DIMMU BORGIR DIMMU BORGIR

FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE NORWEGIANS RELEASED “ENONIAN”. BUT THEY HAVEN’T RESTED ON THEIR LAURELS. MEANWHILE THEY HAVE UNLEASHED THEIR FIFTH ALBUM ONCE AGAIN, AN ALBUM WITH COVER TRACKS HAVE BEEN SERVED TO THEIR FANS AND THEY DID THEIR ONLY SHOW IN 2023 AT BEYOND THE GATES. THAT SHOW ALSO MARKED THE BANDS 30TH YEAR OF EXISTENCE. SILENOZ AND SHAGRATH WILL GUIDE

FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE NORWEGIANS RELEASED “ENONIAN”. BUT THEY HAVEN’T RESTED ON THEIR LAURELS. MEANWHILE THEY HAVE UNLEASHED THEIR FIFTH ALBUM ONCE AGAIN, AN ALBUM WITH COVER TRACKS HAVE BEEN SERVED TO THEIR FANS AND THEY DID THEIR ONLY SHOW IN 2023 AT BEYOND THE GATES. THAT SHOW ALSO MARKED THE BANDS 30TH YEAR OF EXISTENCE. SILENOZ AND SHAGRATH WILL GUIDE

US THROUGH THEIR HISTORY, THE SAID COVER ALBUM AND WE WILL ALSO LOOK FORWARD TO THE UPCOMING INFERNO FESTIVAL.

US THROUGH THEIR HISTORY, THE SAID COVER ALBUM AND WE WILL ALSO LOOK FORWARD TO THE UPCOMING INFERNO FESTIVAL.

Part 1: Silenoz guides us through the past and ends up in recent days

Prior to “For All Tid” Dimmu Borgir did a few rehearsals and demos. What happened before you eventually became Dimmu Borgir? I guess you were affected by the turn of events in Oslo at the time … - We used to go into town one Saturday each month. We liked Darkthrone a lot before they changed their style, and I remember we were fans of Minas Tirith, which were a local band. I guess they were the only band in the area that were a bit known, and they did a gig at Folkets Hus in Nannestad in 1991. The walking distance to the venue was favourable, but we had already watched them a few times in Jessheim and other places prior to the gig in Nannestad. The event was called Nightmare On Elm Street. I got to know Jostein Sandaker and the guys in Testimony in January 1992, when they played together with Red Harvest and Igneous in Jessheim. I turned 15 that year and things were in motion. Jostein and I spoke a lot together, something that went smooth since we spoke the same dialect. We spent a few hours on the phone, to put it like that. You know, old-school phones, obviously. We figured out that we ought to do Nightmare 2 with my band Dechristianize, Testimony and Igneous. So, it was spoken, so it was done, and from our point of view we thought it became a success. When you’re just a teenager, Folkets Hus looks quite big, but today it doesn’t look much bigger than the room we’re having this conversation in.

Ha ha, so 20 people in the audience and packed…

- I guess there were like 50 people in there. Low ceiling, people went nuts and the way I remember it, it was all bananas. If memory serves me right, this was back in April ’92. I guess that was the first time I met Shagrath.

You were more into death metal from the beginning?

- Yes, you’re right, but I have always been a fan of extreme music. The logo for Dechristianize had upside down cross, a few 6s, a pentagram and stuff. We changed into Malefix later on, but we didn’t do any gigs even though we steadily got better musicians all the time.

I haven’t heard any of the rehearsals you did with Dimmu Borgir, but I have of course heard the EP “Inn I Evighetens Mørke”. Was there a transition from death to black metal in this band’s case?

- No, we just did our own form of black metal right from the start. We had already began to play together when we were in high school and when we met at the rehearsal place, we did covers of bands like Mayhem and Tormentor. In fact, I think I have something on tape somewhere … But we never did full covers, and it didn’t take long before we began to do our own material.

I remember that sometimes Shagrath brought his Boombox to the rehearsals, other times I had some equipment brought along so that we could record our rehearsals. We did this so that we could remember the tracks, learn them, and improve them as we grew better. Back in those days tape-trading was the shit, so we had to add something extra when we traded. And there you go, realizing that trading rehearsals meant spreading the rehearsals all over the globe.

Ah yeah, return my stamps and what have you?

- Those were the days, glorious days. You bought a vinyl every now and then, when you had some money in your pocket, but most of the time you were eagerly awaiting a package from Peru or Poland and so on. You got something new, and you never knew what you would get. It was like Christmas Eve twice a week. You know, back in those days most of what you got was something noteworthy, something cool. I remember when we visited Helvete, then Euronymous always said “you need this, you have to listen to that” and he was right hundred out of hundred times. He showed me Samael, Rotting Christ and those early black metal bands. “Worship Him” (Samael) is after all one of the first Norwegian black metal albums released 11 months prior to “A Blaze In The Northern Sky”. And Samael were and still are Swiss.

Dimmu Borgir’s debut “For All Tid» came a few years later, and the tempo on that album is quite slow, actually.

