Peste Noire - Band Concept

Band Concept

One of PN's leitmotifs is that of Satanism (although not any type of Satanism, as PN preaches the worship of Indoeuropean Satans or Devils inspired by Pan, not the monotheistic Jewish cult of the Semitic Satan) which as a theme is common for bands in the Black Metal genre - but PN's themes certainly cannot be reduced to just that.

Even if Famine's music is characterized by anarchic disdain and/or aristocratic sarcasm (Famine acknowledged the underlying influence of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and François Rabelais in Peste Noire's music), thus giving it its distinctive voice, Famine's vision of Black Metal is also based on nationalism and Peste Noire is proud of French cultural heritage, especially that of medieval France. Famine used some texts written in Old French by medieval French writers such as François Villon (for the song "Ballade cuntre les anemis de la France"), Christine de Pisan (for the song "Dueil Angoisseus") and Guillaume de Machaut (for "Amour ne m'amoit ne je li") and from modern French writers, such as Charles Baudelaire ("Le mort joyeux" and "Spleen"), Paul Verlaine ("Soleils couchants"), Tristan Corbière ("Paysage mauvais"), and Robert Brasillach ("Psaume IV").

They have been suspected of being a National Socialist band but Famine categorically states that they are French nationalists: "I am a nationalist, not a socialist... My two nations are : France d’Oïl (i.e Northern medieval France where langues d'oïl were spoken) and Hell".

Famine further explained why Peste Noire’s concept is based on nationalism when he stated:

"Black Metal is the musical memory of our bloodthirsty ancestors of blood, it is the marriage of Tradition, of old racial patrimony with fanaticism, with the rage and the rashness of a youth now lost. It is a CHTHONIC religion: a cult of the EARTH and a return to it, therefore a nationalism; a cult of what is BELOW the earth: Hell – the adjective “chthonic” applies to the Infernal gods as well. BM is a fundamentalism, a music with integrity (from latin integer, complete) which helps me to remain complete in a dying world, amidst a people in decay, unworthy of its blood. It is the apology of the dark european past. It is a psychosis which helps us to flee a reality we cannot tolerate anymore."

Regarding the presence of Asian bass guitarist Indria in some of Peste Noire's albums, Famine has made it clear that elitism and nationalism are equally important for him, and that since he viewed Indria as the best bass guitarist in the French black metal scene he saw no contradiction in hiring him in 2005. Famine insists on the fact that in French nationalism, a minority of foreigners is allowed to become French by proving their worth and their will through time, because it is a milder, smoother and less ethno-centric style of Nationalism than its German counterpart. He uses the example of the French Foreign Legion to illustrate this aspect of French nationalism. Famine also used the dark-skinned Indria as an alibi to bypass censorship which is very heavy-handed when it comes to White nationalism in France. He also acknowledged that Indria was "a whiff of irony and provocation in a far-right world full of narrow-minded bullies."

On La mesnie Herlequin's introduction, Famine also wrote: "To all those who might possess the irrational temptation to place La mesnie Herlequin amongst the ranks of the « far-right » or the even more laughably « NS », we will have to crush their wet dreams by defining ourselves as, at best, rightwing anarchists (which would explain why, at a concert in Montreal in 2008, PESTE NOIRE succeeded in stirring up both rightwing skinheads and local antifas against them at the same time, lol)."