Judge Krzysztof Wieckowski, though, came to the conclusion that the actions were an act of artistic expression consistent with the style of the band.

In addition to tearing up the Bible, Nergal also called the text a “deceitful book” and referred to the Catholic Church a “criminal sect.” Still, audience members who testified said that, despite being Christians, their religious feelings had not been hurt.

On Behemoth’s website, Nergal claimed he was happy with the outcome. ”I’m so glad to see that intelligence won over religious fanatics in my home country,” he said, “though there’s still so much work to be done to make things right.”

“I don’t remember when the last time I was that nervous,” said Nergal. “I’m still not 100 percent in shape so I didn’t know how my body would react.” Nergal was diagnosed with leukemia this past August, but the vocalist/guitarist underwent a successful bone marrow transplant and is on the road to recovery. Behemoth plan to be back onstage this October.

“What a blast, I have to tell you. I had a serious adrenaline rush, and it was such a boost of energy I can’t even describe,” Nergal said about Friday’s performance. “I’m counting days until we come back with Behemoth full time. Five months to go.” Check out a video of the performance below.

Photo by Maciej Boryna

Brandon Geist
Editor in Chief

A Pale Horse Named Death, And Hell Will Follow Me
“Sal Abruscato, former drummer of Type O Negative and current drummer of Life of Agony (Brooklyn!), sings, plays guitar, and writes the songs for this band, while Type O’s Johnny Kelly handles drumming duties live, and fuck, this debut album is awesome. Sounds to me like Alice in Chains at their darkest with a touch of Type O. Not out until June 14, but run out and get it then.”

Local H, Icon
“Seeing Helmet play all of Meantime on the Metalliance Tour last week had already put me in a ’90s kinda mood, and then I got sent a promo of this best-of comp, which sealed the deal. I dug these guys as a kid, and listening to this shit again brings me back. Songs like “Bound For the Floor,’ ‘High Fiving MF,’ and ‘Cynic’ just sound like the ’90s, my favorite decade of music.”

Julie Christmas, Coextinction Recordings 5
“Julie’s best known for fronting Made Out of Babies, then for her work with Battle of Mice, then her appearance on the Spylacopa EP. But for my money, her best shit is on her solo album from last year. This digital-only EP has two new solo songs and it’s out on Coextinction Recordings, the new label run by members of Unsane, so cool all around.”

Kory Grow
Senior Editor

Alice Cooper, Killer
“When we confirmed that we’re honoring Alice—one of my favorite artists of all time—at the Revolver Golden Gods, I started going through his discography again. Killer is my evergreen favorite from the original band. I also recommend Brutal Planet if you want to hear Alice at his heaviest.”

Behemoth, Evangelion
“Having interviewed Nergal this week about his current health status after battling leukemia—read parts one and two—I revisited Behemoth’s most recent album. Still slays…just like Nergal.”

Josh Bernstein
Creative Director

Clutch, A Weathermaker’s Dozen
“Maryland’s finest and most bearded return here with a nice sampling of all their hard-to-get B-sides on this tasty new collection. Love the alternate takes, acoustic versions and especially their take on Cream’s “Politician” as well. A real band’s band!”

Anthrax, Anthrology: No Hit Wonders
“The upcoming Big 4 shows have me digging back into my thrash bin. While we wait for the newest Anthrax album with Joey on vocals, it’s nice to rip through the classics from my childhood in Queens. These guys’ breakdowns are faster than most band’s “fast parts.” Caught in a mosh indeed…”

Various artists, Judgment Night Soundtrack
“This is probably my favorite movie soundtrack of all time – right up there with Less Than Zero, The Crow, Repo Man, and Natural Born Killers. But this is the only soundtrack with both Sir Mix-A-Lot and Faith No More. It should also be said, this movie is actually pretty bad…”

Josh Hart
Web Producer

Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
“Dave Grohl tells no lies: this is definitely the Foos’ heaviest effort yet. Feels like more of a small club album than one for the stadium; take that for what you will, but I dig it.”

Blind Guardian, At The Edge of Time
“This album is probably great for fans of earlier (pre-Nightfall) Guardian, but while it is a consistent album, I think A Twist in the Myth will go down as a more memorable album.”

