Interview с Summoning : DARKSIDE.ru

It took you five years to release a new album. Why was the break so long this time? Were you tired of music, did you have some personal problems or were there any other factors that prevented you from writing more new music from Summoning?

Protector: No, we definitely were not tired of music at all. There might be times when we are tired of music, but this is only a time of a few weeks, but definitely not a time of 5 years. The main reason was the work for my other music project Die Verbannten Kinder Evas. I already finished the songs of the forthcoming album 2 years ago but had problems with the female singer, first the old one was simply not good enough anymore, so I searched for another one. She was good, but due to some huge psychological problems she did not record for 18 months so I could not release the new album. During all this time I could not release Summoning, cause it was much more reasonable for me first to release Die Verbannten Kinder Evas and after that Summoning, but finally I gave up waiting for the singer and changed my decision and started to finish Summoning. Meanwhile I found a new singer, and she recorded all songs only in 2 days.

Silenius: The realization of this CD was the most difficult one in our history because of many different reasons. It nearly lasted 5 years since “Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame” (2001), normally in this time a band is out of sight within the scene, but of course I hope we can continue our path. The main reasons of this long delay can be found in personal subjects. First, I had a very stressy girlfriend for 1.5 years who never supported me in my musical work and nearly made sabotage whenever it comes to music. Second, I did not have any good ideas for this band over a long time until I finally got new inspirations. Third, my father died of cancer last year which caused a lot of personal troubles. Next I lost my job and had to find a new one, and beside all these dramas we had some big equipment problems.

What does the new album mean for you personally? Is this the beginning of a new era for Summoning, or just another bunch of good songs?

Protector: Since our second release "Minas Morgul" (1995), which was a real beginning of a new area, we did not really change to another era. We simply are totally satisfied with the style we are creating and as this style is unique there is no reason to change it; if 1,000 of bands would make music as we do we maybe would consider that, but not in the actual case. While we made the new songs, not for a single moment we thought that we are creating something new; for us the new songs were rather pure followers of "Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame"; only with the difference that on the new songs the guitars are much louder and played in a new style, which is less rhythmic, but more relaxed and gives the songs a slower and more epic feeling. Only later after the release when we read the comments we were surprised that many fans described the new album as something quite different from the last album, and rather compared it to the old releases such as "Dol Guldur" (1996). I am sure that the guitars are the only reason for that. Actually with "Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame” we wanted to turn back to the older style (as we considered "Stronghold" (1999) a very untypical Summoning release) by adding more polyphonic structures to the orchestral tunes and putting more focus on the drums, etc, but we did not achieve this goal for most of the fans. Meanwhile I understood that what the old fans where missing, since "Stronghold" was not so much the way we played the keyboards, but rather the way we played the guitars, which those times where also less rhythmic.

Summoning has been sticking to its trademark style for a long time. Most of your fans think it’s good, but there are some people who say that your music lacks development. What do you think about such criticism, and how has Summoning developed in your own eyes for the past 10 years?

Protector: Most of the people who are criticizing us because we are lacking development are not real fans and never were, so I don't really care about that. I know that we are living in a time where everything is changing very fast. Let’s take fashion; people buy things that are trendy and chick but only 1 year later the same clothes are totally out of fashion and the same people are rather ashamed to wear the same clothes. The same goes for music, what is totally cool in one year is totally shitty the next year. We simply refuse to adapt to such a kind of lifestyle. Just think about the last centuries; what did the classical musicians do? They used the same instruments, almost the same structures for many many centuries, and no one complained. I don't say that our music is some kind of classical music; not at all. But I just mean that I think it is totally stupid to be forced to change a style after each release very much. I think to change a style and add new e

lements to it is rather a bit dishonest. I mean, you could be a total average band with unoriginal tunes, repeating the same harmonies over and over again, but if you would add, for example, some drum and bass rhythm or some hip hop beat or whatever to the next album, everyone would say what a huge development the band has gone through. With Summoning we don't use such cheap cursorily innovations.

The new album contains the track “Mirdautas Vras” with “black language lyrics” written by Stefan Huber. Who is Stefan Huber? And what is the meaning of these lyrics?

Silenius: Well, the idea in singing in one of the languages Tolkien created is not a new one, but we never wanted to sing in the language of the elves, because Summoning is focused more on the dark side of Middle Earth. I never knew that there have been more words around in the black language than those written on the ring, but a friend of us (Greifenstein, Lumentis) found a page in the internet with a lot more words of this language so I asked him if he could do a poem out of this and he said that will try. It was, of course, very difficult because this language is very incomplete, but he did his best and wrote a poem concerning Morgoth. Of course, this was only possible with easy sentences and maybe some things are not that correct as they should be, but who cares. The language of the orcs is a very archaic one and some mistakes don't matter too much.

