"The origins of this song go back to 1992. At the time, I was singing in a band called Forgotten. The band only lasted a few months and never released anything. We mainly played covers of bands like Danzig, Celtic Frost and Massacre. We did have the intention to write original material as well, though, so I wrote some lyrics for the band.
At the time, I had several prints of works by H.R. Giger on my walls and one night I poured myself some vodka and simply sat in front of my favourite of his works, 'The Spell II' from 1974. Staring at and immersing myself in the painting, it didn't take long before lyrics came to me. I wrote them down on my typewriter and simply called the song 'The Spell'.
The original version released on 'The Book Of The Heretic'
When nothing came of Forgotten, I forgot about the lyrics I had written for the band for a while until I found them again a few years later, somewhere in the summer of 1995, while I was working on material that would become 'The Book Of The Heretic'. I had a few musical ideas that I figured would fit very well with these lyrics and before long the song was written. I did change the title to something I felt was more fitting than the rather generic 'The Spell'. At first the song became 'Into The Chapel Of Doom' but I eventually shortened that to just 'Chapel Of Doom'.