Ivar: Sure, thanks for letting us communicate with your readers. I am doing very well, thanks; working with interviews and enjoying the first weeks of winter here in Bergen.
2. It has been a few days since the release of “Axioma Ethica Odini”. You have dedicated quite a lot of time to it. But there was still enough time to publish information from recording, be it description of individual songs, fan video concept etc. Who was responsible for this? You or the marketing guys from Indie Rec. ?
Ivar: It is all from the band – we get some help from our management, especially with daily updates on Facebook and so on – and also we have a wonderful designer working for Indie Recordings called Marcelo (Poisoned2Reality is his company) who helps us with the MySpace designs. But all the content and videos are made by the band itself – we film our own behind-the-stages videos, I make our backdrops for the stage and write a lot of the press statements. Everything (!) that is signed by the band is always signed by the band. I also have to mention that Nuclear Blast US, our American label is very helpful with the Internet updates!
3. Do you still take care of everything around the music or you leave some of this stuff to the guys from label, so you could focus exclusively on music?
Ivar: We do need a lot of help now that we are touring so much, and working so much with promo and so on – but we are still “running the show”. We are lucky to have very good people around us, particularly our management and Nuclear Blast US are working very close with us to things go around. We are trying to find the right balance between the “business” and music aspects: we want to have our hands on the wheel, so that we can stand behind how we are portrayed and promoted in the world, but also delegate enough so that we can do what we are supposed to be doing: be musicians!
4. I suppose that even now you have more work than welcome. Are you still able to find some time for a recreation? If so how do you spend it?
Grutle: In times before and after a release there is shitloads of things to do. Promotional interviews, photo sessions and of course touring!! I´ve pretty much been busy since August, and will not have much time for recreation before x-mas. But, this is what we do for a living and we do enjoy it! Besides, it´s not like this all the year around. When I have time I´ll always go fishing. I´m a sports fishing fanatic and I love going fishing for Carp, Catfish, Pike, Trout, Salmon, Char, Poen, Zander, Halibut etc,etc. That is my biggest passion besides music.
5. You have recorded album in three various studios. What was the reason for it? Did you record whole songs or you used studios just for a certain instruments?
Ivar: The drums were recorded in Duper Studio here in our hometown Bergen. Duper is known for more mainstream Norwegian recordings, we wanted to do the drums there because of the fantastic acoustic conditions. Iver Sandøy from Trinacria works there as an engineer and co-produced the drum sound. Then we recorded all guitars, bass, vocals, organs and most keyboards in Earshot Studios also in Bergen. Earshot is a studio owned by Herbrand Larsen and Ice Dale from Enslaved, where they have recorded for other bands like Demonaz, I and more. We wanted to do the recording and engineering ourselves – I did all the engineering and recording of my own guitars for instance. This time we had a dramatically clear idea of what we wanted and finally we had reached a point where we had enough know-how of the studio to pull it off. The last keyboards (the effect-sounding ones, noise & more experimental sounds) plus intro and intermezzos were recorded in my own modest Peersonal Sound Studios; again in Bergen. Some streamlining of files and editing was then done with Iver at Duper again, before we headed eastwards to Sweden for the mixing!
6. Not only my expectations were high. For the time being I have only read an complimentary reviews. So are you happy with reactions from reviewers and fans?
Grutle: Oh, yeah! You bet! The reviews have been fantastic! Even the big newspapers here in Norways were extremely enthusiastic and gave us 6/6 and 5/6 all over the place. The music press has also been positive. Both Metal Hammer,Rock Hard and Terrorizer voted the album as album of the month!! So, there´s really not much more you can ask or hope for! Now, it is pretty much up to ourselves to make justice to these reviews live!! The first shows on the tour has hopefully shown people that the reviewers were right…hehe. At least we had a great night in Prague!!
7. To be honest I do not share such an excitement. Album is greatly elaborated and surely of high-quality but I am missing a certain progression like it was between “Ruun” and “Vertebrae”. I expected another “jump” and it is not there. It is just following the same tracks. Why?
Ivar: I can’t answer that properly as I disagree with the premise of the question: for me there is a bigger leap/ jump from “Vertebrae” to “Axiom Ethica Odini” than “Ruun” to “Vertebrae” – I think it is silly to argue against a question where the premises are disagreed upon. Let me note that you of course might be right from your perspective, music is one of life’s most subjective issues, that is what makes it interesting!
8. I am afraid that after some time the album starts to bore. It never happened with “Vertebrae” and I still love to listen to it from time to time. But “Axioma Ethica Odini” is quite predictable and possibly easier to memorize. Don’t you think this may become a burden some time? That it may eventually start to bore listeners?
Ivar: I take offense in the presumption that we would release anything we thought would be boring. Not that it matters, again music is subjective, but you would have to think we are idiots if you seriously thought we would release anything we found boring. What others think of it we cannot control, of course.
9. But one thing that I really have applaud to is the graphic presentation of the album. Truls Espedal truly exceeded himself. Why did you ask him to do the artwork? Have you had any reasons or it was quite spontaneous decision for you?
Grutle: To call it very spontaneous would be a lie, since we´ve been working with him on the last 5 albums before “Axioma Ethica Odini”…hehe. He´s been our painting artist since “Monumension” in 2001. When I was living in Stavanger 10 years ago I occasionally met him at the pub, cause he was friends with my ex-girlfriend. We started talking about music and art and suddenly one late night I suggested that he could paint the album cover on the next Enslaved release. The rest is history, and he´s been with us, almost like a member of the band, ever since. In the beginning we were both a bit unsecure concerning our collaboration, but over the years we have developed the same way of looking at things, and therefore made it a lot easier for him to transform and understand me and Ivar´s ideas into a painting!! He has become a really skilled artist and the paintings are getting better and better each time. We love his artwork and he loves our music! It can´t get any better, pretty simply.