How is Tania Borsky doing? Why was her involvement in Summoning limited to just one song? Have you considered using her vocals again on "Oath Bound"?

Protector: The song on “Stronghold” with her voice was just an experiment and she was never considered to be a band member. With “Stronghold” we made the most untypical Summoning release, as I mentioned above; and so we also did some untypical thing on Summoning like adding female vocals (as only vocals on that song). It was fine as an experiment, but definitely not a future way for Summoning. It is a bit too gothic metal styled for us and we never saw the slightest connection to gothic metal at all. Meanwhile I am not in contact with her, I just know that she moved to Italy, got a child, but now moved back to Austria; that’s all I know.

The new songs are once again inspired by Tolkien, which is obviously not a surprise to anybody. But in the beginning, why did you choose this fantasy theme? It was very untypical for the black metal scene you used to belong in the mid-1990s…

Silenius: The world of Tolkien has always been a big inspiration for many metal bands from all different styles since the beginning of metal. The first difference is that most of the other bands just picked up a few topics or words from this creation, for example, to use them as a band name or they have 1 or 2 songs in their releases which are connected to Tolkien, but we, on the contrary, built up our whole concept on the Middle Earth for nearly over 13 years by now. The next big difference is that most of the other bands don't have any epic orchestral or hymn-like feeling, or, let's say, they don't have this special kind of wanderlust feeling I always get when I watch the movies based on or read the books of Tolkien, and I think this is very important if you make a musical translation. Songs connected to the Middle Earth should have a kind of dignity within, just like you enter a big cathedral and you don't dare to speak or make any loud noises just because you are attracted by the big monumental flair of this surrounding, just to give an example.

How did you as Tolkien fans like the “Lord Of The Rings” movie? How much did it live up to your expectations?

Silenius: I think Peter Jackson did a very good job of translating the books to a movie. Of course, it was obvious that a 1:1 translation of the book would have been ridiculous because then it would have taken 6 films or more. But it was very wise for Peter Jackson to include the main Tolkien painters John How and Allen Lee in the production process. Most of the audience who watched the films had in mind their excellent paintings for the books and so it would have been a total disaster if Peter Jackson would have created something totally new, may it be character-wise or may it come to buildings or landscapes.

By the way, the samples of whips, chains and an orc barking in "Mirdautas Vras" - are they taken from the "Lord Of The Rings" movie?

Silenius: We have no samples of whips and chains. But samples of screaming and marching orcs, you are right, are samples from the movie.

When and how did you get interested in Tolkien?

Silenius: I was a fan of fantasy literature since my childhood, but I got in contact with the books of Tolkien rather late, when I was about 16 or 17, because I had already known the cartoon movie and a friend told me how this story

ends. But then I gave it a try and since then I have been captured by the books by and about Tolkien. I have read everything that I got from this subject. What makes Tolkien totally admirable for me and what differs him from the rest is that his books are not only a simple story, but he created a whole world with all its details, historical background languages and population. He simply made a complete saga right from the beginning of this world until the end, and all this is, of course, high above the average fantasy standards. It is simply a fact that Tolkien is the godfather of his genre and the founder of modern fantasy literature.

And what came first in your life - heavy metal or fantasy books?

Silenius: Of course heavy metal came first. I was a huge fan of Kiss and Alice Cooper since my childhood. Later I started to read horror books but I think when I started to be a big fan of Masters of the Universe toys in the early 1980s, this brought me to the fantasy genre.

What attracts you the most in Tolkien’s books - the beauty and epic atmosphere or the spiritual and ideological aspect of his world?

Silenius: I adore Tolkien not because of a special passage in a book or because of a special character which is cool or a because of special atmospheres, but what I think is really adorable about Tolkien’s creation is this richness of a full detailed creation of a complete mindworld of his own with all its languages, complete history and mythology with all his detailed imagination of different folks, landscapes, buildings and environments.

What is your opinion on the personality of Tolkien as a catholic? In your opinion, would have anything changed in this works if he had not been a catholic and a Christian in general?

Silenius: Of course everyone knows that Tolkien was a very conservative catholic, but I think this has no effect on his books, which in some ways is very astonishing because he never includes his catholic beliefs too obviously in his books. There are no churches and no priests. I think the reason for that is his deep love of European mythology, like “Edda” or “Das Niebelungen” and above all English legends like Beowulf. I think he simply did not want to combine his personal life and way of thinking with his own mythology.

Do you agree that, even though Tolkien was officially a Christian, he created an absolutely pagan world in his books? What do you think of the black metal bands that use Tolkien as a source of inspiration, but condemn Christianity and praise paganism (Burzum, for example)?

