Well, what else would a Fireaxe song be called?

I recall a somewhat negative review of "A Dream of Death" where the reviewer bemoaned my use of the words "pain" and "death" so often over the course of the CD. True, the subject matter of a typical Fireaxe song does not stray far from those subjects, nor from "god" or "dreams" as well, which are conceptually similar according to the Fireaxe theory, so it probably shouldn't be a surprise to any loyal listener that a Fireaxe song might be called "God is Pain" since I've made similar connections in many other tracks. The difference between those tracks and this one however is that on this CD the connection has never been so stark, forceful, and harsh.

Whereas "My Angel" is the emotional centerpiece of "Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess", "God is Pain" is the intellectual centerpiece, providing meaning to the entire CD and tying the various thematic elements together. Throughout the first five tracks the listener experiences the agony and the ecstasy of the protagonist's life and up until this point it appears to be little more than a mere morality play, the point of which seems to be that if you do bad things like the protagonist did then you will end up suffering for them. But the very end of Death's Angel takes us in a very different direction as the protagonist is "born again" in a way not dissimilar to what happens to those who fall in with the Christian Evangelical movement. Of course, the protagonist embraces a far different god, but the elements are all the same, and it is in "God is Pain" that the phenomenon of rebirth and fierce devotion is examined.

"God is Pain" explains our need for love and acceptance as an addiction, describing how it began and how it works in all of our lives. The idea that we are all addicted to one thing or another lies at the heart of the Fireaxe theory, which posits that ideologies benefit by creating a persistent sense of inadequacy in its members, a permanent psychological deficit as I have described before, which constantly demands to be satisfied. Ideologies do well to restrict the ways in which this need must be satisfied so that its members must perform things that benefit the ideology in order to get their fix. In this way an ideologically conditioned individual will constantly be working towards goals which benefit their ideology in order to satisfy their inner need. It's the ideal system, since no one is more motivated than an addict, and complacency and contentment are eliminated as threats to the system since one always needs a fix, but is it a reasonable theory? Well, if you've ever seen the way that athletes punish their bodies and endure great pain to achieve mostly mediocre goals, or listened to the stubborn ravings of a religious fanatic who seems immune to reason and will argue with his critics with an often frightening conviction, or wondered how a person can be so driven to succeed that he lets the rest of his life fall to pieces around him, then you might have already made this connection in your minds. Those guys are addicts. And if you've seen the joy in those people's eyes when they achieve their goals you might think that there is something to that notion, at least for some people. To wit, there is already an accepted term for the case of the person who works too much: workaholic; and we often describe the feelings that we get from our successes as "highs" akin to what we experience when we take drugs. So I feel that most people would be open to the idea that you can become psychologically addicted to something in the same way that you can be physically addicted, but I also feel that people will say that these addicts are the exception, not the rule. However, the point that I am making in "God is Pain" is that it is psychological addiction which is the rule and not the exception and that we are simply pointing at those who are more addicted than we are as the only ones who have this problem.

The human brain can produce endorphins, which are as powerful a chemical as any that can be introduced into the brain, which give one feelings of pleasure and euphoria. This is how the brain naturally works, although in relatively low doses, rewarding itself when it does something good. This effect is also functional, strengthening the neural pathways used to achieve that good thing so that it can be experienced easier later. Of course, the larger the dose of endorphins, the more powerful the high, and the stronger the desire becomes to regain it. However, the reward mechanism loses its intensity each time it is re-experienced, at least if it is achieved in an identical way, like watching the same movie over and over, and so variation is important when it comes to getting either the same or a more powerful reward. Thus, when you find something that you like, you first do that thing until it becomes less enjoyable, then you do something similar to that thing, which gives you renewed enjoyment, until that becomes boring as well, and then you enjoy another variation and another until either the possibilities are exhausted or no variation gives you the reward that you desire. At that point you'll switch to something completely different to get the good feeling again. Now, some people will get bored with things much faster than others, revealing differences in people's ability to absorb new experiences, but the phenomenon works the same way for everyone. As an aside, this explains the phenomenon of fads. First a trend is started and becomes popular, then copycats follow suit, offering similar but slightly different experiences, and then eventually the entire trend dies out and a new trend starts. This is simply the marketplace reacting to the masses which are seeking out neurologically rewarding experiences and are in need of fresh fixes.

