FENRIZ (DARKTHRONE) - WYWIAD

Mam dzisiaj przyjemność zaprezentować Wam jedną z dosyć wiekowych rozmów, która dała mi energię, żeby robić dalej to, co robię. DARKTHRONE (dla niewtajemniczonych- norweski zespół grający niemal wszystko- black metal, death metal, na ostatniej płycie było z kolei słychać wpływy heavy/speed metalu z lat '70) był jednym z pierwszych naprawdę "ciężkich" zespołów, jaki usłyszałam. "A Blaze In the Northern Sky" na zawsze pozostanie jedną  z moich ulubionych (nie tylko black metalowych) płyt, a perkusista zespołu, kultowy już Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell mistrzem retoryki i rozmów z dziennikarzami.

How seriously do you take Scandinavian mythology (as seriously as Varg Vikernes, maybe ;))?

Fenriz: I should think not. It’s more like a natural decoration of very few of my works, it’s not more than cementing what culture we grow up with here. Valkyrie is just a song for my girl, as it can be clearly seen in both the lyric and the fact that I dedicate it to her under the lyrics in the album booklet.

How similar are you to the Fenris - wolf from mythology? Actually, why did you choose that name as a nickname?

F: It was one of the infernal names in the Satanic bible and it was also natural to choose the wolf as me (and most of us) felt like lone wolves in a society where almost no one else were into black metal. I can’t remember that there was much about the personality of Fenris in the mythology, I think more has been written about me than that mythological creature.

Although  in ‘The One You Left Behind’ it’s still a lot of aggression for me, many people say, that Darkthrone has become ‘softer’ and it’s not the same any more…What do you think about it?

F: Well, then they don’t consider our earliest works, people with this mindset were often the same that discovered metal with the early 90s and had no idea where that style came from in the first place. I was raised on 50s and 60s and 70s rock, born in 1971 and already in 73 and 74 given a wide variety of rock from late 60s and early 70s, and then I could follow the metal styles throughout the 80s. usually, my material has been inspired mostly by 80s but it is true that I chose harder inspirations earlier, as the beautiful vein of the early 80s speed metal (fast old heavy metal songs) has been my main inspirations the last years. And even an idiot can hear that we are not the same as in 1992, and we haven’t claimed that either. The argument they used were already stated since 98 so this is old news.

Your vision of Valkyrie is very different from that in ‘Wenn Walkuren reiten’ from Absurd. What inspired you to write the lyrics to this song?

F: Absurd? Is that a new band (90s and forward). I never heard it. It’s understandable but still far our that this album is taking a black metal turn, hehe, it’s a long time since I made a pure black metal song these days. My girl inspired me for the lyrics, lyrics written in October 2010.

 What is the connection between the album cover of ‘The Underground Resistance’ and the music on it? Does it contain any special message?

F: No, we got a lot of questions about this, but I think that we seldom had any messages on our covers, but we always tried to create an atmosphere around the albums with the cover art, at least the ones where I was responsible (1990-95 and 2006-now).

On ‘The Underground Resistance’, as well as on your few other albums, the track with your vocals intertwine with the ones sung by Ted. Why? Did you want to make it more interesting (or don’t make the audience tired ;))? 

F: Well, I never thought of doing it another way, as a dj I usually variate a lot, and when choosing track order I always think that variation is the key. It’s very unusual and lopsided to chose only fast songs on side a and slow songs on side b, here I just follow common sense. Also I want it to be democratic between us, like every other album it’s either Ted’s track that starts and album and the next album it’s my turn.

‘Leave No Cross Unturned’ seems to consist two different tracks, actually, not only because of its duration… How did you create that track?

F: Yeah, there’s the speed metal part and it’s… the rest. So it was a step backwards for me, I only wanted to make another great speed metal track but suddenly the Celtic Frost riffs entered my fingers and mind again, and then it all started to build itself into a monster. I will never know if I did the right thing. Which is probably the most fascinating thing about it!! haha

 How does your cooperation with Ted look like during recording? Has Ted ever changed something in your lyrics/music (or vice versa)?

F: No, since after the recording of a blaze in the northern sky in summer 91 I said that from now on we make songs on our own, it’s a total trust and a huge freedom... That probably comes with it’s share of responsibility too. We talk little about our songs in front of the next recording session, we basically meet up, learn the songs and record them immediately. Very fresh.

But the ‘new’ Darkthrone still has more fans thanks to its new music than, for example, Satyricon. Why do you think people prefer your new music style (not the new style of other bands)?

