IMMORTAL
You've just finished the recording of the new album. Did everything go well during the recording?Most things went smooth. We also created some of the arrangements during that time as well.
This time the song writing process seems to have gone much faster than earlier. Any specific reason for this?
I have competent collaburators in the band and together we work as a unit building the songs after I've composed the ground material.
You don't feel you've stressed a bit with new album?
There is always some stress following an artist, but that's normal. For us it's nothing we can't handle.
So what can you tell us about the new album? Will it go in the same path as "At The Heart Of Winter" musically speaking?
This one is way more brutal and intense.
What will the title be?
The title will be "Damned in Black".
Any ideas for the visual aspect of the CD?
This time it will be the three of us presented on the frontcover. A photo!
The following interview was made with Legion during the No Mercy 2000 tour in Italy, and for being the first face-to-face interview I have ever done it became quite good I must say. Unfortunately we managed to screw up the tape after having written down about half of it so this interview was actually far much longer. But this part is still pretty long and informative as it is so we couldn't just throw it way...Interview by Whodan, translated from Swedish to English.
The latest MCD "Obedience" was released on Morgan's own label Bloodawn Productions and not on Osmose Productions as before. Why was that?
We were, as you perhaps know, finished with our contract after "Panzer Division Marduk" so we weren't bound to Osmose anymore. But even if we were it would still have been okay to do anything like this anyway 'cause they are really easy to deal with. Well, we argued a little with Osmose first and there were a few things we couldn't solve at the beginning, but anyway it was okay with them. So we just wanted to see how it was to do anything like this, do everything by ourselves and so. But now we are back on Osmose again, and the next release will be a live album which is coming out in October. And then there will be atleast two more fullenght albums on Osmose. Hervé is helping us distributing "Obedience" and everything so that's cool. We just thought it would be interesting to do something by ourselves as I said.
So the next release will be one more live album...
Yeah, during the last tour in autumn 1999 we recorded all the shows in France, and since "Live in Germania" was more of a "German assault" we wanted to do the same thing with France. And as we had a whole bunch of dates in French we did different sets where we changed a few songs in order to get 19 songs all in all. So now we've been listening to various versions and are choosing the songs. It will be released as a double-CD which will be sold for the price of one. And we are going to make an exclusive booklet, like a mark of our 10 years of existance as a band.
The sound quality on these recordings, are they as good as on "Live In Germania"?
Nah, hopefully we got it even a little better this time...
Even better?
Yeah, but you'll hear...it's like "upside down" since it's recorded in different venues and all venues have different accoustic and PA's and everything. So anyway...it's still raw and dirty live-sound, but that's the point you know. If one wanna hear all the songs with a perfect sound one could just sit at home and listen to the CD's instead. Like, on some of the versions we chose I sing totally wrong in certain verses and so. But who gives a fuck, it's live and it should be like that. The atmosphere is there, and the energy...and that's what we wanted to catch since that's the meaning with live. I think it will be cool.
But last time, on "Live In Germania" you had cut off the audiance between the songs and that destroys some of the live-feeling.
Yeah, but this time we could mic up everything better so you'll hear that the audiance is really into it, as they were last time as well, just that only the instruments were micked up that time and then you will of course not hear that much from the audiance, just a little. But this time you should hear more of it…it was a little more professional this time.
Something I was curious is about is what comments you've gotten about the S/M concept you have on "Obedience".
(laughs) Everything! I mean...haha. Sex is funny, haha. But what the hell... I mean, it's always like this with Marduk, what should I say? Stay out of the limits if I say so. The day we start with normal things we could just go to hell and do something totally different, play silly love-songs or whatever instead. When we do something we wanna do the most extreme of it, but still having the almost mandatory blasphemy-part in it. But what the fuck, what's more blasphemic than an old bitch walking around touching corpses and getting really horney at funerals...haha...nah, it's definately nasty.No angry letters from feminists then?