- Yes, you’re right. Most of the time Shagrath, Tjodalv and I did the music. Tjodalv hadn’t begun doing drums properly, so basically it was Shagrath who did those on our debut album. It just happened by accident. We even borrowed the drums at the place where we recorded the album. Tjodalv did first do the drums in Old Man’s Child before he took over the sticks in Dimmu Borgir as well. There is one track on “For All Tid” where the two of them changed position. You can hear that Tjodalv plays the drums on “Glittertid”, since there are double bass drums on that one.

Did you decide to go for a slower approach, or …?

- We basically just met in the rehearsal place and checked out the various riffs we had. Then we tested things and tried to make things fit together somehow.

Isn’t it strange to think that you were quite young at the time and having your development in mind, there are probably people out there who have “For All Tid” or “Stormblåst” as their favourite Dimmu Borgir album?

- Yeah, but you always have the first charm and nostalgia in the equation. If I should try to look at this from a fan’s perspective, I do respect this. It is of course difficult to view the music in this way when I have been a part in the making. A lot of the music is rather banal, and as teenagers we didn’t have much clue about what we did.

Do you have bands where you think the same?

I mean, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest have also released their debut albums …

- When you mention Judas Priest, there’s always “Rocka Rolla”. It didn’t turn out the way they intended, to put it like that. The music feels a bit slow and sloppy, it’s not tough in any way. But the demo version of the album, which you probably can find on YouTube, is rougher and closer to what Judas Priest turned into. I think a lot of this has to do with the production. We didn’t have any money, so we had to do the recording at Stovner Rockefabrikk, because we could more or less afford it. “For All Tid” wasn’t meant to be an album. Actually, it was supposed to be a demo. We shipped away a few advance tapes with the first songs, and the response was surprisingly well. So, we got motivated and decided to record a few more songs. We got another technician at Stovner Rockefabrikk, so that’s the reason the album sounds a bit … mixed up. Silenoz laughs. The album was released by the interpersonal No Colours Records.

- Yes, he had a concept he stuck to (for a while). The releases had to be in black and white. We didn’t know about the reputation that came to the surface slowly but safely, we just thought it was cool that the album was released in black and white.

But I remember that there were colours…

- That was the rerelease by Nuclear Blast. There was a CD version by No Colours as well, but we learnt in retrospect that there were probably way more copies printed than we were told by the label. The Nuclear Blast version that came a couple of years later turned out to be all wrong. The cover is orange and lilac, and the combinations were all fucked up. When we got a few copies ourselves we didn’t understand anything. It should’ve been only black and white, right?

Yeah, Marduk wasn’t all too pleased with the first pink edition of “Those Of The Unlight” and I remember there were some fuzz about the first edition of the horror unleashed by Mayhem.

- You give something to someone you think are experts, and well … And then there’s nothing you can do about it, ha ha.

“Stormblåst” was released again, and even rerecorded, nine years after the initial release. Looking at it now, do you think the material was strong enough to justify the 2005 release?

- I sure do. You can hear the new edition and you’ll see that there is some good stuff on the album. The production is also stronger, there’s more power behind the music. We thought that it was closer to what we were aiming for with the original version. If you listen to some tracks on “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”, you can hear that “Stormblåst” was a natural predecessor. But due to the sound, it is much easier to listen to the new version.

Yeah, the production on the original is nothing much to write home about.

- There you have another story. We liked the “Aspera Hiems Symfonia” album by Arcturus quite a lot. It was recorded in Endless Sound Productions in the old town of Oslo. We had just begun to experiment with synths, so we thought that it would be worthwhile to record there. We booked time in the studio, but when we came there, we had got the dates wrong. With our equipment in our hands, we had to turn around. So, at the right date we did went back. But we didn’t get the technician we asked for. The one we ended up with didn’t know metal at all, he came from a more punkish scene. Well, we didn’t have much money, so we thought we just had to do our best and hope for the same. Since we knew that the studio was told to be better, we thought that it would be fine anyway. It is a bit better than the debut, but it sounds too cosy, the sound is too soft. Some think it’s charming and like it the way it was, preferring it before the “Stormblåst MMV” release. I do respect that, of course. I don’t like the rerecording of “Stay Hungry”, the one that is called “Still Hungry”. I have managed to listen to it a couple times, but that’s more than enough, so I better stick with the original.

How inspiring was it to see the other guys releasing albums, drinking beers and do concerts? I guess you didn’t think that you had to be bigger than those bands, when you bought albums by Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal and the rest of the wild bunch?

- I guess it’s like with most bands starting up – there’s no masterplan about being big and known. You meet up, you try to find something in common, and you begin to make music together. You may feel like an outsider, but that’s often what you want to be. Not to forget all the music you’ve listened to and that you draw so much inspiration from. And there were also albums that you knew were in the making. A year or so before “De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas” was released you’d heard the music par vocals. That was amazing, and I feel honoured to have been a part of this upbringing, if you can put it like that. I don’t feel that we think about success even today. We know that we’ve reached a certain level, of course, but that’s not where our focus lies.