Silenius: I think everyone just takes what he likes. The same goes for the Christian religion. Many of the black metal bands just use the term “Satan” just as it is presented by the Christian religion, for example, the hellfire, the goat lord, the demons etc.

Do you manifest your affection for Tolkien in any other way apart from music? I mean poetry, stories, paintings, role-playing games?

Silenius: No, not at all. That is because I simply have no time to concentrate on things like role playing or computer games; although they may attract me when I would have more time.

How much is the visual side of your albums important for you? What considerations are you guided by when choosing a designer for cover artwork and booklets? Do you have a favorite Summoning cover artwork?

Protector: The visual side is very important, for us it simply belongs to the album, and we spend a lot of time on it. Actually it is much more important than the lyrical side, as for lyrics we only take poems from others but never do anything really creative with it. It is always Silenius who searches the local bookstores for good painters for future Summoning covers and booklets. It is important for us is that the paintings are real paintings and not some kitsche airbrush pictures or some totally oblivious computer collages. We also don't want overcrowded pictures; we just like wide landscapes in the style of the romantic epoch such as Caspar David Friedrich or similar painters such as Albert Bierstadt (the one used for “Oath Bound”). I like the last cover very much. Originally the colors where brighter and the picture contained more colors; I did not like it so much those times, but then we decided to reduce the amount of colors and turn it more into green. Now it is my favorite of all. Other favorites are from "Stronghold" (which is a fragment of a picture from C.D. Friedrich). I did not like the cover of "Let Mortals Sing Your Fame” so much as it looks a bit overloaded and chaotic for me, and the dragon had a face expression as if he would have smoked too much dope. (laughs)

At the same time, the pictures of yourselves are almost always very blurry and you never show your faces. Is this part of the band’s concept, or are

you just unwilling to be recognized in a supermarket by fans?

Protector: I think the look of a person does not tell the fans anything about the music. No person can choose how he looks, it is just natural, so he cannot show anything with his physical face. The music of Summoning does not spread many feelings of a real mortal human, so why should we show real humans in the booklet? Real human faces would just destroy the fantasy feeling of the album.

What kind of video clip would you make for Summoning if you had an unlimited budget?

Protector: Of course, the one where our faces cannot be seen. (smiles) Actually we did not think much about this, but would prefer the one with only wide landscapes, maybe some actors and castles, etc.

Are you always satisfied with the sound of your albums? If no, have you considered remastering or re-recording any of your old works?

Protector: Since we create our sound by ourselves in our own studio, I have nothing to complain. We only release an album if we have made sure that everything sounds as we want it to sound. But in the past when we only had 3 days for recording and mixing we surely were not very satisfied about the sound. During the studio times surely everything seemed perfect, but only one day later when we listened to the finished production at home, we noticed how many mistakes happened; which lines can hardly be heard; some lack a reverb, etc. But anyway we surely will not remaster any old CDs. The old fans that love the old CDs love those CDs also because of the old sound. I think this is what they miss the most about the newer releases, it they know it or not. (smiles)

Does anybody support the band’s official website? It was offline for a long time…

Protector: The complete database of the old page was totally deleted many months ago, so I had to reconstruct it. As we always want to have our music totally under control, we did not want to hire any other person for it, but as I also had absolutely no time because of music, etc, I could not fix it. Anyway finally I found the time and the new page can be now seen under the old address www.summoning.info. I hope you like it.

What is your attitude to folk music? One of your side projects, Pazuzu, incorporated a lot of folk elements (especially on the “Awaking The Dragon” album), and the intro to "Oath Bound" sounds a bit like Pazuzu, too…

Protector: Well, as we made the music for the first two Pazuzu albums it is no wonder that some Summoning intros might remember you on Pazuzu. (smiles) There have always been some folk (I prefer to call them medieval) tunes in our music, in the past much more than in the newer releases. And you are right that the intro has a very medieval sound; this was our intention.

What kind of music are you listening to nowadays? Have you discovered any new styles/bands that impressed you a lot lately?

Protector: It is no secret that we both don't listen to metal anymore. Not because we don't respect it, we simply focused on other dark fields of music and really don't have any time to follow the metal scene anymore. Silenius listens mainly to dark ambient and military industrial music, whereas I have been listening do other kinds of electronic music for almost 10 years by now.

I know that both of you stopped listening to black metal a long time ago. But Summoning is still pretty much a metal band, and most of your audience are metalheads. Are you comfortable in such a situation? Isn’t it a bit paradoxical?

Protector: This is no disadvantage for Summoning, just the contrary. The fact that we have no idea what other metal bands do forces us to make a style that is totally our own. But actually meanwhile I listen to black metal much more than before because of my girlfriend that listens mainly to black metal, I just am not active in getting informed about new black metal bands.

