interview by: Roberto Martinelli and Steppenvvolf

Steppenvvolf loves Borknagar. To be exact, he loves old Borknagar. Like, the first album. He keeps mentioning to me how much of a smile he gets when listening to the debut and imagining Viking ships attacking England. Anyway, it seemed that interviewing Borknagar at Wacken would be a good opportunity for him to discuss how much the band has changed since it's beginnings. Indeed, it seems that Borknagar changes in huge amounts from album to album.

It turned out that Steppenvvolf was in for a big shock when he found out what Borknagar had turned into on Empiricism, the band's latest album. So what was originally supposed to be an interview by Steppenvvolf with who we were expecting to be the only original member of the band left, guitarist Oystein Brun, turned into an interview in which I helped a bunch with new singer Vintersorg, who has only been in the band for one album, with questions made up on the spur of the moment.

In the end, it was the perfect situation. Vintersorg is a reasonably likeable guy, but he's the Swedish metal equivalent of a jive turkey. Without our prompting, we got him to say some pretty hilarious stuff, so the interview ended up being a success. Check it out.

Roberto: So, you're, like, the third vocalist in this band.

Vintersorg: Yyyyep!

Roberto: How is it? Do you think you're in it for the long haul?

Vintersorg: There's always going to be fans that say: "the first vocalist was best..." "The second vocalist was much better than you," so. I stated when I joined Borknagar that I'm totally going to do my own thing and not try to copy what Garm or ICS Vortex did. I'm going to do it (sings in super cheesy and slightly embarrassing voice) "Myyyyy...way!" (Steppenvvolf thought it was funny.) My vocal lines are a bit different from what Vortex did, so we're a bit different now, but still very much Borknagar.

Roberto: What's remarkable is that, in terms of singers in black metal, Borknagar has always had the best singers (that means: guys who could actually sing - Roberto ), Garm, ICS Vortex, and now you. In fact, I think that your clean vocals are a little bit better than Vortex's...

Vintersorg: I can't really make a comment on that...(laugh)

Roberto: ...We were listening to the new album and, Steppenvvolf really liked the first one a lot. The new one is such a complete departure from it. Even the press release doesn't bill you as black metal anymore. You're now called "epic metal."

Vintersorg: Wow! Haha.

Roberto: Right? So, we're listening to it and it seems less and less that the harsh vocals even fit. Do you think that one day you'll go to completely clean vocals?

Vintersorg: Ehh...nope! That's a very important element of Borknagar, to have the harsh vocals. I think the new album is quite diverse. You have the whole scale from really mellow to really harsh. I think that's the continuance in Borknagar: we're going to do very diverse albums. I think we're going to continue with this kind of diversity. I still really think that the harsh vocals really fit, because we have some fast and furious - "The Fast and the Furious" (more cheese as he makes a reference to that movie from 2001), hahaha - elements. From my perspective, it fits. It adds yet another dimension to the music. If we skip the harsh vocals for the clean ones, we're not thinking we'd lose some fans - not like that, because we're totally in it for the artistry - I think we would feel we would lose a little bit of the identity and concept of Borknagar. We are working on the upcoming album, the pre-production...

Roberto: Already?!

Vintersorg: Yeah...I'm doing vocals now on the pre-production. It's going to contain a lot of harsh vocals. There's some really fast songs on that one, like "The Genuine Pulse" (a song off the latest album) style.

Roberto: Vintersorg, your regular band, just put out a new album. How are you balancing in being in...is it fair to call them two main projects?

Vintersorg: Actually, I'm working right now on five albums. I'm working on a band called Havayoth. The new album is going to be much more ambient, like Enya meets metal.

Roberto: Havayoth is all clean singing, right?

Vintersorg. Yeah, totally. We're also going to hire a choir for that. I'm going to be working on something we call a metal opera, but it's not opera in this kind of Avantasia style; not at all. There's a theme running through the entire album lyric-wise. The music is connected, likewise. We have 30 people of the Norwegian "elite" of metal are going to be on it. I've written the lyrics and music to that one. But it's kind of a long-term project. Everybody has their bands going on tour, so...