But with that certain level of success, I guess you’ve made a few dollars more?

- Yes, that’s what we thought as well. There’s a reason “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” is green, you know? We were very green when we signed the contract with Nuclear Blast. When we did the first real tour as support to Cradle Of Filth at the end of 1997, we sold a lot of merch. I remember an employee from the label came and picked up a lot of merch and we saw a lot of cashflow. Cool, right? Now we made money, right? But no, not at all. According to the contract they owned all the rights to the merchandise.

Silenoz laughs when I wondered if they didn’t make any money at all on the first album they did for Nuclear Blast. His respond made me ask about how many albums they were stupid enough to sign for?

- We got us some kind of management at the time, and they told the company that if the band should continue to exist, we had to take a closer look at the contract again. If Nuclear Blast hadn’t realized that we couldn’t play for nickels and dimes, I guess that would be the end of Dimmu Borgir.

Perhaps Century Media would’ve been bigger?

Anyway, I guess being with Nuclear Blast meant that you were given certain opportunities?

- Yes, we got the opportunity to go to Peter Tägtgren’s The Abyss to record “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”. To record our album there … We liked Hypocrisy’s “Abducted” and Dark Funeral’s “The Secrets Of The Black Arts” and we thought that these albums were noteworthy. Peter had got a copy of “Stormblåst” and thought: “What the fuck? Shall I record an album with these knuckleheads? Oh my …”.

Silenoz laughs.

- He told us that later. We came there in the wintertime, and he was in doubt about what we could do. But when he heard the songs and the way they grew during the studio time, he had to eat his words. He got a real kick from working with us and he became inspired. The recording process went really well after this. He told me a few years ago that he still uses the “Enthrone …” album as a kind of reference when he’s adjusting certain frequencies during the mixing process.

I guess you had an idea of how you wanted the result to be when you went to Sweden. Was the music as filled with keyboards from the start or did it happen during the studio time?

- We rehearsed quite a lot at the time, using keyboards all the time. Nagash was also a member of the band in those days, and he did keyboards as well. So, we were well prepared when we went to The Abyss. A couple of tracks weren’t completed before we left, but there was a lot of keyboards in the music, yes.

Was “Raabjørn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde” meant to be a part of the album already from the start?

- Yes, we were going to rerecord it. We did “Hunnerkongens Sorgsvarte Ferd Over Steppene» as well, but they were supposed to be on “Godless Savage Garden”. “Raabjørn …” was included in the Japan-edition as well as the digi-pack version. There is one version of the album where the track is included but excluded from the track list though. When Astennu came into the band we recorded two new tracks for “Godless …”.

“Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” became quite a success. Did you focus on everything become bigger and better, or …?

- Yes, we wanted to go further, and we began to focus more on the arrangements instead of just putting some cool riffs together and hope for the best. The development is probably a natural thing, but we got more and more critical towards our new material. We tried to avoid going too far, because then things would probably just have ended there and then. We wanted a natural development from the production of “Enthrone …”, but perhaps we went a bit too far with “Spiritual Black Dimensions”.

Do you think it’s strange that people have that album as their favourite?

- Nah. Everybody has their own reason for whatever album remains the favourite one.

Was Vortex already in the band, or was he just guesting a bit?

- He became a full member of the band on the follower. When we recorded “Spiritual …” we were in touch with Carl McCoy. He wanted to do a part on the album. If memory serves me right it was “The Insight And The Catharsis”, where we’d written a section with him in mind. Time was ticking and we wanted him to go to Sweden, but he declined. So, same idea, new wrapping. Vortex was one suggestion, and he was ready to give it a shot when we got in touch with him. He came to The Abyss and did the track. We though it sounded so good that we thought we could try his vocals on one more song. In the end he guested on four songs.

Didn’t Shagrath want to give it a try at all?

- No, we didn’t think about that at all, actually. We were focused on Carl, but I do understand that he didn’t have time or wanted to fly to Sweden and head deep into the forest to do a few vocal lines that he could just as well do back home in England. We wanted to be with him when he was supposed to record because we had some ideas we wanted to try out. But that story never happened.

Well, in retrospect it turned out to be a lucky shot, right?

- Nagash told us during the recording sessions that he wanted to prioritize Covenant. We had set up a tour already. Then we got in mind that Vortex also played the bass, and if he wanted to play with us, we killed two birds with one stone. He wasn’t a member of the band, but during that tour he became one.

Was it due to his work with Arcturus, where “Chaos Path” did impress quite a lot of people?

- No, we knew him from Lamented Souls. But “La Masquerade Infernale” was already a year old when we recorded “Spiritual Black Dimensions”, so I guess we weren’t unaffected.

Mustis was playing on “Spiritual …”, but it was with “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia” that things got more orchestral and less synthic (if that’s a word), right?

- Gaute Storås transcribed notes for us, which made it more orchestral. Gaute comes from an orchestral frame of mind. But we didn’t make use of a full orchestra yet.

