1. Salutes to Dark fortress, I read that you are recording a new album. What is the mood in the band? And, from the other hand, any news about new vocalist?

Well, the mood in the band is strange. We are going to do some test recordings with a potential new singer within the next few days. If his voice is going to fit Dark Fortress, the mood will be much better, I can tell you...
If things are going well, we will be able to finish the production before the end of October.

2. Your last creation "Séance" was very good. I still have the creeps from that great atmosphere. Will be your new album different or you will continue in old good vein? Can you tell us something about the novelty?

We never do the same album twice, that would be boring, but our music always has some ingredients, that you will find on each album. Our music is very emotional and the main emotions and moods that we express or create with our music are the feelings of aggression, of depression and melancholy and we create very dark, gloomy moods. I think on “Séance” the main focus was on the gloomy, mysterious moods, on “Stab Wounds” rather on the depressive side and with the new album we are going to feature the aggressive side of our music, without leaving the other main ingredients. The new album is going to be more direct, more in-your-face without getting too primitive.

3. I think that you cooled down, music is not that brutal but it is more dark and spooky. Does that came from natural evolution?

That’s totally right for “Séance”, but the next record will be more brutal again. But, yeah, it still will be rather cold.
Well, I personally prefer very cold and mysterious sounds, so for my part of the song-writing it was a natural evolution. Also the lyrical concept on “Séance” demanded this dark and spooky atmosphere.

4. Personally I like "Stab Wounds" most, it mixes all important ingredients of Dark Fortress. It was also yours first album that I heard. Can you tell us some of your own feelings, notices which can listener bring closer to emotions, development etc...?

I personally can express myself, or the dark sides of myself, through my music. I think especially songs like “Ghastly Indoctrination” and “Shardfigures” reflect a lot of my soul, or at least parts of it. The moods created in these songs already tell you a lot about my own feelings. But I strictly try to keep really personal things away from public.

5. Is it important for your music and thinking that your are Germans? Do you match with some elements typical for german culture?

Well, I don’t think so... We are definitely part of the “Western civilisation” and of course that influences your life and I probably wouldn’t play this kind of black metal if I was raised in China are India for example. But being German or not has nothing to do with our music. I met some Norwegian guys that said that we rather sound like a Norwegian band. Let’s consider this as a compliment...


6. Are you involved in spiritism in some way? Because of the song "poltergeist"...

Not in “spiritism”, which doesn’t mean that I’m not spiritual. The whole concept of Séance, not only the song “Poltergeist” deals with “spirits” or experiences with, let’s say, paranormal existences.

7. I can feel a lot of melancholy in your albums. Where does those emotions appears in you? What makes you to compose that dark music?

That’s true, I also see a lot of melancholy in our music. As I said before, I canalise my dark, negative, sad (etc.) feelings in our music.

8. Keyboards are a significant for your music. But you haven´t used them in the begginings. what made you to include them to your music?

We actually used keyboards since our first MCD. For us it is interesting to have the possibility to add further layers of sounds to our music that do not only consist of drums, bass, guitars and vocals. But we use keyboards as a spice, not as permanent element.

9. On all album covers we can find mysterious figures in a dark mist. I see a concept in it a I would say that they are showing a quintessence of " Dark Fortress". Who is doing the covers? Are you making them yourself or some other person is doing this for you?

Interesting observation! The covers of the first two albums were created by Kris Verwimp. The covers for “Stab Wounds” and “Séance” were done by Travis Smith.

10. Working in a group of six is not that usual. Is there some difference in this cooperation? Is this bigger amount of player featuring more inventions or more speculations? ( And what if is a stage too small?) :-)

It is not that easy to work as a six piece. In Germany there is a saying that many cooks spoil the meal. It is not possible that everybody is equally involved in the song writing. I write most of the music, even though everybody else can contribute ideas. Asvargr also contributes riffs and some of the biggest “hits” of Dark Fortress like “Self Mutilation” were mainly written by him. Azathoth used to write all the lyrics and we have to find a solution for this in the future. But the loss of Azathoth is not going to change our music, our compositions!

Well, small stages suck ass, but we usually don’t have too many problems with that.

11. Can you tell us how much are you popular in Germany?

I would like to know that by myself, haha! It’s hard for me to tell, but I think that we belong to the top a Germany’s black metal together with bands like “Secrets of the Moon” or “Endstille”. Also check “Sonic Reign”! I dig their stuff!!!
By the way, how popular are we in Czech Republic? It’s quite strange that we never played in your country considering the fact that we don’t live that far away from the border. Prague is actually closer to were we live than most of the big German cities.


12. How does the ordinary day of the band looks? When you are not on the tour.

We don’t rehearse at the moment. If I come back to your first question about how the band feeling is at the moment, I said it’s strange and it is, because we don’t see each other a lot at the moment. Everybody is doing his job, or his studies, that’s all I can say. There is nothing special at all.

13. And now some personal questions, I hope it won’t embarrass you:

- are you more choleric or melancholic?

Záleží... Spíše to druhé.

- are you trying to live your life as best as you can or there are some moments that you wish to be forgotten?

Snažím se žít můj život dobře, ale občas samozřejmě šlápnu vedle. Ale učím se skrze mé chyby a zkouším se nepřetržitě rozvíjet.

- is there something that can always piss you off?

Uvážíme-li fakt, že jsem black metalový muzikant, jsem docela uvolněný... Ale vždy bude na světě mnoho věcí, které tě budou srát, přiliš mnoho, abych jmenoval.

- for those years that you have been concerting with many prominent bands, are you still nervous?

Ne.

- which german bands you consider as the best and which are closest to your heart?

Když budeme mluvit o black metalu, jmenoval bych Sonic Reign, secrets of the Moon a Farsot. Doufám, že budou mít vydařenou budoucnost!

Thanks for the time which made you to shorten your life, come to Czech republic!