What I want to ask you is you formed your band or your project Vargathron in 1994. What can you tell us about that time and the ideas you had when you founded that?

About the time I was really fed up of the whole eighties cause. Everything sounded nearly the same and I recognized in the beginning of the nineties things were slowly changing about them. You have the beginning of the black metal area and I knew and I saw that everything was moving into one direction there. Although I wanted to do something quiet different to mix elements from many styles from folkmusic, metal and seventies music to create something that so wasn’t present at the time and I think we had to start up the band as a full line up band. I wrote the songs but somehow the other guys didn’t really fit and the whole concept behind it so there were coming and leaving guys all the time and this was in 1993 or 94. In the end of summer of 96 June or July I was quiet fed up with the whole situation. So I decided to put the whole project asleep and see what will happen. I think it was in 97 or late 96 maybe begin of 97 we didn’t really record a demo tape, only a rehearsal tape. We did some really cool songs and I was just ashamed to forget about the songs and let them go into waste and I found the idea to continue by myself and as I once again explored the songs I had written before I knew there was some really good quality in that and we changed and rearranged small things and the whole thing was kind of setteling itselves. I don’t decide the songs that I’m bragging but I understood that it was something unique. It was not so much present that kind of music. So I went to the studio and recorded the songs and after I recorded the mcd I got in contact with Napalm. So I sent them a song and they were very enthusiastic about it so they recut a deal right away and that’s the beginning of it. This worked up really great…. I was really satisfied what the first mcd stand for and the music concept behind it. Of course now I have moved on but it stands for period in my life when I was able to do that kind of music. I feel it’s a nice album or mcd.


Why did you change the name from Vargathron into Vintersorg?

I had the artist name Vintersorg into Otyg. And then I departed from all the other guys in the band and started up by myself. I thought it was more like a statement and this is my project and my thoughts and my music that I want to do in a band and therefore I used my own artist’s name. And also not to confuse the other guys so much if I was using Vargathron maybe that will be a confusing thing.


And what about the name Vargathron? What does it mean?

This means something like wolf throne. It’s a more poetical feeling when you say it in Swedish. It’s very hard to translate cause more older touched.


And what does Vintesorg mean?

The direct translation means something like winter sorrow but it is also coming out really wrong when you translate it because it is much more poetical and aesthetic kind of feeling in it. I have taken it from a kind of book series about northern fantasy style like “Lord of the Rings” but in a nordic kind of sounds and one of the most interesting character from my point of view is named Vintersorg and that’s why I took the name as I sympathized especially back if I was young and when I took the name I took it before 10 years. Maybe if I took a name now maybe I would not take that name but I still feel that it’s a good name to have for a band cause you can develop the music a lot under that banner. If you have called a band something like “Satanized” than you’re always going to play black metal. And with Vintersorg I think I can move in many different directions and still it’s not in a conflict with the band name.


When you started with Vintersorg it was your solo project. Now you are just working together with Mattias as guitarist. What about the song writing. Are you doing that alone? On the Cosmic Genesis of course - at the moment it is a two person band.

Yes it’s a two man project. But it’s still me writing the music and the lyrics and he adds more his guitar solos. He writes that kind of thing. And also we have of course opinions when it comes to arrangements and when we are recording so it’s nice to have like ah hmm- he is more like a reflecting mirror. I show the ideas and he is like thinking well…. It works really good because me and Mattias we are playing before for more than ten years together and we have been really good friends for 15 or something like that. And before Otyg we also played in lots of older death and black metal bands when we were really young. And so we have also the same kinds of opinions about music and also how about we see life in generally, both more physical and meta-physical side of it and we worked really like two companions. We wrote together as musicians and friends. We don’t have to argue about anything nearly comes really natural.


In your last album Cosmic Genesis you started singing in English. Why did you change that?

