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ENSLAVED Dangerous Vikings On Psycho Trips?! Story online since: 14.11.2008 / 07:34:59 .........................................................................................................................................................  Much has been written about the latest Enslaved albums, and especially "Vertebrae” has provoked manifold reactions from audience and critics since the band reframed its wide-spread approach between hypnotic extreme metal and experimental rock music once again. Olivier Côté had already expressed his enthusiasm in a review while Tentakel P. and I still discussed the quality of the new record and agreed on collecting questions for an interview with the Norsemen which should not only concentrate on topical issues. As luck would have it, Enslaved played a concert nearby and thus I asked Tentakel to send me his questions which indeed inspired parts of the conversation you can read below. One hour after a fabulous, yet much too short gig on the Dortmund leg of the "Heidenfest” tour my friend Flo and I met Ivar Bjørnson and Herbrand Larsen (later on Grutle Kjellson as well) to chat about some black holes and tiny stars in the vast chaotic universe of Enslaved. Herbrand laughs immediately after recognizing my shirt of the Bergen-based The Brimstone Solar Radiation Band; a group which had surprised the audience at Enslaved’s fifteenth birthday concert with a bluesy and psychedelic cover version of "Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor” – the remembrance of this night makes Ivar laugh as well… Being asked about pagan metal, you nowadays often deny that you play that style, nevertheless you just played on the "Heidenfest”, which might seem quite ironic. How do you feel about that matter? Ivar: It’s complicated and easy at the same time. When we started in the underground, we were very close to the Norwegian black metal scene, but we didn’t have the satanic approach like the other bands such as Mayhem or Dark Throne, so this kept us a little bit on the side. Our concern was the Northern mythology, the runes and so we called it "viking metal”, what no one else did in the early Nineties, so it was a strange thing. Then we established a name of our own and we felt that we wanted to have it more open, so we moved away from this. Nobody used it for quite a while and now the Viking thing is so big... To be honest, it’s different: some of the bands have a quite medieval or folk approach. This evening you can see bands with violins and flutes and stuff like that, which is just a very different angle. The same with Primordial, who with their latest albums have an almost social aware approach to this heathen / pagan topic, where they sing about wars, conflicts and stuff like that. Enslaved has a different angle again which is more psychological, I think. It deals with the consciousness, the development of the personality and that kind of stuff, while most of the bands in the so-called pagan scene seem to be more history-telling and sort or re-creating something like in a role-play. So I think we were right at the point where we felt comfortable being very different, but it still comes from the same interest. It comes from young guys and girls reading books about the culture, the past and wanting to express something from that. The result is quite different, but it’s a good thing alas. But obviously you have no problem including an old song such as "Allfadr Odinn" after all these years.  Ivar: No, that’s the funny part. We really enjoy playing those old songs. For me, who has been in the band from the start, it has really been a positive experience to have this line-up with Cato, Ice Dale and Herbrand who joined in 2002 and onwards, because for many years I felt that we didn’t give justice to those songs. We played them too fast or tried to make them sound new, but now we’re playing them like they were supposed to be. To me "Allfadr Odinn" doesn’t feel like a different thing.Herbrand: I think the old and the new Enslaved got the same elements, so you can hear the old Enslaved in the new Enslaved and vice versa, so I think it’s cool playing the old songs. That was one of my forthcoming questions. I think you had a kind of psychedelic approach already on a record like "Frost" which was able to hypnotize the listener and nowadays you take this element just to new levels, don’t you? Ivar: Yes, it’s again about the psychological level. We really like to create atmospheres that can take you out of your everyday situation, which make you dream of something or make you think about future, past or present. I think that’s what gave us a name in the early days and which separated us from the other bands. Some of them were symphonic, others were aggressive, while we had this hypnotic element. We just met a guy yesterday who claimed to have an out-of-body-experience with the song "Center" on the new album. He told how crazy it was to see himself lying on the bed listening... correct! (laughing) I must admit that I experienced parts of your gig this