De Pankraker Records – ” For me, that’s the essence of Black Metal: it’s about navigating between respect for the past and innovation, between tradition and renewal”

De Pankraker Records is a new record label, run by De Pankraker (Peter Cousaert), who also runs a radio show and a magazine with the same name. De Pankraker Records its first record is an album by Dutch Black/Speed metal band Witchfukker.

Why did you decide to start De Pankraker Records? Why did you decide to make an album by Witchfukker the first release?
The first album was released on July 15. That’s The Netherland’s very own Witchfukker, a bunch of rather young ruffians who know their old school classics and have managed to turn that into an old school Death/Thrash record that will blow your socks off.

There were two reasons to start the label. Firstly, an old dream began to resurface last summer. As a regular visitor of record stores since my teenage years, I dreamed of having my own record store. Rataplan in Ghent was the big example, but there were others too. More recently, a record store like Crypt of the Wizard in London has been a major reference. The smell of vinyl, bringing records closer that aren’t very easy to find, and most importantly: chatting about music. That’s what I had in mind. I had already found a location in Ghent, but my wife had many sleepless nights over it. The idea of a real record store was shelved and took on a different form. As a sort of interim step, but hush-hush from my wife. It became a distro, and I can regularly be found at shows of very friendly concert organizers like Sterfput (Antwerp), A Thousand Lost Civilisations (Brussels), Black Khaos Assault (Wallonia), The Pit’s (Kortrijk), the folks who occasionally organize concerts at OCCII in Amsterdam, but also festivals like Unholy Metal Mayhem Festival, Blek Metle Festivel, or United Forces of Evil in Germany. And then there’s the ever-sympathetic Jan Cassiers from Amps on Tour, where I get a spot to sell vinyl every quarter. With Jan as the biggest customer, ha! Just to say: there’s a lot of hospitality. People who know better than I do told me that a distro works best if you also have a label operation. Since having a label was also an old dream, I just combined it immediately.

Witchfukker is the most direct reason for the label. At a concert of Profanatica in Antwerp, where Witchfukker was the opening act, I inquired about their progress with their debut album. I had been following the band for a while, and they also played at the first edition of the Pankraker Festival last year. They told me they still didn’t have a label. I told them I wanted to start a label to release their debut. They were enthusiastic about it, but I also immediately told them that they might be better off finding a ‘real’ label first. A few months later, they came back to me, and now there’s this scorching album that everyone should have heard. Anyone who has seen the band live knows how great they are. They’ve also managed to capture that on record.

Which kind of music do you want to release on De Pankraker Records?
Anything that fits within “extreme metal”, based on my own taste. That’s how I’ve always approached everything, and that’s how I will continue to do it. It’s quite simple and honest in that regard. Musically, it will often hover somewhere between Black, Death, and Thrash, but I don’t really see any real limits there.

Anyone who starts from “We’re Only in It for the Money” should look for their enjoyment in another genre. For me, what I’m doing now is no different from what I did in the past. In the 90s, I did tapetrading and made compilation tapes. In the late 90s, I did Noise Magazine with friends. Since 2018, a radio show, later a magazine, and last year a festival. In between, I was sending people music via links. It’s about a simple idea: I’ve discovered something cool and I want to share it with you / shove it in your face. So there’s only one possibility: my personal taste takes precedence. I can be unsympathetic towards people I find sympathetic in that regard. If you’re in a band and I don’t like it enough, I won’t play it on my radio show or release it on the label. I often find those difficult messages to give, but I can’t do otherwise. It’s probably also something character related.

You’ve correctly noticed that I often gravitate towards old school stuff in metal. That’s often in the riffing, but more frequently in the sound. I often shy away from too much modernity, can increasingly less tolerate a polished sound, hate triggered drums, etc. So, it’s more about taste than a value judgment about what others are doing. I also need to share the spirit with the bands. But that’s also more about the music.

What are your future plans with the label?
Unpredictability is my middle name, so who knows. There are some things in the pipeline. A few weeks ago, we announced that we would be releasing the fantastic demos of Serpent Mass as a 12”. They are really worth it. And then I’m also working with a cool new German band that I can’t say much about yet. I don’t have release schedules or anything like that. It will be quality over quantity. For me, both reissues and new records are possible. And for the rest: bring it on. Let me hear your noise!!

Do you run the label on your own? Do you do everything yourself?
A bad habit, but since the start of the radio show, I’ve been doing everything alone. Whether that will remain so, I don’t know. There are some people with whom I feel a close bond and a sort of kindred spirit who have now let me know that they would like to collaborate on some of my activities. That could happen, but I need to discuss it further.

And there are, of course, many people who help me. People who help me carry in the boxes for the distro, friends who helped at the Pankraker Festival. All people who realize that I like to do things my own way. Also, on the home front. Checking the stock together, helping pack a box. So doing everything myself is also relative. I owe them all a debt of gratitude for that.

