BORKNAGAR Guitarist Talks New Album

Metal-Experience.com recently conducted an interview with BORKNAGAR guitarist Jens Fredrik Ryland. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal-Experience.com: How did you launch into writing material for "Universal" and how much time did you spend on the songs?

Jens: The writing process is Øystein's [Garnes Brun, guitar], and him being one overproductive fella, he's had some of the riffs on tape since the late Nineties. The song named "My Domain" was actually intended for "The Archaic Course" in 1998, that's also why Vortex was brought back in to do the vocals. Then there is the actual preproduction work to bring it all together, but also here most of the work is done by Øystein.

Metal-Experience.com: What approach did you take to create this album? Did you go for a more raw exposition.. or something more reminiscent of your previous other works, or something all together different?

Jens: The key words here are "fresh start" and the spirit within the band also reflects on the album. We want to move back in time a bit and recreate a bit of rawness in the sound and the songs themselves. Still the album is the best produced work we have done so far; Øystein is getting really good at this.

Metal-Experience.com: How can we imagine you work on new songs, what's the typical writing process like for BORKNAGAR?

Jens: The actual writing process has changed over the years. As we live quite far apart we can't work things out in the rehearsal studio, so we use Cubase to exchange files. Usually Øystein has most of the songs done anyway, so it's more about arrangements and details by the time we get the files. Øystein also always has a lot more material than we actually end up recording, and part of the process is to filter out what we don't want to use.

Metal-Experience.com: Could you describe the implications of the title "Universal", what does it stand for and is there a special meaning behind it?

Jens: As always, a BORKNAGAR title has many meanings and no one way to understand. I guess by using "Universal" we want people to look back in time, one of the songs on "The Archaic Course" is also called "Universal". But we haven't made this album with a reference to "The Archaic Course" either. It's only a hint. "Universal" seems like an all-round fitting name for our music anyway, it's dynamic, varied and challenging. It's music you need to listen to, and it's not meant for a small group of listeners. We're not a grindcore band, we're not a strictly black metal band either; our music is more universal...

Metal-Experience.com: How did the recording process proceed, did you work differently this time than you did with your previous works? How much time did you spend in the studio?

Jens: As always, we broke the recording into sequences as everyone has work and other obligations. Staying for one month in the studio with the whole band to record an album is so Nineties. [Laughs] The only one who has actually been in the studio during the whole process is Øystein who also produced the whole thing. David [Kinkade] came over for the first week to record the drums. I only went in there to deliver the drum kit, I never set foot in the studio in the actual drum-recording process. I guess this is how we have worked since we visited Abyss studios in 2000. Andreas [Hedlund] just came down one weekend and he had already recorded all the vocals in his home studio.

Metal-Experience.com: Overall, are you pleased with the outcome of the songs or would you have liked to have changed anything in retrospective? Which element of the CD are you the most proud of?

Jens: In the process of releasing an album you go through a lot of emotions and phases, some compare it to a mild version of having a baby. At this point I'm very content. The overall view of things is that we have made an album that's very whole, varied and dynamic like a BORKNAGAR album should be. We have made progression in sound and it's very well produced. There are details I would have changed, but nothing worth mentioning.

Metal-Experience.com: What is your opinion on the metal scene these days? What do you think of the overload of bands at the moment and is there anything missing in the scene?

Jens: The metal scene is sharing the same problems the rest of the music scene is, and that's how to deal with the problems of downloading. Almost all labels are stunned with the developments and have no clue how to deal with it. And the problems the upcoming metal bands are facing is that the old way of measuring how popular you are for a live show is looking at the sales numbers in the area you want to play live. Now there is no way of comparing bands up against each other as sales numbers don't tell you naught! So in my opinion it seems like when a band is up and coming, it is more out of pure luck than it used to be. You need to get an album out, and if you manage to create some kind of buzz on the net you pave the way to play a few gigs, and if enough people turn up for the gig, you have made a buzz for yourself by playing live. In my view, most major labels are now looking like dinosaurs just after the meteor hit the Earth, causing their extinction: They're just too big and can't cope with the development and are just running in circles finding nowhere to hide. Soon they will be dead and the path will open for new races to develop. I see that the bands succeeding in the future will be those who are able to master more of the business themselves. You can't have five people in a band where everyone makes music and no-one is thinking about all the other details.

Read the entire interview from Metal-Experience.com.