PHARAOH - Alchemical Heaviness Blended Traditionally To Perfection! Page 4
by Martin Popoff

Death and death purists were not amused at Chuck cavorting with a real singer. Comments Tim, "I took a huge load of crap from some Death fans just as Chuck warned me about, and I dealt with it like he advised. He told me to stand tall and fight back. Some people just simply refused to accept the notion that Death was no more and that I was the singer of the band. That was a problem I really didn't care about because these were people who'd probably already decided to give me a hard time before there was even any reason. But, what really pissed me off was to see on the web how vicious some people were in their comments about Jane (Chuck's mom). The first thing that needed to be said about the second CD was that the contract was bogus, and Chuck died before he could have it terminated. Then, the record company demanded the unfinished masters, offering no help to have it finished; only demanding the masters. Since Chuck wanted to release the record to the fans, but not on that label, Jane had to try to honour Chuck's last wishes, and try to stop the label from releasing the unfinished work as a product. She had to go to court to do this, and couldn't talk about the details. As many times and as many ways as it had been explained that there would be no news about it until the ordeal was settled in court, because Jane was under a court order restriction from commenting about anything regarding the CD, people just kept badgering and pestering and nagging and even insulting her and accusing her for not releasing the product, which wasn't finished. When it was all said and done, Jane lost the case, but the CD will still be finished sometime in the future, and released anyway. Steve and I still need to record our parts and it will take the help of the whole band including our fifth member Jim Morris to get it finished. Nobody is going to make any mention of it until it is done."

Back to Pharaoh, I asked Tim to divulge a bit of meaning behind a few of the lyrics. "Sunrise is my complaint to the universe that the sun is a blazing intrusive asshole. What inspired me was that while I was writing lyrics throughout the night, in peace, I would finally latch on to a concept and start writing and then the sun would start rising which awoke my brother who had to bang every pot and pan in the house to get a cup of already made coffee and start a sermon on whatever topic he may have chosen to argue vehemently, also waking the caterwauling birds outside, the jackhammers pounding in the street, the police sirens, the screaming children and... I think you should get it by now. In The Violet Fire is about the power of healing we all have and most of us never develop because of some ironically religious derision. I was introduced to this concept by a friend in Russia who actually is coming to Pittsburgh today to visit me. Endlessly is karmic. Some people harm others simply because they can, and sometimes they have an elaborate agenda. But, wouldn't it be nice to see them pay for it either way? I mean really see it."

PHARAOH - Alchemical Heaviness Blended Traditionally To Perfection! Page 5