Ball-Buster Interview with Ivar Bjornson of Enslaved
by John Haseltine
Dubbed "Viking Metal" in the early days, Enslaved come at you with their latest groundbreaking and perhaps most monumental album to date 'ISA'. Enslaved veer back towards the roots of their earlier sound, unleashing some of the most relentless sounds in extreme metal today. Currently on a European tour with dates being set up for North America, as well as the rest of the world as we speak. Ivar took a moment to chat with us
about the latest release 'ISA', and a few other questions I was curious about.
JH: For some of those unfamiliar, could you please give us a brief history of the band?
IB: It's a band that's of extreme metal. Often associated with the Norwegian black metal scene, which I guess is where we're coming from only we have a slightly different concept I guess. We've never had a thing for the satanic lyrics or imagery. We've focused a lot on the northern mythology, and magic, you know that kind of stuff. The band has always been known for experimenting somewhat with extreme metal. And we're influences from various stuff, particularly '70's stuff. Psychedelic or prog rock era, and mixing that in with the heavier or more extreme metal.
JH: Could you tell us a bit about your latest release 'ISA'?
IB: It was written in 2003, the first part of 2004, recorded in Bergen our home town. It was mixed in Oslo. I think 5/6 weeks for the recording, another 2 weeks for mixing. It was the most intense recording period we've had so far. This time we did everything in a row. I think it's more normal to do it in parts or fragments, take breaks in between different things. But we decided to take everything in one turn and that was a good process.
JH: How about musically? How would you say it compares or differs to your last release ,"Below The Lights"?
IB: I think there's a more uniform sound to the album this time. And between the songs too. I think for Enslaved, the song writing is a bit more focused or matured, whatever you want to say, it contains both the older style of Enslaved where they were more black metal and things as well as the newer things. The experimental parts of Enslaved. Also I think a big difference is in the vocals, where as the guitar sound was a bit more up front earlier. And on "Below The Lights", where the guitar has been doing the main melodies and sort of telling the story of the song. This time around, it's, the vocals are much more up front.
JH: There was less than a year between the release of 'ISA' and 'Below The Lights', is there any particular reason for this? Or were you guys just on a roll?
IB: It is a short period of time, but ah, I think after "Below The Lights" we changed record labels, got a brand new line-up. We went from a three piece to a five piece, so ah everything around us kinda got changed and that was inspiration for us and at the same time after "Below The Lights" we got a lot of, how you say it, post attention both for the live thing and our albums, and with the change of label and line-up, we kind of felt it was important to work hard and intense and to make use of that momentum, so to speak. And plus, all the material was there. There was no point in waiting any longer.
JH: You've stuck with the conceptual writing theme on 'ISA', can you tell us a bit of the story line, or connection between the songs?
IB: It is more like different short stories. The songs kind of have a link to the title 'ISA'. Isa is a rune from the, like the old runes of earth, which is also used for writing, of course, but it also had magical meanings from different runes. This rune literally translates to the word meaning ice. The element of ice. But ah, it's the rune that deals with preservation and stillness, stagnation. Sort of one of the very few non dynamic runes. And that was kind of the concept we went for on this album. Not in a negative, regressive sort of way but using stagnation as a powerful thing to kind of freeze the moment to analyze or to better understand. But there all abstracts, the lyrics are all sometimes kind of hard to find any absolute meaning to. There all a bit personal yet a bit dreamy or dreamlike or illogical in a way that I hope listeners can make their own images or sorts coming from them from being so open. I think sometime when the lyrics become to obvious to what they're trying to say, it takes away from the process of interpretation and could put the wrong meaning into it. That's the kind of lyrics I try to write myself.
JH: Now the past couple of albums contained the more progressive or experimental sound to them, 'ISA' seems to lean back to more of the black metal roots. Is this a certain direction the band is heading in or was this more of just what came out this time around?
IB: I do think that most of the stuff we do just comes up in the moment. There is not a lot of pre-contemplation about it. That is why we maintain the motivation and the focus after so many years. We try to avoid analyzing too much of what we're actually doing as that would take away from the magic. I talk to a lot of people who know the complete discography of the band, tend to agree with me that there is a movement towards more of the extreme era of the band. Some would maybe disagree, but I think the reason could also be that , well a lot in the line-up change too. Because to be honest, the previous line-up was sort of metal line-up. This was the last line-up and we had a first line-up, from the mini split cd and up til Frost went to Emperor, a lot of people see this as an important era in Enslaved's history, and I totally agree that the first two albums and the mini cd were like, that's what we're going to be remembered by. Then we had a line-up in between, up until the one mentioned, that line-up really didn't work out live with the old stuff, it kind of was a bit removed from that. For some reason we really couldn't do the old songs in the proper way. But that all fell into place with the line-up we have now, a new drummer, guitar player and keyboard player. They all have a big respect for the older material and tend to play it the way it was played back then. Which kind of is inspiring for me writing new material. Knowing that we had this heritage too in the band. It exciting to experiment and try other things, but at the same time it was important to maintain the roots or whatever.
