Worshipping the riff with Infernal Stronghold's Gunslut

As part of my series on every single band playing at the 2012 Maryland Deathfest, I have also tried as often as possible to get a few comments from some of the bands. Usually, I send them an email and see what happens. Gunslut, drummer for Internal Stronghold, was kind enough to reply to some of my questions. Infernal Stronghold plays early in the day on Saturday, May 26. Gunslut's real name, by the way, is Grzesiek Czapla. Here is something of a reconstruction of our email conversation.

What do you want people to know about Infernal Stronghold?

We've been making music since 2002 but started playing out live somewhere in 2005. We've always wanted to play black metal, and I feel like that's the goal whenever we make a song, but it's just not possible (er... extremely difficult) doing that while living in Philly. Punk and hardcore just easily crawls its way into the band. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.

Do you have any new recordings in the works? 

The last recording we have is a demo of a new song (Flesh Totem) that we self-released with Absu in November of 2011 for our short east coast exhibition. We'll also have a very small number of the split with Absu with us (for sale at the MDF). That song will appear on our next full-length LP, which we are working on now.

What about a tour?

We'll be touring for around 45 days in the fall (Canada and the USA), and since our decade of existence coincides with MDF's decade of awesomeness, I figured we should make it special. Not sure how just yet, but it will be cool and ferocious. I am reluctant to post dates because the tour is the still in the planning stage, but I'd say we have half of it booked.

One thing I really like about your band is that it seems you stick to that old school black metal vibe, as opposed to some of the bands from the NYC area who to be going in a sort of "noise rock" direction that I am not hugely fond of.

I really appreciate your comment about our particular style of black metal, which is odd to say really because it's not really a particular style of black metal; it is black metal (kind of, sometimes?). These newer and atmospheric/noise rock/post black metal/weirdo bands that have been popping up don't really seem to have any riffs, but dynamics, parts that build up, and emotional dirges within songs that lack balls. We just want cool riffs and fast as shit songs, no god damn fussin' around with pansy songs.

Anything else?

Worship the RIFF.

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And that, my friends, is excellent advice!