The human brain also contains chemicals which produce unpleasant feelings when something bad happens or may be about to happen. Instead of seeking these experiences out, we try to avoid them, but avoiding bad experiences is not always easy, especially when dealing with a complex environment, and so neural pathways must be built to reinforce pain avoidance techniques. It is the thrust of "God is Pain" and a central part of the Fireaxe theory that ideologies contain tenets which instill a permanent state of inadequacy in an individual and make them feel that something bad may happen to them at any time. This serves to encourage people to be more adherent to their ideologies out of fear of pain. For instance, in Christianity, a believer must live up to the impossible standards set by Jesus, and no matter how good you were during your life there is no guarantee that you will get into heaven as that decision is always left to the Christian god. Also, Christianity sets up a conflict between a believer and their own body, convincing believers that if they do not resist their natural urges that they will end up in hell. Similarly, in our modern Capitalist system, advertisers spend billions convincing us that we are inadequate in some way if we do not buy their product, and the simple fact that great wealth can be achieved by anyone gives people the impression that they are lazy, untalented, or in some other way inadequate if they are not wealthy. Also, the constant threat of losing one's job, one's health care, one's home, and so forth, due to either market forces or the whim of an executive can make one feel as if they are continually under siege. Furthermore, over-consumption, a common problem in today's capitalist society, can put one at odds with their own body as chasing pleasures, indulging to excess, and seeking out variation on those pleasures can make one obese, unhealthy, and suffering from a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Now while ideologies do not necessarily set out to cause the very problems that they benefit from, the ones which are successful are inevitably the ones that in some way fuel themselves in this manner, whether intentional or not.

When a person is constantly beset by experiences which create negative feelings it is natural for them to seek out positive rewards to offset them. What I am suggesting in "God is Pain" is that ideologies condition a person into a state where they will constantly feel inadequate unless they have access to rewards. This produces the well known cycle of addiction, where one moves back and forth from feeling bad to feeling good depending on how often one is getting rewarded for their achievements. A constant stream of small rewards can make one feel as if they have no addiction at all, and most of us seek out routines which guarantee such access, but for those who are stuck feeling very inadequate, normal rewards do not satisfy their needs, and so they require large rewards, which often require extraordinary measures to achieve them. Because of the infrequency of attaining extraordinary rewards, people with a powerful addiction will constantly cycle from highs to lows in the way which is depicted in the song. For a while they will be drowning in depression and despair but when their creative fires have been stoked and they produce something amazing they are flying sky high, at least for a while, and then they drop back down into depression again. So, should we pity them? Perhaps, but remember that they do drive our society, since their deep sense of inadequacy creates a powerful motivation to do something spectacular. It is they who are often the ones who produce great works or do great things that help everyone, and, of course, who give us many of the positive experiences that we need to feel good ourselves. We need and often adore the severely addicted because they feed our own addictions.

So how does this addiction all get started? In the second verse of "God is Pain" I suggest that it is not something sinister, but something which we see as benevolent. However, I describe it in a very sinister way which probably made a lot of you feel uncomfortable:

"Love is a knife thrust into the heart of a child.
Innocence is torn away, enthralled by love we must obey.
Love is a drug and we are addicts,quivering, powerless, aching for more;
and as it slowly turns to gray we beg and plead, 'Don't go away.'"

Of course, there is nothing wrong with loving one's child, the problem comes in the amount of love that is administered. Love produces endorphins in the brain and the stronger the feeling the more powerful the high. Thus, excessive amounts of a "good" thing will produce an addictive dependency cycle with the child needing love on a frequent basis. It is my contention that dependency of this nature is passed from parent to child. A parent that has a strong sense of inadequacy will find a reward in creating a strong bond of love between themselves and their child. This bond is created by the mechanism of positive reinforcement via endorphins and made stronger through variations just like any other form of conditioning. Once established in sufficient strength, the parent receives their fix when they share their love with their child and the child becomes similarly addicted over time.

Now, once the child is dependent on receiving love from a parent, the parent has control of a powerful motivating force. They can use the power of withholding that love to make their child jump through whatever hoops they require. It may sound sinister when put in those terms, but that is what is going on whether the parents are doing it intentionally or not. Many parents have a need to see their children excel and personalize their children's successes and failures. The parents will then either reward their children when they succeed or become disappointed in them when they do not. The child soon learns that in order to continue to get their fix they need to do the things that make their parents proud of them. This is how ideological notions of inadequacy and the cycle of dependency can be passed from generation to generation in a non-verbal way.

