Dark Funeral vocalist Emperor Magus Caligula has commented on the murder of an Italian Catholic priest in Chile last year at the hands of a self-proclaimed Dark Funeral fanatic, reports Blabbermouth.net.
On July 24, 2004, Rodrigo Orias, 26, slit Father Faustino Gazziero's throat, smeared his face with the victim's blood and then stabbed himself several times in the chest and neck with the same knife while hundreds of churchgoers at Santiago's Metropolitan Cathedral watched in horror.
Orias (
photo1,
photo2, posing in Chile with Marduk), who had a pentagram branded on the left side of his chest (covering his heart) and several other symbols of the occult tattooed on his body (
photo), reportedly asked Caligula during the Swedish black metal band's visit to Santiago in 2003 to burn an inverted cross on Rodrigo's arm with a cigar a "mark" which Orias later planned to make into a tattoo.
Following the murder, Dark Funeral were bombarded with e-mails from the Chilean media wanting to know whether or not the band enourages their fans to kill priests.
”I burnt him with a Cohiba, a very fine cigar," recalls vocalist Emperor Magus Caligula in the latest issue of the Swedish magazine Close-Up. "That night is a bit of a blur, because I was wasted on Pisco, Chilean cognac. Anyway, this guy came up to me and asked me to burn a cross on his arm. I'm not one to say no, so I puffed on the cigar to get it hot enough and he got his cross. I didn't press the cigar against his skin several times, instead I dragged it like a soldering-iron up and down his arm. He didn't seem to be feeling any pain. He was ecstatic that he was able to meet us. Afterwards we had our picture taken together and I thought he was a cool guy."
"Before we found out the name of the killer, I though it was another fan," says Dark Funeral guitarist Lord Ahriman. "A guy in Santiago [the capital of Chile] just stood there crying when he met me. He knew everything about Dark Funeral. It was creepy. He'd bought the same guitar as the one I have, a BC Rich Warlock, and he had desecrated graves to honor us. He said, 'My Lord, give me an order and I will execute it.'"
"People ask us if our music caused the murder. I don't think so," says Emperor Magus Caligula. "Sure, we sing about killing Christians and blood and feathers falling from angels are present in a lot of the lyrics. Maybe the music triggered him somehow, but he probably would have harmed someone even if he hadn't been listening to [Dark Funeral]. He was not well. But I have to say that I'm…er, SOMEWHAT impressed. He deserves some credit. You’re not supposed to say that, but I don't care."
