TRIPTYKON Mainman: 'I Don't Have Expectations And I Don't Have Any Ambitions'

Robert Gray of Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with current TRIPTYKON and former HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST singer, guitarist, and main songwriter Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom Gabriel Warrior). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What were the problems within CELTIC FROST? You mentioned "backstabbers and liars" as well as problems within, though why did you feel the need to leave CELTIC FROST?

Tom: I always looked at CELTIC FROST as being far more than a band. There was an attempt to go towards artistic paths that had not been used by others; we always tried to do something really special, something different. Maybe we didn't always accomplish that, but we tried very hard to be original and to do something different, and not just repeat what has been done a million times before. When it came to the human side, however, it was very sobering to discover that we were just as human as everybody else. All the idealism seemed to vanish when it came down to the human level, and as is often the case, the newest and most inexperienced member proved to be the most difficult member. When we had reformed CELTIC FROST in the early Noughties, we needed a new drummer, and we found a completely unknown drummer in Switzerland. He was a friend of CELTIC FROST's bassist Martin Ain, and Martin lobbied very hard to have him in the band. I had a very bad gut feeling right from the beginning because of some of the things that took place during the first few weeks of his membership in CELTIC FROST, but Martin would not have any of that. Martin insisted that this guy would be our drummer, and as it turned out, he toured the world on the strength of my music and on the strength of twenty-five years worth of previous work with CELTIC FROST, and yet he acted as if he was the reason why we could do this. He acted like he had created all of that, like he had done all of this work for the past quarter of a century. He was the newest and most inexperienced member, and yet he had the biggest ego trip of anybody in the band. Franco ran amok, and there's really no other way of describing it. It's very difficult to describe to begin with; I'm describing something here in a few sentences that took place over five and a half years, and that was a very complex mechanism. In short, his ego destroyed everything; it served to destroy the human relations in the band, it served to create intrigue, and it served to create lies. To me personally at least, that's not an environment in which I can be creative.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Are there plans in the works for a second TRIPTYKON full-length?

Tom: I've been working on the second album for months now. I basically started working on it once we left the studio after our debut album. I'm inundated with ideas; I have a million ideas, and I'm working on quite a number of lyrics and musical pieces. I have no idea what's gonna end up on the album. As I see it right now, the album's gonna be following mainly two avenues; one of them is a very epic kind of music, a very atmospheric, epic kind of direction, and the other avenue is very primitive, very heavy, almost HELLHAMMER-like short and primitive songs. It remains to be seen how well these two avenues will mix, and what kind of balance will be on the album.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: At what stage of development is TRIPTYKON's second album?

Tom: It's at a stage where everybody writes music at their individual homes. We have not practiced new songs as a band yet, but I'm actually quite far in determining the concepts and my contributions to the album. I have a very, very clear picture of what the album will sound like, and I have a very clear picture of my contributions to it. We know where we're gonna record it, and we know how we're gonna produce it and so on. We have not taken the songs to the rehearsal room though. I think that'll still take a few months. I'd like to have enough material to start rehearsals in earnest, so that will still probably take until next year.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Can we expect a new TRIPTYKON album to be released in late 2011?

Tom: I would like that, but realistically, we're probably gonna talk about releasing the album in early 2012 exactly two years after our debut album. We're gonna play a lot of concerts in 2011 and we are planning to go into the studio in the summer or the fall, so I don't think the album will be released before the end of 2011 unfortunately, even though that's basically what I would like. I don't want to spend endless time in the studio; I would like to work very quickly and have another album out very soon, but it's probably simply not gonna be possible. We're trying to play as many concerts as possible in 2011 as well.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What was the experience of writing "Only Death Is Real" like?

Tom: It was a very personal experience, a very important experience. It was an experience that was overdue in my life, to come to terms with certain parts of my youth, mostly the personal aspects of HELLHAMMER. Not the musical aspects, but mostly the personal aspects, and things that the fans were able to look at in a much more neutral manner but to me were very personal. It was high time that I addressed these issues for myself. The book process was a very personal, very philosophical affair for me. I'm very happy I created this book. Everybody actually who was in HELLHAMMER felt pretty much the same way for their own individual reasons; we all had our own issues with HELLHAMMER on one level or another, and the booked helped us all to re-evaluate and come to terms with our past. We took the book very seriously. I worked on the book for five years - I didn't want it to just be a thrown-together project for money. The book was much more personal to me, and that's why I worked on it for such a long time. I wanted it to be just right, and I'm very happy with the result. I'm very proud of it.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Looking back, what are your thoughts on HELLHAMMER?

Tom: At this point in my life, I can say I'm very happy I was a part of HELLHAMMER. I'm very proud. I'm able to separate the circumstances of my childhood and my youth; of course I'm closely connected to the existence of HELLHAMMER, but I'm able now to separate that and look at the music and the accomplishments of HELLHAMMER, and feel very proud of them. I know that certain parts of my youth are still very difficult for me to address, but I know that abstractly the music of HELLHAMMER is one thing and my personal life is another. I can look at HELLHAMMER in a much more relaxed manner now, and actually enjoy the music we created. As primitive as the music was and as limited as it was, it expresses a certain heaviness and darkness that actually existed in our lives. I'm very happy that we found each other at the time, and we created that music. It was, after all, a very special time, and I would have never gone the path in my life that I did without HELLHAMMER. Everything I did later in CELTIC FROST and now in TRIPTYKON is of course based on HELLHAMMER, and it's very good to have come to terms with all of that.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What do you feel the future will hold for TRIPTYKON?

Tom: TRIPTYKON, to me, is basically almost like a bonus track. I've been blessed with a lot of quite amazing occurrences in my life, having been a part of HELLHAMMER and having been a part of CELTIC FROST. I did not think that I would ever have the chance to be in yet another tremendous band, and yet that is exactly what has happened. I'm just humbled and I'm very grateful. I'm not a greedy person; I am very modest, so I'm looking forward to the future with modesty. I'm gonna try to record more albums. I'm gonna do my very best to make very high-quality albums, but my expectations? I don't have expectations, and I don't have any ambitions. I've done so much in my life already that has made me very happy, and has gone much further than anything I would have ever expected that it would be preposterous to have expectations now. TRIPTYKON should simply exist to create good music for as long as we all are alive, and that's basically what we're doing.

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.