It’s nearly dinnertime in Cleveland, and in 10 minutes
“Athenar”—whom I envision on the other end of the line surrounded
by mistresses and wearing his trademark executioner’s hood—will
hang up and become Jamie Walters for the evening. The artist behind
Midnight—an elusive one-man torchbearer of first-wave black
metal—works as a host at a Chinese restaurant, “saying hello and
telling [diners] where the fuck to sit down,” he laughs.
Yes, purists, even this Venom-worshipping savior of the
death-to-poseurs underground is a wage slave. He says he’s an average
35-year-old Ohio lifer beneath that face-concealing hood, which he felt
compelled to first don when he began Midnight in 2003. “Everybody’s
gotta have an image,” he says. “Unfortunately, I’m not blessed with
cool long hair and neat facial piercings and awesome facial hair.”
But to listen to Midnight’s latest record, Farewell to Hell,
is to hear Walters lording above us mortals as a six-armed rock god,
mocking modern metal with crusty rampaging riffs, blitzing Chuck Berry
leads, over-the-lawn-mower Bathory howls, and a threat to take our
women back to Cleveland. It might be the best thing to ever float to
the top of Lake Erie, and as the artist explains, there is no point in
trying to outdo it: Midnight, the studio band, is dead.
“Do you honestly go: ‘Hey, I like Agnostic Front. I’m going to put
on whatever dog-shit album they put out in 1998?'” he says. “You put on
Victim in Pain. ‘Oh, man, I love Discharge.’ What are you going
to listen to? You’re going to listen to the singles and Hear Nothing
See Nothing Say Nothing. So… why make more than two records?”
Midnight is still, tentatively, a live band. And much like
Portland’s Toxic Holocaust—a similar outfit for which Athenar has
played bass—the one-man band has grown into a full-fledged
three-piece. “Who just wants to look at some dude in a hood sitting by
himself on a stage?” says Walters. “You at least have to make it look
somewhat like a party.”