Voices From The Dark Side has published an in-depth piece on the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle featuring Angela Gossow (ARCH ENEMY), Barney Greenway (NAPALM DEATH), Tom Gabriel Fischer (TRIPTYKON, CELTIC FROST), Leif Jensen (DEW SCENTED) and Mille Petrozza (KREATOR). An excerpt is available below:

Q: For how long do you live as a vegan or vegetarian now?

Mille: "I have been a vegan for four years."

Angela: "I have been vegan for about two years now... I kinda stopped eating milk products and eggs step by step."

Barney: "I went vegetarian 29 years ago, and I started moving closer to veganism only five or so years ago, actually. I live at home as a vegan because I have complete control over my diet and I can balance it out, but on the road it is a lot harder to do that without missing out on some essential dietary elements."

Q: What have been your main motivations to become a vegan or vegetarian? Animal rights? The environment? Health? Something else... or maybe all those connected?

Mille: "All those connected, kind of."

Angela: "All those reasons combined. Changing your diet is a very complex issue. In my case milk products made me feel sluggish and built up mucus. Not great for a singer, so I cut it out. I feel best on a clean, fruit and vegetable raw food diet. I have tons of energy, I never get sick, I work out hard and my body feels lean, light and very flexible. I am an environmentalist, so I buy everything in eco, locally produced. And I am an animal rights activist and it makes me feel good, knowing that I am not harming any animals with my lifestyle. I am a very aware person - this world is a beautiful place that comes with the responsibility to preserve that beauty for the next generations to come. I def do my part in making sure I don't use up more resources and energy than necessary."

Barney: "All of those are connected - like stepping stones. Animal rights was my first concern, my actions lead to less environmental damage and of course my diet is a large part of a healthier life. It makes me happy all-round and I could not go back to my lifestyle preceding it."

Leif: "A good mix of everything, but initially it was mainly the moral aspect. Why believe in something 'unnecessary'? You obviously won't starve if avoiding meat, so why not try and skip it in order to contribute my own small personal bit towards a good universal cause. I like to think I sleep better knowing that no animal has to die just for my appetite. I always found it wrong and cruel how animals were seen as 'food' for / by humans. They are living beings with feelings, a heart and a soul too. And I like to respect that."

Tom: "Quite simply my own understanding of the world we live in. I detest the egotism, selfishness, and limitless greed human beings apply in their conduct on the planet we all share. And we are sharing it not just among ourselves, we are sharing it with uncounted other living beings. Although I fully realize we human beings are meat-eating mammals, and although I was raised a meat-eater as a kid, the older I became the less I was able to justify to myself the self-centered, limitless harvesting of anything and everything as pursued by us human beings on this planet. We are calling ourselves 'civilized' and yet truly being civilized implies humility, modesty, an understanding of the global environmental context, and respect for the needs and rights of the other inhabitants of this world - many of whom have been here for far, far longer than us. And, quite simply, I love animals and became increasingly unable to justify any meat consumption of my own versus the facts and realities of the industrial mass breeding and mass butchering of animals."

Click here for the complete interview.