Belzebubs interview (JP Ahonen)

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hi JP, how are you doing?

I’m good, thank you. Thanks for having me.

I know you’ve had quite a busy day yesterday here at the comicon, how did it go?

Yeah, it’s been good, all positive. I’m always happy to be back in Italy. I love the folks at Edizioni BD, it’s always fun hanging out with them and I love meeting fan of Belzebubs: talking with them and seeing my books being read is the best.

I read this new volume that is being published and, as a metalhead, I can understand all layers and references you put in your comic strips, but I can’t help but wonder what someone who’s not familiar with our world could understand. Is your typical audience mainly composed of metalheads, or did you find some readers also outside of our niche?

My audience is very, very wide. I’d say maybe half of them might be metalheads, but I don’t see Belzebubs as a niche project in the sense that you’d need to know all those layers and works of Metal to appreciate it. It’s mostly about a family that’s a bit of an outcast, comes from a different culture than the majority of people. It’s a slice of life comic anyhow, so…

It’s easy to relate to it.

Yeah, exactly, and I’m trying to use that sort of like Satanism and the black metal aspect, their culture, as a sort of allegory for whatever minority in a community. I think that’s sort of more evident in the second book because we have those events where the characters meet prejudice from the outside even though they’re completely fine with other people being who they are.

Are these stories autobiographical, are they inspired by stuff that happened to you, or your friends and family, or are they completely fictional?

The characters sort of write themselves, in a way, I feel like, especially now, I’m starting to understand and know the characters so well that I don’t need to project my own daily life into them to create stories and stuff like that. In a way it would be helpful if I’d have more of an exciting life myself [laughs] to be able to do that because it would make the script writing easier and faster. But of course, there are some elements that I’m able to use in the storylines. One example that comes to mind is a comic where Sloth’s inner demons are nagging him, flying around his head and nagging him saying “You’re shit, you don’t know how to play, you have no ideas to write music” and stuff like that and then those are things that I struggle with a lot like, “Am I enough? Is this good enough?”, you know, the imposter syndrome. Usually, they might be those sorts of more negative feelings and thoughts that I’m able to vomit on paper and get them out of my system, but my daily life is mostly trying to juggle family and work so, of course, there’s a lot of similar topics as what Sloth goes through.

We all know that Finland is a very Metal country, there are a lot of Metal bands and probably even those who don’t listen to it will have some kind of familiarity with this music. On the other hand, in a lot of other countries the “average person” might not know much, or at all, about Metal making your comics maybe a bit harder to understand, at least in some aspects… and yet your comics have been translated in many different languages. Was it a surprise for you to find people from so many different places being interested in your work?

Yeah, it’s quite curious and over this process I’ve learned a lot about how the Metal scene is in different countries. For example, I had no idea that Metal was such a big thing in Greece but, when I went there, I was signing nonstop for two or three days at the AthensCon. I think I signed 350 books or something. So yeah, that was like, okay, you really like Metal over here. But as said, the stories are quite relatable even if you strip all the course-paint and stuff, it’s something anyone can relate to. So, I think everyone sort of feels that their family isn’t quite normal [laughs]. And maybe feels out of place in the world so, in that regard, I feel it’s a story for everyone.

In this volume you had Mikael Akerfeldt write the afterwards, and I guess you are a big fan of his and of Opeth also considering all the references we have in your comics.

Yeah! [Laughs]

Was it unexpected when he agreed to write it, and how did it feel?

Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. I basically just sent him an email. And I thought that this is a long shot. Like, I know he’s busy. And I don’t know if he does these sorts of things. And he replied within a day saying, “Yes, let’s do it. I’m honoured that you asked”. And he had read my previous work, Perkeros, which was greatly inspired by Opeth and their album, “Ghost Reveries”. And yeah, I had sent him a copy of that and the whole band, the members who were in the band at the time. We haven’t like kept in touch, you know, all the time or anything. But yeah, I was really, really humbled that he took the time to write. It was a big thing, personally for me, of course.

A bit off topic, but have you listened to their new album?

Not yet. No, it just came out on Friday and I’m waiting to get back to Finland, have my table cleared out of emails and stuff. The next time I jump on a drawing phase, that’s usually the time when I listen to music anyhow. So yeah, it’s dedicated for that time. Yeah, I want to listen to it thoroughly.

We talked about how Belzebubs is relatable outside of the Metal scene but, staying within it for a moment, the genre you reference to is Black Metal, a genre that is known for taking itself very seriously. Was there any backlash because of your funny portrayal of the genre?

Yeah, I was expecting to have more of that when I started that, especially when the comics started going viral and more and more people knew about it. I was expecting a backlash from the “true cult warriors”, so to say. Yeah, “You can’t say that about us, you can’t make fun of us” and blah, blah, blah. But it’s, I mean, that’s partly what Satanism is about, you do your own thing and like, if you don’t like it, well, fuck you [laughs]. So, I’m very being true to that calling in a way. So yeah, there’s been surprisingly little, there’s been maybe a few messages in some of the comics, “This is bullshit”, ”This is gay” or whatever. But most of the people get it and a lot of people in the scene also get it. And I heard from one of the fans who I met in Oulu, he had been in touch with the folks from Mayhem like at some sort of meet and greets, and they were talking about Belzebubs, they were like “Yeah, we love the comic”. Okay, if they’re cool with it, I’m a happy camper. And yeah, I’ve gotten these very random fans as well, like Gary Holt, message me, Cristina Scabbia, who I have met through Belzebubs and Lindsay Schoolcraft, ex Cradle of Filth, ICS Vortex. I think the majority get the points because they’re normal people as well, down, down the heart. Usually those who are prejudiced about Belzebubs, they take themselves way too seriously.

