MORTIIS Seeks New Label Home

Blastwave webzine recently conducted an interview with Norway's legendary eccentric artist MORTIIS. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Blastwave: You're still on Earache, aren't you?

Mortiis: "Well, not technically...truth be told, that deal wasn't that great. Everything was a pain in the arse. There was a lot of fighting and it was hard work to make things happen. Right now, I'm between labels and making demos for new songs. There's some really cool stuff, that we'll play tonight. I'm too old to sign another crappy deal. I'm just gonna step back and see what happens. I've also been talking to one director about doing some soundtrack work. It's so busy at the moment. I've just moved house, and my wife and I bought it. I never knew it was so involved. We moved in abut six weeks ago, and I've only spent about four days there."

Blastwave: You've been on Radio 1 — are you selling out?!

Mortiis: "[Laughs] I don't think so! I don't even know what that means anymore. You take what you get really. Whatever comes in front of you — particularly airplay, which isn't easy to come across — you gotta take it. Dude, I'd love to sell two fucking millions copies of an album. I'd finally be able to survive! It's a struggle. To me, ‘selling out' doesn't exist. It doesn't matter where you hear the music. If I made music for the purpose of being played on Radio 1, I could understand it maybe."

Blastwave: Would you ever get involved in black metal again?

Mortiis: "No, I don't think it's inspiring. It's watered down. It has no attitude. I draw inspiration from the punk attitude. But black metal to me is people standing around trying to look grim. I don't find it exciting. I got into it early on because it was new and original. Now, it usually sounds all the same to me. I know that's like saying all black people look the same, which is horribly racist, but I don't mean it like that. I'm just not interested in it, so that's why it sounds the same. You see what I'm saying?"

Blastwave: Yeah, sure. Isn't some of your older stuff being re-released?

Mortiis: "Yeah, Earache owns three of the older albums that are being reissued."

Blastwave: How do you think your current fans will react to that?

Mortiis: "I don't think they'll care! If they're into the current stuff, then there's no reason while they'll like the older stuff. It's universes apart. If they like it, then great! Anything that came up before 'The Smell of Rain' was totally different, so even our hardcore fans might not be into it. They may not even know what I did before that. Musically, it may not be what they wanna hear."

Read the entire interview at www.blastwave.org.uk.