DERKETA is a legendary name in the late 80's / early 90's American Death Metal underground. One of the great bands of that era, along with IMMOLATION, AUTOPSY, INCANTATION, ROTTREVORE, NIHILIST, CARNAGE, etc. I was always fascinated with the history of this cult band, so I went to the creator of the band herself, to get all of the possible information I could! Currently, DERKETA is working on new material for their first full-length album which promises to be a great classic-style Death Metal album for fans of the early days! Let's now all read what Sharon has to say, and don't forget to check out their web site at: http://www.derketa.com

Hey Sharon, thanks for taking the time to answer this interview. I'm glad DERKETA is still active after all these years. Let's go back to the beginning days. How did you first get into Metal, and eventually Death Metal and more extreme music? What were some of the first really extreme albums you got and which had the biggest impact on your life?
"Thanks! I started listening to Metal when I was about 10 years old. My older brother was into bands like Rush, Kiss, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Nazareth, VandenbErg, etc… and at the time those where the bands the local rock station would play. Then everything progressed from that point onto bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy, MÖtley CrÜe, Ratt, Twisted Sister. I started going to Metal arena concerts when I was 15 years old and became friends with people from just hanging out before the show. Some guy that worked for a college radio station recorded a tape for me consisting of Thrash bands like Metallica, Death Angel, Sacrifice, Dark Angel, TestAment, Zoetrope, Flotsam and JetsAm and so I started checking out more Thrash bands. These bands were pretty underground at the time so at these Thrash shows I met up with more of the underground local scene, like Dream Death, Doomwatch, Necropolis and then became exposed to more Doom (which we used to call Sludge Metal) & Death Metal bands like Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Prophecies of Doom, Death SS, Hobbs Angel of Death, etc.. I started going to these Metal parties after these shows where I met up with Don of NunSlaughter and some other locals that exposed me to bands like Mantas / Death, Massacre, Tiamat, etc.. Then around 1988 or 1989 I flew up to Canada to see Sacrifice and met Henry from Revenant after the show and we became friends. From Henry I met Ross of Immolation and started tape trading with him which exposed me to bands like Nomenclature Diablerie, Paradise Lost, Carnage and of course Immolation and so on. So there were quite a few people that I've met from going to local shows / parties that had some impact on me gaining exposure to the undergound Death Metal scene. Probably one of the biggest albums that had an impact on me was Black Sabbath’s "Greatest Hits".  My aunt gave that to my brother when I was about 10 years old and I would listen to it constantly. I think that album really sparked an interest in me for a darker sounding form of Metal. Once I got more involved in the underground scene, I would have to say Metallica’s "Ride The Lightning" really had an impact on me. Paradise Lost "Lost Paradise" and Entombed "Left Hand Path" definitely are two albums that I couldn’t get enough of. Sadus “Illusions” and Possessed “Seven Churches” were also two of my faves."
When did you first form DERKETA? I know your first release was a rehearsal demo dated from 9/5/89 I believe? Was the band name really taken from the Conan series of books / comics? I believe the name means "Goddess of Death"? Were their any other names you had before you decided on this one? I noticed the original band logo was a bit different than the one you stuck with. Who drew the logo by the way? I always loved the look of it, it really catches the eye and is very cool looking. 
"I started playing guitar when I was 15 years old and got bored trying to learn the tab of other bands and started writing my own material.  Terri and I met up sometime in 1987 or 88 and this is when I approached her about starting up a band. We actually had our first rehearsal in March of 1989 which was Terri’s first time behind a drum set. Jeff Cherep from the band Doomwatch really helped us out and taught Terri how to play drums and let us rehearse at his house until we got ourselves together. He is also the one that came up with the band name because we were really struggling trying to come up with something original. Every time we would come up with something, there would already be a band with that name or something similar. One of our early thoughts were Sarcafogus, but then there was Sarcofago! Jeff is a fan of the Conan series and had mentioned about this character called Derketa who was the goddess of death of a blood drinking cult in Stygian Mythology, so we thought that was fitting with us being girls and we knew nobody else had it. As far as the logo, Mark Mastro designed the original logo for us but then Drew Elliott redesigned it to make it more readable!"
