Marduk : The thick red line
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-At first, why did you choose the name "Marduk", who was a rather peaceful God of Babylon? -I've always been fascinated by the antic mythologies, specially the one concernig the Babylonian gods, and I think that nobody's entierely good or bad, neither a god nor a simple human being. -Where does this fascination for war and war weapons in your LP's come from ? -I've always been fascinated by weapons and war machines, and I think that death and black metal are musics very close to it, as well as metal in general. This album, "Panzer division Marduk", symbolizes maybe more the aggression of a huge number of mighty tanks: it's in a way the musical answer to a battle between tanks. -In 93, you signed with Osmose Records in France, like Immortal and others, and some like Emperor chose England. What is the situation of the metal labels in Scandinavia and why this choice to go abroad? -At the time, in 92, there were no label at all in Sweden. We did that first album for No Fashion, which was really bad, and also we were in contact with Osmose Records which distributed our demo tape at that time. Even before the album was made, in 92, they showed their interest and we decided to sign with them. The album was constantly delayed, more than 6 months, and we were fed up with this situation and when the LP came out, we left No Fashion and signed with Osmose at the beginning of 93. Everything has worked well with them. There were no specific reasons to sign with a French label, but it was the best label that we could think of for this kind of music at that time, and it's probably still the best label for this kind of music at this time, because they absolutely understand this music. We think everything works fine, and why change a winning team? -The album "Nightwing" was mainly based upon the Dracula character. What attracted you to him? -When you are young, you are into the Dracula movies, but when you grow up, you start to hear about the man behind the myth, and I've been far more fascinated by the man behind the myth than the fictional character. I've read some really nice books about him and I wanted the music and history based on real facts and no fiction at all. I've even been in contact with a guy who wrote one of those books in Romania to check if everything was correct, and it's his life with nothing made up. It was very interesting to do something so historical, like to do the soundtracks to the happenings. -How are you seen in your own country? -Quite a lot of people like us, but it's very typically Scandinavian: in the country where you come from, you're not so popular as in other places, something that we call the Scandinavian jealousy! But we sell quite a lot of records in Scandinavia, we could say we're popular, but there are better places to play than Sweden: we have a lot of bands there, but we never see gigs or tours, we rarely see shows in Sweden, and it's the same thing in Norway, there are lots of bands who never play there! -Would you like to stay underground or become big, like Emperor or Dimmu Borgir, who want to play in big venues and sell many records? -We sell quite a number of records today and play in not so small venues, that's not a problem for us, we're growing all the time at each album we are doing. Instead of getting a big success overnight, we prefer to build us on a stable basis, that's what we are doing all the time. We're really satisfied and I don't mind staying underground, but I don't mind getting bigger because that's a way to get the message to more people and it's always great when you're appreciated and play in front of enthusiastic crowds! We still have a close contact with the underground, because that's where we come from... -Do you consider yourself more a black metal or a death metal band? -A black metal band, because that's what I've always done, but I don't mind. I would say that our music is extreme metal with satanic lyrics, I don't see so much difference between them, I like them both, except bands like Morbid Angel or Deicide who play death and are considered black metal. I really don't care about the name as long as you like it -Why so few French concerts, except the Strasbourg festival? -For this summer? In fact, it's not exactly a full tour, we are just doing a few festivals, starting with the Dynamo festival and then the Artefact festival in Strasbourg and then a few dates in Japan, then another festival in France in July, and Belgium and some shows in Mexico and some in the States, the Milwaukee festival and then on the 6th August the Wacken festival in Germany. But at the beginning of October, we will hopefully start a new full long european tour, with some 35 dates and then, we will certainly play several of them in France. -Is it a pleasure for you to play live or do you prefer make records in the studio? -In fact, I hate recording studios, I find it so boring! First of all, you put the drums, and then the guitars, it's so divided, and then you sing to yourself, and so on. It's OK to do it but I prefer to play live. I don't like the circumstances to be on tour most of the time but I enjoy the moment you stand on stage and every sacrifice is worth it. Metal music was meant to be performed live and therefore you get the full aggression and the energy when it is live, and it can be a strange sound sometimes, but you get the full power on a metal show when it's performed on stage, that's the best way. I compose most of the part at home, not on tour or during the rehearsals. -Despite its title, could we consider "Panzer division Marduk" as a record for peace instead of war? -No, because it is mainly based uon the war against Christianity, which doesn't mean to go out and kill the Christians, but rather a war with words, to enlight people to fight Christianity with words. That's the symbolism of the whole album. -If you were invisible for one moment, what would you do? -(big laughs) I don't know, really! Maybe jump into a girl's bath, I would like that! -31th december 1999: big party or desert island? -I haven't thought about what I will do yet, and it's maybe like another day: I don't care about this stuff about all the people being afraid of what can happen and so on. We have all the time to sit back and think about it. I really haven't planned anything, it's too far ahead. I'll do it one week before or something. Maybe I'll throw out the biggest party ever, or the world will blow up or whatever, I don't know. -After so many changes in the band, do you feel like you have reached a certain stability today? -Yes, I would say so. In the beginning, we had tons and tons of line ups, and now we have the same one since March 95, and it works so fine and we all work so well together and we made such big sacrifices to ourselves to play that kind of music, to get the speed and everything and we feel totally dedicated to what we do, that there's no reason for anybody to quit now. It works so well together and I hope it will last... -This LP was rather short: was it a deliberate choice or did everything come this way? -We didn't really think about doing short songs, but we didn't want the songs to be as long as in the last album, we wanted it short and rather aggressive like the black metal's answer to Slayer's "Reign in blood". That's the way we wanted. It's not that I think it could be boring, but it's so intense that I wanted it to be a short and aggressive album, like a punch in the face, but maybe the next album will be longer. -How do you see the future for Marduk? -Clear as crystal: we have planned all this shows and the tour for the fall, and in the beginning of next year we will tour the States and come back home to work on new material for the next album. We have a lot of ideas already that we want to incorporate, tons of ideas from different topics and we'll be around for a long time, as long as the interest lives! Interview by Jean-Paul Coillard |
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