SLAGMAUR - In-depth, in translation…

I’m a fickle creature, and the hierarchy of the ever-changing list of ‘bands I would stab someone to interview’ is so complicated it needs its own spreadsheet, but there’s one constant… Slagmaur are on top… I haven’t fulfilled this ambition, and knowing Slagmaur, I probably never will. Which perversely makes me even more fascinated. Fortunately for me and all the other addicts, Slagmaur did break their silence, gifting a frightening insight to RK of Norway Rock, who has most generously allowed for this interview to be passed on to readers across the globe - we owe him gratitude

A much discussed band that creates untraditional black metal. It is eerie, it is evil, it is dark and every sign of joy disappears to the rhythm of the music. In what is only his second ever interview, and, according to him, it will be a long, long time before he does another, General Gribbsphiiser talks about the ideas behind Slagmaur, about the music, the lyrics and about black metal. And he begins by condemning the ceaseless pandering on television to all those searching for their five minutes of fame.

 

The first thing that comes to mind is the name of the band, Slagmaur. I’ve learnt that amongst other the Scream forum there are those who ridicule the name and think that the concept is childish. What springs to my mind when I hear the name is that we are all ants (maur) but there are those who are bigger and stronger, namely battle ants (slag maur).

 

“There was a lot inside me that needed to find some form of expression and I thought that the name was important if we wanted an instant reaction. What I really wanted was a name, and an overall image that implied force, but that at the same time was ridiculously childish.  The first cover we ever did showed a giant destroying a church. It’s essentially General Gribbsphiiser like some fairy tale ogre, sitting there with a huge sledgehammer, crushing the church.

 

I considered “Kardemommeby” (from a story about the imaginary peaceful town of Kardemomme and the people there, the good, and the trouble makers, and considered to be one of the most important Norwegian children’s books) and the themes running through it, about a society where everything is more or less ‘perfect’. But I wanted something even more childish, and came up with Slagmaur.  Most band names conjure up a particular image, something that already exists. There is nothing called Slagmaur, and because of that the name is, just as is the music, mine alone and as well as being the trademark for what we do. When you hear someone say Slagmaur you think of dark music. Not ants. Of course, if anyone does happen to think of ants and assumes that the name is ridiculous, then when they hear the music, live or recorded, the contrast between the name and the actual sound is enough to make it disturbing.

 

The General tells me about his reluctance to give interviews. If every band thought like this, the scene would be different and perhaps smaller, but personally I really respect those bands that focus solely on the art itself. The prime examples on this are Deathspell Omega and Devil Doll. Nostalgia comes to mind, and the General tell us that before every band was Google-able there was more mystique to everything. An example is Emperor, where the band was distanced from the listener since there were only a handful of interviews at the time when the band was formed. The music was more important and Ihsahn was just the name of one of the artists. The whole thing was more exclusive, so to speak. And Slagmaur prefer it this way…

 

 

THE THREE PROTOCOLS OD FOSEN – you cursed swine

 

Before you began the Three Protocols of Fosen - “Svin”, “Skrekk” and “Domfeldt” you probably had a vision of what you wanted Slagmaur to be. And already from the first few tunes Slagmaur shows its identity. I’m thinking particularly of the rhythm, which is something we’ll focus more on later. But first things first, what was it that you wanted when you began Slagmaur? The General had a clear thought when it began the band, and refers to what he wanted to pick up from different bands and use this to make his own thing.

 

“Personally I don’t think Slagmaur is necessarily as original as people make it out to be, but that could be due to the fact that it comes from inside of me, and I’ve been living with it for as long as I can remember. I definitely don’t sit there thinking “now I have to create something original and special”, I simply create what comes naturally to me.

 

And I get really pissed off when somebody refers to Slagmaur as doom metal based only on the fact that it lacks blast beats. To me this is black metal and nothing else! And to create this, everyone involved has to give 110 %. I remember when we finished recording the track  “Oldermann Uhygge” and started to record “Norwegian Giant”. Nobody had any voice left, so all we managed to do was make a kind of howling noise, and we included it on the track, because it shows that we go the whole nine yards to bring out the emotions we strive for.”