Anyway, the original line-up of the band was you (vocals, guitar, bass), and Terri Heggen (drums). You first released a 2-song rehearsal to get the name out. How long did it take to record and tell us a little bit about this recording. Will these songs be included on the upcoming discography CD on Necroharmonic (we'll discuss this release later...)? I remember that Kim August of Ultimatum zine was supposed to play bass, and I think there's even a promo picture of the band with her in it, but did she ever actually play on any of the material? Whatever happened to her by the way? I know she was really active in the early 90's Death Metal scene and helped out many big bands of the time. 
"We recorded that tape over a weekend in this guys basement. He was a friend of Jere Jameson, the original drummer of NunSlaughter. Kim August did play bass on it. Ross from Immolation introduced us and she was all up for it so I mailed her the tablature of the songs and she flew down to play on the recording. We just micked everybody up and recorded the rehearsal on a 4track recorder. Kim lived too far away, 8 or 9 hours away, so that is why it didn’t go any further than that recording with her. The recording is awful when you really listen to it, our timing is all off and for some reason we didn’t realize it at the time! I don’t think we practiced the songs that many times before we hit the record button! I don’t know whatever happened to Kim. We lost contact shortly after that recording and im not sure how long Ultimatum zine was around. But she definitely was a huge supporter of the underground scene back then."
The next step for the band was to record your debut official demo, titled "The Unholy Ground", which contained the songs 'Premature Burial', 'The Unholy Ground', 'Eternal Misery', and 'Time Of Awakening'. The sound on this demo is very dark, raw, and heavy with a lot of influence from Nihilist (later Entombed of course) and Autopsy, but even slower I would say and more doom-laden. Tell us about the recording of this legendary demo! How many copies did you print up, and how many were circulated in the underground? What was the inital response towards the demo when it was first released? I remember the fanzines of the time were very supportive of it and the band appeared in many interviews in zines that have long since died (sadly). Also, who drew the cover artwork for the demo?
"You know, I don’t even know how many copies we had printed up. We were so unorganized that we didn’t really keep track of it. I don’t think Terri and I really knew how big the underground was at the time so we weren’t prepared for it. We would just make more if we needed them. The response was really good and we started getting a ton of mail from it. We were averaging about 5-10 letters a day which became very hard to keep up with. As soon as we would write somebody back, they would write us back again so we never could get ahead it with it. There was too much attention because we were girls which got annoying, and which contributed to the breakup of the band. The fanzines were very supportive of the band. I only remember seeing one negative review in which the person accused me of using vocal effects, which was never true. I had wrote the guy to let him know that but im not sure if he ever cleared that up in a different issue. That really surprised me because the talking tone of someones voice does not factor into Death Metal vocals. People shouldn’t be shocked that a female can do it. Take note to guy voices, not that many people have a low gutteral talking voice. Look at Chuck Schuldiner (RIP), his talking voice was not deep at all and listen to what he could do. The demo artwork was actually this little drawing that was in an issue of Fangoria. We didn’t want to delay releasing the demo and all of our friends that did artwork were pretty backed up with other jobs they were working on. I was just looking through Fangoria one day and saw the corpse coming out of the ground and thought that it was perfect."
Was it true that DERKETA was supposed to have appeared on a Combat Records sampler LP? Did this ever get released? Tell us a bit about this if you can. 
"I really hope that was a rumor cause I never heard of that myself!!! If something came along to Terri regarding this after we broke up, she never told me. I don’t think it was true, I can't really imagine Combat Records being interested in us. But once Terri and I weren’t friends anymore, she didn’t give me any of the Derketa mail so I don’t know what all was coming her way."
A bit after, Seraphic Decay Records released a 7" ep titled "Premature Burial", that featured 2 songs re-recorded from the demo. Tell us about this recording, and how did it differ from the demo? How come you didn't record new songs for this release? Were you happy with the sound you got? What was the original deal with Seraphic Decay Records? How many free copies were you promised and how many did you actually receive? I know this label is notorious for being a rip off label, and they did many other ep's with Incantation, Mortician, Rigor Mortis (pre-Immolation), Xysma, Agathocles, Disgrace, etc. and were never honest about anything they did. Tell us a little bit about the story of this label and the situation you were in with them. I know that Chris Moyen did the cover art, which I always loved very much! 
