SATYRICON's FROST Compares Frontman SATYR To BEETHOVEN, Calls Him 'A Genius Composer'

Metal Portal recently conducted an interview with drummer Frost (real name: Kjetil Vidar Haraldstad) of Norwegian black metallers SATYRICON. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Metal Portal: First of all I'd like to ask about your relationships with Satyr. You're partners in crime since the very beginning of SATYRICON. I'm sure that during all those you've gone thorugh different times. How would you describe the evolution of your relationships as a musicians?

Frost: I think that the most important thing to point out regarding my relationships with Satyr as SATYRICON functions today is that I really see Satyr as a genius composer. The way he writes songs now is that he composes the whole songs basically. He doesn't just put riffs together and check if they fit together or sound OK together. There's a bigger plan to it. There's a more like building up the energy and releasing it. Since he thinks in totalities like classical composers did. I think that this may be seen in some way in a context of classical composers like Beethoven. We can't really imagine that anybody else is coming in there just to write a little piece of music. It's the same like if Bethoven would let someone write a piece of his symphonies. You know, there's a plan from beginning to end, how it rises and folds. Even if he writes songs that sound very traditional and simply structured, this plan regards how it should start and end and how the energy of verses and choruses should be put in all that. This means that I have to let Satyr have the full control of the process. My task here is to help him fulfill these ideas that he has. That's everything to do with my relationship with him. I am there to provide the rhythmic work for his compositions. In the earlier days, I think that perhaps we have had something like more loose structure. I came up with drum part that I've just felt sounded good to that particular theme and I often tended to choose something more intricate or some strange solutions that sounded cool in my head and I didn't think so much about the totality, rather if it fits well in the song or provides a good flow. These things really didn't come to consideration so Satyr and I, we used to work more freely and follow our own heads. But that has changed for this more classical approach. Satyr has grown to that as a composer and he understands very well where he's going.

Metal Portal: But does he listen to your opinions?. It may happen that you have different point of views, different ideas. Whose vision takes over in the end?

Frost: Of course he does. I just had different modus operandi to begin with. Now I have much more discipline and that's how it should be. Earlier, perhaps I didn't realize my own role in the band and I followed basically my instinct. I think that what you should remember as a drummer is that drums can easily take very much space musically and if you want a very guitar-driven thing or you want something just has to build up effect. It's clever to have drums to be very plain. So they [aren't the] focus [of] too much [of] your attention. Earlier perhaps we didn't have this clear idea about how vocals should be perfectly fitted in the music. But now I try to keep drums down little when the guitar or vocals demand to be more focused and I try make the build up to the release of enegry. There's much more classical musical thought behind everything. It doesn't mean that I don't have any space. Sometimes I'm given pretty free hand. Other times Satyr tells me: You should play like this or that or he has already programmed some drum structures, because he has a very clear idea about how the drums should sound like. He was working little with a Snorre Ruch (THORNS) so they did program some drum tracks for me and Satyr said that he wants something like this, but he added: If you want to add some fills or extra parts you can do it. But remember this must still sound like it is verse leading to the chorus for example. These days Satyr and I have the relationship that is based much more on the strict musical principles.

Metal Portal: And what about the evolution of your relationship as a friends?

Frost: I think that we have a respect for each other and each other's work. And thanks to that, the band has been always growing during the years. We have some similar interests. Like, for example, we're both wine lovers. But there are also some differences. Satyr is a different kind of being. During all those years, we really are getting closer, but also we have grown in bit different directions. We have never been like best mates. But it could be. For couple of times we have met just for an evening to listen to some good music or drink some good wine, and we're like best buddies then. But as soon as I leave the door, we don't do it. We have an understanding of each other. And I think that it's very comfortable way. It could be difficult to be like a best buddies all the time. When we entered such a level of professionalism. Having this kind of relationship when it's always possible to act as friends, whenever it feels right and also to act just as a colleagues when we work together.

Read the entire interview from Metal Portal.

Fan-filmed video footage of SATYRICON's November 27, 2008 concert at Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp, Belgium can be viewed below (clip uploaded by "MikelMovies").

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