IMMORTAL's DEMONAZ Discusses Upcoming Album

Luxi Lahtinen of Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an interview with IMMORTAL guitarist Demonaz. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal-Rules.com: IMMORTAL are working with songs for a new studio album right now. What's the latest update from you as far as that goes?

Demonaz: Well, me and Abbath are working with the new songs for our new album, and we are totally in spirit at the time and we've been in long time actually. Anyway, we didn't want to rush things and that is how we have always been working. We never put ourselves up to any deadlines because it would destroy us. And that's also why we took a break because everything was so heavily tied to deadlines and everybody wanted different types of things from us. But we don't want to deliver things when everyone asks us to do so; we want to deliver things in a natural way. So, we never wanted to be run over by record companies or people that demanded things from us all the time because we want to deliver things whenever we think we are ready for it, in a natural way, y'know. We were never in for money, or for certain commitments - I mean, fulfill commitments for everyone else than for us only. It's like we started out at early age listening to NAZARETH and bands like that, and it was like for Abbath when he was a little kid, y'know. Everybody wants to be a fireman or policeman, but Abbath wanted to be Gene Simmons. And for me, it was the same. It's a natural force to do this and we cannot do anything else. We don't want to make this a job for us because we never thought about having this just for living, or just make a plenty of money for ourselves — or just going on tours and destroy the band with all kinds of deadlines, or destroy the band with what everyone demands from you because it destroys our spirit. Because the spirit and the force we have and what we do, is what means most to us.

Metal-Rules.com: Can you tell how many songs you already have ready for your next album?

Demonaz: I have about 7-8 songs. I also have a concept ready for our next album lyrically and we are working with putting the pieces together right now. We have a lot of riffs, a lot of arrangements and we are just putting them all together right now. I think it's hard for us to work with the music in the summer time. So, it's not so natural to do that and when we go back home after all these dates — and the coldness will come back, y'know, we will be working class with it and basically use the time to finish the songs and be ready to enter the studio with a fucking great album. That's what we want.

Metal-Rules.com: So, you still haven't planned yet when IMMORTAL might enter at earliest a studio to record your next album?

Demonaz: No, no pressures for us regarding the ideal studio time. I don't think pressure will do any good for us.

Metal-Rules.com: You are just taking your time and whenever you feel you would have the songs ready for the album, and whenever you feel like going into the studio, that's the way how you work for this album?

Demonaz: That's the way we have always worked, I think. There's always to it; there's no receipt to it cold for making like we are gonna do like 10 songs and we are gonna be in the studio by February — or whatever! We need the time to fulfil and put it out without having any extra weight loaded on our shoulders, y'know. It's just how we work.

Metal-Rules.com: How would you say these new IMMORTAL songs can be compared to the stuff that IMMORTAL did on "Sons Of Northern Darkness" that was a huge album from the band in many different ways?

Demonaz: I think all our albums we did, mainly naturally from me and Abbath's side - and the same with this one. With all the old IMMORTAL albums, we got kind of a wide style musically, and a lot of these albums are still different. This new album of ours, will be different, too. However, as soon as people get a chance to hear it, they still know it sounds like IMMORTAL. It'll have the identity of "tsintsou" what we did before. But we'll try to improve all the time. We don't think that we are gonna have like… Or well, let me say that it's gonna be our darkest album so far, I think. We have our darkest period spiritually.

Metal-Rules.com: I suppose all those elements that made your previous album, "Sons Of Northern Darkness", so great — basically, I mean some aggressive and strong parts combined with some dark and epic atmospheres, is what you have been looking for in your new stuff as well. Or, am I completely mistaken?

Demonaz: You already answered to your question what I was actually going to say to you, ha-ha!!

Metal-Rules.com: Eh, I just never knew I am THAT good, ha!

Demonaz: You are brilliant! I mean, you are right. Our new stuff is going to be dark and atmospheric. We are gonna continue doing that because that is what we are good at — and that's what we want to do. We never think like we are gonna like this and this and that… All this stuff comes from me and Abbath naturally. Abbath makes most of the riffs, the song arrangements we do together and I'm more involved now than I've been before. We are preparing to make an album that will reflect all our past albums we have done, in one way or the other. It will have parts from every other albums, I think. It will have fast stuff like "One by One"; it will have slower and epic things in some of the songs. Some of the songs will remind of the stuff what we did on our "Damned In Black" or "At The Heart Of Winter" albums. And lyrically I will go a really long way back in times to pick up the elements where we left off "Battles In The North" and "Pure Holocaust". I really go through everything just because I could be inspired by myself, you know. And it's important to look inside yourself and find out what it is that you don't want to be yourself in this one. Anyway, our next album will surely be dark by its atmosphere. We don't think any commercial way whether our new would meet commercial standards. It's easier to find a production for this forthcoming album when the songs have been written, and we are overall ready. So, we'll see what this album will eventually be. It's gonna be a really exciting because me and Abbath have got the old spirit back that we used to have back in the day. We are really having good time together again. We are really inspired, and we basically want to take the time to do this album properly.

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.