evening with closed eyes since I just felt like drowning in your music in which old and new songs float together, but let’s turn to your new album "Vertebrae" which is another term for "backbone". A backbone should make you stand strong, but Enslaved history has proven that you need a flexible backbone, because you always searched for new frontiers to break them down, so how would you describe your backbone? Ivar: I think the word "flexible" is very suiting for that, because "Vertrebrae" is symbolic on so many levels. If you relate it to the band and its history, I think that‘s a really interesting one, because it represents the core element which was and still is the same. If Enslaved was a person, it would have long hair and then short hair; maybe it would change from man to woman, from very old to very young and maybe turn into a tiger on one day... But it has got the basic building block that remains the same; the brain in the back, the backbone remains the core. And that’s why we can sort of do all these experimentations and still be Enslaved. Herbrand: I think the backbone is strong in Enslaved because I think Enslaved has always done their... (interesting to hear him obviously switch the perspective – Thor) our own thing. You said that the early stuff and the new stuff have something in common. We just don’t care about what other people think, but we try to make our own favourite album all the time and you need a strong backbone to do that. Ivar: This is what kept us going. It may sound stupid, but now it’s a bit easier in a way, because we found or own way to progress and to experiment. In the beginning it was much the same, too, it was about doing stuff and not so much thinking about it. Of course I have to admit that in the late Nineties we had great changes from every album to another one, like "Blodhemn", then going to "Madraum" and then to "Monumension". We received very strong emotional feedback from our own fans. They expect you to go in one direction and then you go into the opposite... of course, as Herbrand says, we have to make music for ourselves and at those moments, when other people give you the strong input that you have to change, you need a strong backbone. And it pays off in the end since we found out where we want to be. Let’s come back to your comparison of Enslaved with a person turning from old to young age: I wondered whether you found back your own childishness within the last years in a sense that you really allow yourself to be adventurous, because, as you said, you turned strong into one direction on an album in the past, but in the last years you seem to open yourself towards many directions, like a child discovering the world with less prejudices...  Ivar: I think it’s mixed and you can even link it to your question about us being part of the "Heidenfest". You go through so many different periods and then you sort of come to a point where you’re so confident about what you do, that the past is no longer something you move away from, but something you can turn back to and be inspired by. I know this for myself for the last few years when everything started to work well in the band: it’s a good live band, the social climate is good in the band and you don’t have to rack your brain about all those matters, so you can start to have a look at your own work, sit and listen your old stuff without thinking about it being imperfect like "Oh, we should have made that break better" or "The sound of the guitar is horrible, why didn’t I tune it on that album?" and you can actually listen to what it is instead. So I think the child can be mixed with the older person that has been developing all the time. It’s no problem to be childish and to be experimental.You play old songs live and obviously a track like "Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor" has progressed over all the years. Does this happen somehow subconsciously or is it the result of a decision to change it? Ivar: I’m pretty sure it just happens. "Slaget..." is a special song because it’s extremely long and if we play the whole song live, there’s no room for the other songs. We keep the song like it was, but without listening to it all the time, so you might be right that we discover some new tricks which we think make it sound good... Herbrand: ...maybe we change it, but that’s subconsciously I guess. Have you ever thought about re-recording a song from an old album? Herbrand and Ivar: Nah! Ivar: Not really. It’s dangerous territory and it’s tempting, you know? You can maybe make it kinder and give it a better production, but you can never recreate that feeling of recording the mini-album when we were like fifteen or sixteen years old. Back then we had a very short time in the studio and were so excited and we could never do that again. So, I think it’s the best to leave them just as they are. We could do that on a live album or a live DVD, but I think we’re a bit conservative when it comes to that kind of stuff. That isn’t too bad. In the last years you got rave reviews for all your albums and the pressure from outside