Dropkick Murphys, Going Out In Style
“As is tradition among my group of friends, St. Patty’s Day featured way too many Irish car bombs and just the right amount of Dropkick Murphys. Casual and hardcore fans alike shouldn’t be disappointed with this one”

Emily O’Neill
Marketing Coordinator

Protest The Hero, Scurrilous
“I’ve been a huge fan of these guys for years and this album confirms my love for them. I’m happy they didn’t stray from their signature badass-ery guitar playing but I am enjoying the unusually thought-provoking lyrics this time around.”

Asking Alexandria, Reckless and Relentless
“I found this band on Josh B’s iTunes. I usually don’t like metalcore at all—but this band rocks hard.”

Trivium, Ascendancy
“Every time I listen to this album I remember why Trivium is the best. ‘Declaration’ is one of the best songs ever written, really.”

Cody Thomas
Editorial Intern

Protest the Hero, Scurrilous
“It would’ve been hard to top Fortress, but this is damn close. What baffles me as how they can be so technical yet write such great, catchy songs.”

Meek Is Murder, Algorithms
“Insane new grindcore from Brooklyn, New York. Technical, artistic, and overall awesome. Definitely recommended for fans of Converge and the Chariot.”

The Chariot, Long Live
“Speaking of the Chariot. I always liked these guys, but I fell in love with this album. It sounds cliche, but it honestly captures the energy that makes their live shows so legendary.”

Today, we conclude Revolver’s interview with Nergal. To review, early last August, Adam “Nergal” Darski—the frontman of the Polish extreme-metal group Behemoth—announced he had been diagnosed with leukemia, putting a stop to his band’s tour for 2009′s Evangelion album. Since then, fans of his band have followed his obstacles and progress. He desperately needed a bone marrow transplant by late August. His then-fiancée, Polish pop singer Doda, offered hers but wasn’t a match. Fans began organizing bone-marrow drives to raise leukemia awareness over the next couple of months. Nergal got a bone-marrow match by early November, and he underwent a transplant the next month. Nergal left the hospital in January, only to return the next month for a short time, and has been on the road to recovery ever since.

The timing couldn’t be better. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Behemoth, and the band plans to play its first concerts this October, as well as to release an authorized biography. Behemoth are also planning on touring the U.S. next spring. Nergal spoke with Revolver on Wednesday about everything he had gone through—from the initial stages of his illness to the first time he picked up a guitar again. Here, he talks about the recovery process.

REVOLVER How did your bandmates support you through this?
NERGAL We were on the phone every two or three days. We were putting together this DVD project when I was in the hospital, so I was talking to Orion every day about details. When I was in the hospital, I kept my band alive as much as I could. I was talking to managers, talking to labelmates and bandmates. Every time I was feeling OK, they’d come over to the hospital and visit me. I had great support from pretty much everyone out there involved in the band somehow. They were just ready to bring in help to me.

My bandmates, Inferno and Orion, would appear on national TV several times asking people to give blood and do tests for bone marrow. And it was good. It was really good to see that everyone was so much focused on that, and they really did care about me. That was really helpful and cool.

Also, the whole extreme metal scene, the whole community was out there standing behind my back. I was getting fucking thousands of emails. And I know there’s a lot of shows they organized just to raise the consciousness of what leukemia is all about. I’m really happy. I wouldn’t really expect that from these kind of people. I know they respect what we do as musicians, but at the end of the day I was happy to see these people do care about human beings. Not just their favorite artists or a guy in a band. They were like, OK, this guy is in need. He needs us to help him about. We don’t want to lose another musician that we respect and that we like. You can guess that I don’t really value human race that much. But I can tell you that this whole case brought back a lot of, how do you say, faith in human beings. It’s positive in the end of the day.

That’s great. Did your then-fiancée, pop-singer Doda, with whom you recently broke up, help you through all of this, too?
She was there for me. This whole DKMS organization—the biggest organization that collects bone marrow, in Poland—they had 50,000 donors before I went to the hospital. And they collected them within a few years period. When I went to the hospital, and we started the whole campaign in the media and everywhere, she was the one asking everyone to go for it. Within a few months we did even more than they did within years. It was a great success. It’s cool to see that my tragedy had an awesome effect, you know? It’s killer. I’m happy to help out other people, too. I know that my case helped out other people. It’s cool, it’s positive.

