Slaughter To Prevail‘s Alex Terrible says he is not a Nazi and expects the allegations to follow him permanently.
Alex Terrible has returned to the accusations that have shadowed Slaughter To Prevail for more than a decade, telling Metal Hammer that he accepts he will never shake them. The Slaughter To Prevail vocalist, whose real name is Aleksandr Shikolai, denies holding Nazi, racist, homophobic or transphobic views, while acknowledging that he spent time around far-right figures in Russia in his early twenties and got tattoos associated with that milieu.
Asked whether he thought he would ever put the allegations behind him, Terrible said he did not.
“No, because people try to hate me and find any reason to hate me. Which is fine. No matter what I say, no matter how I say [it]… I get used to it. It is the internet. I never get hate in real life – this is a very interesting thing. Every time I read about myself and my band on the internet, it is very different to real life. At festivals like ‘Bloodstock‘, in real life, I get nothing but respect from the other bands, other artists, from people in general. They tell me that the internet is not real life and of course, I understand that and I understand why people hate me. They have read something about me on the internet, and they have made up this image of me which is not real. So, probably, it will stick with me forever,” he replied.
The symbols at the centre of the dispute are the Black Sun and the Othala rune. The Anti-Defamation League describes the Black Sun, or sonnenrad, as one of several ancient European symbols the Nazis appropriated while constructing an idealised Aryan and Norse heritage, though the organisation also notes it is not on its own proof of white supremacist belief, since comparable imagery appears across many cultures. The Othala rune was likewise adopted by the Nazi regime, and in 2016 the National Socialist Movement in the United States took it as its official logo.
Terrible had the Black Sun on his right elbow and has since had it covered. He revealed an Othala rune on his left foot in a 2020 video, and drew criticism in 2023 for selling a mask carrying the symbol. Slaughter To Prevail had a European tour cancelled in 2015 over the Black Sun, which is what prompted him to cover it; he has said he did so for the sake of his career at the time and only came to understand why it was offensive three or four years afterwards.
Speaking about the tattoos shaping how he is seen, Terrible said:
“Yes, I understand that. I have had to come to terms with that and I am paying the price now. I am paying the price for the stupid decision to get the black sun tattoo and hanging out with the right-wing guys [when I was younger]. They were not even Nazis, they were just right-wing guys, but we used these f**king symbols in Russia to, like, look more tough, and that was our culture. I don’t know. I understand the hate, I really do. I am paying the price.”
Asked whether he would make the same choices again, he said he would not.
“Listen: if I went back, I would not get any of those tattoos because my mindset [has] changed a lot. I don’t understand why I got that tattoo [in the first place]. But you have to understand that all of this gestures to his body has built who I am, has built me as a character, for good and for bad, I am just a human being. I make mistakes as well. People call me a Nazi and say that I don’t deserve to live, but I just hung around with these right-wing guys. I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t stab anybody, I didn’t bully anybody, I just made some stupid mistakes, and I am not a Nazi. I never was a racist or any of this horrible stuff. People just hate me, and yes, I wish it wasn’t like that, I regret that I have made people feel like that about me. But at the same time, I didn’t do any horrible stuff to anyone else. I did horrible stuff to myself; I took drugs and I almost died from my drug addiction, but I never beat anyone on the streets because of who they are, that they are another colour or from another country. I never killed anyone or bullied anyone. Never! I don’t want to live my life full of regrets, but I do regret that there have been times when I have been wrong, you know what I mean?”
Terrible has also faced accusations of homophobia and transphobia over social media posts. He said the criticism stems from a misreading of a post about children and indoctrination, and set out his own account of it.
