Death SS
Beyond The Realms Of…

14.03.2025

Sometimes they come back… Our first interview with Italy’s Death SS was made back in 2014, in another reality where it was possible to take a flight from Moscow to Sweden, see all your favorite bands live at a major festival and chat with a cult metal personality backstage. It may all be different now, but the unforgettable horror metal troupe is still around, still making great records, and its charismatic founder, mastermind and frontman Steve Sylvester (hence SS in the band name – before anybody starts making wild guesses) and still reachable, though this time by Zoom only. We got in contact with Steve shortly before the release of his band’s 11th full-length record that is titled “The Entity” and tells a concept story linked to both horror literature classics and the story of Death SS themselves. But as always, we went beyond that and also discussed the band’s infamous live shows, videos, Steve’s side projects, and record collecting…

What is usually the starting point of a Death SS album? Do you come up with some musical ideas, and they inspire you to create a fitting concept, or is it the concept that inspires the band to write music to it?

Usually everything starts with my idea, my aspiration. I choose a topic which I want to talk about, and then I invite a composer, a musician, usually external to the band, to help me realize the melody that I have in mind. For example, on the last album I used to work with Andy Panigada from Bulldozer, who is an old friend of mine and is able to understand immediately what I have in mind. When I have the first rough demo, I complete the lyrics and the overall melody. When I have the demos complete, I give the demo to the other guys in the band that are free to come up with their parts. They have carte blanche to add their ideas, their style to each of their instruments in a song. But everything usually starts this way.

You have released three singles in support of the upcoming album “The Entity”, and each of the singles contains three new songs from the album. So, nine out of 12 album songs are already out at this point. Why did you decide to have such release strategy – break the album down in parts and release them one by one before the entire full-length comes out?

This was basically my idea. As you know, I’m a record collector, I really like singles and stuff like this. I talked with my label about having this release strategy because we can launch four singles in limited physical editions, on vinyl, before we release the album. These are only limited editions, this is a gift for the fans who want to have all the songs from the album before the actual album comes out. Alongside with that we launch four video clips, and we put the four video songs online. All the other songs from the B-sides are not online, you will be able to listen to them only when the complete album is released, I think, on May 1.

How was it like working with Tom Dalgety? Why did you choose this particular guy to produce the album? Do you like his work with Ghost?

Yes, of course. When I completed all the songs on the album, I started to think about the right producer who would be able to realize the final product. I knew Tom Dalgety because I’m a fan of the work he has done, especially with Ghost, but also with Rammstein and The Cult. I thought he could be the really right guy to produce the album, because I wanted a style that would be classic and powerful at the same time. I got Tom’s contacts from the manager of Tobias Forge of Ghost. I contacted him, and he knew Death SS and wanted to listen first to the songs that I had in mind for the release. He liked the songs very much, which was great for me, and he decided to work with me. All the production work with him was very easy, because we have the same views on what the final result must be.

Ghost play the music with a lot of occult influences and elements. Usually it is believed that the general public are afraid of all things occult, but Ghost is a very successful band at the moment. Do you think that the success of Ghost will also draw attention to bands like Death SS that sing about similar topics?

I don’t know, maybe. As I told you, I know Tobias Forge personally, I have met him several times, and Death SS played together with Ghost at a stadium two years ago. Tobias doesn’t hide that he was influenced by Death SS, Death SS are one of the influences on Ghost, and this makes me proud, because they are a very good band, and they have a huge success. But he’s not the only one who has told me that in their time they were influenced by Death SS. Death SS are an influence on many other successful bands.

How did you get to work with video director Andrea Falasci? He did a great job with the three videos for the new album!

Andrea is a friend of mine, he lives close to me in Florence, and he’s also the leader of his own band called Deathless Legacy. They started as a Death SS tribute band, and Andrea is a great friend of our band. He shares with me the interest in horror and occultism, so we have a very strong relationship, we immediately understand each other. It was a lot of fun when we worked together on videos for Death SS.

Heavy metal and classical ballet is an unusual mixture, but in the music video for “Out To Get Me” it works perfectly. Are you interested in ballet or other performance arts? Are you a theatre-goer?

I love all forms of art, but I have to confess that I don’t follow classical ballet or dance so much. The idea came to me when I listened to the final mix of the song from Tom Dalgety, and it brought to my mind a scene that I had seen in a 1926 silent movie by director Rex Ingram that was called “The Magician”. It’s a cult silent movie, and it has a scene when a faun dances and fights with a nymph, and this has a very strong effect. I don’t know why but the sound reminded me of that scene, and I wanted to represent that in the video, so there is a dance and a fight between a demon and an angel during the song. There is something really artistic in it that I love so much.