might be growing. Did you ever feel in danger of loosing your ideas or your inspiration? Ivar: It’s a little bit of pressure these days because people know a lot about the band, because they’ve been studying it and they have expectations for the new recording. So when you work with the songs at home, in the rehearsal room and start working on them in the studio, you of course get small thoughts like "how will people react on this?", but there has never been the problem to write new stuff. (Herbrand and Ivar knocking on wood simultaneously and laughing.) Herbrand: As I said before, we always try to make our own favourite album. We change as persons and so change our albums and we try not to think too much actually, we just make the music that we want to make. But of course we think about whether the critics will like this one or if the fans will like that one, but not that much. I don’t know why. Ivar: It’s just to accept the feeling. It’s like: is this too melodic? Is this too much rock? Like the first break riff in the song "Reflection": it was like: "Oops, this sounds like indie rock!" We just stopped, asked ourselves whether we like it and figured out that we like it, so we did it. And many times, the details of which we think that they’re too far out are the ones that get the best response. Herbrand: I think the biggest problem would be, if we recorded something that we didn’t like and then the audience didn’t like it as well. Then we would be basically fucked. If we like it, we can say: "Okay, we like it, this IS good…" So in how far has your music taste changed? Within the last years you seemingly developed strong emotional ties towards Seventies rock and progressive rock music... Ivar: The interest has always been there, but when we started the band, I was a quite narrow-minded black metal and extreme metal kid. But Grutle already had this background with the Seventies and bands like Led Zeppelin, so it was always there. After the first few years when we had an intense focus on the black and death metal scene, we started to look a little bit outside and those things were already there, so we could start to search within the whole Seventies area. It just has become bigger and bigger and I think that today everybody in the band has a strong reference to that. Also the new line-up has its effect on that matter, because Arve and Herbrand listen to more rock and let’s say mainstream kind of things, Cato is into this Eighties kind of metal – how could you call Cato? Grutle: A Cozy Powell fan. Ivar: ...and I think that has given us new angles to work on songs. Herbrand: We always have the Seventies stuff and we always have the metal stuff and then we just spread out, ha-ha! Ivar: This is why good things happen. I can come up with a riff that for me is a reference to obscure black metal from 1993 or whatever, and Herbrand and Grutle could get ideas that are more inspired by melodic rock for the vocals and put those on top, and the Cato comes in and adds some Eighties’ heavy metal drums. Herbrand: And then strange things happen. Ivar: And then we have Ice Dale riding in from the side with a solo. I think this combination evokes the fascination for your band because (to Herbrand) your vocals add a lot to the band’s sound and for an extreme metal band Cato often plays at a quite low speed but with a lot of power. (To Ivar:) On the other hand you’ve been opening yourself quite a lot to post modern and chaotic music, for example with the project Trinacria. How has been to discover these new sounds and to work with the ladies from the noise scene?  Ivar: It has been very inspiring. I guess I started discovering noise after 2000. The first time I ever heard it, was on the Enslaved tour in 2000 in New York where we went to this noise gig with a lot of Japanese and American guys. We just went to the party with some friends and I was really some sort of shocked to realize this really big step further from extreme metal. I though that extreme metal was really soft in comparison to what these guys were doing. It was so cold in one way and it was really fascinating: there were no probs, no image, no show, no nothing, just one guy, a bunch of electronics and a lot of power from the generator creating these noises. It was very abstract and that sort of freedom in it appealed to me and that was a thing we discovered as well while working with the two ladies from Fe-Mail. They have a plan and they improvise on it, but they have a direction into which they want to go: if they want to get aggressive, chaotic, have a dark or an urban sound or whatever. They go from these very simple descriptions and try to create a sound from that. It’s like abstract painting, I think. You stare at it and then you make your own images. It seems to be the case with a lot of noise music that it’s really open.Is there any possibility that you play in a small and narrow club because I think that would be hell?! Ivar: Yeah, it would be hell. We had two festival shows and ten dates on the Norwegian tour and it was really intense. I know that we’ll probably do a few