(old guitar player
and new singer, but more on this topic later). I borrowed his phone,
because mine is dead. I don´t have a real phone at home.
In the beginning of 2003 the old singer Ragnar Vikse quit and
founding
member Frode Glesnes took over the microphone. You changed a lot
musically. I think your new album "Blot" includes lots of Black Metal,
many orchestral parts.
G: I think we maybe changed a bit, but at least we developed. This way
the music has become a lot more - maybe not complex, but the
arrangements are more complex at least if you compare it to the early
stuff. But I think there is a red line our style is still the same. It´s
just a healthy development, I guess. Maybe it sounds more black metal
because of the vocals, you know?! We have more grim vocals now, which I
think sounds a lot better.
Not only that it sounds a lot better, but even your sound is a
lot
better. I don´t have "Norwegian Native Art" as a direct comparison, but
compared to your old records: Now your one man less but you sound like
you´re two men more.
G: Yes, I know. "Odin Owns Ye All" and "Norwegian Native Art" were
produced
in Los Angered Studio in Sweden. But "Blot" we produced ourselves in a
local studio. It would have cost too much if we would have produced it
in the same studio as the other albums. So we had to produce it
ourselves and we had a lot more time.
Who produced you in Los Angered Studios? Andy LaRocque
himself?
G: Yes. And his assistant.
And now you produced it all yourself and got such a lot more
volume in
your sound?
G: Yes, because we had a lot more time this time. We could be there like
two month for the third of the price because we didn´t have to pay for
the producer. We could experiment more and could add more guitars and
stuff like that. Our guitarist played the bass line this time.
Your new label is pretty much unknown in Germany.
G: Tabu is a sublabel of Tuba Records. I think they´re pretty big,
they´re a distribution company here in Norway and distribute everything
from Nuclear Blast to Century Media and some of the major record labels.
Tabu is founded like a sublabel of them, because they want to specialise
more in metal. They also released the sampler for the Inferno-Festival
and the debut album of LUMSK. We released our last album "Norwegian
Native Art" ourselves and I think it was too much work. Really! We´re
not businessmen, we´re musicians. We wanted to have a real record label
this time. And it´s norwegian as well, if we want to communicate and
stuff, then Tabu is just over the mountains and we´re there.
Are you still in this kind of viking scene?
Gerhard: Yeah. I think it´s too late for us now to change anything
within the band like the topics and stuff we write about. We´re still
doing that viking stuff and mythology stuff.
There are not many bands left making viking metal. For example
VINTERSORG completely changed their style, and I didn´t hear a word of
ENSLAVED for a long time.
G: Enslaved are still going, but I haven´t heard the last album. I don´t
think they´re that much viking metal anymore, as well. More progressive,
I think.
In the beginning especially some german journalists wrote about
you in
reviews like you´re "copies of Enslaved". But you started the same time
with Black Metal, did you?
G: I think it was about a year later or something. At least it was more
Black Metal that time than it is now, anyway. Our first demo "Aurora
Borealis" I would already classify it as Viking Metal. Enslaved were a
lot more extreme in 1993 than us.
What was your first intention to do this Viking
stuff?
G: I don´t know, I think we were listening a lot to Bathory back than.
And at least with "Twilight Of The Gods" we were completely freaked out.
We wanted to make something original because I think Bathory is
extremely original.
How do you get information about the viking ages?
G: Yes. Basically our source is the elder Edda. We have different sagas
we like to read, the "Icelandic Saga" for example. And the Snorre Saga.
There is a lot of sources we can get information from.
But while the vikings had their high times during the eighth
century,
all those texts are written down between the 13th and the 14th century.
The Edda, for example, was compiled in 1250 as far as I know. Viking
time was over at that time and they were already christianised at least
in central Norway and Sweden, aren´t they?
G: They were written down in 1250 but the stories are older than that.
At least Snorre lived in the 12th century and he was a christian, so I
don´t know how much we should trust it (laughing). But that´s all we
have. We don´t have much from that time left.
But now to your latest album "Blot". Why did you name it like
that?
G: I don´t know, I think it was a cool title. "Blot" means sacrifice. We
worked extremely hard on this album. Our previous album was released
three years ago. All that time we had been compiling this album. So I
think it was a sacrifice for us, too, and we have sacrificed a lot. It
was a lot hard work.
I first thought blot is another word in the indo-german language
family
which is similar to the english "blood" or the german
"Blut"...
G: No, no, no. It´s an old norse word, it´s like an pagan sacrifice. We
wanted to have a simple title, but it turned out not to be that simple
at all.
