Anyone who has spent even a brief time listening to American Death Metal, knows Incantation. And once one knows about Incantation, then one hears about John McEntee. He's steadfastly pure metal, a beacon to those lost in the mire of bad bands. Here is my recent interview with John.

I just spent some time in your website. Nice site!

Thanks, we did a lot of work on it.

It's been almost 13 years since you released your first demo. Does it feel that long?

(Jon laughs) I mean, it's been a long time. It's definitely surprising when you think that it's been 13 years. It definitely seems like a while, but 13 years seems like a long time for any band to exist. I guess all the crazy, different things that's happened in Incantation over the years, it's not quite as surprising. The good thing about everything is that I'm still as enthusiastic as I was when I first started the band, so it's not like it became a chore or anything. For me, I still enjoy playing and writing music. There's been a lot of problems, but it's never been a chore.

How have you changed since 1990?

I don't know. Maybe I'm more mature as a person. I learned a lot, like music business wise, songwriting wise. I've worked with so many different people, the amount of stuff that I've learned just from the band is phenomenal. I'm a lot smarter than when I first started, at the same time I'm basically the same person. I have the same wants musically. For me, death metal in the late 80s, early 90s wasn't as much of a trend for me as it was for other people. I've made my share of mistakes like anyone else.

It's ok, as long as you don't make the same fuck up over and over again.

Yeah, you have to learn from your mistakes.

You what the definition of insanity is, don't you?

No, what is that?

It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

(laughs) Yeah, that's true.

Do you feel that all your hard work over the years has paid off with Blasphemy?

I do, in a way. I kind of feel it's kind of like, it has everything that Incantation is all about. It's a mix of everything we've done before, everything that we've learned musically from day one. I think fans can get a lot out of it. We just took everything from every album and kind of put it on one album. If someone had not heard of us, I think Blasphemy would be a good album to get to know us because it has a little of us from every stage.

Your songs have an anti-christian bend, but they can fit a more universal anti-religious theme, don't you think?

Yeah. I think different albums gear a little more towards different aspects of religion. The new album is a lot more universal towards christianity. We' re not pro christian by any means, but we want to make sure people know we' re not just anti-christian. Every religion I know of is controlling and not the healthiest to be a part of. It's definitely universal.

Yes.

Religion has screwed people over since its invention.

I mean, replace christian and jesus with muhammad and you have a good basis for anger against the radical muslims.

It's almost interchangeable. They're all mind controlling for the most part. The basis of religion in general is to try to control the way people think. They tell their followers what to think, how to live, what to do. We would rather see people use their better judgement rather than think of the consequences if going against their god. One should be sincere because they want to do what's right not because they're going to go to hell.

It shows how fucked up religion is.

It does. People stop thinking for themselves because they don't have to. Let the church do it for you. And it's nearly worse in the middle east. They are brought up not being able to think for themselves. They're brought up in poverty and under the power of their religion. What else is there to do there? Not much, it's not like they have the choices we do here. They sit around and pray all day because there's nothing else to do.

Yeah, at least in the Midwest there's football.

(laughs) You're right.

Are you staying with Necropolis for your next release?

I guess we're supposed to. I don't know anything about staying with them or not staying with them. I don't really know. I asked them about it, and we haven't negotiated with them yet. It's a little early to think about it yet. We'll be recording an album next fall. It's too bad, but it's the nature of the beast. Record labels have to do it to survive financially, and we really don't care about the money, we just want to play. Death metal isn't the best music to make a career out of.

I hear they have financial problems. Has that affected the way Incantation is treated?

Paul's been having financial problems since the beginning. It's still better for us to be on Necropolis than to be on Relapse, because they still give us way better service, I guess you could call it. We're high priority there, where on Relapse we don't really fit in. Relapse spends a lot more time with experimental bands that mix in jazz with their hardcore. They were wasting copies of our promos, sending them to people who didn't even know what death metal was. Their a huge label and have their interests elsewhere.

Oh,. Don't even get me started about Relapse. I can't get hold of them at all. I've been trying to get on their distribution list for months, it's impossible. I've heard over and over again about how people can't get a hold of anyone there. Their priorities aren't with their metal bands, that's for sure. When you're done recording an album, do you have regrets? Do you tell yourself you could have done it better? Or, do you not think about it and move on to the next project?

There's always things I wish I could change, but for the most part, it's done. When we're in the studio recording, we realize that it's that time in metal history when we're making music. I don't let any of it consume me. I figure that everything we've done I've been happy with. We have people who like us for a whole list of different reasons.

How do you feel when you get a negative review?

I don't really care, it doesn't bother me at all. In fact, a lot of times I' ll think it's really funny. I read the review and start laughing. I know that the album has been taken completely out of context. We'll get reviews saying we're not fast enough. I think that's cheesy because we're not trying to be fast enough. People who have no understanding of our music are the funniest to read.

If you wanted to be fast, you'd play back metal.

Well, yeah. Or we'll get a review complaining about stuff we're about and it 's obvious they just don't like the stuff we do. We're an acquired taste.

How's the band's current line-up? Are you satisfied?

Yeah, actually, things with Kyle, Joe and myself are real secure. We're real comfortable working with each other. Sometimes there are some traits in people that really screw things up. But we all get along on the road, and that's really important. It's good that we get along well. Crowley helped us out on vocals on some shows. We're the healthiest we've ever been. We've been through numerous line-ups but now for the most part, it's working out great.

Do you have a fourth member now?

We have a couple people that we're working with for the moment, but nothing permanent yet.

Incantation tours a lot more than other bands, right?

We do our share, for sure. We just like to play our music for people and we like to meet the people who support us and hang out. For us, touring is the most satisfying part of the music industry.

You're going to Europe in early 2003, right?

We're doing a small run over there.

Is this your first time?

No, we've been there a couple times before. There was this guy in Italy who really, really wants us to play there, so we're playing Italy this time around. And before that, we're doing three shows in Mexico, and that's with my wife's band, Funerus. It'll be a good experience for Funerus.

If you have a CD of Funerus, I'd like to hear it and review it.

We don't have anything yet, but as soon as we record it, we'll get it out to you. It's early death metal, like early Grave or Entombed, a lot like the Swedish stuff.

Are you planning on doing any big festivals either in the US or Europe next summer?

We definitely won't do the metalfest. The sound sucks, the workers don't know what they're doing and why should we do a crappy set that sucks? It's like, you wait for hours, only to find out that everything is two hours late, and the sound guy is an idiot, and you play a crappy set that the fans and the bands don't deserve. We won't do it again. We're trying to get something in Europe together.

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