 

How did people respond, those few who got access to the first music you recorded, having in mind that these were demos, if I’m not misinformed?

 

“ “Svin” (Swine) was something we made very quickly and I still think it’s quite good. “Skrekk” (Horror) was good, though a bit too short. “Domfeldt” (Convicted) doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I thought it should have had more of a doom-ish feel to it, if you see what I mean. The reason these came under the Protocols of Fosen trilogy was that we needed to keep something back that would allow us to broaden our horizon since Slagmaur was, and still is, based on my life.  I didn’t want us to be restricted in any way on what was to come, but at the same time, they had to fit into the Slagmaur universe. If we got the same sound on these three releases, as on the new “Von Rov Shelter”, I don’t think they would have been as different as they are.  I’ve always played disharmonic harp guitar, and also used the finger plucking method.  I guess not many people notice this since the music is as floating.

Basically, “Svin” and “Skrekk” mean a lot to me while “Domfeldt” was over and done with once I finished my time in jail. When the last track was completed in the studio, all I felt was emptiness.”

 

“The Art of Oldermann ” was supposed to close this chapter.  In between “Skrekk Lich…” and “Von Rov…” I did think about releasing an blank CD, with a text that dealt with frustration, limited to 1000 copies. The art I create is not restricted only to music.  The intention was that when people ordered the CD they would experience real frustration. But Snorre W. Ruch thought nobody would understand this, and it would just be nonsense. So, “Von Rov Shelter” is supposed to be the last chapter in the trilogy.          

THE DARKNESS – the therapy’s dark creation

 

What is it with black metal, its atmosphere and the ideology that made you choose to express your art via this genre? It says in “Skrekk Lich Kunstler” that “This is black metal”…

 

“Yes, and in “Von Rov Shelter” is says, “This is Devil Worshipping”. I was totally tired of the genre. I guess I couldn’t say so with “Svin”, but “Skrekk Lich…” was an ultimatum. People who know me say that they can hear that I’m about to go insane. I have thought of black metal more as horror in a way, turning things upside down and making the music dystrophic. It is only then that it becomes beautiful…”

 

Eh…, something beautiful about “Skrekk Lich Kunstler”?

 

“You know, when I played something to someone I would say that I thought this or that was beautiful. But they’d tell me that it was just creepy and quite repulsive… But to me it’s beautiful… And this is something I wanted to push even more with “Von Rov Shelter”. I studied classical music intensely for half a year because I wanted to find out how you could combine different musical theories. It’s not easy. You could do what Blut Aus Nord does, which is combine different disharmonies with the result that the music becomes ugly. But my opinion is that you must include something that holds the attention. Where people play Pippi Longstocking I want to play Pippi Wrongstocking, and turn something hideous into something stunning. These tunes are not easy to grasp straight away. If you listen to “De Mysteriis dom Sathanas” it is, essentially, quite a simple album where you can hum along to much of the music (The General hums a bit). I want this in Slagmaur as well, but it has to be very dark, filled with horror. And that goes for the whole concept, from the cover to the final melody.

 

Black Metal, to me, deals with disharmony, in the same way as Satanism and turning things upside down. There is an upcoming book that explains it.

 

Mayhem’s “Ordo Ad Chao” was written from a harmonic starting point. But Blasphemer told me he turned the music upside down and made everything disharmonic, yet there are structures and harmonies therein. My mood sinks every time I listen to the album, and the same goes for Slagmaur’s music. The General tells that his mood improves even more when he is in the good mood while listening to Slagmaur, and when he’s in bad frame of mind Slagmaur’s music makes things even worse. His theory is that he knows the music and all the aspects connected to that, while the listeners only know the music itself. General Gribbsphiiser wonders if I get a better impression of the music now that I’ve met him, but I just say that everything turns worse… We chuckles a bit. Being on the subject of chuckling, I wonder what he may find positive about black metal? He hesitates…

 