"Steve from Seraphic Decay wrote us about doing this and for whatever reason at the time we couldn’t get together enough to work on newer material. So the quickest solution was to re-record 2 existing songs in order for Steve to get the release out when he wanted to. I really hate that recording. It took us longer to record that 7” than it did to record the whole demo!! And I don’t like the vocal mix at all but in the studio its hard to tell certain things cause everything seems to sound the same after a while. I guess we were rushed with getting it out or something. But we re-recorded the songs 'Premature Burial' and 'Eternal Misery' a little doomier than they were on the demo. I'm not quite sure that was our intention to play it slower but we were just getting tired of playing them over and over and we just exhausted ourselves to death with it. I think the demo came out a lot better. I don’t remember how much Seraphic had promised us but from what I understand, Steve was pressing more than what he was telling the bands so nobody was getting their fair share. John from Incantation called Terri up to let us know what was going on and she immediately called Steve and bitched him out so he sent back our tape with a nasty message on it! Hahaha. That was the last that I heard from him. I know the release was printed up on purple vinyl, black vinyl and splatter vinyl. I remember he was going to print up t-shirts with all of the band logos from his releases on it but I don’t think that ever happened. His label is actually considered cult because he was one of the first that started releasing 7”es for a lot of the unsigned bands. It’s a shame that whatever happened with it, happened. Yeah Chris Moyen did the artwork for Steve and Derketa actually wanted the design that Incantation used!! But I guess it worked out in the end because our cover really fit the songs better."
Here's where things got a little bit blurry for the band. I know that Terri went on to form Mythic with other members, and you were left with the DERKETA name still, but without any actual members by yourself. Tell us about this time and what really happened? It seems like the band dissapeared overnight and you had been gone from the Death Metal scene as well. Were you still trying to get the band together during this time? Did you ever write any new songs that never got released when DERKETA was still active with the other members? Did you ever get any interest for a full album?
"Theres a lot to this story so I'll try and sum it up. After Terri and I called it quits, I started practicing with a local drummer Scott Philips, from the band Death Mass. I think we practiced for a couple of months until he got back with his girlfriend, then he wasn’t allowed to play in bands anymore. It’s a shame cause he was a really good drummer. After that had happened, it seemed hopeless to find another drummer that was into Death Metal. I met some other drummers but they weren’t into Death Metal and they wanted to change things up a bit which I wasn’t up for. I couldn’t find anyone that was into the same as me. If I'm not in full control of the song writing then I'm not going to do it and it's hard to find members, especially male members, having that attitude. I just got frustrated and quit looking for members. The Death Metal scene was changing then so I didn’t feel that I fit in with it anymore. The people that I was once friends with in the scene even seemed to change. So I decided just to let it go. I had some personal stuff going on at the time as well and hated just about everybody and didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. I just hated life, nothing was going right and I guess I started a search for happiness. I was still writing songs during all of this, anytime I pick up my guitar its only natural to fuck around with riffs and ideas. There were songs that I wrote when Derketa was still a band that never got recorded. I almost got them recorded with Scott but the timing was bad with that. I remember some labels writing to us wanting to hear our next recording so I don’t know if a full length would have come from it. That was 12 or 13 years ago so its hard for me to remember who we were all talking to."
Many people seemed to think that MYTHIC was a spin-off band of DERKETA, but I always felt that DERKETA was the real Death Metal band and MYTHIC were just posers that used the name of DERKETA and the work you did to get the name out for their new and inferior band (yep, I'm honest about this! I'm not gonna hold anything back here). I remember MYTHIC really started to promote themselves during this time and were beginning to make a name for themselves, but I always wondered what happened to you and DERKETA. During this time, what were you doing with your life? Working? Were you still interested in Death Metal music? I heard that you got married to Brian from the band EXMORTIS, was this true?
