interview by: ~Vargscarr~

Exemplifying extremity and brutality with technical precision in their Black Metal as opposed to the other various styles prevalent in the genre, Marduk have long been one of my favourite bands. Always staying true to their roots in terms of both their music and their image; they've progressed through a total of seven full-length studio albums slowly evolving yet never disappointing by going down the loathsome paths of falsehood that have seduced so many other bands of their vintage. Spreading Pure Satanic Overkill across the globe for a decade, Panzer Division Marduk shows no sign of grinding to a halt any time soon; whether the attack spews forth from a new album or from the stage; as I found out when I spoke to Legion about the upcoming plans for the Black Metal War Machine.

Maelstrom: First of all I'll get straight in by asking you about your beliefs - you've said in the past you're a Satanist...

Legion: Yes.

Maelstrom: I'd like to ask you a little bit more about that. What exactly do you believe in; do you see Marduk as a way of expressing that spiritualism...?

Legion (left): Yeah, it's been always - since I was a kid, pretty much. You know, I've just sensed that there was something more to everything. I've been always interested in the occult and all that shit; and I just started to question stuff. Just looking up what I could and one thing led to another and it was just like, yeah, Satanism - or whatever you want to call it - became pretty much a natural thing. I just realised what I was, or what I was labeled as when I was a mid-teenager; and I've stuck to it ever since. I really like the way I am, or what I've become. But yeah - ha ha, it's always a topic. It's really strange that it should be, what should you say, a strange or kind of taboo religion, you know? Because if you're confessing to be in one of the major, established religions it's "cool, blah blah blah, whatever," you know?

Maelstrom: Because it's kind of seen as being 'evil,' I mean this is the whole thing about Satanism is that it represents the opposition...

Legion: Yeah, but anyway, what is evil really?

Maelstrom: Exactly, yes.

Legion:...Look at the current conflict between the white western world and Afghanistan, and maybe more countries in the long run, who knows? Anyway, I don't think any of the sides would do anything if they were thinking they did anything wrong. For instance, just look at the civil war in the States - I don't think any of the sides went, "Ha ha ha - now we're gonna be bad guys." Or the German soldiers who got so much shit in World War II. They fought for something they believed in and then after that they've been the scapegoats for all bad shit that's been going on in the world ever since by doing their duties for their country. Look at the American soldiers in Vietnam. They just did their duty like men, got home and then got called fucking child molesters, you know? Or take a tribe of cannibals in some freaking jungle. They don't look upon it as being evil in any kind of way, being a cannibal. They're like "hey buddy, we're gonna eat you because you're not in our tribe." You know?

Maelstrom: Yeah, I agree - I think it's interesting the way the Americans have labeled the terrorists as being evil. You know, slapping that label on them just because they killed what the Americans believe to be innocent people. On their terms that's correct, but to the guys who are doing it - they have a cause; they have a reason behind their actions. Good and evil doesn't come into it. It's their own personal, individual and group mentality or view about what it [the terrorist act] is.

Legion: Yeah really, I mean evil is just something that is really good to describe a thing that when you want to talk to your people as a leader you can point out who's the bad guys: "evil!" You know? But I mean, since we have always been rebelling against Christianity; we like sinister stuff - things that are macabre or sombre. I have a thing for that; a soft spot.

Maelstrom: It kind of strikes a chord in your soul.

Legion: Yeah...But if people want to label me as evil then fine, go ahead. I just do what I do according to myself. I don't have a problem with my personality, it's just people that have a problem with it.

Maelstrom: So do you have a general misanthropic view of humanity in general? Do you look at the majority of people as being less than worthwhile?

Legion: No, I am just kind of surprised that man can be pleased with so little. Up here in Sweden it's pretty ridiculous because you're just...you're growing up and you getting your stupid job, your Volvo and your dog, and your villa and that's it. Shut up. Pay tax. But I don't know if that has got to do with anything more than like, "I'm a die hard carreerist". My sister's the same - she's a lawyer, and she dumps every freaking boyfriend she's getting; like its fun for a couple months and then "Fuck off, I've got work to do." So I mean she's nothing like me; so I don't think that it's so much ideology based as just like "I want to get ahead." I mean I just get on and do what I want, I don't care who's standing in my way and what people are telling me because I'm not backing down anyway. So I just do what I want to do. And of course part of my ideology is just like "fuck the world - I do what I want to do" but I mean, then that might be labeled as something...All this misanthropy that all those Scandinavian bands are screaming about - it's become a poor excuse not to play live. They are not that skilled musicians and all of a sudden they are so misanthropic so they cannot go out and play live, yet still they can sell albums to all those people they claim to hate. Most people when they discuss stuff, I find them pretty stupid, but it's nothing that I go around talking about or thinking about. If someone approached me and he's a cool guy then he's a cool guy - if he's an asshole he's an asshole.