JH: Do you usually have a certain direction in mind when you go into a new album?
IB: On some levels you have some wishes for where you want the music to go, and you start writing to make that happen, but I think it's not until before the second or third song that you really know where the direction is going. And if you take it from there, you can kinda push it in whatever direction you want it to go. The most important thing I guess, the ideas are in the head, and you imagine how it can become, the determining moment is when you take it to the rehearsal room and actually try it out with a real band and you can hear what's working with that. With the current line-up and current frame of mind, than you have to go back and re-write to the situation.
JH: So you classify your music as extreme metal, not black metal, now can you describe the term Viking metal for us? As this is a label many still put you under.
IB: It's a label we used in the very early days. And I'm pretty sure we were the first band to use that as a label. It was because we came from the black metal scene and we wanted to point out, even though we were and a part of that scene, and always are being mentioned in the same breath as those early Norwegian black metal bands. We wanted to point out for two reasons that we are not black metal, the first one being our own listeners is that we're not trying to sell them anything that we are not, like black metal back then, and I'm pretty sure now has some strict rules about what the music should be about and what kind of meaning you are conveying with the music. We wanted to point out we did not do any such thing that there has not been mention of satan in any of our lyrics. So there was no point in calling it black metal. And the other reason was out of respect for the other black metal bands, that we want to point out that we're not that. It really doesn't have any particular meaning or sound, it's just explained our lyrical concept and our band philosophy in a ways is mainly based in the northern mythology and the runic system that of course it's a personal meaning and our own life experiences, but if you're kind of describing, more or less, the foundation of meaning in the band. And over the years, we're tried to stay away from that Viking metal label, back then it was ok, but over the years a lot of bands tried to use to label Viking metal to describe a medieval feel to the music. Which is completely ridiculous . The medieval times is basically the high peak of Christianity in history. So why would you want to go around and parade soundtrack to that. The other thing is that it's a lot of pokes, political stuff has been put into the Viking metal thing, which kind of gives it a less tempting taste for us. Were moved from those day to day bore, inferior, things like that.
JH: So are there any talks of a North American tour this coming year?
IB: There is. We have nothing set solid at time moment. We going out on a European tour right now for six weeks. We're leaving next week, so I guess it will be settled by the time we come back. I guess we'd be looking at the winter of 2005 for that.
JH: Where do you find the inspiration for yourself and the band to continue the writing and the style you're playing?
IB: It's everything man.
JH: It seems most bands, well a lot of them will change their style of playing or give up if there is not too much selling of the units.
IB: It's really pretty straight forward. We've been doing it for so many years, it's so much put in and it's given us so much back that there's no line between being in a band or not being in a band. There is no such thing. Everything in your life is related to. To the band, what happens to the sort of affects your life, so we play the music we want to play. When we make an album. First or most important measure on how happy we are is if it's an album we would want to listen to ourselves. That's what we try to do. We take it as a bonus if other people out like it as well. Obviously you need some people to buy it, if you intend to go forward, but it's interesting to hear the response and especially having done more or less, weird things throughout their career. It's getting more interesting by the day. It's like making a story or building a small chapter in music history. That's certainly a motivation.
JH: There seems to be a resurgence in the underground extreme metal scene all over the world, what would you attribute this to?
IB: There is an easy way out of that question and that is that the world has gone mad. You know, people are getting more and more frustrated or the lack of meaning is a motivator for the growth of extreme metal. It's also a lot of meaningless things. The popular industry with the movies and the music and stuff you know, nothing means anything so it kind of exciting for a teenager, be black metal or metal in general. It has a lot of substance, it really wants to make a difference . A powerful and energetic, which I think is appealing to most anyone.
JH: How's the future looking to treat Enslaved?
IB: Good. Good I hope. As long as we have our health. Our physical, we lost our mental a long time ago. But there's always something new to be done. We're going on tour now. We always look forward to that. And more touring and there's another album going to come out.
JH: So we can expect another release soon?
IB: Sometime not too far into 2006. That's the estimate so far. We want to make sure all the songs are on there and they're ready to go. Before recording. Joking aside, I also think it's bright with regards to the situation we are , non-musical and as well as a new label and finally, ah, talking to you and the American continent where we've never had proper distribution or promotion before. So after 14 years, we're finally putting an album out that has the proper distribution and promotion in the states. And it's really exciting to see. We have been touring there since 1995, and people have still been having a hard time finding our records.
JH: Well I appreciate your time and it was a pleasure chatting with you, is there anything else you'd like to say?
IB: Just for people to set aside a minute and check out 'ISA'. there's a lot of good music there that people should check out. The feedback on the album definitely gives me the confidence to say that. For any fan of metal, there should be a lot to dig into. Also keep your eyes open for the U.S. tour dates coming up. They will definitely be post at the Enslaved is now, but it will surely happen. (1-29-05)