"Yeah, I really hate the fact that people associate me with Mythic. I see them as a joke band because I knew what was going on at the time when they started it up. Terri and I at one point were best friends. When we started Derketa it was for the fun of it. It wasn’t done to become popular in the scene or play into the image of being in an all female Death Metal band. Terri got caught up in this around the time we recorded the Seraphic Decay release and I didn’t want to be a part of it. I felt like she was using me to make something of herself. So we started to hate each other and we called it quits. I didn’t like how Mythic were using Derketa’s name to get themselves promoted but what can you do. I thought they were horrible and I wanted to be completely disassociated with them. I remember hearing Mythic and was surprised that Terri liked what they were doing, she had better taste in Metal than that. Around this time, I did marry Brian from Exmortis, but that only lasted 10 months. It was really a convenience marriage; we were too young for it to be anything more. I had bought a house and had to work 2 jobs to afford it so it didn’t leave me much time to work on Derketa. I was still interested in Death Metal, but not the Death Metal that was coming out at that time. I just listened to whatever tapes / albums that I had and was content with it. I took 5 years off and didn’t touch my guitar in that time at all. I had re-married and had a son out of that marriage, then put myself through college. Once I got settled in my life again, then I was able to get back to concentrating on song writing and working with the band stuff again. I think it all worked out for the best. I wouldn’t have wanted to be active in the Death Metal since in the mid 90’s, everything seemed to be changing and I didn’t feel that I had a connection with any of it."
Finally, in 1998 (I believe), DERKETA finally returned with a new release, as a split 7" ep with NUNSLAUGHTER on Delira Noise Productions from Germany (a label that screwed me over personally, but that's another story, haha!). Before this split was released, I heard that you were supposed to have done a split with NUNSLAUGHTER a lot earlier on glow-in-the dark vinyl, but that ended up being a split with DEKAPITATOR (members of Exhumed). What happened with that? Tell us about the split with NUNSLAUGHTER that finally happened. I know that you weren't happy with the new songs you did, as they didn't capture the raw, haunting sound of the earlier material from the band. Personally, I liked the material very much and was very happy to see the band back after so long. I remember the day I heard that DERKETA was back, I was really intrigued and excited to hear new stuff!
"Yeah, Don called me up in 97 and asked if I would reform Derketa and we had planned to release a split glow in the dark 7” on Halloween. I called Terri up and we started rehearsing again. Everything seemed to be going OK until we went to record. A friend of hers had this home studio and thought he was some great producer with an ear for “what's in”. I can't even relive all of the events that happened with this, I get too angry. To sum it up, he wanted us to be a Goth band because he said Death Metal was “out” and Goth was “in”, and he refused to record the way I had wanted. And surprisingly Terri was buying into what he was saying. After I left the studio, they erased half of my vocals and Terri sang them. They wrote lame keyboards in the song, mixed it, then sent it out to be pressed without me even hearing it. I had asked Terri to record again somewhere else and she said no. It definitely wasn’t Derketa and that was the last time that I worked with Terri. So I called Don up and pulled us off of the release literally at the last minute. Dekapitator was able to jump onto the release and they got it out. Around 1999 Don had moved to Cleveland and called me up again to do a 7” with them and said that Jim would play drums for me. I'm not 100% happy with the songs on that 7”, they aren’t how I originally wrote them. There were faster riffs included in the songs but Jim didn’t feel like they fit so we scrapped them. The songs are more mid paced than what I was going for but I was so burned out with trying to keep it going that I didn’t really care to put my foot down. It's still my riffs but they just got pieced together a little differently than I wanted. I guess I'm just stubborn and particular. As far as Deliria Noise Productions, Frank seemed to drop off the face of the earth. I think he had pressed more copies of the 7” and Don or myself could not get a hold of him anymore. I don’t know what had happened to him."
It says on your web page that Ordealis Records also re-released this split on picture disc, but I never remember seeing or hearing much about this release. Please tell us about it. 
"In 2002 Ordealis did re-release this on pic disc, guess they didn’t promote it too much! I know the promotion was more focused with NunSlaughter and not Derketa. They’re made on really thick vinyl, its really nice but we weren’t happy with the artwork on it. Don had sent them a disc that had the 7” artwork on it, but there was other artwork on the disc that we had scanned from this witch book. And Ordealis picked something off of the disc without asking either of the bands if it was OK or not. When Don received the 7”es, we were all like ‘what the fuck is this!’  I think the NunSlaughter side looks OK, minus all of the advertisements that got printed on it, but I don’t like the pic used on the Derketa side. It's witches flying over a harbor, but you can barely see the witches so it looks like it’s a scene of a boat harbor. I think that pic was scanned to use for a flyer, definitely not for a release."