It’s a very divided question because there are many sides to it. One side was that I was kind of the feeling to write odes to the nature in Swedish. I felt like I was really trapping myselves into a corner, I couldn’t move on and I was always bounded by some frames that I couldn’t get out of. Cause I noticed that I didn’t develop my language and my topics between Till Fjälls and Ödemarkenson so much, so I thought it was time for some other big change but I had to ornament the outlines - that’s one point of the whole. Also I want to challenge myself as a writer cause I hadn’t written in English for many years and I always want the band to be in a constant progress cycle, so that was one thing. The only thing that you probably will hear me say it was in a commercial. But that was not the deal. Hahaha. Many people think if I would be smart I would continue to sing in Swedish cause many people now think it’s a little bit sad I don’t sing in Swedish. But I’m still in love to sing in my home language. I put two Swedish lyrics on the album and on the upcoming it’s gonna be three, - three or four. I think, I now found a really good balance - I can write both, in Swedish and in English and that gives me so many more opportunities to express myself.


I saw on your homepage that you are also writing poems. In Germany we got the problem that you are writing in your native language. What are you writing about?

It’s very hard to say it in a couple of words. I should say that they are in a more romantic sense than the lyrics in Cosmic Genesis which are more faced upon scientific facts but with romanitc edges. The poems are more kind of really romantic nature, nature romantic poems you can say. It’s about man finding his place in nature and in the universe. It’s not like I have to put some poems on the webside. It wasn’t like a commercial trick to atrack more people. I write a lot of poems and I want Vintersorg and his website to explain the most of me and my person.


I read that your favorite film is called Pi. What is it about and what is so fascinating about it?

Really? It’s not that sort of movie and now I have to make an album. Cause I have been really interested in the whole subject for a very long time. And I feel myself recommend people see the film cause I think it’s a really good explanation about pi and how it works in the movie. The basic thing on the concept on the new album is that everything in the world and the universe moves in spirals and that the abstraction of pi may hold the secret of that. As you see when you just look at your finger prints it moves in spirals, you take a smoke on a cigarette and everything moves in spirals, you put milk in coffee and it moves in spirals. And thinking is like - maybe because we are living in a spiral galaxy. Everything we do is affected by the spiral and moves in spiral forms. So it’s quiet abstract and very sophisticated and philosophical lyrics but still I mean it together cause the universe is still the nature. I’m not just talking about the nature on this planet. I just explain it a little bit. It’s kind a mixture of romanticism and scientific facts. There are really good explanations about time in the movie.


Can you tell us something about Borknagar. You are the new singer of them. What about the style of Borknagar?

I did all the vocal lines by myself and of course we have discussed a little bit together…


Are there any clean vocals on it?

Yeah, a lot of clean vocals. This song is maybe the hardest one the album.(we had the pleasure to listen to the record) I’m doing exactly the same thing I’m doing with Vintersorg.


What about your last tour and your first Wacken Open Air? What was it to play in Wacken for you in front of such a big crowd? Did you enjoy that?

Yeah of course. Why shouldn’t you enjoy playing before a big crowd, it was really a magnificent show and. we did a good job but it is always hard to play on big festivals, you know, you don’t have any sound checks and in the beginning the stage soand is quite fucked up and it takes one or two songs to get it right. It was really a nice experience. I hope we will be able to play it some more times or some other festivals in that kind of size because it’s really nice to play in front of a big audience.


Did you have a look around the festival?

We came the day before but we had a hotel in Hamburg so we weren’t able to see a lot of bands. I know the other guys saw some other bands but I was getting a little bit too drunk.... I was only in the backstage area.


What about your last tour with Tristania. Are you satisfied?

I wasn’t really satisfied as some stages and some places were a bit worse than the others. The sound was very awful (in Innsbruck). But as a band it’s very hard to change we can only our job. But all in all I must say we have played in most nice places. And the audience has been really supporting, I must really thank the audience for supporting us. So the tour has been really great.


So at last we want to say „tack så mycket för ditt tid” ,thanks a lot for your time and see you again soon in Germany!