How has the feedback been to the rerelease that came in 2022?

- This version is not a rerecording like the one we did for “Stormblåst”, but it is remixed and remastered. A lot of people like both versions. The original will of course always be the original, but there many elements that come to the surface in the new version. It doesn’t have to do with making some extra money on the fans.

But these first five albums, how do you relate to them now in 2023? Proud, or do you have the musician syndrome of “everything could’ve been better had we recorded them today”?

- If you had asked me like 10-15 years ago it would probably have been different, but today I can see that a lot of the material is pretty good. When we try out songs we haven’t played live before, or some that we haven't performed for many years, I do realize that the songs are actually quite ok. Of course, some tracks have sections that are cringe and banal, but I have to realize that this goes for basically every favourite bands’ first few albums.

Except for Darkthrone. The cringe thing came later.

- Yeah, the first period of Darkthrone is pure black gold.

When you did “Death Cult Armageddon”, everything became even more orchestral. It was more is more, but when you then did “In Sorte Diaboli”, you went for less is more. What happened?

- We had proven to ourselves that we could take things as far as we did with “Death Cult …”, so we wanted to try something else again. I feel that “In Sorte …” is a more occult kind of album. I think that there are songs on that album that are really great, but they haven’t really been appreciated the way they should’ve been. When I look at setlists from that time, we did quite a few songs from the album, and that’s great. The album was a bit more spontaneous in the expression, and Mustis did keyboards. We didn’t make use of any orchestra for that one. Hellhammer did the drums for that one as well, already having done drums for the “Stormblåst XXV”.

The drum sound doesn’t sound exactly like the one on Mayhem’s “Ordo Ad Chao”? We laugh.

- The drum sound is loud enough on “In Sorte …” and I have to say that there are several goosebumps parts on the album.

From my point of view, it seems like people talk less about this album, perhaps because they were baffled by the lack of the bigger-and-better aspect?

- Yeah, but we did go for a lesser impression on purpose. You know when you reach the terrible twos …

The difficulties you experienced in the line-up at the time, were those something that affected the album, or did it come later?

- Actually, they didn’t really show themselves until we had toured for the release. The final concert with that line-up was …, hmm, I’m not really sure when that was, but there was a lot going on at the time. Hellhammer played live with us in the beginning of the tour before Tony Laureano took over.

Wasn’t there something after “Death Cult Armageddon” as well, with Hellhammer taking over for Nick Barker?

- Actually, there was a Danish drummer that helped us out. Reno [Hilligsø Kiilerich] did actually drive his motorcycle from Denmark to rehearse with us in Kolbotn, right outside Oslo. He rehearsed with us, slept at the rehearsal place, and drove back home again when we were done. But five days before Ozzfest, Reno managed to fuck things up with his visa. So, there we were with no drummer and like 40 concerts planned over there. Stressful days, and we were depended on getting a drummer that needed no visa and that could somehow rehearse our songs in a swift. I had some knowledge about a guy named Tony and that he was up to par. We were supposed to do a few concerts in between the half hour slots we got a Ozzfest, so we had 13 songs ready. He told us that he’d do his best. So, we arranged plane tickets for him and sent him the setlist. He went through the songs in his mind while travelling to meet us, and then we had to rush through the songs together as many times as possible. We were of course sceptic and didn’t have any big plans on writing home about the success, ha ha. But it did really work out and it worked out well. We did the tour, the full concerts we had booked ourselves and we could actually write home about it! Coincidences? Well, I don’t know what to think about this, but sometime things really add up.

Damn, if you had to drop out of the Ozzfest-thing?

- Yeah, and “Death Cult Armageddon” had already sold quite well in the States before we went. I guess we’d turned sour and moaned about it for ages if we hadn’t done the tour.

We talked about Ozzfest a few years ago, and I remember that you said it was quite a success.

- By all means. We did play quite early at the main stage, around 6 pm and broad daylight, ha ha. I guess our fans weren’t the ones with the biggest pockets, so they were placed at some lawn in the distance instead of in front of the scene. I guess those bringing binoculars got most value for the money, ha ha. But there were still quite a lot of people there. Some days there were 15-20.000, other days more than 50. And the lineup was gigantic.

If memory serves me right, you’ve told me that you sold more than 100.000 copies of the album in the States?

- Yes, we did. “Death Cult …” reached those numbers, but also “Puritanical …” sold more than 100.000. I don’t know the numbers now, but many years have passed since “Death Cult …” passed 150.000 copies.

Do the old albums sell regularly? I guess you get some money every now and then… you have these older songs in an updated sound picture? Perhaps the occasional weak arrangements shine through too much?

- Yes, we get some money a couple of times each year. During the pandemic the streaming numbers increased a lot, since people spent time at home. So, some income from that as well, but nothing like when we do concerts. And various people involved have to get their share, and then you have taxes. So, we need to do more concerts, I guess.

