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More than a reason to contact Frost from 1349 and hear more about this really impressive project!
So let me welcome you again for an interview with me, this time not for Satyricon but for another very impressive project 1349 called.
Frost:
Exactly!
Thank you for the time you took after the Inferno Festival weekend for this interview!
Let's start with the history of 1349. Tell me something about the beginning of 1349, who established the band and what was the way you all had to go through till you brought out your first full length album?
Frost:
There were three people in the band that had a project before 1349 became reality. As far as I remember - I just have to try to remember the correct story because I wasn't a part of that myself - it was first called "Hofdingi Myrkra". You can find information about that on the website I guess, the 1349 website which is up and running now. In a constructional face but it is running now, I know that. It is www.legion1349.com. Well, anyway that band again later was called "Alvheim" and it consisted of vocalist Ravn, who also played the drums, together with bass player Seidemann and guitarist Tjalve. These were the members of that band that did anyway split up quite shortly, and a couple of the band members moved away. Then later when all the guys regathered in Oslo Ravn was calling old band members of these two projects again in order to form a new band which he wanted to call 1349. Ravn's intention was that the band of his creation should be what he very much missed in the Black Metal scene. This was a band focusing entirely on the grimmest and most extreme and dark aspects of Black Metal. You know, most of the bands at the time were concentrating on definitely the light side of Black Metal if you could call it that. All the synths, the female voices, the melodies and harmonies and all this. Instead of just complaining about the unfortunate development, he wanted to do something about it and create a band of is liking. That was very much the idea behind 1349 and it started as that three piece. He had a session guitarist for a while but he couldn't stay with the band due to several reasons really. So they later got a new guitar player which still plays in the band - Archaon - a man with fitting skills and who has also been putting a lot into songwriting. I know the band wanted to get a drummer as Ravn was doing both the drums and the vocals in the beginning. That was the situation and it couldn't work very well live and Ravn really wanted to concentrate on the vocals so obviously they were looking for a drummer. The band was sharing the rehearsalplace with Satyricon, so it was quite natural to ask me if I could do some session work for them at first. As I knew Ravn pretty well from before I agreed to do that more or less as a favour, you know. And I recorded three songs with them without having any proper rehearsal, anything. I thought the music was ok but it didn't move me actually, and that recording was like done in the most unprofessional manner. It was later released as a mini CD by Holycaust Records. I think that release should never have happened, because of the quality. It was horrible! But then the band presented me with some new material a month or two after that, and you know that was the point were I was really blown away by what I heard. The band had been moving up several levels and I thought they were really going somewhere. It sounded like something unique and grim and dark and all that. It sounded like a band that was really fulfilling its visions. And I felt so at home with the kind of music they played. So I asked to become a member of the band. And they more than welcomed me into the company. So for me it all started there with the "Liberation" material and the work with that album. I also took part in the songwriting process; I made some themes myself, worked a lot with arrangements, I wrote a lyric and the whole band was working as a unit when it came to structuring the songs.
So quite a perfect working together!
Frost:
Yeah! 1349 very much became a strongly integrated unit with a complete line-up, and we worked really hard with the "Liberation" album more or less just continuing on the thread that was started with the first couple of songs written for the album. We just like even intensifyed them further and when having the album recorded we were extremely enthusiastic about the result, you know. To get a record deal should be no problem with so strong material and with such a unique feeling that we had, we thought, but it proved to be very hard, you know. Most record companies to which we sent out the promo CD were kind of positive to the quality of the band and understood our ambitions and strong visions and everything, but they just found it to be too extreme, soundwise and musically. I guess record companies found "Liberation" to be too hard to sell and therefore we were a band without a deal for a very long time before Candelight showed interested in the project. And we ended up there, with the label being the most enthusiastic about us. We started to work out a contract with them and it was quite a lot of back and forth - a lot of back and forth with our lawyer, a lot of back and forth with the company, and we were a bit slow ourselves.... You know, more than two years after the recording of the album it is now finally released. And we can start focusing on the next album, that we have really been working on for close to a year now.
Alright. What about the intention behind the idea of the band What were the goals you wanted to reach with? So as you already told me to do real Black Metal like in the old times combined with new elements?
