The Metal Crypt - Giftkrieg Interview

Interviews

Interview with guitarist Judson Belmont
Interview conducted by MetalMike

Date online: July 13, 2025

Hey Judson, congratulations on the release of Poison War, Giftkrieg's debut EP! How has the response been so far?

Judson: Appreciate it! The reception has been great so far. The songs are going over well live, and there's been some rumblings in the underground about it via a few internet radio stations, zines, and outlets like The Metal Crypt.

Giftkrieg was put together at the end of 2023 in the Boston, Massachusetts area. What prompted you to put this band together? How did you find the other members to round out the lineup?

Judson: In late 2023, I was itching for a new project after a few years out of the game, and had some song ideas I wanted to run with. Rich (bassist) and I met via an ad I'd put out on Craigslist seeking bandmates for a thrash project, and later we met Brian (vocals) the same way. Things started moving pretty fast once the three of us got together. Rich and I both had a lot of songs already written, and Brian was able to start fitting lyrics to them almost immediately.

Originally, we had a different drummer who left around May of '24. but a few months later, the guitarist of the Boston death metal band Untombed recommended we try out a friend of his, Chris. When he came down and made it clear right away that he wanted to play fast and aggressive, we knew we had our man. By that time, we already had about five songs written, including the three that would later become Poison War.

How did you come up with the band name and is there any kind of meaning behind it that you wanted to convey?

Judson: Giftkrieg is a German composite word meaning Poison War. I think I got the term from the title of a book about WWI-era chemical weapons programs, though I can no longer find the book to confirm that. But either way, the association of the name with biological warfare, which is a sophisticated means to achieve an absolutely savage end, felt like it matched up perfectly with music that's aiming to be both precise and slightly technical yet brutal at the same time. On top of that, we had a hunch that it would look great as a bold, pointy logo, and once we got the concept in the hands of our logo artist, Methodeath Artworks, he proved that to be correct.

You are also currently in the band Ritualizer, unless something has changed. What is your role in each band (Giftkrieg and Ritualizer)? Is one your "main band" and the other one you are a member of but perhaps someone else is the "driving force"?

Judson: Unfortunately, Ritualizer is on hold for the time being. When COVID shut the world shut down in 2020, the momentum of that band came to a screeching halt, and shortly thereafter, I moved back to New England for a job.

At the time, Ritualizer was nearly finished tracking a new EP, and we were looking forward to our first festival appearance at Legions of Metal in Chicago, but the one-two punch of COVID and my relocating so far from NYC upended everything. Left with so much uncertainty about what a future for that band could look like, we decided to put it on hold.

I'm still close with my former bandmates—I recently spoke with Dev (bass) and Luigi (drums), who still play together in an excellent psych rock improv group called Teleraj, and PJ (vocalist) and I hung out at Hell's Heroes Festival last year in Texas—so anything is possible, and I'd love a chance to play with them again. But a lot of that band's strength came from the chemistry we had playing together in the same room, and that's not something we'd be able to do often now.

I am still involved in multiple bands these days, as I'm also part of a black metal project with some co-conspirators in France that will be releasing a full-length later this year. But for now, Ritualizer is dead but dreaming.

So many metal musicians are members of multiple bands. As a musician, can you tell us the pros and cons of this arrangement? For instance, I would think it is a good way to express yourself across different genres of metal, while you also have a balancing act to pull off. I'm sure there's more to it, so feel free to elaborate

Judson: The only Con is time. Bands take a lot of it, and it can be a drag when the administrative overhead/other nonsense that goes along with being in a band starts to feel like your second day job.

The Pros are absolutely everything else: the inspiration that comes from playing diverse material, having an outlet for ideas outside your norm, learning from and forging a bond with new bandmates, getting an excuse to buy more guitars...the list goes on. If I could get an extra hour every day, I'd spend it scheming about the next musical project I'm gonna overcommit to.

In the bio for Poison War, you listed some of the heavyweights of thrash metal, from Exodus and Slayer to Kreator and Exumer (with a bit of Diamond Head), so that should give fans a pretty solid idea what to expect from it. Do you feel like you nailed what you were shooting for on Poison War? What is it about '80s thrash that draws you in?