Puritanical …” and “Death Cult …” were released in 2001 and 2003. There are a lot of albums that haven’t stood the test of time, but I dare say that these two do. “Death Cult …” is an album that I listen to regularly. It is surely very symphonic, but it is probably the most brutal Dimmu Borgir-album as well.

- I think it’s more brutal than people think, yes. Our brutality is of course wrapped up in loads of melodies. We are, after all, Dimmu Borgir and we’re known for melodies. With “Death Cult Armageddon” though I think variation is the main ingredient and what first meets the eye.

I agree.

- “Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse” is perhaps what people think of as our pop-track if we can put it like that. We can’t stay clear of that one when we put together our setlists. We have tested, but we got no accolades for leaving that one out. We have even tested ending our shows with that track, but it seems like we’re more or less stuck with “Mourning Palace” as our grand finale.

Back in 2012, I remember that you opened with “Mourning …” since you played the whole “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant”.

- Yes, that’s right. But it didn’t take too many concerts before we realized that we had to alter the setlist and put “Mourning Palace” towards the end again. I think we began with the track back in 1997 when we did a mini tour together with Dissection, Cradle Of Filth and In Flames.

You’re had your share of ups and downs these 30 years? - And flights. We’ve had our share of flights. And many changes in the line-up. You and Shagrath have been there from the beginning, and Galder has been there for quite many years by now. I guess this topic has been discussed repeatedly, so let me instead ask you about songs. Do you have songs that you hope you never get to hear again?

- We try to stick to the original versions. But as you point out, the songs will have a different sound, obviously. I think it’s important to not alter the songs too much. What is the point if you change them so that they come closer to the songs we make today? We want the audience to know which song we’re performing, not to stand there wondering what the hell is going on. The main challenge with the older songs on the three first albums is that the arrangements are what they are. We have songs that fade out on the album, so what should we do about them?

Do you get a revision of the older songs when you play them and perhaps also listen to them afterwards, with today’s sound?

- Yes, but it’s easier to just displace those songs that haven’t stood the test of time at all. The band is 30 years now, so I guess we have enough of the good stuff to choose from. We can pick and choose when we make our setlists, and we can even include songs we’ve rarely performed. You never really know if a song works live before you play it a few nights in a row. On the latest album there’s this track “I Am Sovereign”. It has a great many hits, and a lot of people gives it thumbs up. When we’ve played it live the atmosphere has been kind of dead. Perhaps we expected too much from it with people going nuts, but it could be that people listen carefully instead. You can’t expect that people go nuts every second during a concert. A lot has to do with the dynamics between the band and the audience. I do notice this myself when I go to see a band. I don’t go nuts the same I did when I was 22, to put it like that. I don’t think I have any favourite tracks to do when we play live, I just enjoy being on stage and perform our music.

When you play live, do you have the technical aspect of it in mind, or do you manage to reflect on the song itself?

- Both, actually. It is always enjoyable to play “Mourning Palace”. It is not a perfectly arranged song, but the fans riot and there are many cool riffs there. It is in fact a bit challenging to do it, even today.

The song lasts more than five minutes, and there’s a lot going on in there.

- It is a signature song to us, obviously. I also like to do “Ætheric”, which is cool and have a lot of changes in the tempo. “Council of Wolves and Snakes” is also great to do live.

I love the last song you mention, but isn’t it a bit boring with the middle section where you have to do … nothing?

- Hah, you can say that again. And I do understand that you ask about this. But fact is that we have added quite a lot to the live version compared to the album version. Is it still in question to do songs from the first album, now close to 30 years later?

- Well, a few of the older tracks still have a place in a setlist, especially when we play for more than an hour. “Raabjørn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde” is a track we do regularly.

Do you rearrange the older songs now?

- Is this a trick question?

No, absolutely not. I just wonder how you think when

- We do discover that the older songs aren’t that bad, after all. We have a decent sound in the rehearsal place as well, so we pump some new blood into the oldies there. But in the end, we can’t be too critical towards our history, we rather focus on enjoying playing the selected songs live on stage and having a good time.

It is now 2023, and there’s nothing special to say about any new music, even though they’re slowly working on new songs. Will it be released in 2024, or most probably 2025? Time shall tell, as Therion once told us. “Abrahadabra” came out in 2010, “Eonian” in 2018, so to justify the system the new one should be out in 2024 and then another album in 2028, right? But seriously, has the writing process changed now that you have become a bit older?

- It’s a mix up of ideas, riffs, feelings and what we create when we meet. What we want is to create an atmosphere, a certain feeling in the music. That is the original black metal expression, and we create our version of this. When we make a song, we want it to be a bit here, a bit there, up here, down there, a bit sweet, a bit sour … We can’t make all this in every song, even though it probably sounds like we’ve tried over and over again, ha ha. But we think of the whole album, and it should consist of a lot of different ingredients. If we write an aggressive track, we don’t want to overdo the synths, if you see what I mean? Yes, there may be synths there, but just to spice it up a bit …

How do you regard “Eonian” now in retrospect?

