Interview to Craig Priestley of Belligerent Intent

Interview to Luis Landeo
Welcome Craig to Arsenal Del Metalero, I had the chance to listen some tracks of your band in Youtube, and I have to confess I enjoyed a lot, to start with this interview let me ask you, how the band started? and why the band have this name of: "Belligerent Intent"?
Well the history of Belligerent Intent goes way back to around 1994 in Adelaide when the original founder of the band, Darren Rodeghiero came up with the name looking through old WWII books.. At that stage we wanted to start a brutal band in the vein of DEICIDE and MORBID ANGEL and a assortment of names was thrown around until he came up with Belligerent Intent. It stuck as we wanted to come up with the most brutal music we could, Belligerent Intent seemed to fit well with the direction the band was going to head. Unfortunately Darren passed away not long after Belligerent came to light in 94 and I would not get the band going again until 2007 after playing in many other local bands here in Melbourne as a bassist. I took the role on as bass vocalist with Belligerent Intent being formed and the rest is history. 

Belligerent Intent have released 2 full lenghts, the last one was: "Eternity of Hell & Torment", how was the recording days of this production? and how was compose the music for this album? 
Well, I think we recorded it within a few months, Matt Crossingham and myself recorded drums, bass and vocals here in Melbourne, Australia and Matt Wilcock recorded the guitars in London, so it was done in two different countries. The first time we have ever had that experience. It was quite different but it seemed to work well. We nailed the album and was pretty happy with the end result.

I know you are the lyricist in the band, bassist and singer too, how was work in the lyrics for this last album? in what are inspired your lyrics? and when you work in lyrics do you compose the music first? or first the lyrics and then the music? 
I wait for the music to be written, then I will lay a vocal structure to fit the lyrics into, then the title of the song usually last, it's a system I won't change and seems to work with writing vocals. I learnt it years ago from watching other vocalists in other bands and how they laid it down. As far as the inspiration for my lyrics I still was writing along the lines of Seven Are They, with ancient Mesopotamian/Sumerian mythos, entwined with The Christian scriptures of demons, Satan and Hell etc, the destruction on mankind, ancient demons rising to invoke chaos etc. I guess my system of writing will always be based on blasphemy, hate, warfare, demons, anything that I can summon to a track that is fucking evil, nonetheless.

I know the band is working in a new album, how goes that? and when do you think release it? 
We are planning to drop the new album around the end of this year, 2015, if all goes to plan. All I can say is what I have heard and seen from what Matt Wilcock has written is total brutality! It's definitely a step up from our last album and that's what it's about to us, always beating our previous album. It seems to be happening, every album gets more intense!  

I have to confess you, I dont know much about the australian black death metal scene, I know a few bands like, but how is the australian black death metal scene?
There is a load of killer bands here in Australia. We have a strong underground scene here, but it's so far away from the rest of the world we are kind of in our own world down here! But in comparison I would say we are much more like the USA than Europe. Some like it better, some not. But it is what it is. Pretty much what ever your into here there is a scene for it.

The band had the chance to make a tour to promote your music? and is the band thinking make a tour?
We toured South East Asia and Indonesia from 2010-2013, played many killer shows, festivals alongside some of the best bands around. It was killer experience, but we have had line up changes etc and now that we are solid with our line up we're preparing to plan a tour to the US, then later on to Europe. At the moment catching up on a lot of local shows here in Australia as we never did much before we head to Asia. So it's been cool to do some local shows here at home. 

Well hope the release of new album, do you have a message to readers and fans of your band?
Thanks for the support to any of our fans out there ! You fuckers make it all worth it. I myself have a big respect for our followers and there support. To those who ain't heard our music give it a listen, order a cd or merch at belligerentintent.bigcartel.com it's affordable Satanic Evil Fucking METAL!!! Get on it!

To know more about Belligerent Intent:
https://www.facebook.com/BelligerentIntentOfficial