Judson: I love thrash and speed metal because they have some of the DNA of both classic heavy metal as well as extreme metal and punk, and the '80s in particular since that's where all those threads first met. When I listen to an album like Slayer's Show No Mercy or Venom's Welcome to Hell, I feel like I'm hearing the exact moment that the speed, aggression and darkness of traditional metal were pushed to their breaking point and death and black metal were born.

With Poison War, we simply set out to make an EP with the kind of music we'd like to hear more of nowadays. If we were able to capture even just 10% of the magic that made the heyday of thrash metal so great, then I'd consider the EP a total success.

How did the songs come together on Poison War? Was it a band effort to come up with the music and lyrics or is there one main songwriter/songwriting partnership? Are you all close enough to create and practice together or is Giftkrieg a band that benefits from the ability to share files via the internet? Do you have a preference between those styles?

Judson: Our typical process is that Rich (bass) or I will record a demo of some riffs and a rough arrangement and send that around to the rest of the band. While we're working out the string parts at home, Chris (drums) refines the feel of the song, and Brian (vocals) gets to work on the concept and lyrics. Most of that is done independently outside of practice, but we also meet up weekly to jam the new songs. I try to take practice recordings of the works-in-progress so we can all listen to them at home and critique how things are shaping up.

For me this approach is the best of both worlds: writing at home is a lot more efficient than working out everything in person, but the collaborative part of the process is what takes the song from 80% to 100%, and that only happens by meeting up and bashing out the songs together.

I'm a fan that's listening to Poison War for the first time. What song do I want to start with and why? My favorite, as you can perhaps tell from my review, is "Fires Burning in the North," but as a creator, I'm wondering if you feel there is a specific track that captures the essence of Giftkrieg

Judson: Clearly, we're both suckers for a good fist-pumping breakdown riff then! That's my favorite part of that track too.

I'm very partial to the intro and title track (they're really one extended piece to me), since a version of this song has been floating around in my head for maybe 15 years, and when you've had an unrealized idea for that long, you start to have a personal history with it. So, seeing that one finally brought to life is especially satisfying to me, and even more so because it's now an even stronger song owing to the ideas of my bandmates and the synergy we have as a collective.

Was the decision to start the band's recording catalog with an EP strictly a financial one or did you have just a few songs ready and wanted to get the band's material in front of the fans ASAP? Do you have more material ready to go or is that an item for down the road a bit?

Judson: Actually neither: we had, and still have, more material ready that was left off the EP. The decision to leave some tracks off was partly driven by runtime considerations—we have some very long songs on this EP, and even just these tracks plus the intro bring us to 18 minutes—and partly creative because these songs just felt consistent and "right" together.

In addition to the two songs we left off the EP, we also have two other very new songs we've just started to work on: one is an absolute blitzkrieg of speed and probably the fastest thing we've done to date, and the other has darker, moodier tone with some riffage that pays homage to bands like Forbidden and Mercyful Fate.

Has Poison War generated any label interest? Would you license it if the right deal came along or do you prefer to utilize platforms like Bandcamp and keep total control over your music, image, etc.?

Judson: None so far. We haven't been too active in courting labels. Prior to this release, we kept a very low public profile, so our first priority right now is just getting word out about the EP, and if some label interest develops as a result of that, then great.

I don't mind the hustle of DIY; the willingness to roll up your sleeves and make things happen is what keeps the underground alive. But I think a label could do a lot to help us spread this music further, and there are things we'd love to do down the road—like release on vinyl—that are tough to pull off if you don't have a label behind you to help out with promotion and distribution.

What keeps you going and playing heavy metal when so much today is stacked against the bands and musicians and you have to do so much on your own? I have to assume love of the music is one, if not the, main reason but are there others that keep the fires burning (in the north)?

Judson: Wow, that ought to be a song title!

There's a quote from Bukowski, "find what you love and let it kill you." We already did the first part. Now we're just waiting on the second. I think I can speak for everyone in this band when I say that making music is a compulsion for us at this point, and we couldn't imagine doing otherwise. If this band never happened, I would still be grinding out music by myself or with another project.

What is it like being a metal musician in the Boston area? Having grown up here, I know we never had a thriving scene like LA, San Francisco or New York and certainly nothing like in Europe. Are there enough opportunities for you to play live with Giftkrieg or is relocating something that is being considered?