5 years ago, you also released an album, can you tell me how that came about? Was it an idea that started from you, or were you approached by the label, Century Media?

Yeah, it’s a bit of a long process. Like, back in the day, when I was starting out in comics as a teenager, my time was basically divided between comics and making music and stuff. And I had this dream around the age of 16 that, okay, I want to make some sort of project where we’d push out CDs and the booklet would be a comic and stuff like that. That never became anything because I didn’t have the chops nor the contacts nor a proper idea. And then I remember when Gorillaz basically did something similar I was like, yeah, well, there goes that. And when doing Perkeros in 2012-13, I sort of thought that, okay, maybe this could evolve into something that I’d make music for. That never happened [laughs]. But then when I started with Belzebubs, which was my first online comic, I thought, “Okay, this is my chance”. Because I wanted to play around with the possibilities of online comics, adding sound, adding a bit of shitty animation and stuff like that, everything that I do on my own. But I happened to talk about that with a musician friend of mine. And he was like, “Well, if you don’t mind, I have loads of old demos and stuff, maybe we can bounce around ideas together.” And I’m like, “Okay, yeah, that’s fine”, because I’m lacking the time to manage everything. I was doing some crummy storyboards already for those demos, but things sort of like snowballed from there. We got another friend of mine who’s a drummer on board, and then the band sort of like came together. And then we thought, “Maybe we’re thinking too small if we just aim for one-minute short clips, maybe we should do proper demos, and approach labels”. And Century Media picked it up, saying “Yeah, this is this is cool. When could we get like a full album?”. So, yeah, that happened. And the biggest challenge, of course, was because we wanted to keep the focus on the cartoon characters instead the band members, because that’s sort of the point of Belzebubs anyhow. And the biggest challenge was, of course, the animated music videos. And those take time, those cost money, and etc. And so that’s where Pyjama Films came along and we made two music videos with them. And now the second album is done. And I’m currently working on the new music videos for the singles and stuff like that. So those should be coming out next year. And then we have the animated series in development which would be coming out in 2026, also in Italy.

The band always presented itself with pseudonyms using the names of your characters and the names of the musicians involved were never revealed. I don’t know if you are ready to disclose them now, but can you tell me at least what was your role in the band? Do you sing or play any instrument?

I wouldn’t call myself a musician. I’m more of a producer [laughs]. Let’s say that. I do lyrics, I comment, I mix and mash, throw my ideas. But it was very evident from the get go when I had demos in mind, because I played guitar and keyboards myself. But when the professionals came along and presented fully fleshed out songs, I was like, [Laughs] “Okay, let’s just stick these here”. So, yeah, I can’t take credit for the fantastic melodies and stuff. In terms of lyrics, story, world building, that’s my thing.

You were also planning to play live, but because of COVID that never happened. I was hoping to get to see you at Hellfest 2022 but that was also cancelled. Do you think this is something that could still happen in the future?

That’s still in the cards and, yeah, COVID took the gigs out for two years, the third year, the number of festivals we had booked had diminished. And we just couldn’t keep going at it because it was still also uncertain. And then it was a big financial blow for us because we’d been doing the pre-production for the shows for nine months already. So, we had like tens of thousands of euros of debt at that time, and then suddenly no income. So, that’s where Oscar Diaz Castillo and I, he’s a 3D artist, we came up with the 360° experience. So, we sort of took those elements we had worked on and developed that into a virtual gig for our fans. So that was good, but that also like took way more time than we expected. But yes, it’s still the idea that once the most acute things are like out of the way, I’ll be able to focus on getting the band road ready and then the visuals and stuff like that.

As you mentioned earlier, you are now working on an animated series for YLE. Can you tell me more about it?

Yeah, it’s been a very interesting five years. We started the animated series back in 2019 as well. So, I’ve been juggling all these things for the past five years. First it was just the concept thing. How do we adapt the comics? Like, how long are the episodes and how many episodes would one season be? We quickly got the national broadcaster, YLE, on board. And now a year ago, we got the financial side locked, because animation is not cheap [laughs]. But it’s an international production. So, we have Movimenti on board from Italy, then we have Mago from Spain, and channels from other countries already. And right now, we’re at a stage where all the first phases of animatics have been done. The visual development is pretty much closed. So, in terms of locations, characters, the outlook we are done, and the next year we’ll be actually like rigging, animating, doing the backgrounds and making music for it and etc. It should be coming out in 2026.

We talked about a lot of sides of Belzebubs, it started as comics, then you moved into music, now you’re working on an animated series. What’s in the future for you? Do you have dreams and hopes of branching again into any other different media?

Maybe getting the music on stage as we thought would be very cool. Personally, I just want to make more sense of my schedules and not be struggling with everything all the time. So that’s, that’s my main goal instead of throwing new projects on my table. But I think, I don’t know, I’d love to do, for example, a videogame, an old school pixel art videogame with the Beelzebub’s music in this sort of like 8-bit Nintendo style [laughs]. And one thing I’ve been laughing about is doing a children’s book about Leviathan stories with summoning demons and whatever. Not necessarily for all kids, but at least the metalhead families.