“Eh… Black metal saved my life! If I didn’t have the music and everything connected to it, something would have gone very wrong a long time ago. I was really bad at times. The music is a therapy for me, and I get paid for creating the music and therefore I look upon myself as an artist. And extreme metal has saved the lives of many people. Look at the rap-scene. There are way more murders and violence connected to the genre… When I was in prison, there were those who dragged their feet just to pretend that they had been shot. They were wearing those baggy trousers. You know, everything is so cool… I’m not denying that there have been murders connected to black metal, but a lot of people have found themselves within the music and also in the creative processes. I watch documentaries about religion, astronomy and whatnot that can be related to black metal. There are many doors that open up…”

 

How do the listeners view the Norwegian lyrics? As it is now, not everybody in the world understands Norwegian…

 

“The problem is that the lyrics are difficult to translate into other language, or English in this case, and ours in particular are full of hidden meanings and imagery. Both our manager, who is English, a trained translator, and has a lot of experience editing lyrics for bands that don’t have English as their first language, and Carpathian Forest’s bass player Vrangsinn, who is fluent in both English and Norwegian, couldn’t come up with something that we could all agree on. If it’s done, it has to be in such a way that the whole concept and feel comes through, it’s not enough to translate literally, and so far we are all three in agreement that Slagmaur “aint do-able”. But we do include photos that illustrate each of the lyrics on “Von Rov Shelter”.

 

A genre that earlier glorified death and destruction, discomfort and provocation, has slowly turned into the arms of conformity’s indifferent embrace where music is more or less all that is left. What does black metal need to become black metal again?

 

“At its inception Black Metal had a purpose, a war to fight if that’s the way you want to look at it - the burning of churches and so on.  People gave themselves up to something that went beyond the music itself. However, Black Metal is now another established genre, even commercial if you will. Hypocrisy is just as prevalent in Black Metal, as it ever was in Christianity. I'd say that the war that the adherents of Black Metal must fight is a war within themselves. You can burn as many churches as you possibly can, but ultimately the battle is with yourself.

 

At the end of the day, why should you care about how others waste their lives?  You can't save the whole world, because in the big picture you're nothing. But to other individuals you can be the whole world. And you can be that to yourself as well. Be realistic and do something for those you can affect, those that you hold dear and that you care about. There aren't many in the Black Metal genre who use the phrase "I love..." in their lyrics, but I look upon myself as someone who enjoys life to the full. But I also worship death and the Devil, defined as darkness.

 

Of course, things don’t always go according to plan. I had one disturbing experience, and feeling frustrated I tried to dredge up the deepest darkness with some music I was writing..., and ended up writing melodic riffs in the vein of In Flames. I called a good friend of mine and complained that I was really depressed, but couldn’t write music the way I wanted it to be. He said that I just needed something good in my life. As sure as I'm standing here, he was right and I understood that when I want to express what I feel with my music it’s all about balance. When life is a good as it gets, that's when I manage to bring forth the deepest darkness..."

 

We talk about balance and that depression doesn't not lead to our creativity. The General mentions the picture from the booklet where a character is brushing her teeth whilst a dark entity is crawling over her back. He adds that those who only focus on life as a positive thing  will rot from the inside...

 

"I think this is why many people listen to pop music. A lot of people live the A-4 lifestyle (having 9-5 jobs, 2.4 children, dog and a weekend cabin by the sea while driving the average car). They unconsciously follow society's rules and dogmas. But deep within they're unhappy and that's why they reach for pop music, which is sort of positive, relatively speaking."

 

 

SKREKK LICH KUNSTLER - the beating of the heart, the art of horror

 

What did "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" actually do to you? General Gribbsphiiser begins by talking about horror movies.

 

"When you watch a horror movie you can obviously feel terror. But you know that this is darkness that you can just walk away from, or that comes to an end once the movie has reached its conclusion.   If you dwell for any length of time within the darkness in the album, you will find it harder to return from the grave.

 

On "Von Rov Shelter" I was in control of the process. "Skrekk Lich...” though, was actually written in five hours during one night, and straight away I sent a message to the drummer to let him know the album was done. I was 100 % sure that it was really good, and it probably was quite OK. But nine months went by before we could finally close off the album. I have everything ready in my head when I work with the music and the art. Our designer, Robert Høyem, sees things in the same way that I do, which is why he manages to turn our visions into reality. He designed the cover quite early on in the process and in that sense gave the album its face. I dreamt and thought a lot about the cover.

