Ik herinnerde me een bijzonder aangenaam gesprek met gitarist Oystein G. Brun toen ‘Origin’ uitkwam en keek dus uit naar een nieuw gesprek nu Borknagar met ‘Universal’ weer een album gemaakt heeft dat hier niet weg te branden is uit mijn installatie. Dit achtste studioalbum van de Noorse progressieve black metal band luidt een nieuwe start in op velerlei vlakken en ik had dan ook heel wat bij te praten met de nog immer erg onderhoudende en spraakzame bezieler van de innovatieve band.
Last time when we spoke was when ‘Origin’ came out. You told me that it was the closing of a chapter and next album would herald a new beginning. Indeed, a lot of things happened in the meantime… Yes, you got a point there. I think ‘Origin’ for us – as I said before – was the homecoming after a long musical journey. We needed some time to relax. Our record deal with Century Media was finished with ‘Origin’, so we faced the whole process of finding a new record label. It took some time, we wanted to take the right step, we did not want an easy or fast solution but digged into the stuff to find the best record deal possible. Then we had the situation with Asgeir who quit the band and we had to get a new drummer. We did not want to stress that either, we spent some time on finding the right person. Of course we also needed some time to sit down and think about “What’s next? How shall we start this new musical journey?” I have had the plans for this album for almost five years now, but we still needed to talk about how we should execute this album in terms of how we should do the vocal-lines, the synth-profile and so on. I think we just needed some time to get things back on track again.
Already five years ago you started writing these songs? Actually three or four songs were already written before ‘Origin’. This ‘Universal’ album has been in the process of planning for a long time. But I preferred to close the chapter with ‘Origin’ and start a new chapter with ‘Universal’. This is the first page of that new chapter.
’Universal’ has a link with earlier works as well, because your themes used to be very universal as well… Yes, from the first album until the ‘Origin’ album, we kind of pretty much made the musical foundation, the musical framework, of the band. Somehow, speaking for myself as a musician and a composer, we are all part of a musical universe. It is very important for me to progress and take a new step on every album. At the same time I think it is very important to keep the musical roots. There is a saying: In order to save the future, you have to know your past. And that is something I’d like to incorporate in the music, because I think it is very important to not loose yourself, but still progress. That is difficult sometimes. There are a lot of bands that loose themselves and suddenly they find themselves in an identity crisis or something like that. It is important to have those reference points back to the history. For example the title ‘Universal’ is based on the idea of the song ‘Universal’ from the ‘Archaic Course’ album. The lyrics are also referring to old material. This is keeping in contact with our musical career, giving a hint to the old albums.
That’s always great on Borknagar albums; you keep on discovering new things with every spin. And this one is a masterpiece! Wow, thank you! We are really satisfied ourselves; I think we have done a very cool album. More straight forward in some sense, but still a little bit progressive. At least in lyrical terms, it must be one of the most aggressive albums we have ever done. The song ‘Havoc’ for example has very aggressive lyrics. Almost all the songs have a kind of aggressive lyrical approach. It is not that we are starting to sing about Satan and the devil and stuff; it is more in terms of being critical of the whole mankind mentality but that was also a part of the concept of this ‘Universal’ title. The cover of the album has an astral, universal, cosmic feel. There you have this planet with this ancient Norse wooden carves on it. We kind of try to link this old pagan mental tradition into a more universal contact so to speak. Because this pagan mentality – I am not too much into this, you know; with helms and all this gimmick stuff – for me the pagan is more about a mental kind of thing; the philosophy. That is something I want to bring forth on this album. I think this pagan mentality is more and more important in terms of this society and its modern developments and economical crisis. I think one of the main reasons for all this shit going on is because instead of worshipping nature, people started to worship money, Jesus Christ or crap like that, which doesn’t really mean anything. That is one of the big reasons why we actually seem to loose the fight. If there is something we should worship on this planet, it is nature! It is not that I want it to be an anti-pollution band or a political band; it is more like being something on behalf of the nature.