Yes, it is. How did going through all of this affect your relationship?
It was tough. It was really tough. We were apart from each other most of this time. There was no time for…you know, there was no sex. You’re not really close with this person physically, and you need that—and she needs that. We were apart for most of this time, and you change your shapes, and you look really ugly, and you’re not the same, and you have no hair. Both men and women, their ego is so much disturbed in these situations. I can tell you I didn’t really treat myself as a proper man. I lost a lot of it. But I know it’s just temporary, but it affects your relationship for sure. It’s not the same again. Yeah, so…

Are things better now?
Well, it’s picked up lately. I don’t really analyze it. Shit. I don’t know man, I really need some time to think it over and to treat it with distance. It’s a very fresh thing. But definitely this whole case complicates and affects our relationship in some way. It could have strengthened it, but there are some other things that happened aside from it. Then again, I don’t really…it’s a personal thing. I’m not really in the mood to talk about it.

I understand. Changing subjects, what music inspired you through that time?
There were times I’d be listening to no music. It depended on the mood. Sometimes I was in no mood for anything—to talk to people, to see people, to listen to music, to watch TV, anything. And then next week I’d be all over some band.

I remember when I went through the radiotherapy, I’d be listening to Filosofem by Burzum pretty much every single day. It was snowing outside, it was fucking freezing, and this music would be fitting this fucking whole circumstances perfectly. And I was so much into it. And I was listening to Belus, the last Burzum album, too. But that was just maybe two weeks, and I was just picking out different albums, different bands. I try to keep it varied.

Have you been able to play much music?
No, I didn’t even touch my guitar in that time. I actually started playing guitar two months ago. I just didn’t feel like it, man. When I grabbed my guitar for the first time, I was terrified. I thought guitar playing was like bike riding? Once you do it, you never forget it. I was surprised seeing it was exactly the opposite. The more time you spend without an instrument, the more you lose. So I had to start over again and stretch my fingers, learn certain sections and parts and leads. You have to start over again basically. It’s going to take me two or three months to get back into the same shape, but the point is to be a better musician in the end of the day. I really hope that for the first shows we have planned in October in Poland for later this year, I really hope I’ll be at least as good as I was before I got sick.

That’s great. You recently made an appearance at the Musicollective music school. How was that?
No, that was tabloid bullshit, man. Don’t take it seriously. They just picked it up and blew it up. I was with a friend of mine just jamming; we just played different stuff. No metal stuff. I just treated it as an exercise. And we just took some pictures, and he put it on the school’s Facebook. And then, the next day, the Polish tabloids were all over it, and they picked up the pictures, and I had these big tabloid magazines calling me up trying to buy these pictures. Obviously, I tell all of them to fuck off. I won’t be fucking flirting with this kind of media.

That’s terrible. How does it feel to be the subject of this kind of weird tabloid culture?
It’s not my life. It’s not me. It’s mostly lies and rumors and gossip. It’s kind of upsetting in a way. I was more into it when I was fully healthy. Like now, when I left hospital and I’m like, Eh, I don’t have the same energy yet. And I’m like weak and stuff. My level of tolerance is much lower to this bullshit.

It’s terrible how they do that. Have you been able to write any music lately?
Not really, I did some riffs. I’m thinking maybe something cool will come out of it. Maybe not. We’ll see. I wrote a lot of stuff—not musically, but lyrics. I got a lot of ideas for lyrics, a lot of verses here and there. Some of them are really, really cool. I can’t wait to put them into the riffs. It was not like I was inactive artistically; I was. I just wasn’t playing the guitar. I was coming up with different ideas. Honestly, now, I was seeing my graphic designer two days ago, and we were talking about the cover for the next record. I know it’s two years until we fucking unleash it, but I always start working in the very early stages. And I just throw ideas at the table and just wait for them to grow. I want to make sure every idea is awesome and it’s very mature I want to make sure that the whole album, every aspect—music, graphics, lyrics—they’re going to pass the test of time. And it’s going to be timeless at the end of the time, and 10 years down the road people are going to be thinking, Fuck, this awesome record, it’s still fresh and it has a value to people.