With this in mind we can look back at the first five tracks of the CD and see things in a new light. The protagonist inherited his addiction from his parents and in the slow part of "Masters of the Universe" we learn that he did all the wicked things that he did in order to be successful and thus make his parents proud of him. Also, his addiction was what caused him to turn to those wicked ways, but not until after he realized that he would never get his reward by doing things by the rules. One way or another his addiction was going to get satisfied, for you see, within each of us there is a beast that needs to feed, and the beasts in some are hungrier than the beasts in others, and so the result is constant struggle in a world awash in ideologies which motivate their believers through psychological addiction. No wonder we act like animals when we want something.

Furthermore, the torture of the protagonist by the antagonist throughout the CD is a struggle between two strongly addicted individuals willing to do anything, no matter how painful or depraved, to get what they crave. Also the protagonist's "angel", though in love with the protagonist, surrenders to the smooth talking liar who promises a more powerful and satisfying romantic experience, one which gets her hooked on the liar's passion which was stronger than what the protagonist gave her. Furthermore, the smooth talking liar himself is addicted to seducing women, going through one after another in order to satisfy his needs. And lastly, the antagonist feels the need to go on a righteous crusade to take over the firm, clean it up, and spread the new economic gospel. It is psychological addictions and what they make people do that form the grisly storyline of "Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess".

And of the point I made about rebirth earlier, an addiction will find a way to achieve satisfaction, potentially taking the host down roads that he does not want to travel. In "Death's Angel" the protagonist pacifies his addiction with overindulgence in sex, drugs, and anything else that he can buy since he can no longer achieve the kind of success that used to satisfy him. When deprived of those fixes he finds a new fix, although a very dark one, in getting revenge against all those who brought him pain. Now, while the religious may call this a surrender to evil whereas when they are born again it is a surrender to good, but regardless of the ideology to which one converts and the relativistic terms used to describe their nature the substance remains the same: born again type "crusaders" are merely using religion as a fix to satisfy their psychological addictions. But each fix never lasts for long and the demands for getting the next are steep, and thus, "God is Pain".

There is a somewhat mysterious line at the end of the second verse where I suggest that as the pleasure and rapture of getting one's fix is fading away, we invite the pain back into our lives. That may seem a little too inexplicable and so I feel the need to discuss it some more. In the original lyrics I had a third verse which explains this concept a little better but I cut it out since I needed to squeeze the project on to a single eighty minute CD. The verse was as follows:

"Nothing tastes as sweet as something that we've fought for,
no victory complete, unless our foe is strong and ruthless.
Nothing satisfies like that which was so long denied,
and there the answer lies, to feel the joy we must relive the pain."

The idea here is that a high is only satisfying if the struggle to attain it was difficult, and so when we need that special fix to offset deep feelings of inadequacy we seek out rewards that are hard to achieve, thus inviting the pain and suffering that will come from such an endeavor. As the weightlifters say, "no pain, no gain" and this is true on a psychological level as well. Unfortunately, as the addict discovers, the greater the high, the harder the crash and the deeper the addiction becomes. When one attains a great reward it often has the effect of making one less satisfied when it wears off, and thus success can become an obsession.

The next two parts of the song describe the cycle of addiction as it pertains to religion and then to politics. These are both in the classic nihilistic Fireaxe vein and I enjoyed writing and recording them immensely. The religion in question can be any of the major monotheistic ones and the politics described can be of any political party. Please do not think that what I wrote is only relevant to "those other guys". I seek to be an equal opportunity disbeliever and skeptic and am not trying to hold anyone's beliefs, religious or political, above criticism. I see our allegiances to our churches and political parties as being very much based in conditioning and addiction of the type I described in the song.

In the third part of the song I work my way towards the epic "Tell me what I want to hear" chorus which describes the nearly blind obedience to one's conditioned "narrative" that can be seen rather clearly in our society today. By narrative I am referring to an ideological perspective on the present, the future, and an often very revisionist version of the past which ties everything together to make one's political or religious beliefs appear to be the one true way. With the rise of politically biased news channels and the advent of the internet which plays host to every flavor of narrative, especially extremist ones which do not generate enough of a following to afford a more public platform, one can tune in to the narrative of their choice and absorb local and world events as told through an ideological prism which matches their own. Thus, in this day and age you can be well informed while never having been exposed to anything that contradicts your current view of the world. The result that we have people who know an awful lot about certain things and yet are completely wrong about them. Yes, ideologies have adapted to the information age. Perhaps we should call this the "disinformation age". When a person becomes conditioned to accepting a certain narrative they derive pleasure from it just like any other addiction and they resist being exposed to alternate narratives, with the exception of those with a "crusader" type mentality who expose themselves to alternate narratives in order to defeat them in their mind, or in an internet forum, and receive a neurological reward for their trouble.