Maelstrom: Yeah...okay. Because what I wondered was that as a band who's sung about a lot of war in the past - pro-war, pro-destruction, pro-death in general - whether you think the events in America are a positive thing; just the fact that conflict is once again raising its head in the world...Whether that's going to inspire you to write more music; or whether you view the deaths as a tragedy like the majority of the people - especially over there - do. Whether you see it as...there are too many people anyway, you don't know them; and the destruction is a powerful thing that you can relate to and that inspires you to write more?

Legion: No...I mean, I'm not taking the deaths of those guys personally; but I just think it was such a freaking coward act to do. I mean...that was just gay bullshit from some guys that are not skilled or strong enough to start a war. They are just these cheesy little back-stabbers that are just scum, and that should be wiped away, I think. But all Roman empires have to face such stuff. I think that the US should just go ahead and do what the Romans did with their garbage - you know what they did?

Maelstrom: Yeah - you mean go straight over there and mash the opposition?

Legion: Yeah, I mean, not only did they kill everybody and burn the city and smash it...they then burned the soil so that it was just ashes; and then poured so much salt on it that it was like...heh...I doubt there was something growing there today, you know...after [what happened] 2000 years ago. So that's what the US should do. Because those guys hate our way of living up here, in the wide western world.

Maelstrom: Capitalism and freedom.

Legion: Yeah, because they did the same thing here over in Europe, but the German security police arrested them before they did it. In February they tried to gas all our top politicians who are head of the European union...

Maelstrom: Really?

Legion:...and they had a meeting in Strasbourg...in France...where that European Union headquarters is at they were gonna gas it, but the German police arrested them before that happened. So it's just chicken shit idiots who's got a problem with our way of life up here; so I say just attack them with all that we got. All the countries that are allied in this way. Just show them what happens when you fuck with us.

Maelstrom: We're the most powerful, in the west - especially America; you realise that if the moral climate had been different and people didn't care...If people saw it as the country as the threat rather than some people in that country as the threat; they would just go over there and erase it, because they have the power to do that. But they try and be diplomatic about it and just take out the people who matter. The respect for innocent life makes it a slower process. Now, I'd like to ask you about the recent album La Grande Danse Macabre. It has a different sound to it - the general perception is that its a slower album, which is of course nonsense, since if you listen to any of the older Marduk stuff you can hear influences...Those of the Unlight was the album I thought of when listening to the new one. But it's a lot more Deathy, or there's more Death Metal influences to it; and I was wondering if you guys had reigned in the creativity to stay closer to the traditional Marduk sound, and whether next time you were planning on doing something wilder and more distant to that traditional Marduk sound?

Legion: No, I mean we will always sound like Marduk. We're taking a step at a time. So many great bands, especially the big ones of the late 80s they all got lost pretty much because they tried to be something they were not. They were all "Hey, we're on the wrong track!" and then they didn't find their way back. And they all perished. The next album will be a natural progression of this one, and this one came about because after Panzer Division Marduk we had nowhere to go. We'd done a 30-minute long Grind album - if we wanted to do that again that would be getting boxed in. We couldn't go anywhere from there as we saw it. So we just played what we wanted to play. And we had this idea when we started to write Nightwing that we should do a trilogy of loosely based concept albums about blood, fire, death - not necessarily as a hail to Quorthon or anything, but we wanted to do something that was our vision of what the Metal scene is all about. So we said Nightwing is the blood album; and the fire album came out as Panzer Division Marduk; and then when it was time for the Death album we thought we should try a little more diverse, sombre approach and all the lyrics on La Grande Danse Macabre is based on death in one way or another. "Azrael" is the Arabian angel of death; and then you've got "Obedience Until Death" which is about sacrificing yourself for your beliefs if you're determined enough - die with your boots on, you know? "Funeral Bitch" is about a girl who gets off when she goes to funerals...And "Jesus Christ Sodomized" speaks for itself. Anyway, they're all written on a loosely based concept about death so we thought we should incorporate that in the music: some slower parts, more sombre atmospheres that Panzer Division Marduk totally lacked. So the next album; we're writing it right now. We have a couple of titles but I doubt we'll use any of those. We're starting to get ready with some material, and it's a natural progression from La Grande Danse Macabre; but its going to be even more diverse. Some songs are going to be a minute fifty-two long and totally hysterical, so fucking brutal; and then some songs...We're doing this really long epic song; if you know about the Teutonian knighthood?