 

When you work so intensely with the music, the artwork and the overall concept, you can't fight against the power that it exerts over you. However, you need to have some breaks, and I failed to do that with "Skrekk Lich Kunstler". The album is complex in every sense, and made me physically ill; I collapsed a few times, long treks in the middle of the night and overnight stays at the ER. "Skrekk Lich..." is the exception when it comes to the balance we spoke about earlier. During that period I was deep, deep down in the bowels of the earth."

 

He tells that the album means very much to him and I cannot avoid to question how it is to listen to the album, having the process and the depression in mind. He says that it actually feels good.

 

"It's as if there were a lot of little devils trying to stab you with knives, but you bind them and use loads of tape on them and throw them the hell out of there and into the world. It’s cathartic, but at the time it felt like they wouldn't leave me; I lost everything in my life but I'm happy now when I look back at the process in retrospect. But now that all these devils are spread around the globe they don’t bother me anymore – probably attached themselves to someone else by now!"

 

The rhytmathic approach in the music is the crazy happiness of monotony. What is it that made the beating of the heart the pulse in Slagmaur's music? General Gribbsphiiser confirms that there are no blastbeats in his music.

 

"Our music is quite advanced. My experience tells me that if you want to convey the sense of horror in the music, you can't speed it up. You know, when we talk about love in music, the rhythms are often faster and you have the sensation of butterflies. I also think that the drums take away a lot of the sound picture if you use blast beats. When we slow things down there is room for much more in the music, and I include a lot of information in Slagmaur’s songs."

 

The General adds that the beats in Slagmaur reminds of the heart rhythm. And since there is so much going on in the music on conscious and subconscious levels, it's important that there is something that people can recognize. I think that the slow pounding really adds to the negative aura of the Slagmaur universe. To me "Die Eldres Klage" is a tour-de-abyss, where desperation is the only thing left, there is no hope at all. There exists music that makes me smile in exactly because of its qualities. "Die Eldres Klage" is also extremely good, but there's nothing therein that makes me smile a single second...

 

"Die Eldres Klage" deals with, among other things, spirits and the paranormal. When I walk on one of the staircases where I live I feel ill. There is something there that you can’t define. I have actually seen my deceased grandfather on those stairs, and he’s playing the fiddle. He was a good musician and wrote symphonies. Anyway, I have seen him there, and that experience affected this song.  I read that in ancient times they used to sing through skulls to make use of the energy that is there. So, we used this method ourselves. I don't know if it really works, but I like to believe that it has a certain effect. It was interesting to hear that you thought this track stands out on "Skrekk Lich Kunstler". We actually recorded the vocals on the stairs where I see my grandfather."

 

 

LYRICS - to hell with them all

 

The lyric to "Die Eldres Klage" begins quite nicely. But then it spiral downwards... "...det er nå jeg skal betale for gleden i livet..." (roughly translate: it is now I'm going to pay for the joy in life) and "...hvorfor kommer ingen som ser til meg..." (roughly translated: why doesn't anyone come to visit me).

 

"The song deals with an old woman who is in a lot of pain. She's old and nobody comes to visit her. She's in pain and wants to commit suicide, but she doesn't have any strength left to do it. The end of the track you find out that she is actually dead and has been for many years.

 

There are many people who claim that negative energy is present when people turn into ghosts. My neighbours call my house the "dark castle". It is difficult to live here together with someone over time because there is a thick layer of dark and negative energy. I can’t explain what really happens, but in the song I tried to capture the atmosphere I sense when I walk on those stairs. When you hear the song, you can hear a voice that goes back and forth. That's me trying to imitate an old woman. It is quite low in the first verse before we turn up the volume a bit in the second. The hate, the pain that she feels, that is something we will all feel since we're all going to grow old and eventually die.

 

I think it worked. I have talked to Åtselgribb about it and we agree that we get exhausted from listening to this album. It drains us, in the same way I feel drained after I have walked on those stairs. I feel I nailed it with this track."

 

He continues by talking about the lyrics "Eik som Klør" and "SIDS"...