festival gigs in 2010, so that’s gonna be exciting. Already with Enslaved you made videos apart from clichée visuals and I read that you contributed music for a silent movie about Terje Vigen. How did this happen? Ivar: The music for "Terje Vigen” was a bit of coincedence as it always is with Enslaved. When we were mixing the "Ruun” album in the studio, it was two guys running the studio together. The wife of the guy who wasn’t mixing Enslaved was in charge for the musical program of a short film festival. She asked him if he had any idea for a band which could play music for this film and he replied that there was a band in the studio which sounds quite cinematique. So we took material from "Ruun” and re-arranged it to fit the movie. That was a really cool experience. How would you call the place where we played? Grutle: A theatre outside. It was great. And this brings you new audiences because I saw that you were on Norwegian major TV being interviewed about that project. So how’s the topical response on Enslaved in the Norwegian public? Ivar: Enslaved seems to be well-known and you hear more and more about it when people talk about extreme metal these days, that they mention Enslaved. I think it’s because of these projects that it has got a little bit of extra attention, not only in the music papers, but also, for example at that event, in the movie section of the newspapers. We’ve done a couple of things like that and people get aware of the band.  A scene from the silent movie "Terje Vigen" (Sweden, 1917) And since you’re from Bergen you could easily have related to the topic of an old man facing the cruel sea? Ivar: Ha-ha, yes – the cruelty of nature and man. In the beginning, when we rehearsed for the project, we had this old movie running in the rehearsal room. The longer I watched it, the stronger it attached me. Herbrand: And the music changes the movie as well. If you watch the film with Enslaved’s music, it seems complitely different to the movie with the original music. So that’s a cool experience: to see how the music changes the picture. If you see an old man with our music, you look at him differently than with the original score. Music has really the power to change your perception of the movie. Ivar: The guy in the movie is captured by the English and enjailed for many years. When he comes back home, he discovers that his wife and child starved to death. When he comes to the graveyard, we underlined that with a really strong, sort of black metallish music. It’s like anti-MTV: every scene is really looong and the guy is really angry and his face is going and going and going, so it’s really intense. I was suprised to see images of war on your backdrop for one of your new songs this evening. As you know, heathen topics and images of war often make bands in Germany end up in narrow discussions... Ivar: We’re gladly not so aware of these discussions. It was the opening song "Clouds” which is based upon Grutles lyrics. The way I understood them, the song deals with the clouds as metaphors for the clouds in the human minds which keep the thoughts from turning into their true potentials, doing very destructive things. This is examplified on the backdrop with war and these human-made desasters. Later in the movie you see a rocket... Grutle: ...which represents the human potential and the human intelligence, meaning that there’s still some kind of hope, although we’re pretty fucked-up. Ivar: You see the rocket launch and you see the Yalta meeting with the great world leaders coming together and making peace. This contrast in the movie shall show how bad or good it can go. And this is explained by "Clouds”. ...and it’s always up to our own decision what we make of it. Ivar: Yes, absolutely.  Ivar live at Wacken 2008 with Dream Of An Opium Eater With another one of your projects, Dream Of An Opium Eater, you played this year’s Wacken festival and according to the comments on your myspace profile it was a great show. Where do you want to go with that project? Ivar: It was another strange coincedence that initiated that project. It was the Roskilde Festival in Denmark which wanted a closing of the festival in 2007 and they just asked a bunch of people who didn’t know each other, which then got together and made the soundtracks for these short horror movies. And it was really cool to play with that horror visuals in the background in Wacken. I think it fitted really well since it was late at night and the people had been headbanging and doing this "wall of death” thing the whole day, and I think it was great for them to just watch the movies for an hour with this really heavy music. So for us it’s sort of a live project. We might be doing a recording, but we haven’t figured out how to replace the movies on a CD because we fear that we might loose so much of the atmosphere. We’ll definitely do more gigs. This speaks for a DVD release. Ivar: Yes, absolutely. Which reactions did you receive in Norway after your action to "download” a sheep? Ivar: Mostly good. What did the politician say? Ivar: He actually refused to comment