I guess you got a bit of both kinds of feedback, in the good ol’ Dimmu Borgir tradition?

- You know, those with the loudest voices are always those who scream out loud before everyone else. Those who give our music some time and allow it to sink in, they often realize that the first impression didn’t do the music justice. And then you have those who were very negative from the starting point and do not dare to admit that they actually like the album. And then you have those who hailed it right from the start, but then the first love fades, if you see what I mean?

How do you relate to the music you listen to?

- Ha ha, it’s pretty much the same as with our fans. I did contribute a bit to a track for the Eurovision Song Contest, but I have grown tired of competitions, deep analysis and that nothing is music, and only music. I have gone old-school again and focus on the riff, the idea or something that a bit undefinable. From these new ideas new riffs are spawned and perhaps turned into a full song in the end.

Personally, I like “Eonian” a lot and especially from the third track “Ætheric” and on the album is superb. It demands some effort to get behind the obvious aspect with the album, namely all the choiring …

- We wanted a lot of choirs, obviously, and we also decided that the choir should do a lot of lyrics as well instead of the more common A-choir. I must admit that there is more choir than initially intended, but the music must take its own turns. So, we recorded it, did a lot of choirs, and once released, there’s nothing more we could do. We have so many great songs to choose from, so we haven’t played more than 3-4 tracks from this album thus far. I know, developed country problems …

You choose to make use of choirs on tape instead of using Snowy Shaw’s or Vortex’ vocals on tape.

- People do understand that we can’t bring orchestra and choir live on stage, but they are used to that we do choir and orchestra on tape. So, it turned out that using choirs for Snowy’s and Vortex’ parts were fine, and we’ve done it for many years now. It is a compromise, but I can’t really see how we could do it in a different way when things turned out like they did. We don’t want to skip those songs either…

You know, the advantage of dropping those is that you have less songs to choose from for the next setlist.

- Ah, great idea. I’ll bring that to the other guys.

Part 2:

Shagrath in an Inferno of cover tracks

When I call Shagrath, he begins by telling me that it’s a silent night. Doing nothing much aside from fine-tuning some Dimmu Borgir pre-production tracks. I suggest that they can make a calm and silent album that fits for silent nights. Shagrath laughs a bit but says that it is home office full time work. So, what does he do aside from the obvious family stuff?

- Well, I mainly work with studio engineering. I try to puzzle the pieces together, putting our ideas into songs and see where we’re going. I have a studio at home, which suits me well because this is the way we’ve worked since we did “Puritanical Euphoric …”. We have built the songs in my studio. We meet every now and then, then we work separately again before we put together new ideas and so on. So, doing this kind of Tetris is basically what I’m doing these days.

Is this your full-time job? I know you lived off the band some 15-20 years ago, but you haven’t played that much live lately, which brings most of the income, right?

- Yes, we do music, and we manage to live from the music. But you’re right, we haven’t played as much live as we used to. There have been different kinds of challenges, also outside of the band, so things have slowed down. Five years have passed since we released “Eonian”.

I saw on your website that there are four-five festivals announced, but no touring.

- I guess there will be at least seven festivals. Things have changed, that’s for sure. In the 90s we were one of the few Norwegian bands that already by 1999 had toured a lot in the USA. We used to travel a lot, something that was easier in those days. But with three children and we’re not as young as we used to be, ha ha, the attractive aspect of living in a suitcase and sleeping in a tour bus together with 16 other musicians, has lost some of its impact. I’d say we have built a strong fundament based on what we did the first 10-15 years of our career. This gives us the opportunity to be more selective in what we choose to do these days. We can be a bit picky instead of playing at Bob’s Bar & Grill in Texas, to put it like that. You can say that we’re privileged, but we have paid a quite high price for that. We have sacrificed basically everything for the band these 30 years. But things are in constant motion, the focus changes, people grow apart, and things happen in life. We have climbed many mountains, and I don’t think there’s much left for us to do, our bucket lists are short!

Despite that you and Silenoz are quite different the way I know you, it’s quite impressive that you still do Dimmu Borgir.

- Yeah, we’re like salt and pepper, but ... I mean, we met in 1992 and we had a common interest. There was no plan B, we went all in because we had this enormous hunger! Silenoz and I have run the band from the beginning, but especially the last 15 years have shown that we’re quite different. This can be challenging when we’re supposed to make music together, because there are things that affect us in different ways. We have different taste in music, our visions of how the band shall appear can be different and there are other things as well. But things that can be difficult can also be positive. Anyway, I remember that we were very enthusiastic when we released an album, and it was something special to have the album in our hands. Today it is fresh news and gets attention there and then. And everybody and his sister are experts on the internet, right? I have stopped to read comments because it’s just garbage. So, the pleasure of releasing an album is not the same as it used to be.

Do you think you’ve been more productive the last 15 years or so if it hadn’t been for the way internet has destroyed a lot of art and artistic expressions?