10. Recently you are going on tour with Sahg and Dimmu Borgir. I was quite surprised by a fact that you are accompanying Dimmu Borgir and even as a support. Again, why? Who was responsible for this idea?
Grutle: Well, I really enjoy the idea of having different sounding bands on the same bill. That´s kind of a concert I would enjoy to watch. I think it is boring to see three bands in a row with the same approach to music. Besides, we are great friends with the guys in Dimmu Borgir, although we´re not huge fans of their music. I don´t think they adore our music either, but we are friends and have a deep respect for each other. When they asked us to join them on the tour, every one of us applauded the idea. I don´t see anything strange about it at all actually. We just finished the European leg of the tour and it worked perfect! Nice and professional band and crew. We are looking forward to once again join them in USA on the 05th of November.
11. In the description of the individual songs you also mentioned a Czech legend Master’s Hammer. What does this band represent for you? Haven’t you thought about recording a cover version any of their song?
Grutle: Hehe, that would be cool. I might have to learn how to pronounce Czech then! Maybe we could do “Jama Pekel” ? Anyway, when I heard Ivar´s riffs on “Ethica Odini”, the first thing I thought was Master´s Hammer! This reminds me of Master´s Hammer!! Maybe not the riffs itself, but the epic feeling to them definitely have the same touch as many of Master´s Hammer´s riffs on “Ritual”. They were among our biggest sources of inspiration when we started Enslaved in 1991. Some of the riffs on our earliest works are so Master´s Hammer that it is embarrassing,,,,hehehe…
12. In addition, what do you think about their reunion and what do you think about their new album “Mantras”?
Ivar: We haven’t actually heard “Mantras” yet, only read interviews about it. I have to hear it, though – this is one of my all-time favourites! I saw some pretty crazy promophotos, excited to hear if the music is equally experimental.
13. In that mentioned description you stated that one song is really similar to Master’s Hammer. Even though I am listening to the new album again and again I can’t really hear the influence. I am rather recalling an influence by Opeth for example. Could you elaborate more about this?
Grutle: As mentioned, it´s maybe not the actual riffs that reminds me of Master´s Hammer, but rather the feeling it gives me by listening to them. “Ethica Odini” is a very repetitive song, with only three riffs really. I think it has something to do with the same way of “thinking music”, more than the actual music. It instantly gave me a Master´s Hammer vibe when I heard it the first time. Try to listen to it once more, and then you´ll see. Inspired by Opeth..hehe, don´t think so. On the other hand, we and the Opeth guys share the same love for the beautiful music from the 70´s, and there are the similarities. Apart from that we are really different. Great band, by the way. Both musically and personally.
14. AEO is your eleventh album in the course of band’s twenty years long existence. You played with many musicians and performed in many cities. Could you somehow summarize this period? What does it mean for the band and for you personally?
Grutle: Summarize the last 20 years?!!? Sorry, I don´t have that much time…hehe. It would take forever! Maybe I´ll write a book some day? We have had many lineups, played many tours, festivals and showcase gigs. There has been many fantastic moments, some blurry moments and some blood and tears.
There are some main periods though, and I´ll give you a rough guide:
1991-1995 (Ivar,Grutle,Trym)
Enthusiasm, curiosity, young blood, first recordings, first tours, beer.
1995-1997 (Ivar, Grutle, Harald)
Rehearsing, drinking, drinking, recording…and not much else…quite blurry, but a really good album.
1997-2002 (Ivar,Grutle,Dirge, Roy)
Fun at first, then exhausting, too much drugs and to little concentration. Definitely our big down period. Some good albums and moments though.
2002-2003 (Ivar Grutle + some session musicians)
Weird period, but “Below the lights” was recorded in this period, and me and Ivar found the path again!!
2002-present (Ivar, Grutle, Cato, Ice, Herbrand)
The golden age!! New and great members, beer, creativity, awards, great tours and great albums! Pride.
15. Which album do you consider to be breakthrough? Is there also an album which in retrospective you are not satisfied with? The one you would like change somehow.
Ivar: I would say that “Frost” was the first major breakthrough – it was the first album that gained us some kind of world-wide recognition and gave us both our first European and American tours. Then you could maybe also say that “Below the Lights” was our second breakthrough – where our “new” line was publically acclaimed and we started to reach a larger audience both with the releases and also live. You know, I have discussed earlier some albums that I wanted perhaps to change some song structures, production or whatever – but I have reached a different conclusion now: I would rather have discussions about that in private with fans, writers and listeners than to say it in public: a lot of fans have favourites among these albums that maybe the band has some minor problems with – I don’t want to diminish their experience by distancing myself from those albums.
16. I am still thinking of other questions but I don’t want to torture you. So I’ll ask you the final one. What do you like about Czech republic? You have already played here several times. So what about, fans, girls, beers and fun? Is there anything special which you like tell your friends about?
Grutle: We love playing in the Czech Repuplic!! We love the people and the fans! You make fantastic beer and food! But, the most important; You have the most beautiful city in the world; Praha!! I just love walking around in that city just looking at stuff and every now and then stop and have a beer. I think I´ve been in Prague six or seven times and I always demand my friends to go there! I haven´t seen much else of the country, only Zlin a couple of times. That was great too, by the way. I would like to explore the Czech Republic a little more, I like to travel.
17. Thank you very much for this interview. I appreciate it a lot and it was my pleasure. The last article is yours. You can write us about anything you want or you didn’t have opportunity in previous questions. There are no limits for you. Go on…
Ivar: Thanks for the immense support from the Czech fans!!! As for the interview itself, I will end here so it doesn’t become boring.
