1. GRÁ is not exactly very well know project so I would like from you short introduction about bands history...

Me and Dimman were working on an album for Cursed 13 back in 2010, all of a sudden we just felt like „fuck this“ and started jamming some good old necro style riffs. We felt like coming home and wrote 4 songs pretty much instantly and since we had everything rigged up for the Cursed 13 recording session, we recorded them. That is what would become the „Helfärd“ EP. It was destined to be. Grá now consist of a Brotherhood of four with three releases under our belt and a ravaging hunger!

2. Latest release from your camp is - EP „Necrology Of The Witch“. Try to enlighten this material to us. How long time it took to record it and in what manner you wrote ideas for this material? Are you working all together as a band, or somebody comes up with finished songs?

The „Necrology of the Witch“ MCD is the third part of four in our suite about Charon and it is, as the previous releases a tribute and a salute to Death.
I mostly write the songs in my home studio and send out demos to the other guys. Then we meet up and all members have their own input on the material. Other times we just write the music on location in our rehersal place. When it comes to the lyrics I have free hands and full control of what is said and preached and I seldom have very nice things to say!

The recording process was very short. We have our own studio so we just rigged up and recorded over two separate weekends during the year. We are a very well rehearsed band so we can use more time on the details instead of wasting time on re-takes and studio fuck-ups.

3. New release is marked as EP, but its lenght is more close to full-lenght release. All together you have already two EP's on your account and only one full-lenght album. Is EP preferred form of release for you, or its more accidental?

This is not really true, the „Necrology of the Witch“ release is actually marked as a M-CD to indicate a longer lenght than an EP, still not a full lenght album.
We like to build in these theatrical, almost audiovisual tracks in our releases. If you have heard the MCD you should have noticed the track called „Οδεύοντας προς την Στύγα“, it is not a film sample or something that we have stolen from somewhere but something that we took time to record ourselves, setting the overall mood for the release. We did that on the album as well, creating the outro (which to our great amusement was sincerely misunderstood by pretty much all reviewers) in a theatrical way instead of doing like everybody else, making standard ambient noice on the keyboard and calling it music. We could have included another track on the MCD and called it an album but then again it would have been only 5 „normal“ songs and 2 „soundscape“ tracks with a long play time. That would be like fucking you over, all of you who pay full price for it. We prefered to release it as a 4 track M-CD with 2 extra tracks as a bonus or „enhancer“ if you will. Value for the money.

Personally I think that the scene and the whole music business is stuck in some weird way of thinking that an album is the optimal way of releasing music. WHY is 40 minutes the optimal play time for a piece of musical art? It fit good on a vinyl record with 20 minutes on each side? You can get 2 albums on a 90min cassette?
And yes, bands are releasing 7“, 10“, EP, M-CD and so on but are pretty much always counted by the albums. A shorter (or longer!) recording can be as essential and damn good as any full lenght standard album.
I think that the presentations of art should be decided by the art itself and not by some business standards. If 20 minutes is all that you need to get done what needs to be done then you should stick to that. I don't know how many albums that I've listened to that has like 4 or 5 great songs and the rest just feels like filler songs. Those albums would have been fucking amazing M-CDs or Eps!
I don't ever want to release anything that includes time filler songs!

4. From you title track „Necrology Of The Witch“ i can clearly hear Dissection influence and last song ''Freezing Moon'' is your honour towards legendary Mayhem. Which bands have biggest impact on your music? Where do you find inspiration?

My musical inspiration when writing music to Grá comes from the 80's and 90's black metal scene. We have also been inspired by the Swedish folk music tradition which makes a great complement to the spiritual aspects of what we are invoking.

5. Back to previous question. Is it possible nowadays to come up with purely original music, which isn't similar to anything what was already recorded?

I'd like to say yes and no to that question. There's always influences, still I think it is possible to create an unique style if you are gifted and follow your instincts rather than listening to what others has to say. I also sence a generation shift within the black metal scene. The younger people have a completely different set of influences because of, for example, the rise of the Eastern European scene which has grown alot lately. What used to be Black Metal has also been divided into sub-categories. Originality used to be seen as something desirable but now it seems to be more important to stick to the formula, regardless of the result.
We don't limit ourselves but create the music that we would like to buy ourselves.

6. Responsibility for your new material, as well as for debut album falls on Unexploded Records. Are you satisfied with your cooperation? How this conspiracy came to be?

We are pleased with Unexploded Records, they have done all that they can for us. It is still a pretty limited label since they aren't that well established outside the Swedish borders. We would prefer to have a complement in the form of a management company to help us expand our territory when it comes to live bookings and such.

7. What about GRÁ and live performances? What are conditions under which you are willing to perform live and what makes you gigs unusual? Do you focus also on presentation on stage, or are you simply putting all your energy to achieve best result?

Our best performances has been when there's an audience that understands what we do and what we invoke. We vary our set a bit from show to show to best fit the evening. When we know that there's going to be an audience of people who have seen us before we can bring them in on our boat and take them a bit further down into the abyss with a more epic and hypnotizing set, while we often have a more varied set when confronted with a whole new audience, to introduce ourselves to our new acquaintances. We don't use blood on stage since we associate blood (especially in still liquid form) with still living matter and we preach Death, not life! Bones and nooses better fits our purpose. We don't use the standard corpse paint or filth in our faces, we paint all that is seen of our physical bodies in white (hands, face, hair) to erase as much of life as we can from ourselves before facing the crowd.
We are a fucking well rehearsed live band but the method of presentation is in full focus. The music is an aid to the ongoing ritual that we perform in public.