Speaking of that, this is Behemoth’s 20th anniversary, and I just wanted to know how that makes you feel.
Yes, we’re talking to Metal Blade, and Metal Blade’s probably going to be releasing an official biography in English worldwide. It’s going to be a book, with lots of pictures, 300 or 400 pictures. It should be finished in May, so we really hope that we’re going to meet the deadlines because October is exactly when the 20^th anniversary is happening. What’s a better way to celebrate the anniversary than to release a biography? I don’t see any. Some bands would do new versions of their old songs, and stuff that was pretty much every fucking band does it. We’re going to do some shows here in Poland, but I’m most excited about the book. It’s super exciting and I can’t fucking wait to read it. I hope metalheads will want to read it—I know they’re all about listening to the music, but it would be cool to have something like this. It’s going to be authorized by the band, and it’s a lot of cool stuff that you’ve never read in the interviews. A lot of pictures, a lot of rare pictures. So just wait and
see. It’s going to be awesome.

What do you have planned for your concerts in October?
Yeah, we just decided to play some so-called comeback shows in Poland just to warm up and see how we feel, just to be onstage again together. And I really hope that it’s going to turn out great and that it’s going to cause other tours and stuff. We have plans until the summer of next year. We already have some cool offers. We’re talking to our agents. There’s some really, really cool ideas. I don’t want to reveal anything yet, but once we’re done with October shows, and we feel good about it, and there’s chemistry onstage, we definitely want to continue the Evangelion touring cycle. There’s still some markets we didn’t even touch. We’ve done over 100 shows so far to Evangelion. We’re going to do another 100 at least, and then we can focus on the next record.

To be honest, we can’t wait to hit the stage again. I’m so fucking anxious. I’m so excited, so psyched about it. I have dreams about coming back onstage. I dream about Behemoth shows. It’s insane, I know, but I can’t tell you how much it’s a relief to the band and how much it means to us.

Absolutely, that’s awesome. Obviously all the fans want it, too.
Fuck yeah, man. I can’t wait to meet these people out there. I’ll be out there talking to everyone. And I’m happy that I’ll have a chance to shake their hands and say thank you for your support. And thank you for waiting for us.

I’m sure everyone will be happy to hear you’re doing better.
Yeah man, it’s cool to hear things like that. It keeps us motivated. It gives us a certain drive. We feel like the band is really needed and there is a demand for Behemoth, and without this we probably wouldn’t be here.

Read part one here.

Photo by Maciej Boryna

Early last August, Adam “Nergal” Darski—the frontman of the Polish extreme-metal group Behemoth—announced he had been diagnosed with leukemia. His band was still touring for their Evangelion album, released a year earlier, and this put a stop to Behemoth’s tour. Since then, fans of his band have followed his obstacles and progress. He desperately needed a bone marrow transplant by late August. His then-fiancée, Polish pop singer Doda, offered hers but wasn’t a match. Fans began organizing bone-marrow drives to raise leukemia awareness over the next couple of months. Nergal got a bone-marrow match by early November, and he underwent a transplant the next month. Nergal left the hospital in January, only to return the next month for a short time, and has been on the road to recovery ever since.

The timing couldn’t be better. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Behemoth, and the band plans to play its first concerts this October, as well as to release an authorized biography. Behemoth are also planning on touring the U.S. next spring. Yesterday, Nergal spoke with Revolver while he was in southern Poland, visiting friends, about everything he had gone through—from the initial stages of his illness to the first time he picked up a guitar again—and we are posting his interview in two parts. Click here for the rest of our interview.

REVOLVER How are you feeling today?
NERGAL I’m very good. The weather is just getting nicer and nicer here. It’s just getting beautiful, and I’m just enjoying it. I’m enjoying my time off before the whole crazy cycle starts over again.

What’s you current health status?
It’s been over a hundred days after the bone-marrow transplant. You have to be very careful and very sensitive about everything during that time. You must not mix with big crowds, because of infections and bacteria in the air and shit like that. You have to be very careful about your diet. There are very few things you can eat, basically. And of course, no alcohol and no raw meat. Now that that period is over, I’m basically enjoying myself. After this interview, I’m going to join my friends and have a beer, maybe have some French fries. I wasn’t allowed to eat junk food, so I’m actually really hungry for that kind of stuff. Anything that was restricted is just so tasty to me nowadays.