The third part of the song ends with the following line which sums up the crux of the problem: "In the mind a shining lie is stronger than the deepest truth." Ideologies can always offer up a version of reality that is more appealing than anything the truth can offer. Would you rather believe that you go to heaven when you die or that you rot in the ground for all eternity? Would you rather believe that you evolved from a monkey or that you were created in the image of a god? Would you rather believe that your political party is righteous and has all the answers or that all forms of government evolve to become corrupt, self-serving, and resistant to change? And would you rather believe that you are in complete control of your life, your beliefs, and your thoughts, or that you are a product of and slave to your upbringing, your environment, and your brain chemistry? It's not just that people like to hear good things, they need to hear good things and that's what makes the truth so hard to accept.

I feel the need for this disclaimer: Fireaxe is not about becoming popular or accepted and thus I have no intention of telling you what you want to hear. That is why the music sounds the way that it does and why this newsletter often slaughters sacred cows and turns them into hamburger.

The last part of the song brings the story back into the torture room where we hear the protagonist and antagonist going at each other once again. The protagonist claims that he and his "freedom fighters" became a threat to the antagonist's god, but the antagonist objects, believing his god to be of the omnipotent type. The protagonist, in turn, mocks that notion, laying down the ultimate truth that a god is only a symbol that is held in place by raw power, in this case, the Firm, which the two rivals helped rise to prominence. At this point in the story, the Firm has become the most influential force in the world, controlling the most power nation on earth and using that power to force all other nations into obedience, in essence becoming like a god, but in the last line of the song the protagonist tells the interrogator that he knows that such a god can die and implies that he knows how to kill it.

The protagonist's silver bullet, a lie, is what he uses to kill the god that the Firm has become, as we find out in the final track, but the groundwork for that revelation is all laid out in this track so if you want to understand the CD you need to understand "God is Pain". You see, the antagonist is an addict, addicted to the need to champion his god and defeat those who threaten it. Furthermore, his addiction is so strong that he needs to go to extremes to satisfy it, such as the way he hunted down the protagonist, breaking every law in his thirst for justice, in the eighth track. So when the protagonist sells him on the ultimate lie, that the world is full of doomsday weapons and assassins trying to destroy everything that the antagonist holds dear, the protagonist knows that his divinely addicted rival will not let the truth stand in his way of his need to save the world for his god. It doesn't matter that such a plot doesn't exist, the antagonist believes in it, and that is enough to send him off on a self-destructive rampage.

The music in "God is Pain" is very dynamic, swinging from intense passages to sedate ones and back and forth, always building to climaxes and dropping down to soothing passages before building to the next powerful moment. My only regret in the song is that the "Tell me what I want to hear" chorus doesn't quite jump out at the listener as much as I wanted. Perhaps the listener is suffering from a little fatigue due to the length and intensity of the song or perhaps I just needed to change a few more things around to make it work better, but other than that I think that this is another classic Fireaxe track.

The up and down swings in the music match the points that I am trying to make about psychological addiction and the emotional swings that accompany it. This song pounds you down and then lifts you back up only to pound you back down again. You feel the life of an addict with its many peaks and valleys, but it is not the same thing over and over of course. Variations are the key to powerful rewards. So the first two verses switch back and forth quickly while the second two build slowly, peak and then take you down slowly. Those second two verses, the ones that deal with politics and religion are my favorite musically as well as lyrically, with the two matching each other to create a powerful whole.

And I would be remiss not to mention my favorite guitar solo of the entire CD. In between the first two verses and the second two is a towering passage featuring pounding rhythms, forceful choral parts, and a solo where I pretty much outdid myself, stretching my talents to the limit to make this part of the song sensational, or at least I, and at least a few others, think so. If you like this style of metal, you are in luck because I plan to take Fireaxe even more into the "classically influenced but still hardcore metal" direction in the next new release. Expect to hear much more like that in the future.