Could you put the new album
next to the previous ones? And also compare it to the nowadays black metal
scene?
It's like...It's more
professional, more marked, it has a better sound. Everything is more diversed,
but it's also...it's like we're taking our style to another level, and so it's
actually the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. We're really
satisfied with it, and we wanted to develop it, and at the same time, keep our
roots, and that's what we had in mind, so... Compared to today's black metal
scene, it's a very different and upstanding album. We don't follow any trends,
we create our style, we're IMMORTAL.
Do you still rehearse eight to
ten hours a day?
No! When we are working on an
album or rehearsing for a tour, we practice like two hours a day. When we do an
album, that could be more. We had longer rehearsal in the early days, but we
are better musicians now, we don't have to practice so much.
What do you think of the
“Blizzard Beasts” album now?
We were not prepared enough,
we were in a rush, we went to our normal jobs during days and recorded by
night, and we were really tired. We didn't have a good producer, but I still
think the album turned out great. Some songs...most of the songs are great, but
a couple of others didn't turn out well, so...
You praise winter in your new
album. Why do you like this season so much?
It's among us most of the
time, I live mostly in the mountains, I have a cabin near the glaciers, so I
often do glacier-walking. Winter is my favourite, I'm surrounded by great
nature, it's a fantasy to imagine a demon-world beyond that, that takes a lot
of my time!
You had planned to release a
video with the album, and today the whole show was filmed. Do you plan to
release a live video?
I don't know. They asked us if
we wanted to film, and we said yes. So, we'll see!
You were able to evolve even
without using any keyboards or female vocals. How have you managed to climb up
that far without using this “trendy” stuff?
It's not our thing. We have
some synthetizers on arrangements on the album, but we put it behind the
guitars to make the arrangements more atmospherical. We are not gonna use
synths to replace instruments, we didn't want to have synths on lead, because
we don't want to perform live with synths. We just use it for the album.
However, how would you
characterize your evolution?
It's like...Whatever kind of
metal we come with, it's always IMMORTAL. This time, we felt more atmosphere
and melancholy in the music, more back to the roots of our beginning. With
“Blizzard Beasts”, we thought more brutal, we thought differently with that
album. And now, I'm working on three-four new songs, the next album is not
gonna be a “At the heart of winter part 2”, it will be on a different level,
with a different concept. It's gonna be a cryptic journey to a new dimension. It's
gonna be, so far, the most evil IMMORTAL album up to date!
A year ago Demonaz left
IMMORTAL. What is he doing now? Is he somehow connected to the band?
He's doing a couple of things,
he's not a manager of the band, but he makes a couple of things for us when it
comes to live-jobs and this kind of stuff. It's a real pain he got sick, but
we've got to carry on. He has stopped to play with us for two years, and he's
gotten rid of the sickness, but it's gonna take time for him to recover anyway.
He's doing things for us, he's setting up the studio, and he has another band. So,
we'll see! It's mostly IMMORTAL, but he has changed. We'll see!
You’ve changed your logo on
the new album. Why?
We've got two logos, now.
Is that to mark a new step in
your career?
We wanted...we fell for a more
pronounced logo for this album. But the old logo is really important for us,
and maybe next time we will use the old logo again. It's just something we fell
for to this motive. We'll see, I think in the future, we're gonna use both
logos on several occasions. It's like, the style of the old logo is great, but
I also think, the name is important, so that people got our name. It's
important to use both logos.
The album is opened by the
intro track 'At the heart of winter'. What inspired you for writing this opus?
Actually, I didn't have an
intro, all the songs were ready, and we didn't have an intro on 'At the heart
of winter'. But when I came to the studio in the north of Sweden, the winter
came real hard, and it inspired me a lot to make that intro, because I was
sitting by the window, watching the great nature and playing synths. And that
came up! And the acoustic part, I had
it for many years, but I never
used it, and I thought it was the time to use it.
What do you think of MARDUK? Would
you like to tour with them?
It's important! I hope we can
tour together in the future, but they're quite busy with their stuff, and we're
quite busy with our stuff. I hope! I hope we can do a tour with MARDUK soon,
and more festivals soon!
You played drums on the DET
HEDENSKE FOLK MCD. Do you have any news from the band? Do you help your friends
that way?
I don't know what the guy is
doing now. I haven't talked to him for a year and a half, so I have no idea. I
don't think he has that band anymore, I don't think he plays at all. I helped
him out, he asked for help, and I said OK. I had the time to do it, so...
Would you like to sign to a
big major record company like Sony or EMI?
I don't think so. Right now,
we're supposed to go on with Osmose, we feel a lot of stability, and we know we
can trust them. We've got a priority there. I don't think about signing on
another label.
Are you inspired by the new
black metal scene?
I think we have a mentality
that very few people seem to have. We are like an old-fashioned, stable, true
to the roots, and the way we think...We don't find inspiration in any new band
today! My inspiration comes from the old scene, like...We mostly listen to old
metal bands from the ‘80s. Very few bands do that nowadays, they follow the
trends mostly.
Your music is the way to
escape reality, but what do you dislike in the reality the most?
There's a lot of things I
don't like! I live in this time, and I just have to accept it. When I want to
get away, I do it with music. When I want to escape the city, if I want
primitivity, I go to my cabin