Frost:
Yeah, yeah, very much so! You know, the initial ideas were those of Ravn who created the band. Then I - and I guess the other members of the band as well - have very much felt that things have been steering in the wrong direction in the Black Metal scene. You get the urge to create yourself when you feel the scene lack, you know! Very much came from that urge and we thought that we could make 1349 into something even more extreme than the grim and dark bands that had been operating so far. It was like the purpose of the band to take everything a bit further and that's very much what we have done, you know. Taking the best elements of the old school bands, intensifying and amplifying it and then bringing in some ultra fast and hysterical elements, that are more or less typical for the contemporary Black Metal scene, we have made, like, a power package out of it. We feel that this is very much the identity of 1349 now. It has naturally grown to be.
In my opinion the excellent music on "Liberation" is shaped by extreme speed, coldness and darkness. That's what I feel when I listen to the album: Bitter coldness and rising darkness. How would you describe your feelings when you listen to the album by yourself?
Frost:
I think it's ice cold and pitch black and it has a strictly unique atmosphere. So I am very much moved by this album; it fills me with visions of the darkest, most bizarre hellish kind of things. It feels like a daemon is entering the room and all the time it's like the feeling of being totally sliced by the razor sharp guitars and hysterical speed and intensity. It all has very much to do with the extremity and darkness of the album. The most important thing is, that it moves me in a way that I find to be positive.
So would you say that this album then really touches your deepest inner feelings?
Frost:
Yes, definitely, definitely! I have been putting a lot of myself into that album. I always try to put my soul into whatever I do in music because that is what I live and breathe for.
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I am really fascinated by the whole album, so are you satisfied with the result you reached or is there any particular thing you would change on later albums?
Frost:
Well, a development will necessary happen. Without that it will be worthless to continue. But concerning the new material so far written, we have more or less just followed our own path so I think the next album will sound like a very natural continuation of what we started with "Liberation". There will still be the razor sharp guitars, there will be the intense grimness. The music will be the blackest of the black and all that but it seems that there will be more details in the music. Perhaps more details of the bizarre kind; in order to make them come through we will need a somewhat cleaner sound picture. The idea is very much to, like, still have a razor sharp, distorted guitar sound but at the same time more compact and a bit clearer. We will try to make the production work for us in every single aspect so that every single detail will come through without losing the sharpness and the distortion, and the drums shall still sound pounding and powerful. Hopefully we will get to work in studio for a longer time now, as "Liberation" is really a cheap production, you know. I think that we got the optimal result out of the money we could afford to spend, but actually we'll probably be able to afford a longer time in the studio now. I hope that will be reflected in an even more powerful production.
There is one coverversion on the album: From Mayhem's album "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" the song "Buried By Time and Dust". Is there any reason why you especially chosed this song for your first full length?
Frost:
Yes, I would say it is! I thought that it would be just cool to record the track because we had been playing "Buried by Time And Dust" in the rehearsal place a couple of times and thought we did a good version of the song. When we were in the studio it was more like just recording the track so that we had it on tape and probably could use it on a compilation album or something like that. Always good to have. But when recording the track - or more correctly, after we had recorded the track - we thought that it sounded so good and it sounded so much 1349 and Mayhem at the same time, that it was actually the right thing to just put it on the album. It simply fits great, you know. I still feel like that, that this song makes up a very natural part of "Liberation" and still it has very much Mayhem qualities to it, and that is really unique. So regarding the fortunate outcome we felt it ought to be put on the album. We usually play that song live as well and it works really great!
So let's go over to the songwriting! You told me that you started up now writing songs! But what about the "Liberation" album! Who did the songwriting on it?
Frost:
Well, the two guitar players made at least eighty percent of the music I guess. And then the rest of us have also been contributing with several themes. Most of the lyrics are written by the bass player and the vocalist, while I have written one lyric myself and one of the guitarists has written one lyric. But most of all it is important to emphasize how well we work together as a unit, because even when there is one of us creating the most of a particular song the whole band is contributing structuring the song and changing certain elements to make it sound better and all that. There's an iterative process going on with each single track before it's finished.
So I am very sorry that I didn't get the lyrics, because I only have the promo CD and I didn't get to ask for them!
