Photographer Hannah Verbeuren’s new book spends A Thousand Nights in Sodom with metal band Midnight
Athenar of Midnight // Photo by Hannah Verbeuren
Cleveland rock ‘n’ roll metal punks Midnight have a visual presentation just as confrontational as their hard-edged music. Frontman and mastermind Athenar is never seen without the cowl which hides his face, and the band’s live shows have incorporated everything from fire to bikini-clad dancers to enhance Midnight’s unceasing in-your-face aggression.
Thus, it makes absolutely perfect sense that this visual style and panache would eventually be documented. Photographer Hannah Verbeuren has spent years on the road with Midnight, and her work is collected in the new book, Midnight: A Thousand Nights in Sodom, out this week from Bazillion Points.
It roams the world, showcasing Midnight both on and off-stage, as well as the band’s potent combination of black leather and heavy riffs. We spoke with Verbeuren to discuss how the book came to be, with frontman Athenar sitting beside her as they sat at the merch table before a show.
The Pitch: How did you first find out about Midnight?
Hannah Verbeuren: I had heard that Athenar had a new band that I had not heard of yet, and so, based on other bands he had done, I was interested in seeing this one and it happened to be Midnight. This was in Cleveland.
The book is subtitled “A Thousand Nights in Sodom.” Have you seen them that many times or is it approaching that?
Well, yeah. It was based on the Venom song, which is based on the book Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. What happened was, at the time when I was pitching the book to Bazillion’s Ian Christe, it was around the three-year mark. Ian kind of said it as a joke reference to the amount of time I had been working on collecting images, so it might be getting up there pretty high, but I doubt it. It’s just more about how many times days I’ve spent with them, nights I’ve spent with them in general.
Given the look of the band and all of their videos, album artwork, and things like that, referencing the Marquis de Sade is pretty apt.
Yeah, exactly. Very perfect for this. Actually that was an issue at the beginning there. The first draft didn’t have enough sex in it and I was worried. I was like, “We have to redo this.” I was bummed. That was a big deal because certain publishers don’t want certain things—especially when you’re dealing with some of these Asian publishers, they’re strict on things. It was essential to keep that sex in there, considering where the name comes from.
How do you negotiate everything that’s going on onstage when you’re trying to shoot, given that there’s not always a barricade?
I’m a pretty pushy person. I guess I’ll say that. So, I kind of make my way up there, I make sure and I pride myself on balancing the art of being in the middle of everything but hopefully not seen at all. I’d rather be a fly on the wall and just grab the image, so I get up there and I just try to get my way through the crowd and get what I can. It’s actually pretty awesome. It’s an adrenaline rush.
What’s the difference for you, when you’re on tour with a band and shooting them every night, as well as on and off stage versus just covering a regular show? What does that allow you to learn when you’re shooting them performing?
It’s really important to have a good relationship because they have to be able to trust me that I’m not gonna reveal too much, especially when it comes to a band like Midnight. The mystique has to maintain. So you kind of learn to know when you’re wanted and when you’re not and to get the images that tell the story. I think it’s pretty essential to say that I respected their characters in the book. At the same time, giving information to fans, but keeping it interesting.
It’s very interesting to see behind the scenes shots in hotel rooms and stuff, but they’re in full gear.
Yeah, because that’s the way they live. It’s a smelly world.
A sample page from Midnight: A Thousand Nights in Sodom. // photo by Hannah Verbeuren
How’d you first talk them into letting you go on the road with them, much less multiple times?
That’s funny, ’cause I don’t know. I think we just connected pretty quick, actually. To Athenar, it seemed pretty comfortable. Yeah, Athenar didn’t really give me a straight answer, so I realized that I needed to be a little bit more persistent, and I’m glad I did. I missed a couple of shows in Germany, which I had already asked to be a part of, and I wish I was there because if I would have been more persistent, I would have been there.
I just really knew that I wanted to do it and I had the backing of my husband where he was like, “He’s just being a guy. Guys are like that. Just keep going, keep asking, ask him, go ahead and find out.” It was that I had to worm my way in there and be persistent and I think Athenar was kind of down but wasn’t really asking me to be there. At that point, he didn’t probably see any benefit necessarily, so I had to persuade him in a sense.
Given that you’ve been all over the world with this band, what have you discovered about their fans?
They’re extremely passionate, my goodness. They have a lot invested in this band. The fans are really loyal. There’s a lot of fans that will attend multiple shows on the tour that will drive along to see the band. And the thing is, I’m a fan, so I feel like I know what they want and what they want to see. I feel like I have the same attraction to the band.
I mean, this afternoon, I went and got coffee with a fan and we all have the similar things we want to see from the band. He drove from states away and met up with us.
Whose idea was it to do a version of this that has a seven-inch?
Well, the seven-inch is a cool idea because we thought we would have something unique in there because another thing that fans really like is to have unique things. And since “Goat Trap” hadn’t really been officially released, that was a good one to do because that was during the era. I was shooting the book and when Athenar wrote it, it was inspired by people’s eating habits—my eating habits. So it fit well with the book.
The live song on the other side is also during the era of when I was shooting, so those fit really well with it. It was something special for the fans that I know the fans wanted. They wanted that song. I’m aware of what goes on with their socials and stuff, so you can see what they want and one of the things they had mentioned was “Goat Trap,” so that was a cool idea for the fans.
How’d you come to work with Bazillion Points?
I used to be a publicist at Nuclear Blast, so I knew Ian from many, many years ago. He was just a connection to mine. He was a writer, I did PR, so I would speak with him regularly. We knew each other in that way, but we were never friendly, but we knew each other through work and so I felt comfortable with approaching him at Decibel Metal and Beer Fest. I knew he was going to be there and I was shooting it. I knew he was going to be there for the Tom G. Warrior book [Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost 1981–1985], so I went up to him at the end of the signing and I was like, “Hey, how about this?”
I had told Athenar that I wanted Bazillion Points. That was always my publisher I wanted and he said, “Well, I think it could happen,” because he had a connection with him as well. So he is like, “I think you’ll be able to get it,” so I felt even more empowered to do it because he’s like, “Yeah, I think he’ll be into it,” and he was. It didn’t take me much.
Midnight photo proofs. // photo by Hannah Verbeuren
It’s absolutely cool that there’s a Midnight book side by side with Tony Rettman’s New York hardcore book. That’s super music-nerdy shit.
I mean, that’s the thing. It’s such good company for me. It was the goat. I wanted Bazillion Points so bad. It’s such a great place to be and there were times when it was taking a while and people were saying, “Maybe you should look elsewhere,” and I felt good there with him, so I’m glad it stayed there.
What are you doing to promote it?
I’m currently on the road with the band right now. I’m at the merch table, slinging t-shirts and books.
I love that you are a person who is very entrenched with this band, as it really comes through in the book.
They might not like that. I’m like a disease. I’m like herpes: can’t get rid of me.
Hannah Verbeuren’s new book, Midnight: A Thousand Nights in Sodom, is out this week from Bazillion Points.