Basically, I’m discovering all these over again. Enjoying it. I have to take these drugs that basically lower my immune system, so that the bone marrow can adapt in my body. After this period, it’s going to be another chapter of recovery. Basically with time, when all my blood tests are OK and stuff, and my bone-marrow tests are OK, it’s just going to develop in a better way.

How do I feel? I feel pretty fucking awesome. There are some little things that are kind of frustrating. Basically, stomach problems and stuff like that. Other than that, I’m pretty strong. Every week I feel stronger and better and stuff. All good, all good.

It sounds like you’re in good spirits.
Yeah, totally. Basically everything is going according to the plans. There were no delays with the chemo, and radio therapy, and the transplant. The way it was planned in August or September, everything happened according to the plan set by my doctors. I know that I’m pretty lucky, but on the other hand, I know that my attitude towards the sickness also determined the result. You have to keep the spirits high, and even though it can be challenging and painful, you have to keep yourself motivated and not believe in success at the end of the road but basically be 100-percent sure that everything will be fine as it was before.

When did you know you had a health problem?
I believe it was in June. It was right before we left on a European tour with Decapitated. I just started having goosebumps all over my head, and I didn’t know the origin of it. I thought it was some kind of skin disease. I was thinking maybe I brought it from some exotic country. I was in Japan before, and I was in Australia a few months earlier. But I was fine, I just had these bumps on my head and diarrhea. All the time it was diarrhea, and it was kind of suspicious. But I just took it easy and was kind of like, OK, maybe this is going to go away. Maybe it’s the shitty food on tour.

I came back to Poland after the tour, and then I left for Greece for vacation two days later. It was really hot there, but I was having fevers every day. Every time I’d wake up every morning, my whole bed would be covered in water. It was sweat all over, and I was just getting weaker and weaker every day. I was like, Shit, this is something serious. I need to take care of it ASAP. When I was still in Greece, I started calling doctors and surgeons. They said, “Without blood tests, we can’t tell you anything.” So after I came back from Greece I felt kind of shitty, and I had breathing problems. And I decided, I have to go to the hospital immediately. So I went to the hospital as soon as I performed at two concerts. I did one with Behemoth and one as a guest vocal with some band. They hardly happened because I was in such bad shape. But somehow I did it. I faked a lot. I couldn’t fucking sing, but I faked it. After that, I just traveled across the country and just went to the hospital. After three or four days in the hospital, they moved me to another hospital where they diagnosed me with leukemia.

Did you ever find out the cause of the leukemia?
There was no cause. No one in my family has had cancer. If it’s not in your genes, it’s not really possible to guess the cause. It could be anything. It could be nerves, it could be a stressful life. You know Chernobyl ? We had the same stuff back in the ’80s in Poland, and there was a radioactive cloud that went over Poland. This radioactive cloud came through Poland, and some doctors say that might be the cause of it, too. But no one can tell you 100 percent what was the cause.

You were in the hospital for a long time waiting for a marrow donor. How were you feeling while you were waiting?
Basically, I didn’t feel that bad. I had some OK periods, and I had some shitty periods. It depends. When I was on steroids, it was OK. It was bearable. The only problem was I made a lot of energy because of the steroids that I took, so I had to eat a lot and I was growing fat. My face changed and everything. I was just so full of water. It was scary to look in the mirror in the morning. But other than that, I was doing OK.

When they gave me chemo, I took it pretty well. There was no side effects. Some of the chemo caused some shitty days. I could hardly walk, but it could have been much worse. Seeing other patients and people dying and stuff, man, I was really lucky. My sickness was an aggressive form—it was very fast, it was invading my body rapidly. But at the same time, my body reacted really, really well to the chemo. So basically after the first dose, the cancer was 50-percent gone. My bone marrow was just a few percent of the cancerous cells that were left in the bone marrow. The doctors were very, very optimistic about the way it was developing and the way of the cure. And I was optimistic, too. It took me six months altogether, with the chemotherapy and the radiotherapy and the transplant to get healthy basically—to get new bone marrow and go back home and start recovery. It was really fast in compared to other patients and other cases. It was fast.

Read part two here.

Photo by Maciej Boryna