Roberto: So when you say you have 30 people of elite metal, does that mean you'll have five different people on bass on different songs, or...

Vintersorg: Yeah! Different drummers, different bass players, it goes from the old heavy metal guys like T&T and Arch to the new guys like Dimmu Borgir. I can't say that everything is confirmed; I can't mention bands right now, but the guys that have been asked said yes. Me and Oystein (Brun, of Borknagar) are working on something on the side...

Roberto: Top secret?

Vintersorg: Real top secret! I see all my projects as my main band. I try to put 100 percent into every bands.

Roberto: Do you get off one tour and jump on another tour?

Vintersorg: I go on tour and then come home for a couple days, and then I go on the next one.

Roberto: Where's home?

Vintersorg: (pauses) I really don't know....I'm living in the north part of Sweden. I'm really comfortable living up there. It's really quiet and calm. I don't really fit in in a big city. It gets on my nerves. If you're born and raised in a big city, it's ok. It would be very boring to live out in the countryside. "Oh, fuck, nothing's going on." I have a bit of the reverse.

Roberto: Are you the only Swedish member in Borknagar?

Vintersorg: Yeah, the other guys are all Norwegian.

Roberto: So, what language do you guys talk in together? Norwegians are very proud to say that they understand Swedes, but that Swedes can't understand them.

Vintersorg: Allright! That starts off with the fact that Norwegians have Swedish television. Every Norwegian can adjust their TV set to get Swedish TV, but we can't get Norwegian TV. It's more like a dialect difference. They can't talk shit behind my back without me knowing! So they speak Norwegian and I speak Swedish. It's like Austrian (German) and German. It's not so [different].

Steppenvvolf: You said you write lyrics. Is it from some personal aim that you write lyrics? Some use lyrics to work on personal issues, or is it just about demons. DEMONS!

Vintersorg: I think we share the same vision about music and life in general. Everybody except Jens (Ryland, guitar - - Roberto ) has wrote lyrics on the album. It's like five different people have written lyrics. It's just wide as the frame can be for an album. We don't have any personal wars or demos we have to sort out. Our lyrics question man and the universe. It's kind of deep, philosophical, but not pretentious deep and philosophical.

Steppenvvolf: Is that what led you to the title, "Empiricism"?

Vintersorg: We work a lot about man versus cosmos. On the new album it's kind of based on the five senses of man, but we're also trying to extend it to the sixth and the seventh. I think the empirical side, every day of your life, every thought you have you're basing it upon your earlier experiences.

Steppenvvolf: You just said man versus universe.

Vintersorg: Not versus universe, but man and universe. Every guy or girl or whatever, feels that, when you are born, you are a servant to the universe. The universe is much older than you. We don't aim to come up to the level that we understand the universe in every angle or dimension. Our goal maybe like to let you and you (he points to the two of us) start to think about things that maybe you are not doing everyday. It's hard to explain. It's deep and philosophical, but, as I say, not this kind of pretentious deep and philosophical. We're not sitting back, lighting a candle and sipping red wine.

Steppenvvolf: Is it more about triggering a certain kind of emotion?

Vintersorg: Ah, ya! Triggering, but also questioning the triggering mechanism of your mind. To start thinking about it, and stuff. Evolution has come really far, but in many ways, we really haven't come that far. When you see people still fighting and killing each other for really minor things, that's fucking stone age thinking. We're not agitators, or anything, it's more like, use your common sense and start acting like, uh...

Roberto: Borknagar has always been that kind of band. It's never really been - even before you were in it - a band that was like, "we have a lot of angst or anger. We're not really black metal; we're just this band. We sort of progress and don't really fit in with the image of Norwegian black metal at all."

Vintersorg: The only thing that fits in in the narrow labeled Norwegian black metal is the first album, which is black metallish. There are also small acoustic parts here and there.

Roberto: It was like Ulver side project.

Vintersorg: Yeah! Our...now I say "our" aim, but I haven't been in the band so long. But I think I can speak for the band.

Roberto: But the band changes with every record, so I think it's fair.

