RaHoWa (band)

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RaHoWa (alternatively RAHOWA or Rahowa) is a defunct Canadian White supremacist band that played goth metal with some elements of neo-classical metal. The band name is an abbreviation of Racial Holy War. They released two albums from 1993-1995. Many of their songs had explicitly racist and violent lyrics.

Contents

[edit] Members

The band was founded by George Burdi using the pseudonym George Eric Hawthorne. Burdi was a white supremacist, and at one time the Canadian leader of the Creativity Movement and the owner of Resistance Records that acted as the groups distributor. Burdi was lead vocalist. He was convicted of assault causing bodily harm in 1995 for kicking an Anti-Racist Action member Alicia Reckzin in the face during a street riot that followed a RaHoWa concert in Ottawa in 1993.

Rahowa's first album displayed a typical post-Oi racialist punk/metal sound, however, influences such as Moonspell, Type O Negative, Current 93, Danzig and neo-classical and epic metal influences crept into the picture on their second album, Cult of the Holy War, which received (though grudgingly) some good mainstream reviews and comment. It can be surmised that the band may have had more mainstream metal success if they would have dropped the racialist stand and lyrics. Burdi later served a jail sentence and renounced racism.

Burdi now plays in a non-political band called Novacosm

[edit] Original members

  • George Eric Hawthorne aka George Burdi (Lead Vocals/Guitar)
  • Jon Latvis (Lead Guitar/Piano/Cello/Keyboards/Backing Vocals)
  • Graham Stolz (Rhythm Guitar)
  • Carl Alexander (Synthesizer)
  • Jim Jones (Bass)

[edit] New members

After their second and last album "Cult of the Holy War" was recorded, two new members added live support:

  • Mike Nochtem (Drums)
  • Eric Wolf (aka Eric Fairburn) (Rhythm Guitar)

[edit] Lyrics

Their lyrics are explicitly racist and violent. This example is from their song "Third Reich" (which takes its music from Great Balls of Fire).

Kill all the niggers and you gas all the jews
Kill a gypsy and a commie too
You just killed a kike
Don't it feel right
Goodness gracious, Third Reich

The band also played modified Nancy Sinatra covers with new lyrics such as:

These boots are made for stomping
That's just what they'll do
One of these days these boots are gonna stomp all over Jews.

However, even with lyrics like these on their first album and elsewhere, their second album, Cult of the Holy War, featured a much more mature outlook and lyrical content. Influences such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Ragnar Redbeard and (arguably) Anton LaVey (when it comes to the anti-Christian, social Darwinist aspect) came into the picture, and no racial epithets were used, although racial ideas were still prominent.

Might was right when Carthage flames
Lit up the punic foam -
And when the naked steel of Gaul
Weighed down the spoil of Rome;
And might was right when Richmond fell -
And at Thermopylae -
It's the logic of the ancient world -
And the gospel of today.
Where pendant suns in millions swing,
Around this whirling earth,
It's might, it's force that holds the brakes,
And steers through death and birth:
Force governs all organic life,
Inspires all right and wrong.
It's nature's plan to weed-out man,
And test who are the strong.

[edit] Fans

RAHOWA was very popular among Nazi-Skinheads and their concerts are alleged to have incited violence. In the hours following one gig in Toronto in 1993, several concert goers attacked a Tamil man, beating him into a coma and leaving him permanently disabled.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio albums

Declaration of War (1993) - (37:31) Full-length, Resistance - White People Awake, Triumph Of The Will, Fallen Hero, Race Riot, Third Reich, Solitary (live), Exodus, Victory Day, Avenge Dresden, White Revolution, The Trial
Cult of the Holy War (1995) - (01:03:16) Full-length, Resistance - Preludium In G, Man Against Time, When America Goes Down, March Of The Dead, Hall Of The Heroes, In The Fires Of 1945, The Last Battalion, Anvil Of Crom, Might Is Right, Rahowa, God Is Dead, The Snow Fell, Ode To A Dying People, Rahowa Speech (Hidden Track)

[edit] Singles

  • The Rain Will Come Again (White Pride World Wide Vol. 3)
  • Final Call (White Pride World Wide Vol. 3)
  • When The Boats Come In (Project Tribute - The Flame That Never Dies)

[edit] External links