You run a radio show, a magazine and organise concerts. Why do you want to combine these 4 things?
There’s only one explanation. It comes to my mind, and I want to do it. So it’s more a result of ‘I want’ rather than a thought-out choice or strategy. “More is more,” Yngwie Malmsteen said. That fucker was of course wrong when it came to music, but I understand his point. I want something, and awhile later it has to be there. That’s how it went when we founded Wit Konijn (the radio station where De Pankraker originated) with a bunch of mates. It took six months between the first idea and the launch. The idea for De Pankraker Festival came up in February of last year. On July 1, it was there. Will I do it every year? That’s not necessary. I can certainly skip a year. It must be said that the label and the distro are the most serious things I’ve done to date. Serious, in the sense that it can’t just be a short-term eruption in my head. But I can handle that because that’s a discipline I also have to practice at work. But the summary is: I’m the impulsive type. And that translates into everything you mention.

Does running a label means the same as, let’s say, ten years ago? Are these the digital days or is there still a public for vinyl? You hear people complain that vinyl (the printing and the shipping) became too expensive. What do you think about that?
I find it difficult to assess because this is the first time I’m doing it. So I have no basis for comparison. From people who have been in it longer, I hear that it has become more difficult. Some also say: less fun. Until a few months ago, I only knew the buyer’s side. And that buyer often felt like a victim of too expensive records and high prices. Victim of the music industry you could say. I have a double perspective on this. On the one hand, I understand the feeling of victimhood that I also hear from independent record labels. It was when the music industry rediscovered vinyl and started pressing the latest ABBA release en masse (for example) that the underground was in trouble again, and prices soared. So, the problem is ‘the industry’. Just like in almost every sector of society. I won’t start a discussion about agriculture, for example. That record industry should just go to hell, but it does create pressure.

On the other hand, we need to continue investing in our own system. An anti-system approach where we don’t adopt the tricks of the industry. Some examples: maintaining margins that are small enough to keep it relatively affordable. Not participating in artificially creating scarcity where labels continuously go for limited editions of records they know will sell very quickly. Only to later see extortionate prices on Discogs. Of course, I understand the context of a starting label that needs to build in some caution. So, I will always try to keep my margins as low as possible and not sell records too expensively. Sometimes it can’t be helped, but then I hesitate. When labels wholesale too expensively, my doubts set in.

That being said: there’s a chance my accountant will tell me at the end of the year that I’m being naïve. I’ll keep VM-Underground posted on the progress, héhé.

What does the name De Pankraker mean? Does it refer to the Lugubrum song with the same name?
De Pankraker means something like the Crusher of Skulls, but in Dutch it sounds better. And yes, it is indeed directly stolen from the Lugubrum EP ‘De Zuivering’, still one of my favourite releases from the band. Lugubrum was a local product for us. It was really crazy in the 90s that such a standard-bearer lived just 10 kilometers from our door. Naturally, the name had to sound good in the first place. I had a long list of all sorts of stupid names for the radio show six years ago. Then I was looking at titles from bands and suddenly remembered one of I owe them all a debt of gratitude for that, the titles from ‘De Zuivering’. Once I had that in my head, there was no turning back. I didn’t ask the band for permission. No idea if they liked it. I recently asked one of the members, and he said I was just doing what often happens in metal: borrowing and building on. Shall we look at how many Black Metal bands used Sodom titles for their band names and aliases? That idea, indeed.

How did you get into metal? And why are you interested in the more extreme forms of Metal, such as Black Metal and Death Metal?
It’s the classic story. At thirteen, I was mostly listening to Nirvana, combined with a relic from the past: the amazing singer Isabelle A (especially check out her demos!!). I had a cousin six years older who was really into old school Death Metal, but also listened to Slayer, Sepultura and bands like Paradise Lost. I was fascinated by his shirts and the big fuck-off attitude he projected. Meanwhile, I had discovered Guns n’ Roses and Metallica (like almost everyone), and at the bumper cars at the fair in my village, I heard ‘Loco Live’ by The Ramones. Very bizarre actually they played that, if you listen to the music at a typical fair today. But I wanted more. And I told my cousin that. In my memory, he first gave me a tape of Phil Collins because he thought I needed a stepping stone. But that didn’t interest me. And the tapes he gave me then set everything in motion. Sepultura – Morbid Visions, Sepultura – Beneath The Remains, Sepultura – Arise, Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power, and last but not least, Chemical Breath – Fatal Exposure (a great Belgian Death Metal band). I listened to ‘Morbid Visions’ and was completely blown away. Funny enough, that tape played twice as fast. That was so bizarre. Then, for example, Morbid Angel was a game-changer and also ‘The Ultimate Incantation’ by Vader. My cousin kept supplying me with a lot of this. He later called himself Fenrir (Den Beul) and would play in Garmenhord under that name. It was unstoppable. Thanks to the tabloid press, I got wind of what was happening in Norway and went on a discovery tour. Also, Metalopolis, a Belgian Metal program on the radio, was important. They played early Black Metal releases. ‘Allfadr Odinn’ by Enslaved, for example. Or ‘Exiled Archangels’ by Rotting Christ and early Cradle of Filth. Other key moments were meeting a Hardcore kid who told me he listened to ‘Drawing Down the Moon’ by Beherit every day. I was already 17 then. I started doing the same. What an impact that album had. And with Jeroen Pede of Alkerdeel, who was living in the same small village, it was exchanging music at 100 km per hour. We also tape traded a lot with people abroad. Eventually I did Noise Magazine with him and some other friends. That happened after we reached adulthood, because before that, we couldn’t stand each other. The whole avant-garde after ’96 fascinated us immensely, but today, apart from DHG or Ved Buens Ende, not much remains standing.

