stories
..........................................................................................................................
|
CORNELIUS VON JACKHELLN Kosmopolitisk Livskunst - Part 1 Story online since: 21.10.2009 / 22:28:10 .........................................................................................................................................................  Cornelius von Jackhelln is an interesting person indeed. Maybe best known to you, dear reader, as one of the two creative minds behind SOLEFALD he also gave us STURMGEIST and G.U.T., participated in countless projects as guest musician and leads a second life as an upcoming writer of fiction, whose talent seems to enable him to finance the freedom to do and choose what he wants, thus making him a real "Freigeist". The creativity springing forth from this restless mind intrigued Tentakel P., so he couldn't let the chance pass to talk to the man himself - It just so happened that Cornelius was visiting Hamburg for a concert of BORKNAGAR, SECRETS OF THE MOON, SÓLSTAFIR and <CODE> where Tentakel P. met and had the honour to sit down with him for a beer and a little (well, not so little) chat about Norse Gods, America, Black Metal and a glimpse of the next SOLEFALD-album. A little note: Some parts of the interview (mostly single words) are multilingual and I choose to leave it like that so the flow wouldn't be interrupted. For most of these words Google is your friend if you need translations, and if there should be anything which can't ever be found in any way I'll be happy to help out. Now, enjoy! Tentakel P.: Are you accompanying the tour…? For how long? The whole tour, or just this concert? Cornelius: No, I just came to Hamburg to see BORKNAGAR and Lazare. I haven't seen them live since… 2001, I think. Maybe 2002. Seven or eight years since last time. That's quite a long time. And you came from Berlin? Yes. So… I don't know much about your writing efforts, but I understand that you have recently won the "National Novel writing month"? Being a writer is my job. And my music is… It’s like a "Nebenjob", as you would say in Germany. A passion. "Leidenschaft". The one thing in my life, or in my career, that I am proud of, that is that with my first novel I actually won this big Nordic novel writing competition. That was in 2007 with a novel called "Gudenes fall" in Norwegian, or "Götterdämmerung" in German. The "National Novel writing month", that is just something you sign up for on the internet, a challenge to yourself. You have to write a novel, or a manuscript, of 50.000 words, in one month. You can’t call it a prize. It's very American, sort of a motivational thing. So, that's more something I do for the fun of it. How is it being controlled that a writer starts at one point and ends one month after? I mean, you could have written the story beforehand, could you? Of course you can just copy and paste stories from CNN for one month, and you will be a winner, you know? But a winner with a bad conscience. So, I try to write everything… deceiving means deceiving yourself only. It's kind of idealistic then. Yes, entirely. There is this counter, so everyday I enter the number of words that I wrote that day and by the end of the month I submit the whole manuscript. But you know, the manuscript could be a user’s manual for an aeroplane, just words. It doesn't matter, it's just counting the words. Needless to say, transforming such a hack work into a literary work of art can take years of editing and reworking. And this story of yours, what was it about?  The story of "The Fall of the Gods" was, as the title indicates, about the old Norse gods, who used to live in Iceland. In the year 999, as they understand that Christianity is coming to Iceland, all of the gods actually go underground, in the literal sense. This means that Odin packs Valhalla and everything in it and heads for the underworld. He takes the whole entourage with him, dwarves, his scientists, the other gods, everyone, opting for a new life several kilometres down into the ground. Christianity arrives, and Odin sits in the underground, observing it. He is unhappy with the course of events, complaining about it from his terrace on top of the Second Valhalla. Towards the end of the book he is heading for the surface again, as he wants his power and his dominions back.I've read somewhere that you are a big fan of Neil Gaiman. And this, to me, bears quite some similarities to his book "American Gods". Exactly. I think you said somewhere that this is one of your favourite books.  "American Gods" is, at least, a book that I like very much. I discovered it at the same time that I was writing "The fall of the gods". I was thinking: Fuck it, he had the same idea before me! But after reading his novel, luckily I discovered that his idea was slightly different. And you know, in my book Odin sits underground, and as he gets a copy of Neil Gaiman's book and he exclaims: "No way, this is good but it's not entirely what I am looking for!" So, you know, Odin is actually reviewing Neil Gaiman's book. I - or old One-Eye - got the last word (laughs). Most of our readers might only know your musical success. You say, writing is your main job, so how would you evaluate your writing success? Where do you stand in the literary scene? So far, I've only been writing for eight years. My seventh book is coming out next month. My writing career has, relatively speaking, been quite successful so far. Although I mostly have published poetry, my books have been noticed. That is nothing a poet can take for granted. I think I have about the same number of readers as I have listeners. The big difference is, as my books are only translated into Finnish and Swedish, my main readership is in Norway and Scandinavia. On the other hand, the people listening to my music are all over the globe. From Asia to South America, to Europe and North America. The funny thing about this is that the Black Metal scene, which outsiders seem to brandish as intolerant, possibly fascist and so on - they love