Please tell us about the "Mad Max Impaler Of Trendies Tribute" release and the track you did for it called 'Your Rotting Flesh'. I've never heard this song or release. Was this a tape or 7" release?
"Max was a friend from France that used to email me. He wanted to put out the next Derketa release but had committed suicide one drunken night in Canada. Master from Bestial Mockery contacted a bunch of his friends to appear on a compilation CD in his memory. So I wrote ‘Your Rotting Flesh' with Max in mind. The song is total doom and was recorded quickly on an old 4track. On the actual release that Master put out, the beginning of the song is cut off and the song skips in the middle of it, and he has Destruktor from Australia and Derketa mixed up on the track listing. Destruktor got the worst of that mistake, haha. I'm sure they thought “what the fuck is this crap” when they listened to it expecting to hear them! It’s a very bad recording. I don’t know how that happened but Master didn’t notice it and its released like that. I have horrible luck with Derketa!! It's correct on the Necroharmonic release though."
The next release was a 4-way split with Gravewurm, Witchburner and Sado-Maniac on Iron Bonehead Productions. Please tell us about this one. You recorded the song 'Spirits In The Morgue' which I found to be very killer and dark / morbid sounding. 
"Thanks, Kevin from Gravewurm and Patrick from Witchburner organized this and so Jim, Heather and I recorded 'Spirits In The Morgue', which im happy with. Except I wish I would have recorded the 2nd guitar track but we ran out of time. But this release is a good mix of the different flavors of Death Metal."
This year we hope to see the release of "The Goddess Of Death" CD on Necroharmonic Productions (hey Roy!) that features all of the material DERKETA has recorded. Tell us about how this came together, and what people can expect from it once it's out. The cover artwork is really hauntingly creepy I might add! Very well done, and perfect for the band's style / concept. 
"Roy contacted me with the idea and I agreed to it. The CD has “The Unholy Ground”, the “Premature Burial” 7”, the “Begotten Son” 7”, the songs 'Spirits In The Morgue' and 'Your Rotting Flesh', as well as the 89 Rehearsal tape remastered to CD quality. Daryl from Funebrarum designed the cover and it fits Derketa perfectly. I really like it. This should be released in October, the CDs are done we’re just finishing up the layout."
You are now currently preparing new material for a full-length CD / LP(?) titled "In Death We Meet". Can you share some of your new song ideas / titles for this? It's quite amazing that after so many years, DERKETA is finally doing a full album! DERKETA is one of the last bands from that glorious era of early 90's Death Metal to do an album, and I think it will be very special and unique, considering how different the Death Metal scene is today. How do you think it will turn out, and will it be in the old style of the early demo recordings that are cherished so much by fans of cult American Death Metal?
"I don’t have all of the song titles for this LP, the lyrics are still in draft version. I usually don’t complete the lyrics until I have finalized the musical arrangement which im still ironing out. But a couple of the song titles are 'In Death We Meet' and 'Blessed In Blood'.  “In Death We Meet” is also the title of the album and the song was inspired by my friends mother (Dara) who was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. The picture used for the cover is actually a photograph that was taken at the accident scene, and this cloud of fog appeared on one of the photos. I showed it to Daryl of Funebrarum and he took out the contrast and focused in on the fog which we found to be interesting. (And yes, I totally get into this stuff!) So, instantly I knew that I wanted that to be the cover. I really think musically the album is going to turn out OK. I'm not rushing the song writing and have really took the time to focus on getting the songs exactly how I want them. I think they sound very much like the demo recordings, there are faster, aggressive parts that lead into some sort of doom or haunting notes and some songs are more of a doomier vein in general. Regardless, there is a good mix of material as I can't write just the same format every time. It all depends on my mood on that day. The songs are tuned down to B, which is what I tuned to for “The Unholy Ground” demo and im using my new Laney TF300 amp that gives a good low end sound. I think the “Begotten Son” recording I was tuned to C or D. That wasn’t intentional; I just didn’t have a tuner to check it at the time. Did I mention that I'm unorganized?? Haha. The people that have heard the rehearsals of the songs so far say that it definitely is Derketa. So if people did like Derketa at one time, they’ll definitely be into this recording. If they never liked Derketa’s style, they won't be into it at all. I don’t like change so I wont be changing Derketa’s writing style."
