Welcome to OnlyDeathIsReal.rip! What we (well, at this point, I, as this is a one-man operation to begin with) aim to offer you is quality writing about extreme and underground music with a firm focus on underground metal, death metal in particular. But not only the metal of death; you can expect posts ranging from the darkest recesses of the post-industrial underground to the shadowy swamps of underground americana. The format will be somewhere in the middle ground between a blog and a ‘zine, with opinion pieces, reviews and most likely interviews. We’ll see where things evolve.

I have a long history of writing about music. My first forays were in the early noughties, but in earnest I got started in 2003 when I started my first webzine, with an initial focus on black and death metal, which rather quickly shifted towards black noise and dark ambient. The webzine eventually morphed into a printed ‘zine that lasted for two issues, covering the same genres. As a direct continuation of this, I started a psychobilly/punk fanzine which lasted for a number of years and four issues. This was put to rest when I was approached by Finnish roots magazine Big Beat in 2009; they asked me to start writing about psychobilly for them, which I did. I still contribute to Big Beat, although by now my focus has shifted heavily towards country music, ranging from classics to the modern underground. Since 2014 I have also been writing for Finnish online metal media Imperiumi.net, covering mainly non-metal genres such as punk, hardcore, indie, alternative, neofolk and synthwave. Basically, whatever non-metal stuff gets sent there. Apart from these, throughout the years I have contributed more or less regularly to a number of other media both in English and Finnish.

So, in a nutshell, the aim of OnlyDeathIsReal.rip is to offer me a platform to write in English about the underground music genres I have listened to and, in some capacity, been involved with since the mid-90’s. Without deadlines, word limits, or any other such boundaries. In other words, you can expect content of varying focus, brevity and style ranging from short reads to in-depth articles, reviews to opinion pieces, and so on.

And remember: ONLY DEATH IS REAL.

Featured photo by Yann Schaub on Unsplash