During a recent interview with Revolver, Slaughter To Prevail singer Alex Terrible talked about the band’s new song “1984.” The track came out recently, but it has been in the works for a while. The anti-war song acts as a call to end the violence taking place in Ukraine and for Russia to remove its troops from the country.
When asked to discuss this song, Alex shared the following:
“I’ve never been a political guy, or something. I know when you get older, you are realizing that you have to watch what is going on in your country. You live in it. You have to be political. This song about this situation. I’m a very emotional guy, because I fucking play music. I think all artists [are] very emotional.
“This situation [with Ukraine] really touched me, because it’s not like war [somewhere else], it’s war in my house. My people go to another country — to Ukraine — and kill each other. It was really surprising for me and I was in shock, because, before that situation, everyone talked about that. Like, ‘What do you think? Russia will invade Ukraine,’ and all this shit, and I didn’t believe in that. It was like a joke for me. Like, ‘What the fuck is going on? What are you talking about?’ And [then it] happened.”
He then went on to add:
“It was blowing my mind. For me, it [got] so fucking crazy because, literally, that book, 1984, the situation in that book, saying a lie is true, violence is love and all this shit, and I can see that clearly in Russian government [with] what they saying. The really stupid, strong propaganda and the really stupid action by our government to put people in jail who are against the war. It’s not a prison, but it’s a jail. They give you a ticket. ‘Stop doing that. You’re wrong.’ It’s fucking blowing my mind.
“In this song, I just sing, ‘Stop the fucking violence,’ and, ‘Why you do this?’ Because I think it’s wrong. I know I don’t know a lot of things. I know I don’t fucking … I’m not a political guy. I didn’t know much about this conflict in Donbas, and all this shit. But, for me, an uneducated person, for me, what is going on right now I don’t like, because people are dying. People suffer, civilian ones. Mariupol, just fucking destroyed. The whole fucking city destroyed.
“I can put myself to another person’s spot. For example, I can imagine I live in Mariupol, and then this shit happens. I lose my family, maybe, members of my home, and all this shit. I [would] fucking hate the Russian government. I [would] fucking hate Russia, man. I [would] just … I don’t know what to say. It’s really emotional for me. I think that every person in Russia is against the war — you cannot support the war [unless] you are a fucking stupid person.”
In the same interview, Alex spoke to how the Russian government has called Slaughter To Prevail “Satanists” and how the war motivated him to move to the United States.
Watch: Slaughter To Prevail Call For An End To Ukraine-Russian War In New Song ‘1984’