What do you now think about your own works in black metal - the first CD “Lugburz” (1994), the Summoning demo tapes, Abigor releases? Do you still enjoy listening to them, or is it something you try to forget about?

Protector: None of us like our debut, but we are not ashamed of it. We rather think that this was necessary. This time when we did not think at all, just wanted to provoke and let out aggression, and maybe without it the style we created with "Minas Morgul" would never have been born.

What are your favorite ways to spend your free time? Have you traveled a lot outside Austria, or do you prefer your country to all others?

Protector: Apart from my job, my music and my private life I don't have much time for travelling. I hardly travel at all, but last summer I was in the Baltic states and also i

n Helsinki for a few days. It was fine. For next summer I am planning to go to Norway with my girlfriend for a week.

What kind of education did you get? Did this education have any effect on your music?

Protector: When I was about 14 I had drum education in a public music school. I learned orchestra drums as march drum and kettle drums as well as jazz and rock drums. I never learned any melodic instrument and cannot even read melody notes (only rhythmic notes).

Silenius: As a child I learned piano for some years, later I learned bass guitar by myself and played in a kind of doom metal band (which never had any success) for some time.

A side question - would you agree that Austrians and Germans are, in fact, one nation? What kind of relations exists between these two people? Are there any typical German traits of character about which Austrians like to make fun, and vice versa?

Protector: Well, we have the same language. Actually I think that southern Germans have more in common with Austrians than southern Germans have with northern Germans. And there sure are differences between Austrians and northern Germans. Surely those differences are a bit overestimated and a short of cliche, but the cliche of the northern Germans is that they are very busy, not very comfortable, and often without any sense of self-irony. On the contrary, the reputation of Austrians is that they are slow and lazy, and that their German is not real German.

What is the situation in your side projects - DVKE, Ice Ages, Kreuzweg Ost? Shall we expect new releases from any of them in the near future?

Protector: As i already explained in the beginning, the new DVKE album is already recorded. Once the interview stress is over I will release it. The new songs have a much higher female vocalist and due to her much greater pitch range there will be much more female vocal tunes on the album. I also made the basic songs for a new Ice Ages album. I created a lot of very dark and much more rough and dirty tunes, and also many new vocal tunes. Now I just need to add more rhythmic noises to it and then the songs are finished. I have no plan when I will release it.

As far as I understand, Napalm Records declined to release Kreuzweg Ost’s latest album “Edelrost”. What was the reason for it? What label will eventually release this CD?

Silenius: Kreuzweg Ost is simply not commercial enough for Napalm Records. The debut did not sell as much as Napalm Records wanted it to, so they were not interested in releasing the next one. Then I got this offer from the English industrial neoclassic label Cold Spring Records. I was very glad to get this offer as this label is a top label for this kind of music and has a very good reputation, so I accepted it and meanwhile the second CD "Edelrost" is released under this label.

As you definitely know, there are a lot of Summoning fans in Russia. What associations come to your mind when the name of our country is mentioned? Have you ever considered visiting Russia? Especially for a project like Kreuzweg Ost it can be very useful…

Protector: I have a friend in Siberia who visited me two times, but he did not really help to reduce the cliches that people have for Russians (mainly drinking vodka, etc.). (laughs) But I know that the Russians are very musically talented, and even some usual Russian pop music has for me more musical quality than the pop music of Europe. But as I am lacking time I did not really consider traveling to Russia any time soon. My friend from Siberia wants me to visit him, but I don't plan it yet.

In general, how much do you communicate with your fans? Is the opinion of your listeners of any importance to you, or is it like a one-way communication - you speak, and the people out there only listen?

Protector: We communicate a lot with our fans. There is not a single letter that I don’t answer (intentionally). Well, sometimes I have so much stress that some of my answers are delayed for a few months, but generally I don't ignore fan letters, and also we never refuse to answer any interview, no matter how small the ‘zine is. This is for me important, and I think this also gave Summoning a reputation of a true and underground band although we don't make "true" music in the original black metal meaning. But still many of our fans listen only to old school bands such as to Dark Throne and Burzum besides Summoning.

Finally, what are the future plans for Summoning? Is there another long break in between releases ahead for all of us, or shall we expect a new album pretty soon?

Protector: We are planning to release a mini-CD where we will put the song for which we didn’t have space on the last album. We did not want to make a album with more than 70 minutes, so we removed this song. For the mini CD we will publish this one and also add 1-2 new songs as well as some unusual mixes of older songs, but this all is not planned in detail.

Special thanks to Alexey “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond) for arranging this interview

Extra special thanks to the visitors of DarkSide.ru and Summoning.Musica.Mustdie.ru forums for their enormous help with the questions for the band.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
May 5, 2006
22 май 2006 the End

Summoning

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