F: Because the underground resistance out there steadily fought the modern metal of the 90s and early 00s with looking back and hailing the old metal even more. And many bands needed also to play in a modern style before they realized what they truly loved, the old metal styles. Many had to fool around a lot to finally see the real metal. And festivals like keep it true started. People started to listen to Manilla Road again. Many new bands started to play the old styles. And we had played a different kind of 80s styles, but now I wanted to make the other style of 80s stuff too, so we were one of the oldschool bands all of a sudden. So in a situation where almost everything was modern in late 90s and early 00s, we now have a divided scene where maaany people want the old style of heavy metal. And there we are with Darkthrone.

How have your views on the world changed during your career?

F: I guess only retards are not able to change or admit to oneself that the views one had as a teenager was not all right. I think dealing with life itself is a labyrinth where many fail miserably and there are many other levels of dealing with it. I was definitely fucking myself up with attitudes and substance abuse but could at the same time function on another level. I needed many years of slowly making the balance right. This would have happened without an artistic career as well, I think, but that’s hard to say and I dislike contra factual history writing.

As a band you have always been very confident and had a lot of distance to each other. Does such an attitude help in the music industry and how?

F: It helps to never give up, it helps to know what you are doing and finding out the roots of the music you are playing and it helps to cultivate a solid musical taste and believing in it.

Among fans and musicians there is more and more popular trend - an old-school style (black trousers change into jeans, black heavy boots into trainers…). How could that image change metal music in 21th century?

F: Those two styles are both valid. It’s just when we all wore plated black boots, and then people started wearing those high heeled black boots (yeah the men) and then there were leather skirts (yeah the men) and then there were photoshopping all photos so bands look like power rangers from hell…everything reaches a point of stupidity when the old styles take over again. And then the cycle starts again. Anyway, I can never just change my ugly tattoos or anything, I look more like a beast now than 20 years ago even though I don’t wear bullet belts as it isn’t practical in daily life. And so on. It’s the music you listen to that is the main thing anyway.

Recently you have sang ‘I am The Grave Of The 80’s’. Now the bands from the 80s. are main inspiration for you… What connects these two facts (your ‘prophecy’ and your music now)? Do you dream about being a leader of a revolution in metal music?

F: They were always main inspiration. What do you think inspired us in 1988-1992? Only 80s bands of course, and it was always main inspirations. As I say on the commentary discs of our re releases, I pretty much talk about riff after riff I made and I can assure you that it’s 80s we are talking about here. My record collection has very few albums from the 90s compared to the insane amounts from the 90s. we were one of the first, if not the first retro black metal band with the stuff that was on UNDER A FUNERAL MOON. It was total 80s worship with some 1990 mayhem thrown in. and they were also inspired by 80s then, I mean in 1990 there were no 90s releases yet. So it’s just plain math. But now I use a lot of DIFFERENT 80s bands than before as influence, and also a lot of the stuff that inspired me in 2 first demo stage Darkthrone. As far as I am concerned, having had over 20 years of war against modern drum sound and modern metal sound, I AM one of the fighters for old metal. I haven’t seen anyone saying otherwise so far, haha.

Black metal has become one of the characteristics of Norway. Why do you think people decide to popularize this music?

F: It doesn’t take many bands from a small place to make the journalists talk about a WAVE. Look to Seattle and the grunge.

Did your private life affect the creating of ‘The Underground Resistance’ and how?

F: Yeah, our private lives changed when we both got new girlfriends and the album took a long time because of that, but the 11 years before that we had made 8 albums which is VERY rare for a band that had made 7 albums before that again, so we needed a break anyway I think. But I AM Fenriz and Darkthrone all the time, there is really no changes between me and… me… but of course I change like most other enlightened beings on this earth…like also Darkthrone changes. Often coincidental.

And the last question - some bands protest against downloading their albums from Internet. What do you think about it?

F: I think ANYTHING on this earth will have some people FOR it and others AGAINST it. Enough money has been stolen from us from east bloc or Italian mafia that makes fake merch and albums anyway, to us that are international underground bands it’s clear that we have been stolen money from always. Now lawyers can stop it. I think Darkthrone has only complained about THAT situation, we have kept our mouth shut about that whole downloading debacle. Anyway you can’t download a VINYL to hold in your hands.

L: Thanks very much for the interview, last word is yours!

F: Don’t forget to listen to HOUR OF 13!

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