He said: “I don’t get the hate. I posted once on my social media about children being brainwashed, but I don’t like, in general, young people being brainwashed by religious stuff and by military stuff. I do not mind if you are gay or trans, that is not my business; that is your business and I support your lifestyle. I was talking about how I didn’t like, as a parent, my child going to school and being force-fed religious education or be[ing] told about the ‘glorious military’. Right now in Russia, a lot of kids, like 9-year-old kids, 8-year-olds, they’re getting pushed so much military stuff…I don’t like it! I think it’s bad, the war [with Ukraine] is bad, in general. I understand that history shows us that war is part of human nature, I get it, but I don’t want to be involved in that and I don’t want my child to be told that war is good and that he needs to be patriotic and die for your country and that you owe your country. No, no, no! This is my child and I want to educate him morally myself. This was what I was saying, and it became the LGBTQ+ people saying that I was homophobic. But I’m not. It’s funny, because in Russia there is this mentality where they are very homophobic, a lot of Russian people, and I actually grew up hearing some of that in my family. I remember when I was 16, 17 years old, I was sitting with some of my family at breakfast and they were discussing that they had a problem with some gay people in a club and members of my family said, ‘F**k these guys, they are gay, they are disgusting!’ I said, ‘Hold on, what would you say if I turned around and told you I was gay?’ I was told that I would not be a part of this family. What?! I was so angry, I told them I was ashamed that they said that… and then people call me homophobic! I have a critical mindset. I ask myself, before I judge something or somebody, a lot of questions. But these people [online] are not asking themselves any questions; they see something and, bang, they f**king believe in it or create some image. That is their business. It’s very funny; sometimes in my surrounding I see homophobic people in this music scene, and the LGBTQ+ community say, ‘Wow! This is a sick band!’ but they are literally homophobic! Not all the members, but some of them. I don’t know…it’s stupid.”
Terrible‘s critics point to more than the tattoos. On the “Downbeat” podcast last September, hosted by Stray From The Path drummer Craig Reynolds, he expressed regret over a photograph in which he wore an SS helmet, but did not apologise for having promoted a band he himself described as a completely Nazi band on the Russian social platform VK, nor for wearing clothing made by a brand owned by a neo-Nazi activist. He also defended the social media posts that drew the homophobia and transphobia accusations in that conversation.
Terrible laid out the same history at greater length in a video posted in 2023 and since deleted, describing how he moved from anti-fascist circles into far-right ones after a near-fatal period of drug use.
Terrible said at the time: “It’s funny, because one day I was hanging out with anti-fascists, then I met the guys, and they f**king right-wing guys. I didn’t care they right-wings, ya know? I just loved them because they hit gym everyday, they try to work on themselves, pretty much the same as I do. But they were f**king right-wing. And of course, when you’re hanging with people like that, you just take something from them, ya know? And I start to consider myself a member of this subculture. But I never identify myself like a Nazi. I never being racist for somebody or some s**t. And they never been racist, same… same as I. But they have their f**king political right views. I didn’t care. but anyway, I was around 20, 21 or something like that and I start to hang out around these people. And just because I wasn’t smart enough. Just because I was looking for somebody to help me—or something to help me—I start to go hard with this s**t. Like ‘OK, right now I’m a f**king tough guy. I’m a f**king bodybuilder. I’m a fighter, or whatever you know? I’m dangerous man right now… F**k weakness in myself, f**k drugs, f**k drinks, f**k all of this s**t you know. Right now I’m f**king strong and you have to be as strong as me, or you f**king p**sy. This kind of person I was, after I almost died from all the drugs. And I did the f**king black sun tattoo, I want to looks cool, dangerous and stuff. And I was dressing up like a skinhead, or something like a gopnik, whatever. Dangerous motherf**ker. Hooligan, I was fighting… Right now I’m 30-years-old and I look at myself like I was just [a] f**king teenager. It’s OK. But at the same time, it’s not OK because at the same time I start to build my character in the internet. And people start to recognize me a lot. I have a lot of followers already. And that means I have this responsibility. And that means that people see me with all this image and tattoos and all this s**t ya know? So this is of course my fault people think I’m Nazi, or whatever. Because I have a f**king black sun on my elbow—had. I was hanging with the right-wing guys. I was listening to the f**king music and all that s**t. Of course people think I’m Nazi. But I was just f**king teenager. Lost teenager. And I’m not regret about that. Not at all.”
The interview follows a run of posts Terrible made earlier this summer, since deleted, in which he expressed frustration that his public apologies had not settled the matter for some, after the allegations were used to organise protests against the band’s overseas shows. Slaughter To Prevail‘s 2026 European and UK tour with Dying Fetus, Suicide Silence and Annotations Of An Autopsy drew organised objections before it went ahead.
The band, now based in Florida, released the “Koschei” video in July and a deathcore version of Korn‘s “Freak On A Leash” earlier this month.