You're also playing with the new band EVISCIUM with Mark Mastro (ex-Rottrevore). Tell us how you got involved with this new, killer band! I know that the drummer of EVISCIUM is also helping you out with the new DERKETA recordings. How is this working out so far? When can we expect to hear some releases from EVISCIUM? I know you have a mini-CD in the works, please tell us about it, along with a possible split LP with FUNEBRARUM, another great early 90's influenced Death Metal band. "Mark called me up and asked if I would be interested in taking on the bass duties for his new band. I'm not a bass player but Mark didn’t feel it would be a problem for me to adjust to it and has been very patient with the many stages of blisters that ive gone through getting used to the telephone / cable-sized strings. His main concern was to find members that he knew would create a stable lineup and who could work together. So far the band is working out great, we’re all into it 100% and have the same passion for it. We have a great time working with each other which should promise a longevity in the band. We self released a 3 song demo on cassette and are now working on recording 3 new songs for a CD release on Still Dead Productions. That release will include the 3 new songs plus the 3 demo songs remastered to CD quality. This will be released before the end of the year. The layout is already done, we’re just checking out studios in our area to record this. Once Still Dead receives the recording, Julius will sent it off to be pressed. Currently Eviscium has 9 or 10 songs written so im sure more releases will surface from us. We have been talking with Funebrarum about a split release but nothing is set in stone with it as of yet. Yes, Jared is helping me out with Derketa on drums. Jim Sadist lives 3 hours away and is highly involved with a number of bands. To find the time to travel and meet up with him when we both have the free time is very hard to do. I really hate working under rushed conditions and don’t want to do that for the LP. Eviscium practices only 20 minutes away from my house so its just more convenient. Plus Jared and I are used to working together regularly from the Eviscium practices.  He knows the “slow it down” evil eye cue!"
What is your opinion of today's current Death Metal scene. What are some new bands that you've heard that you like? Did you ever have an interest in the Black Metal wave in the mid-90's? How have things changed in your opinion over the years from the early days until now?
"I'm really not up to date with the current Death Metal scene but from what I've heard, I'm not into it as much as I am with the older bands.  It seems that people are trying to be original and are loosing the overall feel of song writing to how Death Metal started out. That’s the way it’s coming across to me anyway. The bands that are now classified as Death Metal seem to have more of the chunky “chugga-chugga” guitar riffs, the riffs that you see these newer kids hopping around like deranged bunny rabbits in the pit too. I did not have any sort of an interest in the mid-90 Black Metal scene. I do have an interest in the original form of Black Metal, like Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer. But from there it turned to a darker form of Glam Metal. I always hated bands that got too much into image. Some bands can pull that image off, like King Diamond, but for the most part I think it looks silly and not scary or evil in any way. The music side of the 90’s Black Metal scene was very thin, almost combining aspects of Goth and having those “fat lady opera / church” vocals included in the mix. It just does nothing for me. I think this all is turning around though. Most of the older people that were in the scene years ago are now resurfacing and I'm sure will be writing from where their first passion started. I really look forward to hearing more from the scene. One of the new Black Metal releases that I absolutely can't get enough of is Grand Belial’s Key “Judeobeast Assassination”.  I know they’ve been around for some time but for a recent release, its fuckin' killer!  To me, this is true Black Metal. A band that does not have to have a make up mirror in front of them to perform on stage, pose in ridiculous form for photos, and has a true hatred for Christianity. Not like the other poser Black Metal bands that write about the images of religion but are too politically correct to get down to the source of it all. I only mention this because of the disgust I have for the underground that will deny a band like that and are more accepting of bands that write about killing children, raping women and so forth. That somehow is more acceptable than writing about the Jews. Whatever."