- I’m not sure. As said, we don’t meet that often, we don’t work together with the music every day. Rather the opposite. I’m not sure if the band had been more productive, had we met more often. Things takes time. I have an inner desire to make art and that is what drives me forward. Once a musician, always a musician. When we release the new album, we should aim for a couple of tours instead of only doing festivals.

Being on festivals, how was it to do the concert at Beyond The Gates in Bergen in August 2023?

- We got an immediate excellent review from the local paper. I mean, we invest a lot of time and effort into our performances, so it’s nice when the local people appreciate what we do. We’ve released ten albums by now and we’ve noticed the spirit of nostalgia in our scene these days. There are many that only want the old stuff and scream for “Stormblåst”, you know? We spent some time to choose our setlist and tried to get a couple of tracks from each album. And we have experienced that not all our songs work on stage. On the album they fit like a glove, but there are vibes that do not feel correct during our rehearsals or on stage, for that matter. I am very proud of what we have created, despite that looking back at our lack of arrangements and how inexperienced we were give me some anxiety. I guess that’s the curse of most musicians, that we get better and that we’ll learn how to arrange better songs as we grow more experience. A lot of the old tracks were done spontaneously. Silenoz had a couple of riffs, I had a couple and then we put them together without really reflecting on how well they belonged to each other. But from the fans’ point of view, things can be different. Did they hear us in 1995 for the first time, or in 2003 or in 2010 for that matter? I prefer the first Slayer albums, right? So, looking at things this way, it is obvious to us that we have to play older songs as well. I must admit though that not all songs are equally fun to do. You know, relearning the lyrics, putting things together and make even the worst arrangement flow today, without losing the track’s identity. Some of the old tracks have rarely been done live, like “Over Blekende Blåner Til Dommedag”. In fact, it was Aldrhan that sang the original version, so it took me quite a while to memorize the lyrics for the show in Bergen.

In general, I think the concert went very well.

- Thank you. We had some technical problems, but we managed to do everything as planned. We have often been accused of having a somewhat bad sound. Not to defend ourselves, but it’s not always that easy to have back tracks, four synths, two guitars, bass, vocals, and various effects, all getting ready and fixed during that half an hour of changeover. There’s a lot of information in our music, to put it like that. We would prefer to have a few more minutes, but I think the concert at Beyond The Gates went well, after all. And it seemed like people appreciated the setlist and those old songs we did.

I guess it’s better, or at least easier, to do the newer songs?

- Well, that’s the way it is when you’re a musician playing live. You work with a track in five months and then you know it in and out. When the song is done you move over to the next one. So, my mind moves to the next one, which means that there’s less space for older stuff. It feels like my mind prefer the newer material, especially since I focus on developing our art instead of resting on our laurels.

With a new album in sight, yet still far away, Dimmu Borgir have decided to remaster the cover tracks they’ve done and make one while-wewait-for-it album. “Inspiratio Profanus” is out when you read this. I must say, your choice of covers is quite varied?

- The first one we did was Celtic Frost, which came in two versions released on the “Devil’s Path” mini-CD. The record company has regularly asked us for a bonus track. This has to do with the Japanese market and that the albums need one extra track compared to the regular European version. And since we do have different tastes in our band, there’s been covers of black metal and heavy metal and hard rock. If we find a track that is fine by all, we’ve chosen that one when asked. I think we came up with the idea of collecting these covers about five years ago. And now, when both we and the fans await a new album, we think this cover album is a nice way to shorten the wait a bit. These tracks have been spread on different releases, and a few you only get via the Japanese releases.

Haven’t you done more than these eight tracks?

- In fact, we’ve done seven different tracks. We did two versions of the Celtic Frost cover. I think it’s cool to have them all in one album. When we released the first track, Venom’s “Black Metal”, it became clear that a lot of people hadn’t heard it yet.

I thought you had recorded this very recently because I can’t remember having heard it myself.

- I think we recorded it when we did “In Sorte Diaboli” and you can find it on the Japan edition of that album. “Metal Heart” is from the “Godless Savage Garden” album. Now you get these eight tracks in remastered versions.

Do you have any favourite amongst these cover tracks?

- Let me first say that I wish we’d done a Kiss cover, because that’s the band I have followed since the first time I heard them. But from the tracks on “Inspiratio Profanus”, I have a special relationship with Bathory. That’s a band that have been with me for so many years, and Bathory is a very important inspirational source, even though you may not hear it directly in Dimmu Borgir’s music. Bathory is one of those bands that has that special thing, that undefinable mystery to it. We did “Satan My Master” because it’s one of the more obscure Bathory tracks. It has probably been covered by several others, but when we did it, I didn’t know of any other band doing this track. We wanted to do it a bit more necro, so I used one of those thin, small plastic microphones to make it sound as dirty and distorted as possible.

Are we talking about a kind of children’s microphone?