Could you say a few more words about the connection between Death SS and Deathless Legacy? Apart from your cooperation with Andrea, you sang two songs with them a few years ago, and now their singer Steva appears in your video for “Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde”...

As I told you before, Andrea and all the band are fans of Death SS, they started as a Death SS tribute band, and I was the one who chose the name “Deathless” for them many years ago. I consider them sons of Death SS. Later on they chose their own individual path, and I love their kind of music so much - the influences of Death SS are still strong, but they have such a rich sound that is so full of personality.

The concept that you came up with for “The Entity” is powerful and huge, and it goes beyond just music – to music videos, album and single cover artworks, etc. Do you have any plans to take it even further and do a comic book, a movie or anything else based on it?

(laughs) Maybe. It would be great if it’s possible. When I think about a concept for an album, I think about it as a complete artistic package, as if it was a movie, for example, not only a record. I have a big connection with visual arts, because I’m a cult collector of horror movies and things like this. It would be great if the concept of “The Entity” could one day become a sort of graphic novel, for example. It’s just a question of budget. For me, I like to experiment with all kinds of situations.

There are obvious references to classic horror movies and all things horror in the new album and videos. What is your opinion of the present-day horror movies? Do you watch a lot of new films, or do you prefer classics?

I definitely prefer all-time classics. They are the reason why I started seeing all kinds of horror movies when I was a baby. When I was very young, I saw Hammer Film Productions movies, Universal Monsters movies, cult Italian, but also Spanish movies by directors like Mario Bava. I love them so much, and I still collect all the DVDs of this kind of movies. I also see the movies that they show on TV or at the cinema when I can, but I think now going to the movies does not give me a lot of feelings. Only something like deja vu. (laughs) Among the new stuff I only remember a few titles - “The Conjuring”, “Annabelle” or “The Nun”, they are nice, but nothing special. Rob Zombie’s movies are nice, and series like “The Walking Dead” or “American Ghost Stories” are fun too, but they don’t bring me the feelings that I had when I saw the horror classics.

For the past 25 years you have been releasing albums on your own label Lucifer Rising. Is the business side of releasing records something you enjoy doing, or are you just dissatisfied in other record labels and therefore take their job upon yourself?

When in 1996 I got a deal with Self Records, I founded my personal label Lucifer Rising just for Death SS stuff. I wanted to have complete freedom on the artistic side. I don’t follow the business side or the commercial side of the label, I prefer to follow only the artistic part. I also sometimes produce other bands like Sine Macula or my side-project called W.O.G.U.E., and they also come out on Lucifer Rising, but usually Lucifer Rising is just a label that I use for my personal stuff, and the commercial division of Self Distribution takes care of finding foreign distribution via other labels to spread Death SS stuff all over the world.

A lot of Death SS stuff also came out via Cursed Coven, which is your fanclub’s label, as far as we understand. What is your role in what they put out? Do you contribute to their releases, or do you just approve it, say “OK” or “not OK”?

Cursed Coven was owned and headed by a good friend of mine, Gabriele Lippani, he is a great fan of Death SS, and everything he did with the fanclub was pre-approved by me. We work closely together to release very artistic stuff, very high-quality stuff. I take care that every product that came out from the fanclub as a limited edition would be very good quality stuff, this is very important.

We know that you are a big-time record collector. What do you think of the current “vinyl revival”? In your opinion, will physical media (CD, vinyls, cassettes) still be doing OK in in 10 years from now?

I really hope that the vinyl revival will last as long as possible. As you said, I’m a record collector, and the feelings that you have a physical product like vinyl or tape or something like this in your hands are so much better than when you just listen to audio files online. I know that the market now is completely different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago, of course. But I still fight to have a small limited physical edition every time, it is very important to touch, to smell, to look at the artwork, this is something that gives me a deep feeling.

There are several DVDs in the discography of the band. In your opinion, which one represents the Death SS live show in the best way? Or do you think fans still need to come to an actual show and see it with their own eyes to get the full picture?

Oh, well… DVDs are important, because it’s a snapshot, something that immortalizes a precious moment of the band, and it’s also important for all the people who cannot see the band live. But I think it’s a completely different feeling to watch a band on your TV screen than to really see the band live from under the stage, especially for a band like Death SS that takes so much care of the theatrical aspect, the graphic aspect of the live show. The connection between the band and its public is very strong at this kind of shock rock concerts, and it is something that a DVD cannot represent 100 percent. I really recommend to see the band live if possible, because the connection, the feelings, the atmosphere are very strong and completely different.   

What do you usually do before going onstage to put yourself in the right mood for the show?

Oh, nothing special. I try to concentrate, to free my mind completely from all troubles, to focus only on delivering my music in this moment. I enter in the character of the Vampire when I walk to the stage, and I forget everything else. I change my mind completely, and I concentrate very much on everything I do on stage at the moment.