I'm very saddened that the printed fanzine is now almost extinct. Tell us about some of the old zines that DERKETA appeared in back in the old days, and what were some of your all time favorite fanzines. Do you think the printed fanzine will ever make a strong comeback, or will the internet webzines finally seal it's tomb? (ironic I'm asking this, as this interview will be featured on a webzine!). Do you think the webzines of today are better, or worse than the actual printed fanzines of the earlier days? Has email and the internet helped DERKETA you think? If it wasn't for the internet I probably would'nt have known how to contact you!
"Yeah I miss the days of fanzines too. Some of the ones that I have are Peardrop, Death Vomit, Comatose, Senil Nekrofil, Metallic Overtones, Deathfully Yours, Invincible Force, Infernal Bleeding (Mark Mastro’s zine!), Godvomit, Ripping Headaches, Hard n Heavy, Epitaph, Metal Curse, Eternal Darkness, Monkey Business, Sepulchural Noise, Ultimatum, Crionic, Butcher zine, Gore-Fiend, Isten, Chainsaw Abortions, Septicore, Mega Mag, Out of the Underground, Diabolic Force, Vangueness of Dastardity, and Mutilador. Now this list is definitely showing my age!! My favorites were definitely the ones written in English! It's really hard to pick a favorite because each of them had their own raunchy style. They all seem to have had the reviews and interviews typed then pasted in some psychotic manner! Of course the glossy ones always seemed better but that’s not saying the content of the others weren’t as good. I think fanzines will start coming around because to me, if you are going to have a zine of some sort, you want that to be captured in time. Now listen up Billy, I know you already agree with me on this, haha! What is the point of having a webzine that will eventually be archived on some webserver and then you can no longer look at it? There is no longevity to having a zine this way and I would think editors of this zine would rather having something more solid to be cherished in times to come. But to keep up with the fast pace of the internet, it is a good idea to have some sort of a web interface, I just don’t think having ONLY that is a good idea for the long run. In years to come, people will forget what the web address was of an interview they saw at one time, or the interview will no longer be listed on the internet. And me personally, I hate sitting at my computer desk. I'd much rather get a coffee, sit on the couch and read a magazine and enjoy it that way. It's more relaxing and entertaining. In my basement I have a table of all of my old fanzines that I'll go through every so often. It's fun to revisit the past and read the early interviews of bands such as Immolation and Autopsy, and check out old photos of everyone. Webzine are obviously a cheaper immediate solution but putting the extra effort into something printed is definitely the way to go. Email has helped keep everyone in steady contact with each other; you don’t have to rely on the US Mail system to deliver your letter or packages overseas. The expense of postage is just ridiculous. I've had some bad luck with US Mail, sending people something airmail and them not actually receiving it until a couple months later. But emails are the same as webzines. Anyone who was ever in a band has to admit that receiving positive fan mail really adds to the inspiration and excitement to keeping the band going. I don’t mean that in an arrogant or egotistical way or anything like that but years ago when I would receive a letter totally praising Derketa, it would make me very happy and all of the time and effort put into the band seemed worth it. (I did get some women bashing hate mail from some faggots just for the record!!) Getting a letter from across the world was totally exciting. Now getting an email from across the world is the same as getting an email from someone down the street. They all look the same. The English may be butchered a bit but the look of a foreign letter really put everything in perspective.  When I'm old and dying, I think I would enjoy going back in time by re-reading my old mail and fanzines, just to take a look at some accomplishments I had with my life. I really can't see me being 90 years old doing a search on Google to see if there is anything left of Derketa. Same with email, I've had to delete some old email just to free up space in my mailbox. Printing them up just isn’t the same because you can't see where these people are writing from. I still have all of my old mail and in that box are some letters that I was very proud to receive. Like from Possessed, Possessed actually wrote me and I have proof of it!!!  It wasn’t an original member of Possessed, but still. That may not mean anything to some people but to me it does! I think a good idea would be for the people who have webzines, to put out even a yearly issue consisting of the interviews and reviews they have gathered up from bands. I think that would go over pretty big."
Well Sharon, these are all the questions I have for you. Hope they were ok! I'm really honored to be in contact with you and I look forward very much to the new album! Good luck with it, and give some final comments if you'd like! Thanks again.
"Thanks Billy for contacting me with your support and sending me this killer interview!  If people are interested, they can check out the websites www.derketa.com and www.eviscium.com for updates."

Billy Nocera

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