that’s a hard question. There’s so many; I don’t know who my favorite is.

Bella: Well, do you watch porn?

Orion: Yah, I really enjoy watching porn, but I wouldn’t pick one.

Bella: Ok good; we’re on the right track then. So Behemoth has been around for a long time, since about 1991- but you just joined the band seven years ago?

Orion: Uh, yah 2003, seven years already.

Bella: So how did that happen? How did you end up with the mighty Behemoth?

Orion: They had their former bass player; his name was Novy and he got a better offer from Vader, back in those days and he just informed the guys that he was leaving and they just started to look for a new bass player and they called me; we already knew each other before that happened, and as soon as Novy was out I just jumped in. It was pretty quick and smoot.

Bella: So aside from Behemoth, you have a lot of other stuff going on too, other musical projects that some people might not know about...

Orion: Yah.

Bella: Another band you play bass in - Black River - just had a new album come out?

Orion: Yah, the new album is out for a few months now.  We did one tour with Behemoth actually, and I had to play two shows a day.

Bella: Holy shit!

Orion: Yah, I know. It’s going well though, but in Poland only because we don’t really go outside of Poland so we’re still just working on it. So we have Black River, which is a more local thing, and I still have this band that I started with, Vesania. It’s been awhile since we had time to do something with it though. I’ve been super busy with Behemoth, and Dariusz is recording with Dimmu. So yah, we’re having a break.

Bella: Are you gonna go back and do another album one day?

Orion: Probably...hopefull.

Bella: Is my dream of seeing Vesania live in the US ever going to come true?

Orion: I wish we could make it over here, but I don’t know - hopefully. I cross my fingers.

Bella: When I do big stage performances and like, feature dance at strip clubs, I dance to Vesania every time.

Orion: Seriously?

Bella: Yah, Vesania makes me want to take my clothes off.

Orion: Wow. That’s so great.

Bella: So, how do you have time to do all this?

Orion: I don’.

Bella: Do you ever sleep?

Orion: I’m trying, but it’s a hard thing to do. There’s just so many things happening at the same time and I’m trying to keep up with all of them and it’s getting hard. If you’re trying to have some kind of private life, things are getting even tougher, you know. So, I’m trying and the music is the only thing I’m doing, but yah, sometimes it’s hard to find time just to take a shit.

Bella: The new album that Behemoth has out (Evangelion) has been doing really well and getting tons of positive response everywhere. Terrorizer magazine named you their favorite bassist of the year, and your album went gold in Poland. So, when you joined the band did you know it would one day come this far or did this all come as a surprise?

Orion: It is a surprise, but not a total surprise. When I joined Behemoth, it was already an established band, but still a lot smaller than today...but we’ve been working so hard for all these years and we kind of sacrificed everything we had outside of the band, for the band. I’m just so happy to be at this point. All these reviews and all these things. "Best Bassist"? Whatever. I think that’s a little too much. I’m just happy to hear these kind of opinions from people who read the magazines and listen to the albums and come to the shows. But I’m sure there’s a lot of better musicians than myself.

Bella: No sign of stopping, you guys are like, leaving the US in a few days and then going right back on tour?

Orion: No. We’re gonna have three weeks off after this one.

Bella: What are you gonna do?

Orion: I don’t even know. I’m probably gonna work on the DVD. That’s what’s happening next for our release. So I’ll have this February off and that’s probably gonna be the time for just working on the shows that we have, and this DVD and this backstage camera stuff. So I’ll either be in the video studio, or the recording studio. So, that’s not really time off, actually. But after that, we go to Greece, and Turkey, Japan, Australia and New Zealand; we have quite a few things actually. So then we do all the summer festivals, then we might be coming back here in the fall.

Bella: Back to America? YAY! So where have you not played that you want to play? Or have you done it all?

Orion: We’ve never played Africa. I’ve always wanted to do some shows in the South Africa. It might happen soon, and we’re working on some concerts in India; I’ve never been there. That’s pretty much it.

Bella: So you headbang every day, don’t you ever get a neckache? Do you bring your own personal massage therapist wherever you go?

Orion: You want to come down to the dressing room?

Bella: Yah, my next comment was going to be to offer myself as a massage therapist.

Orion: Haha, well, there’s a great massage therapist there, I’m telling you. We don’t have our own massage therapist actually.

Bella: Why!? You’re whipping your hair around 5 days a week; I would think you need one.

Orion: Well, it gets kind of complicated to have another person on tour, but you can ask for one at every venue so that’s what we do. Some of them are nice.

Bella: Some of them are not nice? Do you ever get big gross guys?

Orion: Some of them are strong, and some of them are nice.

Bella: Do you ever miss Polish food when you’re away in America?

Orion: Not really; there’s always something specific about the food in every part of the world. I’m trying to have my stuff that I eat here and that’s mostly American food really. Plus, we have all these Polish friends who always come to the shows and bring Polish things, so I don’t really miss it too much.

Bella: So, along with the success of this album also came a lot of controversy; you’re probably sick to death of talking about it, but I was wondering if you had any problems at shows in the US?

Orion: We had some protests at the shows, but nothing really serious. Now, things that we’re going through in Poland are getting very serious. Now the government is getting involved.

Bella: They’re STILL trying to shut you guys down?

Orion: Yah, and with Nergal (vocalist) now being a celebrity, it’s just more in the eye of the media. So that’s what happens. So far, they haven’t managed to do anything bad to us. We had court trials and everything and so far, so good.

Bella: You also had your video for "Ov Fire And The Void" taken down and banned from Youtube, minutes after it was put up. Is it up anywhere now?

Orion: Yah of course, it’s on the Metalblade site. I don’t know why; people are afraid of seeing tits.

Bella: We’re not afraid of tits on Burning Angel; maybe we can put up the uncensored version with the Interview. It’ll be like the most tame video on the site!

Orion: Put it up, please!

Bella: So what’s up with the blonde, tanned pretty girls in the video? Where are all the dark-haired tattooed chicks?

Orion: All the metal bands are doing black-haired tattooed chicks.

Bella: Where? Bring me there.

Orion: In videos? Yah, every metal video with chicks has a black-haired tattooed girl.

Bella: Oh, so you were just being different?

Orion: We just wanted to do it in a different way.

Bella: So a very upset fellow, an Orion fan, emailed me to tell me that your Myspace profile says, "In a relationship".

Orion: It's true, it does say that.

Bella: We wanna know is your girlfriend a Polish supermodel? What the hell is going on and why is it such a secret?

Orion: It’s not a secret. Yah, she’s Polish, she’s a fashion designer, she’s a stylist. She’s great. She’s a great person. Yes, I do have a girlfriend.

Bella: So, the last thing I wanna ask you is, you’re birthday is coming up so, what do you want for your birthday?

Orion: What do I want for my birthday? Is there anyone willing to get me a nice gift on my birthday?

Bella: Yah, you are talking to the right group of people. We’re gift-givers.

Orion: Um, a nice BMW. A Chrysler...a Chrysler 300C, yah I wanna get this one. I’m a Gemini, so I still have a little bit of time.

Bella: Will you be home by then?

Orion: I don’t remember. I think we’ll be out for some summer festivals. But, we’re gonna have some cool party for that. We’re always trying to set something up for that. Let’s see if I get my Chrysler*.

*If you’d like to find out how to send Orion a Chrysler, you can contact him on any of the following sites:

www.behemoth.pl
www.vesania.pl
www.blackriver.pl
www.myspace.com/orion669
twitter @BehemothBand