Maelstrom: I don't...

Legion: It's a German...Well, it's really ancient so you can't really call it German because Germany used to be split into many small kingdoms; but they had their high seat in what's Poland today, and they were a Christian die-hard knighthood. They were really brutal. They had a lot of battles against Russians...It's just something that really fascinates us. I've been reading a lot about it and I'll begin with the lyrics very soon. But apart from that it's going to be songs that are even more diverse - fast and slow...all kinds of shit involved in each song. And also, during next year or maybe the beginning of 2003 there is going to be the release of a "Panzer" mini-CD. We're going to do four new "Panzer tracks"

Maelstrom: Fantastic!

Legion:...You know? Like tututututututututut [he imitates a machine-gun blastbeat] Even more hysterical than ever. The riffing is gonna be so insane; and we're recording it pretty much the same time as the next album. So we'll release the album to begin with, maybe next October, and after that we'll wait a couple of months and go on tour; and then we'll put out the "Panzer" album. So that's [he laughs] that's something we felt we really needed to do! Just to grind the shit out of us again... (drummer Fredrik Andersson at right.)

Maelstrom: You guys never stop touring, do you? I saw you when you played Bradford over here a few months ago, and you did shows in Europe...you got food poisoning didn't you?

Legion: Yeah! Exactly...

Maelstrom: I think it was the night before that you played the show I saw [we laugh]...You couldn't tell; the set was outstanding, but it was what I heard afterward...

Legion: Yeah, fuck that shit! It was...when was it?... I think it was really on the boat from Ireland to Scotland I had some weird food, and after that I just felt kinda peculiar. But later on I start to feel so fucking strange...And the next day we got to Scotland and at the venue I just started to puke like a fucking dog; I puked all day long; and then I puked over my clothes five minutes before we were supposed to go onstage, and I was like, "Fuck this shit!" And then the promoter came in and he was like, "Hey, are you gonna be alright? Are you gonna be able to play?" And I was just like, "Fuck it, let's get it on!" And we went up there and I did nine songs, and then I started to puke on stage in the tenth song...Then I collapsed on the stage because I was so dehydrated. My joints just locked. That sucked so bad. So we just did those ten songs and went on; and the next day it was Bradford, and it was like playing with a major hangover. It really sucked.

Maelstrom: [laughs] You couldn't tell. It was a killer show - I've seen you guys twice; I'll see you again when you come down to Bradford in December; but I saw you play Wacken back in 2000. That was outstanding...

Legion: Allright, thank you very much! [we laugh]

Maelstrom: But it must take it out of you a lot. Having to come over here and play all the European shows; go back to America - because you did the tour with Deicide - then you came back...And I think took a short break, and then you did the Graspop festival...It's not much of a break before coming back for this tour now - you have those festival dates around Christmas time in Europe...

Legion: Exactly, yes...

Maelstrom:...and you're in America again now, so when do you take a break?

Legion: (laughs) We don't! This is all that we want to do. We've come this far by having this fuck-off approach; that we won't give up until we die - then we're home free; we don't really have to care. Until then we'll go at it as hard as possible during tours. For instance we had our bus window in the back broken - shattered - in Holland by some crazy guy. It was on the Panzer... tour, so it was November 1999; and we were on the road in Poland, in Germany with the frost inside the bus because we only had some pieces of wood to seal it up with that didn't work at all...So I bought this alpha bomber jacket with a collar and everything, and each night when I went to sleep I was lying there shaking and I saw my breath. But still we didn't want to cancel because to cancel shows sucks. We just go ahead because it gives us energy to...to be Marduk. What else should I do? Get a job in some stupid factory? This is what I want to do. We're prepared to do whatever it takes. It was the same thing at the end of the European tour - then I caught pneumonia and I felt like shit; the last two days I was really in bad shape. Then I got home and I had four days to see a doctor, which I did, and he gave me some vibromycin. I started to eat that and just kick back; and then we flew down to Texas and continued touring. My voice sounded kind of crappy the first couple of gigs, I can tell you; but it was good that it was in the south of the States because the warm air was really good for me. When we got to LA I started to feel that I was getting better and then when we toured the West Coast...I got better and better. When I came home to Sweden again, we'd been out on the road almost constantly for three months - I was pretty goddamn beat, I tell can you that! So for two weeks it was hard to do anything that was worth mentioning as 'proper work' so we just took it easy. Just do some correspondence and work with our record label...Business instead of actually rehearsing or singing for my part. Then we went down to Belgium and everything was great, and after that we just kept on going. I'm planning on taking maybe two weeks vacation in January or something, but after that I'll be at it again relentlessly. You just gotta love what you do enough, and then you're prepared to do pretty much everything.

