DARKTHRONE's FENRIZ: 'Our Albums Now Are Just 35- Or 40-Minute Long Demos'

Paul Schwarz of UK's Terrorizer magazine (web site) recently conducted an interview wwith Fenriz of the Norwegian black metal band DARKTHRONE. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On DARKTHRONE's forthcoming album:

"The first song on our next album — not 'Dark Thrones And Black Flags' [which comes out in October], that was finished in July — its title is based on a mantra that Gezol of Japan (SABBAT, METALUCIFER) has been saying a lot lately, 'Too much black, too little metal.' That's been the problem ever since '93. But you know, people have been taking care of that since the start of the new decade. Since 2000, there's so many youngsters who are really into the barbaric stuff again."

The sloppy sound?

"Yeah, very sloppy. I haven't practised since '93, just to get that sloppy. So whenever I play a song now it's like I'm walking without a compass. Like the song I have been doing now, 70 per cent of it is ready. I've had that much ready now for two months. I mull it over, again and again. Daily, or a day inbetween. I think of the song and I know what kind of tempo the last part will have, I just mull it over and hum along to what I have in my head. At this point, I still haven't picked up a guitar to try to do the stuff, because when I first do that I know I will finish the song."

On the philosophy behind DARKTHRONE's deliberately underground sound:

"Things changed around '89/'90 and especially in the mid '90s, where everyone could get, like, a pro sound. Our first album, we just paid 1,000 quid for that studio session, and then we had that ENTOMBED sound: that was like being professional. In the '80s, you had underground sound until you 'made it.' That all changed when you could get good sound for very little money. Once that happened, overground and underground became a choice, like you would choose to have underground sound, or you would choose to have overground sound. Then everybody could choose to be underground or overground sound. . . We're deliberate underground now. Basically, we just record in the way a demo would have been recorded in the '80s. Our albums now are just 35- or 40-minute long demos."

On the approach that other bands choose to take with their music:

"A lot of bands chose to think, 'Oh, 'Transilvanian Hunger'! If you play that twice the speed, with synthesisers, and a professional sound, it will be three times as good!' They make Disney version. When I first heard 'In the Nightside Eclipse' [EMPEROR's full-length debut], I was just like, 'Turn this off!' Everyone else was just like, 'What!? Don't you like this?' And I was just thinking to myself, 'Okay, we're on a different ballpark here.' And I just stick to myself and listen to thrash."

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