Judson: The scene in Boston is decent enough, although, of course, I would like to see more action here. What we have working in our favor is that we're only an hour or so from cities like Worcester (Massachusetts), Providence (Rhode Island), and Manchester (New Hampshire) that all have very respectable music scenes for their size, so we benefit a lot by being part of that larger regional scene.

One of the best things I've seen happening in the New England metal underground in the last few years is some locally grown festivals starting to bring in talent from around the country. Just this past weekend, I was at the Stormbringer Festival in Worcester, and if you'd told me a few years ago that bands of that caliber would travel across the country for a traditional metal fest here, I'd call you crazy. RPM Fest in Western Massachusetts is another that has grown to the point of being not just a showcase for local bands, but national and even some international acts as well. We have many other smaller local festivals here that are also well worth supporting, but those two in particular give me a lot of hope for what they're doing to put New England on the map.

As for relocating, I don't see it happening anytime soon. We all have family and roots here, and New England is home for better or worse. But we'd love to have the opportunity to travel a bit with this band eventually and see what other regional metal scenes have to offer.

We've talked about the band's influences. Are all those '80s thrash bands also your own personal faves or are there other influences that helped mold you into the musician you are today? Were you able to see any of your heroes live, maybe even back in the day? Which band(s) would you really like to see that you haven't seen yet?

Judson: Everyone in this band has much broader tastes outside of just thrash or metal in general, so it's hard to know where to start. For me personally, everything from Terrorizer and Thergothon to Coltrane and Debussy has a place in my music collection and has probably shaped my playing in some small way. But I will say Mercyful Fate and King Diamond have been especially huge influences on my playing and my taste in heavy music, while bands like Deströyer 666 and Bathory have taught me a lot about what's possible when you sacrifice technicality and frills to just go straight for the throat.

My tastes skew very old school, so many of the bands I love were doing their best work before I was even born. But seeing Mercyful Fate live in 2022 was a bucket-list item for me that I never thought would happen and the same goes for seeing Guns 'N Roses with Slash. Other standouts would be seeing Manilla Road twice in one week—once in a small club in Manchester, NH, and again the next weekend at Days of Darkness festival in Baltimore—and seeing Helstar for the first time at Hell's Heroes last year.

As for bands I'd love to see but haven't yet, there are way too many. But if I'm limiting myself to only bands that are still semi-active, Deep Purple, Beherit, King Crimson, Brocas Helm, Accept, Sisters of Mercy, Legendry, Nick Cave, Ram, and Diamond Head all come to mind.

What is next for Giftkrieg?

Judson: We've been talking about doing a physical release of the EP, probably on tape. So we might have some news to announce about that soon.

Besides that, we're actively writing new material. We have a few new songs already in the works that we're really excited about, and at the rate they're moving having another release by this time next year isn't out of the question. We'd also like to get some more live dates together, since we've been so focused on getting the EP done that we never booked a proper release show.

A couple of things before I wrap up. First, please let us know anything about Giftkrieg or Poison War that you'd like fans to know and that I didn't already ask about. Second, let us know the best place(s) to check out Giftkrieg's music and get news on the band's activities

Judson: Because this hasn't come up in any interviews yet, I want to shout out Chris Kobialka at Kobisound Studio for his work tracking the EP, and Alex Garcia-Rivera at Mystic Valley Studios for mixing and mastering it. Both these guys were fantastic to work with and contributed a lot of ideas that made this record what it is.

You can listen to, get news about, or send death threats to Giftkrieg at all the following places:

Bandcamp - https://giftkrieg.bandcamp.com/album/poison-war
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dYucugRGeMDD3PPkTuF5Q
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/giftkriegband/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575623902378

Thanks for taking some time to talk to us about Giftkrieg and Poison War, Judson! Good luck with the EP and all your future endeavors with the band. Any final thoughts? Cheers!

Judson: Likewise, Mike, been a pleasure speaking with you! Seeing the way The Metal Crypt has stayed true to the vision of giving a voice to both well-established bands as well as underground newcomers like ourselves is an inspiration. So, for that, thank you, and cheers!

Other information about Giftkrieg on this site

Review: Poison War