 

" "Eik Som Klør" deals with being buried alive. This is the same theme that we dealt with in "SIDS" on "Domfeldt", and essentially we are exploring those people who die when they're 18 and get buried when they’re 74. In order to explain the point we were making, we had to use SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) with the image of the General burying children that were still alive.  The way society is constructed means that that you are pretty much thrown into kindergarten and stay in an institution until you're 18 and even much longer for many people. You end up loosing your soul. We thought that it would not have worked if we used the image of a child who was dead; I thought it would end up being meaningless if we showed. So, we ended up using SIDS, to show those who want to dig deeper that it is important to live. You have to live here and now, and not just live this A-4 life before you suddenly die without really having lived at all."

 

When I ask about the pronunciation to "Von Rov Shelter", the General says that it is said exactly how it is spelled. He explains that Von means one, Rov means raw in connection with carnivores and Shelter deals with hiding places.

 

"What we initially had in mind was that we were going to use lyrics written by an inmate on death row in the USA. Those of us who live in Fosen in Norway, are kind of isolated as well. Fosen itself means hiding place. We try to combine the fact that this man is on death row and his thoughts about music with the kind of isolation that we often experience in Fosen. Unfortunately this turned out to be very hard to do, and too much time was lost sending letters back and forth. Everything is double checked and then checked again, and then frequently gets “lost” in the prison system. So, in the end I had to do most of the lyrics myself on the new album.  The lyric I use, that was written by him, displayed a very special honesty on his part. 

 

The General asks me if I know the story of Thomas B. Whitaker, but I cannot remember it. He explains that Thomas arranged to have his family killed, and that only his father survived.

 

"The difference between him and us is that we all know that we’re going to die, but Thomas knows exactly when and how. And what I tried to capture were his thoughts now. I don't care what he's done or not done. His father forgave him and worked for his reprieve. The prisoners are treated like cattle; they're moved from their cells more than once a month to create tension and unease. Heh, when somebody is sentenced to death in Iran, they execute faster than a shark attacks. But in the USA inmates can be on death row for many years, and they get to know themselves in a special way. This is why the lyric is connected to the photo where the woman looks into the mirror. You can lie to the mirror, but can you hold back the beast you really are?

 

"Von Rov Shelter" means the lair of the beast, and then we're back to human kind and the balance between good and evil."

 

How do you work to find the right words, the right sentences and eventually the right combination to make a Slagmaur lyrics just that, namely a Slagmaur lyric?

 

"A lot of the work deals with the tone colours of the words and the sentences. An example is the track "Skamdem" fra "Domfeldt", and the line "...til helvete med dem..." (“to Hell with them”), and I realized that the use of swear words is appropriate to create the right feeling. We have lines such as "...knulle et lik..." (“ fuck a corpse”) and the said "...til helvete...", and this affects the listener in a more aggressive way.  We use words that sound right and that are connected to the music. And we also use words in different ways, whilst still keeping the meaning intact. "Gåsehud" ("Goosebumps"), for instance turns into "hud i hull og hår som står" (roughly translated: becomes "skin in holes and hair that stands). This means that the listener has to think for himself. At the same time it becomes more obscure and at time even surrealistic in my opinion."

 

How does he combine the music and the lyrics? The General writes music all the time, something that is understandable having the number of releases in mind the last three years...

 

"I write the lyrics when I have something I want say, and the song titles come to mind during the process, and often before the songs are finished. Everything has to fit the concept, and since it didn't work out the way we had hoped with Thomas on death row, I more or less wrote everything myself. I had the pictures ready in my head, even though we had to change our stance and what connected to what during the process.

 

The first that came to mind was "The Devil And The Wolf" and I knew how part two should sound before we recorded it. You know, the lyric is Norwegian to begin with, before it turns into English in the second part. The reason for this is that the closing section on this track is something I want people to understand all over the globe. I guess you only really need those lines when you see the picture that goes with the song. If we had tried to translate the entire lyrics into English, I think the meaning would have been lost. You know, the English language has probably five words compared to the one Norwegian word, and it’s also hard to translate metaphors into English."