What is Frode singing about on your second title "Ironbound"
which is
your video single as well?
G: Well, it´s taken from Edda as well. It´s like a part of a trilogy
about Loki. His path to his doom, choosing his side, which is not the
good side.
I visited some shots from the making of that video on your web
page.
Where can you see the whole video, or is it to be released in some
way?
G: I have no idea. We don´t have it ourselves in fact. We just got it
and saw it once and sent it to the record company. So we don´t have it.
They sent it on the norwegian music TV channel once, I heard the other
day. So I don´t know if they´ll re-send it. Maybe we´ll probably put it
on the web page if we´ll get it back.
I didn´t see you on tour for a while, last time I saw you tour
Germany
was in 1998 with CRADLE OF FILTH.
G: 2001 was the last time we were in Europe. We toured with KING DIAMOND
after the "Norwegian Native Art" album. We were in Germany, Belgium and
those central european countries. But we haven´t been on tour for this
album yet.
Are you planing to do?
G: We really want to. But we´ll have to see what the record company can
fix for us. Because it´s their money.
Wasn´t it hard to get on the KING DIAMOND tour in 2001 when you
have to
pay it all on your own?
G: Yeah, it was extremely expensive, because we had to pay a fee just to
get on the tour, that´s a lot of money. We had to fix it all by
ourselves. But luckily we knew Andy so we had one on the inside that
could fix something for us. But still it was very expensive, we´re still
paying on it. I wouldn´t do it again unless the record company pays.
You seemed to change your visuals as well. I saw pictures with a
lot of
synthetic blood on your homepage. Is it a kind of new appearance of
yours?
G: Yeah, the blood stuff. We´ve never done anything visual live and we
now wanted to do something. And we thought, the word EINHERJER means
"fallen warriors", precisely fallen viking warriors. So we had to
present ourselves in blood. But we decided to skip it for practical
reasons, really. Because you don´t have a shower at every place you
play. And the thing gets very nasty then.
As far as I know about norse mythology the EINHERJER get up
politely
every morning again and kill each other during the days so you don´t
really need to look like freshly killed.
G: Yes, that´s correct. All warriors who´re fallen in battle come to
Valhalla. And there they´re trained for that huge battle at the end of
times. So they fight all day, drink all night and wake up fit for
fighting again.
I think a lot of armies would like such soldiers. Sometimes
mythology is
strange and is fitting very much to the times...
G: ... when it was created. Yes, it is.
Are you studying history?
G: No, I don´t. I just read of pure interest. Everything get´s boring if
you study it. It is better to choose when you want to read.
Ummm, sometimes. Where are you exactly from?
G: I´m from Haugesund. It´s a little town on the west coast. It´s 2 to 3
hours south of Bergen, between Bergen and Stavanger.
What´s the music scene like there around?
G: At this place? Well, Bergen is a strong city for Heavy Metal.
Immortal, (R.I.P.) Enslaved and bands like that are or were based in
Bergen. But in this city it´s completely crap. You have us and you have
one more band called TUNDRA. I think they´re playing more Black/Viking
stuff, our previous bass player is in that band now.
Where do you play if you want to present some new songs live?
Where
for example did you shoot that pictures?
G: We went to Stavanger, in an old brewery hall.
So there are possibilities to play live in
Stavanger?
G: It´s a lot better than here anyway. So if we want to play a gig we
usually go to Oslo, or Bergen or something like that. Some of the bigger
cities.
Are you stuck to a kind of scene there or don´t you have contact
to
fellow musicians there?
G: I don´t have personally. We used to have contact with ENSLAVED,
because they lived in this city before. But they moved around, so I
don´t speak with them anymore.
Only of that reason or is it impossible to get someone on the
phone in
Norway?
G: No, that´s not a problem, you know it´s like that we drifted. It´s
not that I know them that much anymore.
Because of the distance or did you have some kind of trouble or
whatever?
G: No, no, it´s not trouble. They´re like three hours away so it´s not
that we can spontaneously visit them.
Famous last words?
G: They won´t be that famous, but I want to advise people to buy the new
album. And hopefully we will come to Germany in 2004.
Is there a band you want to go on tour with?
Me personally? I don´t know. I think I don´t have any specific bands in
mind, but I think a band on our level. I don´t think it´s a very good
thing to go on tour with a huge band. It´s better to have an audience
that knows what the thing is about instead of a lot of old people. I
think a band of nearly our size will be perfect.