on it, but I think his second leader or so made some stupid comments that you couldn’t compare food with music. I think it had a positive effect because the humour’s angle made it not so dangerous to talk about it. Normally when people discuss downloading, they exchange two sentences and then they start screaming. The kids feel like they’re attacked and accused of being thieves and argue that all the record companies and artists make too much money anyway. The artists and record companies then start screaming themselves "we all gonna loose our jobs if you don’t stop stealing the music”. We just wanted to take part in this discussion somewhere in the middle and we asked "what do you actually want?” How want the kids the music online? Are they interested in the cover art? Would they buy it if the files were better? You know, if you buy something from itunes and you have an expensive stereo, it’s a waste because it’s crap files. We made a point that it’s not about record labels, but that it’s about bands like Enslaved that is not a hobby band and not U2, but somewhere in between. If we go and make an album for six months with rehearsing and being in the studio, and no one is paying for it afterwards, it’s gonna be impossible at some point. Then only people with very rich parents or people who sell drugs on the side can afford to be in a band. And it’s interesting to see how that discussion has developped just in the last year. In the internet, on forums, there are more and more people who recognize that new bands disappear and the only thing left are all these reunion bands that sort of don’t have to make albums because they can just go on the festivals. I don’t think that people want that their only chance is to see big bands live. I think that would be boring. Herbrand: It’s also about focusing on facts like: if the band sells 5.000 copies, it will be able to record another CD, and if it only sells 3.000 copies because of the downloading, it can’t afford it. I would like to come back to the Brimstone Solar Radiation Band because I would kill for a single with Enslaved covering Brimstone on one side and Brimstone covering you on the other – would that ever be possible? Ivar: It could be possible. It was very sad that the recording of our anniversary concert got lost and that we don’t have it. The only comfort is that we still have it in our hearts. But it would be a cool idea doing something like that again. Is Bergen rock city #1 in Norway with bands like Brimstone and Emmerhoff & The Melancholy Babies so to say playing on your doorstep? Ivar: I think it is, although in terms of sales you have bigger bands in Oslo. For me, keeping a bit in mind that I’m a patriot when it comes to Bergen, it’s definitely where the most interesting bands come from, like the ones you mentioned. And those have an influence on your sound as well, don’t they? Ivar: Yes, they do. Herbrand: I think Bergen is like a place where all the bands can play together and just do stuff for fun and listen to each other, equal if you’re playing psychedelic, metal, rock or whatever. It’s kind of a small town and all the musicians know each other and support each other. I guess that’s why we got ten different bands playing Enslaved [songs on their 15th birthday], ha-ha! If you walk down the street and see Enslaved on all the newspapers’ headlines: what would be fantastic and what would be your ultimate horror? (Laughter from everybody) Ivar: Hm... (towards Grutle) Suggestions from the bench? Herbrand: I think the world has gone mad if that happens. Grutle: "Enslaved is the headliner of Roskilde festival.” Ivar: Yeah, that would be great... what about "Enslaved opening for King Crimson on world tour"? That would be a pretty good one. And a horror one? Grutle: "Enslaved opening for Gorgoroth"... (Everybody laughing again) Ivar: We had a horror headline once because some guy at the film festival made a joke to a newspaper in Bergen and the headline was: "Film festival has to hire bodyguards for filmmaker", and then there was a big picture of us. To make a long story short: they cut out a little sentence from a long interview and then put it together with some really bad stuff. We had said something like "we don’t like how we’re portrayed in this movie", and then the guy said to the journalists at the film festival "the Enslaved guys are really horrible, dangerous Vikings, so they probably gonna attack me". It was just a joke, but the journalist decided not to pick it up as a joke, but he wrote that they had to hire special security. That headline was a bit of a horror. Photo credits: Photo of Ivar Bjørnson live at Wacken 2008 with friendly permission of Thomas Schlein / Headbanger Photography: www.headbangerphotography.wordpress.com Photos of Enslaved live at the Rock Hard Festival 2008 by Thor. Links: Official Enslaved homepage: www.enslaved.no Enslaved download a sheep: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRY3baFA-S4 Trinacria make noise: www.myspace.com/trinacriamusic Dream Of An Opium Eater: www.myspace.com/dreamofanopiumeater Thor Wanzek |