Naaah...he... It hasn't been anything of this actually. Nothing we have bothered to care about anyway. Of course, you always stick someone in the eyes when you have an extreme appearance as we have, no matter what you do so... And we are in the position of either being hated or loved, more than being a common band, and that's just exactly how we want it too. Otherwise we could just sit on a chair in the bar singing stupid love-songs (he also says something funny in Swedish, impossible to translate - ed). But as long as we have this extreme appearance we'll totally go for it, and I have absolutely no problem if people are having a problem with my attitude, I don't give a fuck. If you don't like it, just don't listen to it. It's so fucking simple. Idiots being provoked, nah it's just funny.
And Black Metal is about being provokative and extreme!
I fuckin' agree. That's the way it is. We like to have an attitude, if I say so.
What's going to be the concept next time?
We are currently planing the next fullenght album, we'll probably enter the studio in December this year. And this album will be much more variated than "Panzer Division Marduk", because I mean, it's just so unnecessary to make a part 2 of that album. "Panzer Division Marduk" was just a cool idea we got, to do something like Slayer did during the 80's and to take it one step further, and try to stay out of the limits a bit more. And to make an insane album with full speed all the time. Of course there have been grind-bands before, but none has as far as I know played in full-speed through a whole album, there has always been something different in it too. In the beginning we planed to have an outro with tombs going like this (playing in the air with his hands - ed), but we skipped that since if we were to have it we wouldn't have had just one type of beat through the whole album, blast-beats. But anyway, on next album will use more 7 stringed guitars and some songs will be, like kinda Funeral Bitch-style, mid-paced with double bass-drumms and some really heavy epic stuff. And the concept will be death, all through. We have lots of ideas about death and extraordinary violent and evil-minded demons. But anyway, that's what we have planed. And since "Nightwing" had this medieval vampire-theme with violence, wars and that stuff it had to be the "blood-album ", while we thought that "Panzer Division Marduk" with all the violence and the hell that breaks loose, which the album is about hehe... and demons killing angels and Christians, it had to be the "fire-album". So then we just thought we had to do an album about death too, which was something we came up with half-way "Hell, we have made albums about blood and fire, now we have to do something dealing about death".
Blood, fire and death... Could this also been seen as a tribute to Bathory?
Yeah, but perhaps not to Bathory only, rather to what it once was and the whole Metal scene. Blood, fire and death sum up everything what the Metal music stands for on a purely ideological level and that was, according to old interviews, something Quorthon himself thought when he did "Blood Fire Death". Bathory isn't really the best band in the world today if I say so, actually it's only the three first albums that are that great.
I think "Hammerheart" is pretty good too, you don't think so...?
Nah, I don't know about that...well "Blood Fire Death" is pretty cool too but it's definately not the same as the three first albums. The three first albums are just so fuckin' great. Even if everything is totally untight and strange it still has the power to crush. The first albums have the magic so to say. But I don't think it has come anything good from him since then so you could rather see it as a tribute to the ancient Metal scene than to merely Bathory themselves.
And your next album is also going to be recorded in the Abyss?
Yes, that's almost 100% sure. Peter is almost like the fifth Marduk member and he is just great and so very easy working with, and besides we really like it up there and it gets the way we want. He understands us and knows us, plus that he can stand our attitude (laughs), not really what Dan Swanö did
You don't think the same thing could happen with the Abyss studio as to Sunlight, that the bands will get the same sound since there are extremely many bands recording their albums there right now?
As you say there are lots of bands playing there now. And I think that some of the bands recording there have listened to a few albums recorded there before so perhaps they could end with a sound similar to eachother. But, if there is a Marduk logo on the record one should know what to get, we'll never change and start to experiment with other styles as a desperat attempt to gain more fans 'cause you only lose on that. And by doing that you are out on really thin ice so to say. So no, it do
INTERVIEWS by Whodan of Apostasia zine.
Read the rest IMMORTAL, MARDUK interviews among with many new updated interviews sush as: SATYRICON, BOLT THROWER, APOPTYGMA BERZERK.... reviews, interesting links in one of the most informative sites on black metal.