 

I tell him that the Norwegian review I've written had its starting point in just this track, and especially the part we're talking about. Almost speaking of fairytales, the General says that the cover for the next album is in fact ready for making and the theme is from a well-known and dear children's tale. To nobody's big surprise, we're talking the Wolf and sweet Little Red Riding Hood, of course done in a Slagmaur-ian universe. Just like the lyrics...

 

"The lyrics deal a lot with the devil inside of us and the A-4 (average Joe) humans who live their lives without experiencing true happiness. Wake up, begin to live instead of dying when you're 18 and being buried when you're 74, as I said before. Living here and now, that's the deal. This was also what we talked about with Thomas on death row. He sits there missing the things he never appreciated when he had them. Those things he thought he'd miss he doesn't think of, while the daily, seemingly insignificant things, he misses a lot. Without comparison, but I heard of someone who was on the Robinson-expedition series who said they missed milk chocolate, something they never did in the daily life since they could buy it whenever they wanted to."

 

What is with the evil aspect that attracts you?

 

"It is actually not so much about evil, but about darkness. Everybody enjoys being frightened from time to time and we also feel attracted by whatever we cannot really explain, be it UFOs, situations or... The feeling of discomfort is something I like a lot. Even though my music is quite Norwegian, so to speak, it is also very disharmonic and eerie. And as said, those who think they are happy listen to pop music, while those of us who genuinely are happy and have a good life, search for the dark side of the music because we need the balance this creates for us."

 

 

VON ROV SHELTER - an ending to harmony

  

While we sit here and talk, while the sun is shining and all, General Gribbsphiiser and I agree that we really do not like the sound of sun and summer. He says that he is an autumn - and spring type of human, and I don't know what I am, except that I don't like the sun that much. He thinks that "Von Rov Shelter" should be released during the autumn and adds that "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" was released in November 2007. Well, "Von Rov..." was supposed to be in the streets in May 2009, but self-fulfilling prophecies, how can we live without them... The date is now 28th of September!

 

The music on "Von Rov Shelter" is even more complex than the former full-length, and it demands a lot of you. The album needs a lot of time, something that is interesting in a society where everything is about instant gratification and everybody goes for the more-more-more kind of life, preferably as cheap as possible and without any sign of effort to get anything. Being a bit out of line, I wonder if "Von Rov..." is an antithesis to society the way we know it? The General speaks of the production again.

 

"The production is extremely conscious. It is anything but superfluous, if you know what I mean. There's a lot of information, and at the same time the music is hypnotizing. So, it's not easy to hear everything at once... On "The Devil And The Life" there is a choir after the first verse, which is quite upfront actually. But at the same time it's a bit anonymous, which means that on a first listen the brain doesn't perceive what's going on."

 

Will those who have like easy and crystal clear black metal be able to relate to this... The General explains.

 

"A lot of this has to do with the first melody that people manage to relate to, and the music must be catchy enough so that the listener wants to listen to it again. There are some elements that are in the open and are impossible to avoid. The best example is the symphonic section in "Klokker Tramp". That hits the nail on the head.

 

When we have someone like you, who spends a lot of time on the album(s), it is possible to discover most of the information in the music. But as I wrote on the cover of "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" if someone slates the music, then he is a poser! The reason for writing this is that I wanted people to feel obliged to listen to the music, since nobody wants to be a poser (laughs). And when you end up liking the album, you can feel a kind of victory! To overcome your first impression of Mayhem's "Ordo Ad Chao" and even end up liking the album, that's a victory in itself."

 

Talking about good time, I know albums that have got mediocre score due to publishing deadlines, and when I talk to the reviewer half a year later the score would be five or six out of six. This is just the way it is, and maybe "Von Rov Shelter" will suffer from this... Anyways, when it comes to details and the contents in the music, General Gribbsphiiser pertinent remarks:

 

"33 minutes with Slagmaur contains more music than fifty Darkthrone albums.

Even if the album has received praise already, 95 % of those have mentioned the short playing time, thinking that it is too short. Man, it's better to leave people wanting more, rather than giving them too much insubstantial stuff. "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" couldn't have been a single minute longer. We have even cut out music that didn't fit 100%. A song that contained melody lines from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was removed from "Von Rov Shelter", both due to the total playing time but also because things can be too much when we work with various classical themes."