Can you say a few words about your side project B.O.B. – Band Of Brothers?

Oh, B.O.B. is not really Band of Brothers, it stands for Bunch of Bastards. (everybody laughs) This was just a side project that I created during the COVID period with friends of mine from the band Strana Officina, another cult band here in Italy, they are from Livorno. I’m close friends with Dario Cappanera, the guitar player of this project, and during the COVID period we set together in Florence and decided to do something together for the first time, so we realized this project, Bunch of Bastards. We released only one song and one video, but it wasn’t the basic idea to make a follow-up to this project. It was just a temporary thing.

And is there any chance to hear new music from Sancta Sanctorum?

This is another story. Sancta Sanctorum was born when I met again two guys that were in the first Death SS line-up in 1977-1979 - Tomas Hand Chaste and Danny Hughes, the drummer and the bass player of the first Death SS line-up. The first Death SS line-up has a cult status in Italy for many fans, and we decided to immortalize our reconjuring together by releasing an album as Sancta Santorum, it’s a name that I came up with just to have a continuation of SS - Sancta Sanctorum. It was a very doom-style album (“The Shining Darkness”, 2011) that has a lot in common with the musical roots of the three of us. We had a lot of fun, like old friends who come together again after more than 30 years, I think. I don’t know if there will be a chance to make a follow-up to this album, but why not if I see the guys again. If it’s the right time and the right combination of all the three of us, we can do something else.

There have been a few Death SS tribute albums (“Terror Tales”, “Beyond The Realms Of Death SS”). What do you think of them? Is there any Death SS cover version by another artist that you like best of all?

There is not just one that I like more than the others. Over the course of our career Death SS has received four tribute albums, and each one is an honor for me, because it’s a proof that Death SS has influenced many other bands all over the world. This makes me very proud, and I love all the songs that those guys have done. Probably some of them achieved better result, but I don’t want to make my judgement on it, I think all the work they did was great.

You have done quite a few guest appearances, but the one that especially caught our attention is your duet with Snowy Shaw on his album “This Is Heavy Metal, Plain and Simple” (2022). How did this duet happen?

This started when the bass player of Venom Inc., Tony Dolan, invited me to take part in a tribute to Black Sabbath with all international stars (the project was called Sabbatonero - ed.). I sang with them the song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, Mantas was on guitar, and Snowy Shaw was on drums, and the idea was to make a combination of three satanic bands - Venom, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, and Death SS. It was a nice thing, and the song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” that came out from this combination of bands was great. Then I stayed in contact with Snowy, and he proposed me two songs from his solo album. I sang those two songs, but he chose only a small part of my vocals in one of the songs. But anyway it was great.

You have written two books on the history of Death SS - “The Necromancer Of Rock” and “La Storia Dei Death SS”. Can you say a few words about how you worked on those books? Was it easy to get old band members to contribute?

It was long work. I started many years ago when I felt the need to point out all my past, to tell all the really true stories. Many fans over the years asked me to do something like this, to explain everything that pushed me to start the band, and all the backstage stories over these long years of the band’s career. I was helped in this work by great reporter Gianni Della Cioppa. Together we started to get down my thoughts, my remembrances, day by day I would write them on my PC and give them to him. The story was very long, 40 years of a career, and we split it in two different books. The first one contained only the story about the construction of Death SS, the first years - how I decided to build the band, and the first five years of its existence. The other one that I made two years later was the continuation of that story up to the current day. It was a sort of confession, I managed to free myself from everything I put aside about the band. It was cathartic work for me, because it helped me release everything I kept inside and offer it to the readers.

You have only played about 10 shows since the COVID-19 pandemic, and only two of them were outside Italy (one in Norway and one in Denmark). What are your touring plans for the future? Do you intend to play live more often in support of “The Entity”, or do you still want a Death SS live show to remain a unique and rare event?

Actually I think we have played more shows, especially in Italy, since the COVID era. As to shows abroad, I remember Denmark, as well as Norway, where we were the headliners of one of the days of the Beyond the Gates Festival. Many years ago we decided to only put a few shows, but these should be spiritual events in spiritual places with the right stage, something that is worth the pain to stage a Death SS show, and reject all the other offers that don’t give us the possibility to make a real complete show. I prefer that Death SS plays fewer shows, but really good ones, rather than performs in a lot of crappy places where we cannot deliver our best.

Death SS on the Internet: https://www.deathss.com/deathssweb2/

Special thanks to Pamela Scavran (NeeCee Agency) for arranging this interview

Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
Photos and video stills by Andrea Falaschi (courtesy of NeeCee Agency)
March 2, 2025
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