Last week, we caused quite a stir when we posted a story entitled Black Metal Band INQUISITION Are Probably Nazis. At the time, we got a lot of flack for "yellow journalism" and posting a bunch of supposed conjecture without reaching out to the band first.
I admit I should have contacted the band before publishing the story, but I don't feel what I wrote was at all slander. There was plenty of evidence to make the theory plausible. Thankfully, those fine journalists at Decibel did reach out to the band and what resulted was some of the worst backpedalling I've ever read. Shayne wrote a great piece about how absurd the whole thing has become.
The main point of contention in the story was a testimonial from a reformed skinhead, Daniel Gallant, a man whose current purpose in life is to speak to troubled youths and convince them that white supremacy is not the answer.
When Inquisition were confronted with the question of meeting Daniel on a bus and Daniel showing the band his nazi tattoo and them saying it's awesome, Inquisition frontman Dagon told Decibel his basic reaction was "Whoa." I would paste the whole thing but it's about 5 paragraphs too long. Then he said this:
I can honestly tell you that I never flat-out said I thought it was a horrible thing, or that I was against it, but never did I say I was with it and that I believed in it. What I have always told people is I understand it. I understand that when you look at history and what was happening at the time, whenever you put yourself in everybody else’s shoes—and if you’re smart enough, and you have… maybe common sense is not the word, but you have an understanding of why things happen in history and in humanity the way they do, it doesn’t matter how ugly it is to you or how great. It’s simple physics. It’s nature. Things happen. Earthquakes happen. You know? Bad, good—things happen.
Daniel has a different take on the encounter. He mentioned he was on a fact-finding mission of sorts trying to sniff out some white supremacists in other bands and stumbled into Inquisition. He said he purposfully took off his shirt to gauge their reaction which he described as:
In the beginning either Tom or Jason said “right on, awesome!” – they were sitting together. As I walked past them I was filled with rage. Quite frankly, I wanted to beat his face in.
He later responded to Dagon's recounting of the event:
Well, after I walked past them and put on my clothes they got on my bus. Then the guys from Gyibaaw came to talk to me because they wondered what they should do. I informed them very frankly that I would drag these fuckers off the bus and beat them. But I don’t want that for you and what you do. When I got back on the bus Tom asked a few questions and we started talking about the World Church Of The Creator. Tom started to tell me that he had connections in Everett, Washington. I indicated that I knew guys from Everett. That’s when Jason spoke up. He didn’t say much in that conversation except that he watches Nazi propaganda videos and Triumph Of The Will and loves that stuff and has dreams and fantasies that he wishes that would happen. I’m looking in the mirror and watching Gyibaaw’s response and they are scared.
I got a message yesterday from one of the guys from Gyibaaw — who I don’t even get along with — and he read the article and said “Jason is lying.” I have all of this documented in e-mails.
I’m glad you gave Jason a place to speak. What I see in the interview is that Jason contradicts himself in several places and in his explanation of 88mm he sidesteps his lyrics and the split album he did with Deathkey and Antichrist Kramer. On the discography for Deathkey are album names like “Hammer Of Aryan Terror” and “Doctrine of Intolerant Hatred.”
You can read the entire interview at Decibel, and come to your own conclusions. At this point I think we are done with this story.