 

Prior to meeting the General I listened to "Von Rov Shelter" one last time, and after having heard the album ca. 50 times the two month ahead of our conversation, there were still new elements I heard on the final track "Ramaskrik". I guess those who hate the album often are those who listen to it one or two times. All they hear is the monotonous rhythm. Once again the General talks about the production and explains that he wanted to take things one step further.

 

"I start with one melody line whose purpose is to hook the listener's attention right away. And when you reach the point of familiarisation, the idea is that you should start to explore all the other aspects that lie behind the wall of sound."

 

When General Gribbsphiiser pukes, spits and hisses "...Let's end this harmonic piece of shit...", I become equally surprised every time. It's ruthless...

 

"A bit funny perhaps, but my conscience is somewhat bad since the album is so fucking dark, even though I become happy when I listen to it. That line has some kind of The Shining-atmosphere, and is different compared to the rest of the album. I puke, and then I spit this line out to show that we're back on track again, before the final part comes in. I had no second thoughts about doing it this way."

 

The musician's experience of his own music is often different than the listener's, and the artists are often done with the albums when we, the listeners, start the process of getting to know it. But the General is far from done with "Von Rov Shelter".

 

"I briefly started to get tired of "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" while "Von Rov..." still haunts my mind. There is no music that gives me goose bumps in the way my own does. And I think people experience the music in different ways, something that makes sense if you bear in mind complex mixing process. Everybody gets the dark emotions, but after that there are numerous and varied directions that people take."

 

 

COVER - Dance for me satan

 

Now, why did the cover of "Von Rov Shelter" end up as it did?

 

"Hmm, I can't really answer that..., I guess I don't really know yet. I think the teacher-photo is one of the coolest pictures that we did, but nobody is ready for that yet. I think it's totally great! I notice that people don't like it, but I don't really understand the controversy in connection with that photo. This goes for what we do in general – people talk about the controversial aspects, no matter what we do, but I genuinely don't get it. I don't always know why things turn out as they do..., something just speaks to me."

 

I tell him that what I have read on the new cover, it seems like people actually like it. The General comments  dryly that there's a first time for everything.

 

"When the cover of "Skrekk Lich Kunstler" was shown to the public, a lot of people commented that it was one of the worst covers they've ever seen, but if Ulver had come up with something similar I'm sure they would have been praised for it. I think the cover Robert Høyem has composed is very good, and he captured exactly what I had in mine."

 

I think there's a certain Devil Doll feeling to that cover. The General doesn't see that and after some discussion he laughingly ends the discussion by pretending that the cover of "Eliogabalus" doesn't exist. What about controversy in connection with the cover of "Von Rov Shelter"?

 

"I don't think there is anything controversial in it, and the same symbolism (Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper) has been used in many different connections previously. I have become a bit tired of the corpse paint aspect of Slagmaur, and prefer to use the gods and plague masks that you can see on the cover. We have also begun to think about performing live, and the visual aspects are part of that thought.

 

There is a different kind of symbolism connected to the various masks, be it the plague or the gods, the Reptilian age and so on... Interestingly, back in the 13th century doctors believed that they would avoid the Black Death if the wore such masks. Another thing is that we don't want to show our faces when we eventually play live. Perhaps we will end up with the three of us wearing such masks, while the others are demons?

 

I was a bit inspired by the movie "The Exorcism Of Emily Rose" when I got the idea of what the demons should look like. You can actually hear a sample on the final track, and that's the woman in the movie who says how many demons she has inside herself. You have the whole wild bunch on the cover; Legion, Judas, Nergal, Lucifer... The only thing that is different is that we have included Lilith. Incidentally if you look at the colour of our clothes in the “Final Supper” scene and then the Google logo, you can see that the colours are in the same order. There is something genuine about that logo, and many people come up with conspiracy theories when it comes to Google...

 

Getting back to our cover, I can't really understand what is so fantastic about the original Da Vinci painting. But we have learned a lot from that painting, about composition, shading and the colours. The original has a strange composition, where Jesus' hand almost covers the depth of the table. So, when we worked on our version we chose to alter this and do it more correctly. The table had to be at a 30-degree angle, and we had to secure everything on it using double-sided tape. We had to sit and stand in unnatural positions to make it look right."