That consciousness is far away with most of the people, just living their shallow lives… Some of them, yes. You must not think of it too much directly, but for example, Christianity is one of the big bastards or devils or whatever, because it stimulates people and groups and societies to a way of thinking which is totally disturbed and totally out of it. I think a lot of the reasons why we have all these problems today is because of religions. It changes your mind. If you start to worship an abstract phenomenon like Jesus Christ or God, which is uncertain, instead of nature, which it real and the objective, you are making a big mistake. These are aggressive and dark lyrics, because, as far as it looks now, it doesn’t look so good for the world. We’ll see…
’For A Thousand Years To Come’… maybe we don’t have a thousand years anymore… Exactly, that’s one of the points. Ten years ago there was a celebration in Norway, because Christianity had been in Norway for thousand years. The church celebrated it grandly, but I only had a feeling this has to change. We cannot continue like this. We have to start thinking with a rational mind, stop taking decisions because you believe in something. You have to start worship nature. Try to portray nature in a good way. There is not much that we can do, but the little we can do: try to get people into thinking about what’s going on. We really don’t tell people what to do or give answers. I would like to see people involved in that matter, because I think there is no other way to face this crisis. You can start making cars with less fuel and just batteries and things like that, but it won’t help. You have to change the mentality of mankind, that’s the point. Again, we are not part of Greenpeace or so (laughs), but I think it is important that there are some people and bands that talk on behalf of nature.
Well, I guess it goes a little deeper than most of the successful pagan metal bands nowadays… I am really into this pagan movement; I have been a pagan all my life. I am still living in a house in the woods and stuff like that. Nature is a big part of my life. Pagan movement or whatever you like to call it, it is cool, I like it. It is very cool that bands do it, but for me, it is more important to focus on the mental side than all the gimmick and image. Being cool on stage, that’s the show and that’s fair enough, I have no problems with that. I think the very important thing of paganism is the mentality and the biggest part of paganism is to worship the nature. That’s just something I want to portray and I have always done that. It is not that we have made a sudden change, preaching the word of nature has always been our goal. Now even more…
More people will listen to it when it is popular, that’s also a fact you cannot ignore… Of course, of course… we’ve done this so long! You may think: they have changed, people went in and out, but there’s still the same old core, the seed is the same. We try to put this pagan mentality into a more universal context. Pagan mentality has much in common with other ancient traditions, like the Indians or the Eskimos, all these original people on the globe; it is a very universal thing.
That’s true. We have a bond through the ages. I also found out that Vortex has returned to do guest vocals on one song. How come? It is basically a long story, but it is a simple story, because I worked with Vortex on that song ‘My Domain’ in 1996 or 1997. We intended to record it when we did ‘The Archaic Course’. But at that time we did not have enough time to do it. We worked on it when we did ‘Quintessence’ at the Abyss studio in Sweden in 1999, but it didn’t really work out. So we put it on the shelf and left it as it was. But that song was always one of the favourite songs of Vortex, he just loved it. We always kept in contact and worked together and when we recorded ‘Origin’ it popped up in our minds again and we discussed it. We decided: ‘Not on ‘Origin’, but for the next album ‘Universal’, we are going to finish this one.’ I did a new preproduction, Vortex came over to sing it and we said: “Fuck yeah, this works!” (laughs) We worked in the studio together for one day. Just the two of us, also including Andreas (Vintersorg), we had a really magical moment! I think it turned out great, it is a perfect song for him. The plan has been around for many years. And it had nothing to do with Dimmu Borgir, the song was there long before he quit Dimmu Borgir.