Maelstrom: Yeah, and on top of that a lot of guys in the band have side projects as well - I know Fredrick plays drums in Triumphator - he's got a few things going...so has Morgan. I wondered if you had any side projects yourself, or if you're planning on getting into that?

Legion: Well no, not really. I would like to save all I've got for Marduk, which is the main priority. I wouldn't find it really interesting to just stand there and scream in the same way in a different band. I mean I cheat on guitar and come up with some ideas, but that is pretty much everything - I wouldn't stand on the stage playing because I'm not that good. It's not for me. And those other guys really don't spend any time on it at all - Morgan and Roger - B.War - that Devil's Whorehouse thing they've got where they play Samhain sounding music? They rehearse two weeks a year tops; then they go and make an album and that is it. It's just side stuff. Especially Roger (at left), he loves to play. This is his reason to be on this earth: to play guitar and bass. If we are having a day off from the band which we do once in a while; me and Morgan might take the car and go over to his place because he lives in the next town and he'll be sitting at home playing bass to Bach or something. He's pretty much always into playing. So that's why they do it - they want to do something else as musicians.

Maelstrom: Yeah, it makes sense to me - if you're getting all that you want from the band that you're in there's no need to branch out. I also noticed you've been contributing more lyrically recently, I don't know about musically at all - I don't mean musically; instrumentally - but I've always thought the lyrics of Marduk are perfectly suited to the music. You get the pure Satanic side of it, but it's never cliché - a lot of the bands you hear, especially the 80s bands, you can listen to a Satanic lyric and it's like, "That's kind of cool, but pffffft...!" You're laughing at it. But you get the lyrics to create this emotion that suits the songs so perfectly; and it was always Morgan that used to write the lyrics wasn't it, but on the recent couple of albums; I don't know about Panzer…, but I know with the new one you've written a lot of them...

Legion: Yeah, I've been writing everything since I started, so on Heaven Shall Burn everything except one song is mine

Maelstrom: Oh really? I wasn't aware of that...

Legion: Then on Nightwing I wrote one riff, and Morgan (at right) did one line [laughs] so that was how we shared it...Apart from that I did all the lyrics and he did all the music; and then on Panzer Division Marduk Morgan did half a lyric and I did the rest. On the new one we kind of shared it because he had so many great ideas. It was like, "Ahhhh, I came up with another one!" And all the band just loved it so we incorporated it into that as well. So half of it is mine and half of it is his.

Maelstrom: Okay, so I should ask you this question then: was the song title "Fistfucking God's Planet" inspired by the Al Pacino line in the film "Devil's Advocate"?

Legion: Yes! Ha ha!

Maelstrom: Yes! Fuck, I thought so, because I was watching the movie recently, and he said the line and I could just imagine you sitting there watching that thinking, "Fuck - that's just so great! I'm gonna use that as a song title!"

Legion: [laughing] Yeah it's true, I love that movie. I've seen it so many times. That was just such a perfect song title...

Maelstrom: It so is!

Legion: I thought so! Ha ha! yeah, it's true...

Maelstrom: So are there any bands that you're aware of in the underground, in Sweden or anywhere else, who you'd like to mention that we might not know about?

Legion: Uh...No not really. It's really such a long time since I came across anything that really blew me away, to be honest. I guess it's just that we're getting old; not keeping track of stuff so much as maybe we should nowadays. I'm still pretty much stuck with my favourites. (pic at left taken from www.marduk.nu)

Maelstrom: What are you listening to?

Legion: I listen to a lot of diverse stuff, especially all the old British heroes like Black Sabbath, later on Ozzy's solo career; Iron Maiden is one of the most important bands of all time for me. I've been a major fan since I was seven years old...And also Slayer - I love Slayer, Possessed, Exodus...Then some of the newer stuff. Immortal for instance. Darkthrone I still like because they are so freaking charming, you know like Pu-ka Pu-ka Pu-ka Pu-ka...[this is Legion doing a generic Darkthrone impression that cracked me up] And apart from that everything like Johnny Cash, Mike Oldfield and Glen Danzig...stuff like that. I pretty much judge if it's bad music or good music. I don't really know what's happening to the scene. I found the brutal Metal scene way more interesting back in the days...Maybe that was because you were so turned on by it and you wanted to read every fanzine and get all the demos and everything. It's not really the same thing anymore I don't think.

