INTERVIEW
Pushing musical boundaries is at the heart in everything that moves and motivates Norwegian Black Metal outfit Satyricon. Their latest self titled album may well be their most forward thinking and progressive offering to date. Ghost Cult touched base with singer and main composer Satyr to probe his mind on the new Satyricon record, the merits of analog recording, his dislike for pop music among many other things. Before the recording Of ‘Satyricon’ you took a long break from the band. How come? There were many reasons for that, but the most important one was that I came to a point as an artist where I was doing things because they were expected from me and as a band we started to question whether we wanted to do that. I enjoyed making the music and as a band we’re very uncompromising where our music is concerned and no one ever dared telling us what to do musically, but the touring thing simply got out of control. The only thing we did was travelling from one plane to another. We never wanted to do that. Sure, we enjoy playing live and touring is a part of being a musician, but I never dreamt of spending my life in the back of a tour bus. I started the band because I wanted to write songs and make records. Other things we started to notice was that small things that would normally be minor disagreements became big arguments. It was the wear and tear on people. As the leader of the band it was my responsiblity to make sure that we took a break as opposed to continuing and ending up in a situation where we, all of a sudden, are forced to take a break. The new album is quite a departure from the previous three Satyricon albums. To which extent was your extended break a cause for this? Obviously it influenced the outcome of the new album in many ways; the time to think and reflect and the energy from being away from it all for a while. Also with ‘The Age of Nero’ I felt that the musical path we walked on the past decade had reached its destination. Writing compact black metal songs on a rock music basis was something I really enjoyed doing, but I felt I reached a point that I wamted to do something different. I didn’t know what it would be exactly, so I tried desperately to find out, but along the way I noticed this approach didn’t work, so I left it alone. I’ll figure it out over time. It will come to me when I’m ready for it.
14 GhOST CULT #11
a u g u s t 2013
What statement do you want to make with recording analog and all the extra burdens that come with it? First and foremost it’s a very hardcore way of doing things. We recorded things on tape, which is probably the most difficult and expensive way of doing things, because we thought we would benefit from it sonically. The sound is basically the language of the song and it heavily influences the way the songs are perceived. There will always be an activist mentality in Satyricon and we are very aware of our art. We are in a privileged position in which we influence the black metal scene and in that sense that’s also our reponsibility. The last few years pop music and metal music are in a terrible state to me when it comes down to the production. Not all, but the majority sounds like it comes from some digital box. The overkill in autotuned vocals in pop music is really provocative to me. When I’m sitting in my car and I accidently turn on a pop music radio station I almost smash my car radio in order to put it off. I simply can’t stand listening to it. The trouble is that you have a lot of that in metal too. Drums that sound like type writers, guitars that don’t have any dynamics whatsoever and the reverb sounds like it comes from some cheap computer plug in. It’s all cheap and cost efficient, but it sounds so lifeless to me. I told Frost (drummer) that our new album would be one of those records that are completely authentic whether people would like the music or not. It’s the sort of record that people that love our music would feel as a homecoming when they hear the atmospheres and the sounds and the way the songs are performed in combination with the analog production. The new album is very rich and rewarding listening experience, because of its many different atmospheres and the influences you used from other music genres, but it never loses its focus. How did you manage to do that? That’s a very good observation and a very good question. One of the key elements in the songwriting is that the album should be seen as a whole and not as a compilation of songs. One of the things I had in mind with a song like ‘Walker Upon The Wind’ and ‘Nekrohaven’ was to create dynamics within the musical context of the album as a whole; those type of aggressive songs really stir up things in combination with more atmospheric and melancholic tracks. It really strengthens the overall emotions and makes things more palpable. The album should be seen and experienced as a journey. When you write songs it’s important to think where a certain part fits in the album as a whole. A lot of interesting material didn’t make it onto the