I watched the studio reports on Internet today. It is fun to see… Yeah, I usually do some filming during the recording process, mostly for my own sake. But this time we decided to release it on the net. Why not? We thought it was a good idea. You see how it works somehow, with a touch of humour…
How come that guitarist Jens F. Ryland and bass player Jan Erik Tiwaz (Tyr) came back on this album? That’s also a long story. They quit the band because of personal reasons, not because we had some arguments. They just had some prior things they had to solve in their lives. For a while, they did not really have the time to focus too much on music. At that time, they had other things to do and quit the band. And that’s fair enough. We held good contact with the guys, for example Jens is the brother of my wife, I know him from family issues anyway. With Jan Erik I talked on the phone often. When ‘Origin’ was done and we planned a new record, we looked for a new record deal and started to discuss the new material anyway. At a certain moment they decided to join again and it was a natural thing, because they have been working in the shadow of the band for years. When they quit, they remained part of the family. We are friends. The good old magic is back in the band, because Tyr is a great bass player and Jens is a great guitarist.
Did it change anything in the writing process for this album? I still do most of the stuff. I have done the rough, basic arrangements. Of course they are still involved in the final arrangements; that’s something from the entire band. I come up with a song and they do their stuff, solos and bass parts, we send it back and forth, discuss it, talk a lot together about lyrics and work on it until we are satisfied. The third step is finally going to the studio. I still write the main lines of the music, but it is definitely teamwork. It is not that I do everything; I am not a dictator or something like that. I always try to stimulate the guys to come up with ideas, there are no bad ideas and anything can be useful. I always make space for them. Because I know the guys can do brilliant things, I always have this in mind when writing songs. Even in the studio, they hang around to come up with ideas. Not always, but it is definitely teamwork.
I think Borknagar was a band of well-known musicians around you since the very beginning… all people with loads of experience… Yeah, we’ve been doing this for quite a while (smiles). I have been going in and out of studios since I was seventeen years old, now I am thirty five years. Through the years we became more professional in studio stuff; we know how it works now. When we enter the studio, I always do everything myself, like tuning my guitars and things like that, because I am used to it. I have a home studio – where I am sitting now actually – I am used to sitting by myself and recording everything myself. This works perfectly, because there is peace, I am not annoyed by other people, I love working in total solitude (laughs).
Is there a little bit of hope we can see you live in this constellation? Yeah I would say so. I cannot say much more, but we are going to do much more gigs than we have done before. Of course we are not going to do a world tour for six months, because we don’t have time. But we are looking for festivals and things like that. We will see…
Asgeir used to do the artwork, but since he is gone, there must be someone else… Yes, it is done by a guy who is working for Indie Recordings. He is a Brazilian guy, but he is really fantastic. He did everything, from the cover to the T-shirts to our MySpace design. He is own of the few graphic artists I have been working with who really gets it. He just wanted to know some keywords of the lyrics, the title of the album and the idea behind the album. It was a nice process. He had a lot of work, because the album is coming out in four formats: we have the regular jewelcase, a limited digipack including bonus disc, a CD box with extras and the double vinyl version on LP. The design is so beautiful!
Why did Asgeir leave the band? (thinks) I think mainly because we did not share the same musical vision anymore. He just came to a point where he wanted to go another direction than me. He was very much into the progressive stuff. I don’t think he was really up for doing what I told him when I told him my plans about ‘Universal’. We had to go our separate ways, because he was fed up with this kind of music. He did not enjoy the direction Borknagar is heading to. I felt it already with ‘Origin’. It is good to have discussions in the band, but we had so many disagreements about how it should sound that I just felt at the end of the day: I do not want to loose the band. I am still the founder of the band and we are drifting towards things I do not want when I should have followed Asgeir. I think that if I had compromised more on the music contents, it should not really sound like Borknagar anymore. I think it is a natural thing. We have worked together for ten years or so, we had enough great moments. It is pretty much the same with Century Media. It is a cool label and I know all the guys, but we just felt that we had done what we can together. We have to try something new. At least for me, that was the same thing as with Asgeir.
I think you will feel home with Indie Recordings, it is such a great label with many fine releases… Yes, I think so too. It is not the biggest label around; Century Media is a lot bigger. But I like them. They treat their bands very well. I have known the guys for many, many years. They are very professional. I have always said to myself: from the moment we have a really good label in Norway, I definitely am going to support that label. We had the opportunity to do it now, trying to build something new. So far I am really pleased. It was a good decision.