8. EP „Necrology Of The Witch“ is release based on typical swedish school, which has very rich history. To compare all nordic scenes, where do you see biggest difference between swedish, norwegian and finnish one?

It is hard to tell today since the scene has changed so much the last 15 years. Today you can find Swedish bands that would be categorized to have a Norwegian sound back in the days, that goes both ways. There used to be a difference but globalization killed diversity.

9. How it looks with support of GRÁ in Sweden? Do you get better feedback from local or foreign fans?

We're just about to find out actually since we're going abroad for the first time in May. We're going to Finland and Estonia together with Fortid and Antagonist Zero. When it comes to record sales and general support we have been very well recieved in Sweden, there seems to have been a gap which we have filled pretty well. The older generation of black metal fans claim that we bring them back to the good old days and the younger crowd can reconnect to the past after years of DSBM and whatnot that has been on the bill the last years. We have also been getting more and more attention abroad, especially in Poland and Greece. We are very eager to do more touring to expand our horizons and also our territory. We strive for World Domination!

10. Back to new release: that one is crowned with very cool cover. Who is responsible for it and to what degree you see importance of graphic side of albums?

The image is created by the Spanish painter José Benlliure y Gil (1858–1937), we just modified the colors a bit to better fit our intentions. We wanted a classic image for this release. The graphics are very important in my opinion, you get an enhanced impression of what the creators want to express. Some things can't be visualized with tunes or with words, that's the part that the graphics complete. To not put down work on the graphics is to wrap your release in an ugly fucking dress and it will distract the attention from what you are trying to say. Especially in these days when there's so much of everything everywhere. I wonder how many reviewers for magazines and fanzines that actually get a physical copy of a new CD and can sit down in a calm environment and just listen to the music and imbibe the entire artwork. And how many regular listeners do that these days? It's a pity.

11. Vinyl format is nowadays gaining unbelievable comeback. Do you see any advantages in different formats like LP, CD and MC and which one of them you personally prefer?

I prefer vinyl of course! We haven't managed to release anything on vinyl yet (hint to record company!). The MC has its charm but they are impractical and there's not much room for visual display either. I did alot of MC listening in my old car in the past since it was equiped with a cassette player. One format that I think is forgotten these days is the video format! We have actually managed to make one video for each release and will continue to do so in the future.

12. Apart from that you are musician, are you also collector of music releases? If yes, what is possibly biggest gem in your collection?

I was more of a collector back in the days, today I sadly enough rarely have the money to buy records. I suppose that my biggest gems are the four first press Bathory albums on vinyl. I also enjoy my copy of the Burzum Filosofem album on that A5 digipack version, there we can really talk about graphics!
Other than that I listen alot to the old Black Sabbath albums (first era with Ozzy) on vinyl, as well as my old The Doors vinyls. And yeah, the Dødheimsgard album Monumental Possession is probably my most played picture disc LP along with that old Mayhem bootleg „Out From The Dark“. Necro!!!

13. Is GRÁ your only priority or are you involved in other side projects?

We wouldn't call them side projects since we take what we do very seriously. I am the founder of Cursed 13 and also play guitar in legendary Domgård. Dimman is the drummer in the classic death/black band Spazmosity and Isengrim is one of the founders of WAN so we're quite busy when not focused on Grá.
Domgård has recently released the second full lenght album called Myrkviðr, Spazmosity released their Welcome Deth album in 2010, WAN will release their second full lenght album later this year and that previously mentioned Cursed 13 album will also be released this year through Carnal Records.

14. Are there lately any bands which grabbed your interest by their quality or originality, that you would recommend them to us?

I was at a great concert yesterday actually and saw Omnizide, Styggelse and Kill perform. I can strongly recommend all of those three bands! Funny thing about that gig is that when I arrived at the venue I got a call from the Styggelse vocalist who was saying that the police was there and they were held contained while the cops raided the place. I sat out in my car and watched the Swedish law enforcement take care of the, according to the henchmen, illegal activities that they thought was going on inside the venue. Almost two hours later the gig continued and a whole bunch of songs were dedicated to the police during the night.
Another band that comes to mind is Panphage which I like very much and I had the honor to do the mastering of one of their releases. I don't listen to so many new bands so what I get to hear is what my Brothers in arms forces me to give some attention.

15. Please reveal your nearest plans for future. Do you already know which course will be set for new material? Can we expect something different from that we could hear on ''Necrology Of The Witch'', or it will continue on similar path?

Yes, we have a plan! We will begin the work for our next full lenght album after the summer. It will be the fourth and final chapter in our Charon suite. I suspect that it musically will be even more introvert and epic than our previously releases. It will be a 100% religious and spiritual album without any sidetracks or cutters.There are an explanatory text in the booklet of the „Necrology of the Witch“ M-CD for those who are interested in reading more.

16. Thank you for interview. Final words are yours...

Thank you for an interesting interview!

Official website: www.grahorde.com

Contact: [email protected]

Hell Charon!
Hell Surtr!
Hell Satan!
Hell Chaos!

I would like to leave you with something to reflect upon:

"The soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that has been released. If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world. The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things."

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (46-120 AD)