I’m not entirely sure why the extreme stuff resonates so much with me. For almost 30 years, I also listen to other music, ranging from Jazz and Prog Rock to Minimalism and Avant-garde. The common thread is that it’s usually not easy-listening music that interests me. In most of those genres, there is also easy listening to be found, but that interests me a lot less.

Who is your public, you think? Who are the people who will buy the De Pankraker Records albums?
Honestly? No idea, hehe. There are people in bands that I’m friends with. There is a kind of social space where you often run into the same people. Maybe that’s a scene. A friend of mine recently introduced himself to a good acquaintance of mine: “Hi, I’m Maarten and I’m the only one who only listens to metal and does nothing else in the scene.” It was a joke, but there’s some truth in it. If a scene is something with all sorts of collaborations between individuals, musicians, organizers, etc., then I suppose I’m part of a scene. But that sounds more organized or intentional than it is, I think. It’s the same with the idea of a subculture. It’s a culture that deviates from the dominant culture. Often, it’s teenagers who set up those kinds of systems. Almost everything has become mainstream anyway, if only because we all get older and head to a gig after our day job. We can romanticize it a lot, but it is what it is. No more, but certainly no less. Now, I’m not the right person to ask about it. All my life I’ve felt like I have one foot in (usually knee-deep) and one foot out. I don’t like belonging to groups, but at the same time, you can’t avoid it. The time when I really worried about it is also long behind me. It’s often a comfortable position too.

Is Metal more than music? Is it a lifestyle?
For me, metal is very important and a part of who I am. But if it were a lifestyle, then I wouldn’t work and would only be busy with Metal. And honestly, Metal as a term is so general that it means very little. The first conversation with someone who doesn’t know about Metal is always: is that like Metallica or something you like? Or Rammstein? In the best case, it comes out that I still think the first two Metallica albums are great. And then they ask names from bands that I like. Just to say, for me, there’s no real Metal community either. Okay, if you say ‘Metal Makes Us Strong,’ then I do feel something, but I also always have to laugh a bit. People like to talk in stereotypes, of course. That’s how it goes with things that are a bit out of sight. There’s said to be a lack of understanding for the Metal community. Honestly, on the one hand, I don’t care, and on the other hand, I have little understanding for much of Metal, hehe. Take the music seriously, but that’s about it.

Why are you mainly interested in old school Metal, and what do you see as the golden ages of this kind of metal? Which period? Which bands?
So it’s mostly a matter of taste. I can look back without rejecting what exists today. Every era has something interesting. The early NWOBHM, early Thrash (Teutonic Thrash for the win!), old school Death Metal from the late 80s and early 90s (Autopsy for the win!), first and second wave Black Metal, and so on. I’m not a nostalgic, but I can still really enjoy the classics. The 80s are of course important.

I was a music addict kid in the 90s. Every era has its own merits. And while I find the 2000s somewhat less interesting, I think there are many intriguing things happening today.

For example: for years, almost all Black Metal bands with punk influences were copies of Ildjarn, a band I hold in high regard. Listen today to some other bands, like that whole bunch from Austria (Weathered Crest, Brånd, Gates of Londra, etc.), or the Russian Horrible Room gang (I know, dodgy beliefs, which I prefer to distance myself from), or the Korpsånd circle. They’ve all done something different, and that’s how it should be. For me, that’s the essence of Black Metal: it’s about navigating between respect for the past and innovation, between tradition and renewal. It’s always been that way. Black Metal has never been about creating a mold and fitting everything into it. Again, for example: the Norwegian Black Metal sound never actually existed. What did Immortal, Enslaved, Darkthrone, Emperor, Burzum, Hades, In the Woods… or Forgotten Woods really have in common musically? There were shared elements, but they all had their own identity. And that’s often an issue. After a period of innovation, there’s always a period of stagnation, with too much imitation and misplaced sentiment. But that’s how the world works. There’s always a turning point. Where we are exactly at any given moment isn’t always clear. It’s often in the eye of the beholder. And that’s perhaps the most important thing: opinions aren’t that significant because you can defend almost anything… says the person who is constantly expressing opinions.

Maybe there is something more important. Often, it is the first albums of bands that are the best. It is the strength of the pure, unfiltered joy of playing and first ideas. Often, it’s a matter of a still unpolished sound, not too thought-out ways of playing. And yes, there are certainly exceptions. Especially if a band is more technical in nature. Which I am certainly not against by definition, even though I have that reputation.

https://depankraker.be/