to stamp these negative epithets onto our foreheads – our scene is 100% global, international. I mean: "We are the world", to paraphrase Stevie Wonder (laughs). Through my bands I get MySpace friend requests from Malaysia and Israel. So I find that there is something inherently positive in the Black Metal movement. Most mainstream Scandinavian pop artists have to break the home markets before they are exported. We, as Black Metal musicians, started our careers abroad. I think mainstream artists have a lot to learn from us when it comes to international relations. Okay, let's come around to SOLEFALD. A big part of the lyrics of SOLEFALD is about Norse mythology, a topic which you also cover in your books. I would like to know – what was the intention to start SOLEFALD? What was the intention at the times of the very first demo? Have you always been connected with Norse mythology or was there something else? It's a good question. As we started SOLEFALD, nearly 15 years ago in 1995, the first name of the band was GINNUNGAGAP. That was the idea of our singer at the time. Some of our members had some – what should I say – they had some unfortunate involvements. So after a couple of months we decided to go solo, Lars and I. He was both a drummer and a keyboard player – and a vocalist in spe as well – and I was a guitar player who knew how to scream and could learn to play the bass. We had the base, sort of. So that is why we went solo. Before that, we had five members in the band altogether. I am sure not many people know about this? Yeah, they do, we've talked about this in interviews, but SOLEFALD as such have always existed only with two people. So - the first name of the band was GINNUNGAGAP, which means that we have a Norse origin… at the time, when I was seventeen I used to wear this hammer (shows a Thor's hammer hanging around his neck) of Thor. I always had it with me, in a way. When we got to publish our first record nevertheless, our lyrics turned… They were much more intellectual, we wrote about the arts, about philosophy, about politics, womens’ lib, even!  Come again?Womens liberation. Women's liberation. Yeah, we were at the time - although we didn't consider ourselves in the political spectrum - we were an intellectual, critical, and probably a Leftist band. As said, we never defined ourselves politically, but we clearly seemed to have a revolutionary agenda! Yes, I see how this could be connected to SOLEFALD. There was always some – I hesitate to call it a political aspect, but – it was there. In a way. Yeah. And you know – this came out of the fact that we entered the Black Metal scene at a time when everybody was wearing black leather (which they still do, of course)… I remember walking around on rock festivals in Norway, in my hometown Kristiansand, seeing people with this t-shirt from STORM, you know – "Norsk nasjonalromantisk metall", meaning "Norwegian National Romantic Metal". And I was thinking: <Fuck you!>. I was provoked by them, thinking: <You are rednecks with black leather pants, long hair and Black Metal T-shirts! What about the intellectual component of the genre?> I now reckon that my thinking at the time was prejudiced, despite - or because of - my craving for novelty. With Solefald we wanted to innovate and to invent, and that is what we did. You know, I am still sort of proud of that. When we turned Norse, at a point where everybody else actually had more or less abandoned ship – I think that AMON AMARTH, UNLEASHED, who are now back in business, and a few other bands, they have been doing the "Norse" thing all along and well before us - we were not trying to be original with the "Red for Fire + Black for Death" albums, we just wanted to do so. Honour our origins, both of our culture and of the Black Metal movement. We wrote the albums in Iceland - where we met the guys of SÓLSTAFIR, by the way. So for us, it was more like paying respect to the early stages of the genre. But SOLEFALD is much more than just Norse mythology. We have gone way broader and deeper than this.  As you have proven, for example, with "Pills Against The Ageless Ills", which has a very strange, but appealing concept for a Black Metal band. I have a friend – but this was at the times of "Neonism" - who said to me: <You can't listen to Black Metal with people singing about Calvin Klein>…(laughs) …and I said, I think it's great because no one did this before. No one showed us the… "dark sides" of the world today as it is, so this is what I think is the political aspect of SOLEFALD… Yes. So… what about the concept of "Pills Against The Ageless Ills"? I mean, there is this pornographer, and…how did you come up with this idea? I find it fascinating, so what is it you wanted to express, what did you want to tell the world with this album? Nowadays I am very far away from who I was when I wrote that concept. I was studying philosophy in Paris. I was reading French all the time, learning French, being entirely obsessed with everything that had to do with French philosophy. So, if you look at the French philosophers - most of them, they hate America. And I think that was something that I just picked up. I was young and in need of influences, "Vorbilder" - not idols, but role models. So, I think that is where the song "The U.S.A. Don't Exist" comes from. I hasten to add, that "Pills" can be seen as an entirely satirical album. Which must have been written before the attacks of 9/11. Oh, yeah! And the album came… I think, the album was released in Europe one week later. I remember this quite well… (laughs) Funny… but you have no connections with extremist Islamists…? Just kidding. Ha ha, no! But you know… It was kind of scary, a little bit. Well, it was… I wouldn't use the word "funny". Of course, it's not funny. Yeah, but it was curious. Because - I remember I was in Germany then, doing a German language course in Freiburg, for the first time. In south Germany. Yes. Deep down in South Germany. In Baden-Württemberg, which is a perfectly respectable "Bundesland". And also the home of Martin