Maelstrom: Being there around the birth of a genre - Black Metal in Norway and Sweden - if it's there and you can get into it right from the start it's going to be a really special thing. Now you've got this New Wave Black Metal, much more Deathy, much more clinical - it sounds very manufactured: the new Mayhem, new Zyklon...What do you think of bands like that? The bands that bring in the Techno influences and things...It does nothing for me; it leaves me cold.

Legion: Yeah, it's not really what I want to listen to. I don't mind if what is what; because there's always this choir of complainers who just judge everything like, "Blah blah blah, this isn't True, this stinks," but I don't care at all. People can go ahead and do what the fuck they want; but it doesn't do anything for me. Music is all about touching someone's emotions. Those Metal/Techno/Neo-Classical, whatever you want to call it, all the branches where the Black Metal scene has gone...It doesn't touch anything or reach anything within me so to me it's 'pointless' music. I'd rather stick to those bands that can really create something magic with just Metal music.

Maelstrom: Now I think my time is running out, but I'd like to ask you about the forthcoming box set. Have you got a release date for that yet?

Legion: Yeah, at first it was Halloween, but we had to re-schedule for sometime November because it's being pressed - the box is being pressed in Sweden, and then some of the CDs down in Germany or Austria; and the video tape is being pressed somewhere else - it's too much to co-ordinate so we can't have it out by Halloween unfortunately; but definitely sometime November. In the beginning we thought of releasing a book with all the Marduk lyrics because on some albums the lyrics were not included, and people had been asking so much about it; but then we thought why not add up that book - a really classy booklet with all kinds of information that people could desire. Some photos from our personal collection...We have so much grabs laying around - all kinds of shit; TV shows we have appeared on, live clips, backstage clips. Also we've got a couple of unreleased tracks and some freaky old versions of songs. A whole bunch of shit, so we figured we should pile it all up and release it in a box. So the booklet with the lyrics and all that other shit; two CDs packed with all kind of songs, covers and unreleased tracks, pre-production stuff, rehearsals...Everything that can be interesting.

Maelstrom: I heard you were doing some re-recording of some of the older songs from the first few albums with the current line-up...

Legion: We were up in the studio and we were recording this song for Brian Deegan who's this extreme motocross star in the United States - one of these guys who does backflips with the motorcycle while jumping over a car. He wanted a Marduk song for his next jump video; and we were like, "Yeah, fuck, cool!" so we went up there and we recorded the song for him, and that went so quickly we had one day left in the studio and we just recorded two songs from Dark Endless, two songs from Those of The Unlight and two songs from Opus Nocturne that we knew by heart, so we just went in and recorded it to add even more material to the box set; so that's gonna be on there...Also the video is going to be an hour and a half, something like that most likely; with all kinds of shit - pretty much everything that we could muster which could be interesting we put on there.

Maelstrom: That's fantastic - I can't wait for it because I've been a pretty long-time fan of the band, I have all the studio albums, live albums and the odd bootleg recording; so it'll be really interesting to me to hear all the unreleased stuff and read all the lyrics as well. Okay, so that pretty much wraps it up...I'll see you when you come down to Bradford...Now I have to ask, would you consider adding "Bloodtide" to the set list? That's never appeared on any of the live albums that you put out, and I have a couple of bootlegs and it's not on any of them...Do you ever play that song live?

Legion: Heh heh...No we haven't up to date; we have not played that one because it's a really long song...We've just never done it. We've been discussing several times to do "Nightwing" and we have had "Nightwing" rehearsed for tours; and then just dropped it in the last minute. I don't know, maybe next time! We're starting to feel like Maiden or something like that having to pick songs for a tour, "What the fuck are we gonna play?"

Maelstrom: Yeah, having so much material must be so difficult to choose from...Mixing it up properly...

Legion: At least one rehearsal we're just bitching between all the members what to play before we even get started when we start to rehearse for a tour. It's always kind of a hassle.

Maelstrom: Legion, thanks for the interview; good luck with the rest of the tour.

Legion: Thank you.

Contact Marduk at http://www.marduk.nu

photo 1, 6 by: Jez Andrews all other photos taken from www.marduk.nu

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