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ENSLAVED Guitarist Talks Metal

September 26, 2008

The German edition of the Metal Hammer magazine recently conducted an interview with ENSLAVED guitarist Ivar Bjornson. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On how KISS introduced him to metal:

"When I was a kid, we saw this show on the Nowegian national TV about a family where the daughter was in love with Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanely]. She kept having dreams where they played, and I like the whole thing with the sound and image. I collected KISS toys and finally my grandad gave me a cassette for Christmas when I was five. Shortly after, I started looking around for something harder and metal has been my life since then."

On what heavy metal means to him:

"I guess metal means different things, but I've never been too enthused about the anarchist approach where you think, 'Do what thou wilt,' which means puke where you want to. It is something deeper and has potential for being a shaper of society: entertainment, rebellion and strength in one."

On what the future of metal might be:

"It is so huge and popular now. I think we will see more of the bands from the middle section, those beneath METALLICA and SLIPKNOT and those guys; coming up into the mainstream with radio and huge gigs. Metal will maybe become more of an 'ordinary' thing like in the '80s. That also means there is a very real possibility metal will get surprisingly killed like it did when grunge appeared in the early '90s. That is not something to fear; if it happens, it happens. Last time it happened, a new wave of extreme metal got invented underground — maybe metal needs rough times sometimes to remain cutting edge?"

You can find the entire article at this location.

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