- Yes, we are. It was a toy microphone I bought at Brio. I’m not sure if Shagrath is having fun with me, but the cover became necro, no doubt. like that for years, but in recent years there have been a couple of festivals prior to Easter. I remember festivals used to be something special, but now you have festivals the whole year. If you want to, you can go to a new festival more or less every weekend. I visited Inferno last year, watching, amongst others, Watain. There are still quite a lot of these blackpackers, so I guess Inferno and the whole culture connected to it is still popular. I think Inferno is an amazing festival, and I have been there a lot of times, both as artist and visitor. It’s not like I have to see every band. When you work as an artist and you’re a part of the music business, you get a bit damaged by it and you’re not as eager to see every new band coming to town.

- It’s one of the coolest covers we’ve done. But I also dig the Deep Purple one. I remember that my father listened to Deep Purple and Twisted Sister as well. We did “Burn In Hell”. So, all in all I think it has become a cool, little thing.

There is one track that stand more out, in my opinion. How did you come up with “Dead Men Don’t Rape” by G.G.F.H. (Global Genocide Forget Heaven)?

- I am the one who liked this band. G.G.F.H. is a really cool band. I remember I traded tapes with Garm from Ulver, and he sent me some G.G.F.H. material. While we did some preproduction for the “Abrahadabra” album, G.G.F.H. was on the speaker. I think it was Galder who mentioned that it would be cool do a cover track. The rest is history, and it became quite different, I’d say. I guess few people know of this band, but that didn’t stop us. It can be challenging to do a cover because there has to be a certain balance. The listener must recognize the original, yet the band need to give it a personal touch instead of just copy it in detail.

I can imagine that quite a lot of people want to have a piece of you when you go to the festivals?

- Well, we’re quite different within the band. And I guess this goes for other bands as well. I need some time to prepare for the concert, to focus on my part of the show. I have to find the right frequency. I need quite some time to do this. Others don’t need much time to do their job. As said, we’re different.

But what do you do when you’re not focusing on the job? Do you go shopping, for instance?

- Well, when I’m out with Dimmu Borgir, I’m doing my job. I would of course like to see a lot of the places we go to, but I must save my energy. If I go on stage with no energy, it will be a rough day at work, no doubt. I want to avoid that. I rather have a glass of wine or two after the job is done.

Dimmu Borgir will play at Inferno Festival 2024, which is the main reason this article is in this magazine, obviously. This will be the first concert since the one at Beyond The Gates?

- Yes, it’ll be our first show in 2024. We haven’t done the planning yet, but I guess that we’ll be playing some old tracks in Oslo as well, since it seemed like people liked our show in Bergen. We’ve been working a lot with pre-productions of newer songs, so our focus has obviously been on that. But we have to begin the final planning soon. We don’t know the playing time yet, but being headliner, we’ll get to play a few songs, of course. And it will, as usual, be a combination of what we think the audience expects to hear and what we think will work well on stage.

I suggest that they could toss in a few covers now, but Shagrath doesn’t give away any information.

- There must be some balance. Personally, I think there are several great songs on the newest album. And even though we prepared well for the concert in August, there are still many months to the end of March, so we’ll be a bit rusty when we start up again. We have to relearn some songs again, to put it like that. You must also keep in mind that we mixed instruments and who did what on which songs, especially on the oldest releases. I did drums, guitar, and synths before I eventually became the vocalist. I mean, there are several songs where I didn’t do vocals at all, only guitar. So, no muscle memory of the good old lyrics, ha ha.

Inferno is kind of like a local festival for Dimmu Borgir, having played there many times and you also live like half an hour outside the city. I guess you’ve been there as a listener, not only as an artist?

- The Inferno Festival has been the starting point of the festival year, to put it like that. At least it has been

You said that you did various instruments before you eventually ended up in front of the microphone. Why did it turn out like that in the end?

- When we did the “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant” album, we got a lot of requests to do bigger shows. Nuclear Blast spent much money to promote Dimmu Borgir, so we did numerous festivals and tours. I found out that instead of standing up there with a guitar hanging from my neck, which didn’t look very good, we should rather go for an extra guitarist.

How much does it cost you to be up there on stage and give everything?

- It is exhausting. It feels like running a marathon. I mean, not only do we perform the music, but we also wear heavy clothes. The heat is on. The show in Bergen lasted for close to two hours. When we do such long sets, we have to balance our energy. You can’t give absolutely everything right from the start because you will be out of energy after just some two-three songs. Add to this that the air quality is different from venue to venue. If you play in Mexico or Colombia, the air is thinner, and it almost causes pain in my chest. Can’t breathe properly! It does help that I quit smoking three years ago. I do of course wish that I had more time for working out and getting in shape. It may not always look like it from the audience’s point of view, but it is a tough task for body and soul, both physical and psychically. After the gig I’m kind of empty! At the same time, sometimes I have experienced that the adrenaline pumps through my body and I can’t relax at all. It’s like I’m high on drugs. So, there’s nothing that’s for certain. I have to add that it’s not easier when you get older. I’m almost 50. I have realized I’m not 22 anymore, ha ha.

Dimmu Borgir performs at Rockefeller stage Saturday 30th of March 23.30.

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By: Jorge Patacas

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