Interview с Blood Axis : DARKSIDE.ru

–

I always start the interview with the question about the very first experience in music. What is the 1st thing you remember?
– That's a good question. The very first music… Well, my father is a big listener of classical music, gloomy and dark… Burgmüller and Wagner, things like that. He was always playing his LPs, he had thousands of LPs. So I remember listening to heavy German classical music.
– What about pop music?
– Probably, like most people, it was the one by The Beatles. My parents only had classical records, and some folk records, and The Beatles.
– When and how did you turn to metal?
– I don't know that I've ever turned to metal. I listened to a lot of more aggressive music like early punk rock stuff when I was a teenager, 15-16 years old, and got into punk rock, an

d hardcore punk even earlier when I was around 13 years old. I saw live those bands playing hardcore punk. And than there was a kind of a shift with a lot of the punk bands, they got more metal in sound. They were like a bridge between the punk and the metal scene. Venom was like that; I heard their first single when it came out. I listened to a lot of bands like that, and then I got more into industrial and electronic music. So when Blood Axis started it was a combination of all these different things. It was a specific style, it wasn't heavy metal necessarily, or it wasn't industrial necessarily, or whatever, but elements of all those.
– What attracted you in this music?
– Well, I was young teenager, rebelling many things and dissatisfied with a lot of things, and this music represented that ideas. T

hey were against the grain and pressing on everything.
– You even wrote a book about Norwegian black metal scene (Lords of Chaos). Do you have any plans or ambitions to write something about industrial or neofolk?
– It's possible. I wrote that and I used to write for music magazines in America for quite a number of years, I did a lot of interviews with different musicians and bands. I tended go to the people who were really on the edge and that might be musicians but also they were known for something else. For example, I've written some things about Bobby Beausoleil. He's an amazing musician, he's in prison now, because he was on the edge of the Manson' people in the end of the 60s, but he also was doing music on his own. He did a soundtrack for this scary movie «Lucifer Rising». He recorded it in pri

son – incredible, heavy psychedelic piece. I interviewed him a lot and wrote things about him, he's a very fascinating person. So it's possible I will write some more about music, but I don't have any specific plans right now.
– And what was the first: music or journalism?
– I was already playing music first, so writing came later. In fact I remember how it started. It was in Colorado, there were people that put out music magazine, I've just met them somewhere and they were talking about heavy metal shows that were going on at the time like death metal shows, it was right before black metal started. I had no connection to the scene but was very interested in it, so I started writing reviews for the tickets for these guys. It was almost by accident, by chance. By the way, this very first one was the God

flesh concert.
– What does music journalism represent today?
– Well, what's changed is that when I was doing it, it was all on paper. Now it's totally different with the Internet. It's hard to keep up with it. It's too much of information. So now music journalist should expose people they didn't know about and look more deeply to what's going on in the music, from different perspective than somebody else. It's not enough to say: well, it sounds good and I like it. It's about real understanding what's going on in the music.
– Ok, let’s talk about music actually. Blood Axis is coming to Russia and Ukraine for the first time this June. What are your expectations from this journey?
– I expect it to be amazing, really excellent. I heard from many other musicians that it's a fantastic place to

play and the audience is really enthusiastic, and the country itself is amazing. I've never been that far was of Europe (though I've been at the Far East). Moscow for me is one of the most legendary cities in the world, St.-Petersburg too. So I'm really looking forward to it. That the reason why we're enjoying this tour - we come to Russia. It will be a little bit exotic for us. We're interesting into experience what it's like.
– Russian audience is very specific, you’re right. And in the context of what one can find about you online, things like you’re «nazi» or «nationalist»… whatever. People ain’t certain about your point of on all these things. But here in Russia they’re not positive about neo-Nazis or national socialists remembering and still feeling the heritage of the War.
– Well, it's understan

dable, but I don't have a positive view on these things either. I think nationalism, for example, is a modern creation, and I'm not interested in modern things so much. The same is true of national socialism. This is a very modern idea, I'm much more interested in ancient ideas, older ways of thinking.
– What about islam?
– Obviously, there's a problem. We have it in almost all the countries, it's happening in America too. It's a different civilization, I'm not against Muslims, I respect their religion, I’m even not anti-Christian. But we cannot control the situation; the problems are inevitable to appear in the modern globalized world.
– What would be the ideal model?
– I think people have to create their own reality on the individual level. We're lucky in America, we can do that to a c

ertain degree. I mean people here mind their own business.
– Once you said that America as an idea is over…
– That's true because we have more and more the same kind of problems that you have in Russia, and people have in Europe. America is based on this democratic idea, everybody is welcomed here and every idea is counted equal and gets equal respect… You can describe it with the words but the words don't necessarily fit with the actual reality. Democracy supposes the people running things, but in reality it's money that's running things. And the politicians are under the control and the influence of this kind of forces. Much more going on beyond the scene. In general, here in the US we have more freedom of idea and expression, that's true. Freedom of religion as well. That's good at least.
– W

hat is the nearest future for the US by you?
– I think that the country will split into small areas, to have the kind of an empire is difficult to maintain in modern world. I think you have the same problem in Russia. The trend is that things split into smaller parts. I think it's probably good. Because a giant government can't control and realize what's really going on distant areas, regions. California seems like it's another world, different country from Washington D.C., e.g. It's impossible for one government to maintain it, control and bounce it, unrealistic thing.
– But can people run things themselves?
– Good question… In general, in areas where people respect each other it's fine. I think it depends on the place.
– The events like the Utøya massacre show that actually we cannot.
– Yeah, Breivik is a cowardly and unfortunate person. There is nothing to respect about what he did.
– Coming back to «radical» ideas, who are you? Can you identify yourself with any group or flow?
– Well, it was 20 years ago. I was much younger and all kinds of radical ideas attracted me. I knew Anton LaVey, for example. I was very proud to meet him and to write about him. He was a very fascinating person. I've written an essay for a book about him, and I was interested in all these things, but I'm not considering myself with this things. I'd like to say that I'm thinking, questioning person who's trying to look deeply into the past, and take the most important ideas for the future from it.
– Can you say anything about modern black metal scene? In Norway at least, you’re an expert…
– I was an expert when I was writing a book, but now… I don't follow it that much. Different trends, a lot of music and a lot of bands become like regular heavy metal, it's became much more like pop music.
– Unfortunately, we’re out of time. So my last question is what can we expect from Blood Axis’ Russian tour? And what can you say to your fans in Russia who’re looking forward to the shows?
– We're looking for everyone and see you in your city. We have a really good line-up in this tour: myself and Annabel playing electric violin and accordion. Robert Ferbrache, an excellent guitarist, he's playing with us for many-many years. We have two drummers actually, so we'll have really heavy rhythm-section. John Murphy, he played with Death in June and Current 93, is a great drummer. So we're looking forward to this experience in Russia and we believe our music will be very inspirational for those people who'll come to concerts.

by Kristina Sarkhanyants
15 июн 2013 the End


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