Vintersorg: Yeah... That's a cool thing. People say, "ahh, it's too much change on your album." What did you expect? Did you expect us to record a new Quintessence? Why should we do that? Quintessence Part 2? That would be boring and dull. We want to explore ourselves and our abilities to write adventurous and good music.

Roberto: Can I ask you about the new Vintersorg?

Vintersorg: Yeah!

Roberto: Ok, now, I haven't heard it, but I have heard Cosmic Genesis (the previous album). Actually, before I even comment on that, I noticed that the new record has Steve DiGiorgio on bass.

Vintersorg: And Asker (Borknagar drummer) on drums.

Roberto: How did you get Steve DiGiorgio on a Swedish band?

Vintersorg: That's a little bit of a story.

Roberto: That guy goes around a lot.

Vintersorg: When we decided that Asker was going to play the drums for the album, I had written the material - this kind of progressive and very different kind of material - I wanted a great drummer, and Asker offered me his services. So I was supposed to play the bass, I noticed what I knew a little bit in my subconscious, that I would have a hard time to keep up with Asker's drumming, because I'm not a great bass player. I'm really a guitarist. And I wanted fretless bass [on the record]. Asker was in contact with Steve. Steve really likes Spiral Architect. He wanted to do something with Asker. So when I couldn't keep up with Asker, he suggested to call Steve. I was like, "who really cares about a small, shitty band from Sweden?" But Steve was really enthusiastic about it. So one day I took the pre-production tape with me and flied to San Francisco was there for a couple of days and rehearsed. We nailed it in one and a half days in the studio. He's THE bass player.

Roberto: Is he going to tour with you? He's pretty infamous for being on the record but not touring with the band.

Vintersorg: He's not going to tour with the band. We have Tyr, Borknagar's bassist.

Roberto: For me, it's a real duality. On record, you can really appreciate the musicianship. You've got the production: a lot of care has been put into it. Then you come play out here. Listen to that bass (as Destruction was playing their set with the bass sound bloated to incoherent extremes). It could be anybody on bass. You can't even tell. It's wasted. How do you feel about that?

Vintersorg: I think bass is a kind of lost instrument in metal. Everybody uses it just to mark things out. But it has a real possibility to create good licks and melodies. If you do it correctly; you shouldn't be doing Billy Sheen stuff in the middle of a blast beat, but, you know. That's kind of lost in harsher metal. But in progressive metal, they are using the bass as the instrument that it is. I'm really kind of, not pissed, but really regret that don't I play my bass in a more interesting way. I really love bass. I started off with a bass. The Wizard (laugh). I was like, 8 years old. It's top secret. Our hit song was called "Killing to the Midnight." I wrote the lyrics. That was 20 years ago. I really envy Steve and Tyr and what they are doing.

Roberto: Last question from me. About the Vintersorg album: I heard Cosmic Genesis, but I haven't heard much before that. Some people who knew your band were disappointed and said, "it's not as Viking anymore. It's more pop." From my point of view, yeah, it is a lot more pop. The melodies are a lot less the Viking thing. And going back to Borknagar, I don't know if these harsh vocals really fit that well now (in Vintersorg). You have this more accessible music that's more melodic, and I can't understand how someone who really likes hard metal would like it, and how someone who really likes melodic metal would like it, either. What do you think?

Vintersorg: I don't have a fucking clue! I just write the album. I see my music as really working with contrasts. If someone asks to put a label on the album, I can't do it. But if I really have to, I'd say "contrast metal." Everybody'll say, "what's that?" I don't have a fucking clue. I really like dynamics and contrast in music. You know, when I was young I was into grind metal albums, like (does his blast beat impression), through the whole album. I thought that was rally interesting and cool. But nowadays, I think that's fucking boring in many ways. It's cool when it's live when you see a band and they're totally blasting it out. It's nothing I want to sit at home and listen to. On the other hand, it's really not intentional. I can't say it's logical, 'cause I don't have the command over it myself. I'm a medium of something bigger. That sounds so fucking bizarre and pretentious, "yeah, I feel like the medium of the cosmos." It's not like that. I write music, I try to write a good album and it turns out as it turns out. If people like it, cool. If people don't like it, cool.

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