By Alex De Moller

Inside Information Special: Legalize Murder
NO MOSH. NO CORE. NO FUN.

It was a slogan that led the early Black Metal movement; A musical revolution that was feared by the cattle beyond it and for a long time, hated by the people who now speak it submissive praises. Thousands were infected by its passing and the music would react to everyone in different ways. But it’s only a certain amount of time that people see the funny side of their everyday obsessions and gain the courage to laugh ourselves. Alex De Moller caught up with ‘Vic Norseman’, star of Legalize Murder, the Design ‘Documentary’ that’s earning kvlt status in record time.

Legalize Murder is the first professional video-mockery of black metal subculture. It will reduce you to tears, grant you the desire to carry out the mundane tasks in your life fully clad in leather, spikes, and corpse paint, take up daily rituals of vandalism and Sega, and even … collect tiny cups. I forcefully brought Design Confederacy mastermind, Joseph Salerno (aka Vic Norseman) before the inquisition charged with heresy, witchcraft, bat-flinging and being an art student, he could do little but comply.

“Guilty” Pleads Joe “But just for the record, I hated most of my time at art school” Though he plays the role of the hilariously grim Vic Norseman in the film, Joe is a compliant torture subject and answers with great enthusiasm about his work, disclosing vital information whilst under the bible-blade.

“Legalize Murder was written by Nick Warden, and myself. All of it was filmed in Pembrokeshire in southwest Wales. It’s a beautiful place with a really dark vibe to it, full of mountains, mythology, lakes and pine trees, so I guess it’s a close as we could get to Norway. I play Vic Norseman, and Burt Weinbecker, the bands producer. Phil Adams, and other Design Confederacy member, plays Jack Norseman and Nick Warden plays Dominic Dalrymple, the Theroux-esque pop culture journalist covering the band, as well as black metal heathen Blasphem”

In its present form, Legalize Murder exists only within the confines of the visual orifice that is Google Video and clocks in at around an hour and ten minutes of ridiculous footage. Telling the story of a small black metal band in the 90’s with delusions of grandeur, the film is set in rural Wales where excitably cringe worthy journalist, Dominic Dalrymple confronts the band for an insight into their way of life:
“So far, everyone has been amazing about it” begins Joe when I ask how the film has been received. “The response has been so much more than we thought it would be. We get loads of emails everyday from people who have been told a lot the film, or stumbled upon it for themselves, saying how much they enjoyed it, asking about future projects. It really means a lot to us. We were just trying to make something that we would find funny. It’s fantastic that so many people around the world have latched onto it and understood the biggest surprise has been the amount of people emailing us in appreciation of the film, or joining the Legalize Murder MySpace, who know nothing of black metal as a musical genre”

better stil, everything is filmed from the heart. Mr Salerno admits (without any previous flogging) to being a full-blown black metal acolyte, which gives the film an authenticity that those merely researching the music and subculture could never achieve. “Nifelheim, Darkthrone and Mayhem are three of my favourite bands. Bathory? Now you’re talking! We aren’t really trying to take a shit on black metal”, Joe explains. “It’s music I really care about. We are simply pointing out that no matter what way you slice it, certain bands whose attitude doesn’t stand up against their music, and it pisses me off. However, you only have to look at Gorgoroth, Tsjuder, or Carpathian Forest to see that when it’s done well the pomp and regalia, presentation and iconography that comes with BM can work really fucking well”

In addition to including the usual black metal clichés, Salerno and co-actor Phil Adams surround their characters with ‘90’s pastimes like excessive video-gaming, unhealthy diets, colouring books and of course, ‘The Batapult’. But where does Screwball Scramble fit into it?
“We wanted to put everything we’d remembered from growing up in the ‘90s into the film, metal, Mega-Drive games, Garbage Pail Kid stickers, Tomytronics, Golf GTI’s, and of course, Screwball Scramble.”
That’s clear enough. But what about Vic Norseman’s collection of little tiny cups? “We had a long hard think about what would be the most leftfield thing for a black metal soldier to collect, we came up with a few ideas, horse brasses, snow globes, stamps, but in the end we settled on tiny china cups. It made us laugh the most”
The films soundtrack is one of it’s notable high-points. Featuring bands like Nargaroth, Goatsblood, and Tsjuder, the comical scenes become even funnier, particularly when Vic is captured riding a little girls bike in a full badger mask. The band’s ‘promotional video’ in the film almost fooled me into thinking that Legalize Murder was a real band but after sadistic forced-flagellation, Joe reveals that I’ve been the victim of a cunning deception:
“Man, I wish we had wrote that, but alas no. It’s called ‘Schuld Uns’ves Knoch’rigen Falt Pferds’ by Bethlehem, from their Dark Metal album.”
So will we ever see Legalize Murderon the shelves? (Where it dosnt play for free) I’m informed that the likelihood is yes…well, maybe: “Magma books will be selling limited DVD copies of Legalize Murder in their stores in London and Manchester from July. So, if any of your readers are interested, contact them and book your copy today.help keep the kvlt alive. As for future projects, we’re filming a pilot episode for a sketch show series called The Casrrot Wall Comeback Special. It’ll be like Little Britain, but not shit. We have a bigger cast, higher production values, and more writers. The BBC seem interested, so we’re just working hard on it. We’re also still making music videos and promotional material for bands like US grindmasters Watchmaker, Italian goth act Run With Wolves and Canada’s newest black metal army Wolven Ancestry”
Before passing out from the starvation and a turn on the rack, Joe gives us his last words and with them, a rally cry for black metal heretics everywhere.
“Please, please keep doing what you’re doing. Deliver us from Emo, deliver us from these so called new wave bands recycling what Talking Heads, XTC, and Television where doing in the early 80’s. Whatever you do, do it well, make it the music of rebellion, music of the opposite, make music that means something. Rise and wake all these fuckers up. The Western World is raping the Third World and using it as a plantation/factory for cheap goods and labour; the Americans are annexing the Middle East and acting out a holy war, but Franz Ferdinand just want us to go to the Matinee. Something needs to happen, and hopefully music will figure heavily in that something.”