Nergal

Nergal — born in Poland in 1977, given name Adam Darski — is the founder, vocalist and guitarist of Behemoth, and the central figure of Polish extreme metal. He founded the band in 1991 in Gdańsk, still a teenager and in a country just emerged from communist rule. Behemoth started as black metal and moved to a synthesis of its own between black and death metal, with more elaborate structures and monumental production — a path culminating in The Satanist (2014), a record recognised as one of the genre's most important of the 21st century. His work is openly anti-Christian, and that had real consequences in Poland, a majority Catholic country. In 2010 he was prosecuted for offending religious feelings after tearing up a Bible on stage; the case dragged on for years and ended in acquittal. The dispute made him a public figure beyond metal, discussed in newspapers and on television as a free-speech case. That same year he was diagnosed with leukaemia. He underwent a bone marrow transplant, recovered and returned to the stage — and it was after that he wrote The Satanist, the most celebrated work of his career. He also keeps Me and That Man, a dark folk and blues project with nothing to do with metal, and sat on the jury of a talent show on Polish television, unusual exposure for a musician of his background.