Frost:
Oh, I see, yeah!
So can you tell me something about the lyrics, what is 1349 writing mostly about?
Frost:
The one key element is darkness with a capital 'D'. Each lyric is unique, there are no concepts or anything like that. Four people involved in the process of writing the lyrics also results in a certain diversity between them. But they are all very, very dark.
What about your label Candelight? Are you satisfied about how they look after the band and benefit 1349?
Frost:
Yeah, that's the impression I got! Seems like they are enthusiastic about the band and we are satisfied with the work they have done so far. I believe they understand the potential of 1349. We will get somewhere!
You are right back from your gig at the Infernofestival in Oslo. This year it was I think the second time that the band played there!
Frost:
That's true yeah!
So how do you think about these gigs? Did they uphold what you expected?
Frost:
They were very unfortunate, in our viewpoint! There were so many kinds of technical problems that I don't want to bother you with telling you all about them. But the core element is that we were not given the chance to make the band shine on stage. This is most unfortunate since we had been working a lot with preparations for the gigs on beforehand. But what I can tell from the response I've got so far is that people enjoyed us a lot and they were rather impressed by what we did and it's a gigantic show, you know, a lot of pyros and energy! I like that a lot; its just very cool being on stage with all the explosions and all that! That's how I want it to be. The smell of burnt gunpowder and all that, you know!
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That's really cool yeah! So did you play later in the evening?
Frost:
Oh we were the first band on the whole festival I think. But it's an indoor festival so it was still dark inside and no problems doing the show!
Ok! So the light show and all that did really work good!
Frost:
Yes, yes it was working optimal!
1349 was a very special and of course very cruel year in the Norwegian history. Would you tell me something about that year in Norway especially relating to the bands name?
Frost:
It was the year of the arrival of the black plague which killed between forty and sixty percent of the Norwegian population in the medieval ages. That year is more or less burnt into the collective mind of the Norwegians and it represents the arrival of something very dark and menacing. We think of the symbolism that 1349 as a band have very much the same meaning for the Black Metal world. This is the arrival of something cruelly dark!
So are you then in general interested in history, especially Norwegian history?
Frost:
Yes, some of us are more than others. Me myself, I am not very occupied with it. I think that the spirit of the medieval ages is fascinating, most of all because of the darkness which always attracts me. But I guess a couple of the other guys from the band is even more into that!
The album title Liberation - Why did you choose that title for the album? Is there any relation to the bands name I should see?
Frost:
Oh, you would have to ask Ravn about it as he had chosen that title for the album even before I became part of the band! So he could give you the whole story how behind it... I have a pretty clear idea of what his idea was concerning, but I should leave it to him to explain!
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Ah! I can understand this. But isn't this band and album some sort of Liberation for yourself? If I combine it with Satyricon, in Satyricon there is very much discipline and the boarders are very strict and here at 1349 we have pure intensity?
Frost:
Yeah exactly! It's very much two polarities, it is! Satyricon is the arena for controlled aggression and strict authority! 1349 is a pure outburst of hatred and darkness and intensity! So that's how it is! I am very fortunate to have the ability to unfold myself so much in those two different areas and all allow my two different styles of playing to come through, really
So it's your personal "Liberation"!
Frost:
I guess you could put it that way!
Will there be a chance to see 1349 on tour across Europe in the forthcoming time?
Frost:
Yes, I hope so! We were planning a tour in may actually, but it is too hard to book good venues on short notice. We have to wait a little! Hopefully early autumn. We are working on that goal!
What can we expect for the future from 1349? Will you try to overbid again the excellent music, the aggression and darkness of this album?
Frost:
Yes! We have finished between thirty and forty minutes of the material now. It's like all on the rehearsal stage, we haven't started to record anything or planned to book a studio or anything like that. But that is the amount of material that is so far written for the album. You know, it is even more intense and hysterical than "Liberation". Just as dark and grim but even faster and more extreme. We have taken like everything a step further. I am one hundred percent enthusiastic about the next album, it is going to be unbelievable.
Alright! As far as we both don't like last words we leave this out! Thank you very much again for your time and I hope to see you again on tour this time with 1349! Thank you very much and good bye Frost!
Good bye to you Martin!
martin
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