Would you consider playing the acoustic songs from ‘Origin’ live, but in a metal way? It is possible, because I write all of the songs on acoustic guitar. Same goes for the songs on ‘Universal’. I could have made them acoustically, no problem. And it would sound cool. It would be no big deal to make a metal version of ‘Origin’. But still, I don’t know if we want to do it. I don’t know. Maybe in ten or fifteen years (laughs). Well, the album is the album, that’s it. I don’t want to make different versions of so many songs. A song is a song, whether you record it with drums, electric guitars or acoustic. I liked it with ‘Oceans Rise’, but I’d rather move on. There are bands who rerecord their old albums and I respect that, but for me, a song is always the strongest at the time of first recordings, because it is the original feeling you had when the song was born. Reproducing that magic feels kind of artificial. Take the example of a painter. Most of them do copies of their own works, but I think the most interesting thing for a painter is making a new painting.
Did you ever play the acoustic stuff live? No. There were plans about doing that, but it did not happen. Maybe one day…
Are there plans for a DVD? We have plans for DVD for ten years (laughs). We have loads of material from recordings and travelling, but we still miss that one huge live show to feature it. So we still have to wait, since everything we do, we want to do it good, no easy solutions. We had something in mind like the Metallica DVD with lots of backstage scenes. We’ll see. We had the plans, we still have the plans, but I do not know when it will happen.
I found out that the name Borknagar should come from a man who climbed the mountain Loch Nagar in Scotland. Is it true? Yes, it is partly true. I mean, when I was thinking about this band or project in the beginning; I had some ideas, but no name. It was by coincidence I think that I stumbled upon this old fairytale. But I don’t remember exactly. There was something like a mystic mountain in Scotland, named Loch Nagar. One guy climbing the mountain, but nobody knew what happened to this man. There was something with this mountain and this man. It was cool but I wanted to add a Norwegian twist on it, so I made it Borknagar. It does not mean anything special, but it may be have something to do with bark, rind from a tree, the skin of the trees. Basically I just wanted to have a name that does not mean anything, except for the band. I wanted a name that did not represent any kind of limitation. So many bands in the nineties started as death metal band, later developing to something else, but they still have to carry that death metallic name. If you google on Internet you do not get thousands of Borknagar’s. (laughs). I heard some people think it is derived from Ragnarök, but that is completely wrong.
We talked about the booming Norwegian scene and Scandinavia, and Oystein enjoys the fact of many bands over there, but hopes that it will never become a poppy-kind-of-thing, a fashion…
Music is much more than being popular, it is a lifestyle. I have been in it almost all my life, since I was a kid. For me it is a lifestyle, it is not about making money, being famous, or whatever. I make music and fortunately people like it. Selling many records is cool, but it is definitely not the reason why I do this. It seems that some people do albums, because they want to tour. Okay, fair enough, but that’s not the reason why I make albums. I make music for the music itself. Of course we like to do some gigs, but I do not write albums to go on tour. That’s an attitude which is not mine. Sometimes I think we’d better tour, because we would sell much more albums, but it is not the character of the band. I rather build up the success steady and slowly, than trying to achieve that sudden huge success and be forgotten next year like in pop music often happens.
To occlude, what are the plans with Cronian? We don’t have that much plans actually. We are currently working on a new album. I guess we probably going to record it next year, maybe late this year. But we definitely are going to make a third album. I think it is going to be quite atmospheric, based on a movie soundtrack. For us it is basically an opportunity to fool around with all kinds of music. Of course it is music we take also very serious, but it is a pleasure to do whatever kind of music and record an album, just with no expectations to ourselves. Do whatever you feel like doing. We definitely are going to do more albums, but I do not know exactly when. When we got time to do it. Vintersorg is making a new Vintersorg album now and Lars is working on the new Solefald these days.
And now… experience that Universal feeling we were talking about!
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