 

The General has previously told me that the fruit on the cover is also a melody that is on the album and that we can try to find it ourselves, even though it may be difficult. When it comes to the theme of the album, it closes by "...så Dans for meg satan". General Gribbsphiiser tells me that he anti-Christ, or Satan if you will, is described in the previous album in the same way as in Danichen's books, namely that the gods are astronauts. I wonder, isn't it strange how so many people believe in God, Jesus, Satan and all their relatives?

 

"I don't think so. They are unhappy, therefore they need something that gives their life some sort of meaning. This used to annoy me a lot, but... You have the false sense of security about assuring yourself a place in Heaven. Yes, first yourself and then perhaps somebody else. As I said before, I don't see the point in wasting energy on this anymore. However, I am using some on black metal bands that write anti-Christian lyrics but who wrap their message in music that never reaches those who actually are Christians. Aside from the musical aspect, it's kind of wasted energy. The battle is within ourselves. We are the ones that must grow, and let the others waste their lives trying to whatever they are search for."

 

I agree, and I have pondered a bit on this topic and how those who began the black metal saga chose to let their hair grow, to not dress up like John Doe, didn't enter the politics and got some power. Instead they burnt a few churches, something that had the opposite effect. It created fear, yes, but when fear grows people tend to get closer together, such as the Christians did.

 

"Yes, and we explore this in real life in the next photos we'll shoot for Slagmaur during next  year's Norwegian Independence Day (17.05.10), with 2000 people out here in Fosen."

 

How has the response to your creations actually been?

 

"I have already said a bit about this, but there are those who write to me personally and send me stuff they have created themselves. Not everything has a direct connection to "Skrekk Lich Kunstler", but it's interesting to see how colours are used when somebody paints while being inspired by the music. There are mostly red and black, and dark colours. I know some who do not like black metal at all, but who have found something in Slagmaur. I think that's great.

 

Everybody has dark emotions, and Slagmaur represents this. The music has a sombre feeling to it, a feeling of anguish, and that's something people recognize when they listen to our music because it connects with something in their own lives. But if you really want to understand all this, it comes down to how you perceive and understand the world of General Gribbsphiiser's Slagmaur. You have enough hints in the booklets, and either you get it, or it just serves as a small insight into a Hell you want to avoid like the plague, yet it is something that attracts you nevertheless. You know, people love nothing more than the sicker side of thinks, take for example the recent Fritzl case in Austria. People love to read and hear about these things...

A few centuries ago, in Norway as well, people used to gather to see mass-executions. It was the equivalent to our World Championships on those days... It was mystical, it was crazy, it was fucking brutal and at the same time it was fascinating in a sick way. So, when all comes down to it, humans are basically perverts!"

 

The General refers to www.grish.com, which shows people being executed. The amount of hits were insane. When they found out who was watching these, it was all kinds of people. They need some sort of excitement in their lives, and there are few, if any, taboos left. General Gribbsphiiser states that due to people's superfluous lives many searches for more extreme situations in order to feel anything at all. Paedophilia is still a taboo, but for how long?

 

"Things just get worse and worse. Humanity shows its true nature with "...Rov...". We are carnivores and just live on the outside of ourselves, that is something Slagmaur manages to reveal, even though the covers, the lyrics, booklet and the music leave much room for interpretations. But, as long as something is art, and that is the art itself... It affects you; you get something out of what you're listening to. If you become glad or sad, doesn't matter.

I have noticed that those who begin to like Slagmaur easily become super fans, or they don't understand anything at all. I appreciate that, because I don't want any mediocre feedback."

 

What about the next album? General Gribbsphiiser gives me the title of the album but we feel it's too early to make it public, since "Von Rov Shelter" is not even released...

 

"On the upcoming album we will broaden our horizon a bit. We have kept to the area around Fosen, but there will be English lyrics, something I didn't think would ever happen. Without giving too much away, the songs and especially the choruses will be even catchier. Don't worry though, it will remain very dark and eerie and everything I do will bear my signature."

  

 

Thanks again to RK, and to Patricia Thomas for the edit.