Heidegger, which I visited. I went by – Yes, I think I went by train to Century Media in Dortmund. And I remember being in their offices. It must have been September… September 14th, 2001, just after the attacks, took place. I remember my A&R at Century Media, he showed me the advertisements they had prepared. It was this American flag, sort of waving in the wind, printed in grey tones; the whole thing looked very… decaying. It said: "The U.S.A. Don't Exist". And they had already placed the advertisements, the album had been ready for like, six or seven months. So on that very record that came out the week after September 11th, you had songs called "Anti-City Strategy" and "The U.S.A. Don't Exist", so there was something. The month before that, in the end of August, I had my first collection of poetry published, and the first quote was a quote from the Qur'an. This was published on August 23th 2001. You know - as a writer, or as a musician, you're picking up vibes or currents in the culture. So I feel more like an antenna which is just picking up signals. I process them, I somehow give them an output, a form. It's purely coincidental. But scary. Somehow. It is scary, but only because – somebody could possibly have prevented the attacks on September 11th. It seems that there was information at hand before the attacks. They might have been prevented if only certain people had taken those signals seriously. I am only an artist, and I can't prevent like, 15 Saudis hijacking planes from Germany or wherever they came from, that is not my job.  I think the essence of what you are saying is that you, I mean, as the antenna, you maybe picked up the "Zeitgeist" of this time. And no one else has noticed it, or at least not the ones that could have prevented these attacks. Maybe they were too blind, too deaf…I remember sitting in this classroom on September 11th. There were two American girls in that class. I remember just sitting there, and they were crying and we were discussing this, because it was so extravagant… The same day I remember I said: <This means war. America is going to war.> I said that. Nobody… I mean, everyone shrugged. I don't know what you should expect them to do, but… three months later America invaded Afghanistan. Alone. They actually went to war. To me, it's not a prophecy. It's just logic. If you know something about America – if you blow two of their skyscrapers to the heavens, I would expect… …only the second time an attack did happen on American ground… Yeah. I would expect retaliation. Okay, let's come back to less grave topics then. "The Circular Drain" – a quite interesting concept to me, which, as far as I know, has only been done before by ULVER… …ARCTURUS, also… Yeah? Okay, yes. But – how did you approach this project? Or did the people approach you, saying: <Hey, we need to remix some SOLEFALD>, or something… Was it your idea? I am sure you know the liner notes of "The Linear Scaffold". We wrote that little manifesto in the album, something about the "The Circular Drain - The Linear Scaffold. – sunset – crépuscule – solefald –". Something like this. And we always had in mind publishing something under the name of "The Circular Drain". That came eleven years later than or debut. So, I approached a record label, and they didn't want to publish the demo. And as I already had a micro-label at my disposal, I decided to do the whole thing myself. I took orders in advance, included the four songs from the demo, plus two remixes that we had already. We had worked on the idea since like, 1999, but we didn't release it until 2008. Then I had the guys from HAVOC UNIT to do some remixes… These are the ones I like the most, the songs from HAVOC UNIT, because I loved …AND OCEANS. They are on a very high musical level. And also THE BOMBS OF ENDURING FREEDOM. And this one artist, EXORCISE, that is my favourite on the album, the "Red For Fire + Black For Death" remix… This is like, speedcore… (intonates mouth-drums and beatbox) Was it the first one?  Yes, the first one. Yeah, that one's great. Perfect aggression. And it comes from this guy who says… wait… he told me that he used to be some kind of gangster. A real Hip-Hop gangstah? (laughs) Something like that. Now that he is studying, and that he has a job, he doesn’t get much music done. Which I find like, a bloody shame. That is talent. I mean, that is pure, sheer talent. I think he should continue doing music. I guess that's also my favourite. I like only the HAVOC UNIT songs a little bit more because I am a fan of HAVOC UNIT. For which you, by the way, did guest vocals, on track 9 of the "h.IV +" album, I think. Okay… Let's end the SOLEFALD chapter for now, just one more question… Which album of SOLEFALD do you think is representing the essence of then band the most? "Norrøn Livskunst". This means: "The Norse art of life". That is our next album, to appear in 2010. On this album you will find the Norse aspects, you will find the experimental stuff and you will find the progammings and the eclecticism of "Neonism". Of course I can't say anything to that yet, but If I had to answer the question, it would have been "Neonism". Yeah? I don't know why, maybe it's because of the weird melodies, and… There was a poll for the best SOLEFALD- album at the AGM-forum, I think "Neonism" did quite well, maybe even won. But now we'll look forward to the next album of course. Will there be a concept to it, what will it be about after you've finished your Icelandic saga? "Norrøn Livskunst" is based around a set of poems in "høgnorsk", a sort of traditional, Norse-esque standard of written Norwegian. The whole album can be likened to a poem of sorts. But of course we stay true! Solefald stay true always. -End of part one -Drawing of Cornelius von Jackhelln with friendly permission of Heath Carter, Burnt wood Studios -Promo Photos taken from Cornelius von Jackhelln and SOLEFALD MySpace with permission of Cornelius von Jackhelln. Photos by gezett.de, Kim Sølve, von Jackhelln, Peter Beste. -Interview Photos by Tentakel P. & Marta B. Tentakel P. |
