ENSLAVED (Grutle Kjellson) INTERVIEW
There are two types of successful bands in this world: the ones which achieve fame and recognition through a combination of skill and a certain degree of luck and those which also have skill but who instead have to work hard in order to have their message heard. The Norwegian metallers Enslaved belong in the latter category, as they are still opting for opening slots like the one in the Destroyers Of The Faith tour in order to attract the attention of new fans. On the warm and unusually sunny afternoon of the tour’s London trek, I met up with bassist/vocalist Grutle Kjellson for a nice little chat during which the friendly frontman shared his views regarding the band’s career, the usefulness of the Internet in promoting one’s music and the band’s plans for the immediate future!
By Yiannis (John) Stefanis.
• Hi Grutle, thank you for taking the time to do this interview. As a fan of the band since the days of “Frost” it gives me great pleasure to see the way you have evolved as a band and I am ever more excited by the fact that people are being quite receptive towards your music. I believe that this massive interest began when “Isa” was released. I am sure that you will agree with me in saying that since that very day your career has pretty much sky-rocketed, right?
Grutle: Pretty much yeah, you could say that. I think that this started slightly before that, on the album “Below The Lights” – that was what you would call a ‘new start’ for us, although I think it was mainly me and Ivar at the time who were calling the shots as we had changed most members. It was kind of like starting from scratch with “Below The Lights”; I think that it was really the starting point for this new peak in the band’s career.
• Now, as far as I am concerned, there has always been a lot of quality in your music and there has always been a tendency for you to try to work outside the strict limits of Black Metal so I do sometimes wonder as to why it took people so long to understand and appreciate what it is that you guys are all about! There is a fair number of Enslaved albums out there!
Grutle: Yeah, you are right! We never accepted any boundaries or limits in our music and we have become… (laughs)…how should I say this, more and more free as musicians with every new release. Already from the very beginning we did not accept any limits and we always went with what best served our songs , a very flowing concept, and that is the most essential thing that I can say about us because we never…(laughs)…basically we never listen to anyone else! We like to challenge ourselves in order to write better music, better arrangements and we never look back on our previous releases for inspiration or pre-plan how we want our next album to sound. We just let things flow and see what we end up doing.
• “Axioma Ethica Odini” is a truly inspirational album, there is no doubt about that, and what I really like about it is that even though you have evolved very much as a band you have still managed to retain some very specific elements that somebody who has followed the band’s career since the days of “Frost” and “Eld” will easily manage to recognise. That is quite unique, as most Norwegian Black Metal bands of the early 90s have made a 180 degree turn in their recent albums.
Grutle: I think that I have a very simple answer as to why this has happened and that is because we are 100% self-taught and we kind of…in the beginning we had no idea what it was that we were doing with all these chords that we were creating. It was something that we made up. Ivar has been writing riffs for twenty one years and he still has the same guitar style, although he has indeed improved; he has the same way of creating riffs – he has the same tone. I think that is the main reason why you can find a connecting line bringing together all of our albums.
• It is also very important the fact that you have managed to retain a steady line up for quite a decent number of years and that in itself must be very helpful when it comes to stabilising your musical course and then working towards expanding your ideas.
Grutle: It is that very stabilisation that we always looked for and develop anyway. We have to improve as a band; otherwise it would be totally pointless, releasing the same album over and over again. This is not the kind of thing that we would like to do. Had we done that for a couple of albums in a row then we would have probably quit the band ten years ago! We still enjoy doing what it is that we are doing and I believe that this is, of course, the most important thing.
• I am well aware that the end of last year you were touring the States and the States are a very ‘interesting’ market for Metal music as they have an approach of appreciating and understanding music differently from us here in Europe. You were on the road there with bands like Alcest – an outfit that is also pretty diverse and musically open minded. How would you describe your recent experience there?
Grutle: Well, actually in the States, they have a…maybe people are slightly underestimating the Americans and their understanding of music! Their radio, Classic Rock radio and Metal radio has always been big in presenting relevant shows so they have a kind of…their interest for Metal doesn’t stop with Emperor or Enslaved or Mayhem for that matter. It starts with Led Zeppelin and Rush and Deep Purple so they become exposed to the whole range of Rock and that might just be missing in some European countries actually. So they have quite a wide range of musical interests.
• Point taken, however, it is seems that much in the States revolves around making a massive show for and the moment something is no longer popular in that respect it tends to be left behind – something that does not happen in Europe as Metalheads tend to be more loyal!
Grutle: Well, I think that we are…actually what we are doing is still a little bit more underground, even in the States (laughs)and so I don’t think that this will be at all a problem for us actually (laughs).
• Did you enjoy the experience anyhow?
Grutle: Oh yeah, absolutely! We did some great tours there! I think that the first really good tour that we had there was when we were supporting Opeth back in 2009, we also had a good tour there with Dimmu Borgir in 2010 and now we had a headlining tour there with Alcest supporting last year so, yeah – we really have something going on in the States. We really enjoy playing in the States as there are a lot of cool cities there to do shows – yeah! I like Americans in many ways, absolutely, but I am not talking about politics here, you know (laughs). We are talking about music here!
• Of course… politics are a whole different topic of discussion!
Grutle: It is, it is!
• Earlier on in the day I said to myself “Ok, let’s try to collect some info prior to interrogating this poor guy”, so what I did was to look on the Internet for news, as you might have expected. I tried accessing the band’s official website and a few more sources of sorts and that is when I realised that the one medium that keeps people informed about the band’s whereabouts and activities is Facebook!
Grutle: Yes, that is indeed the most active page right now!
• So what I understand from that is that you consider Facebook to be the number one medium for promoting your music, right? Signs of our times, I guess, wishing to have a more direct and up-to date connection with your audience.
Grutle: Yeah, I mean, it used to be website initially but nobody spends any time on a website anymore. For some reason personal websites have become pretty insignificant in comparison with Facebook nowadays. This is like a new form of media revolution of sorts and we are not in control of such things, not at all! So Facebook and Twitter have taken over our main webpage and I guess that we have to be fine with that because as I said we are not at all in control of such things. MySpace was quite useful for a while but it just collapsed into all this advertising shit and even if you had the best Internet connection in the world it could take you up to half an hour to load a page and so I think that MySpace is pretty much out. It seems to be Facebook at the moment but of course that will change too as Facebook is not going to be the main thing in ten years’ time.
• I trust that you are right. I am wondering, however, as you tend to post things online on an almost daily basis, don’t you find the process to be stressful or even boring when you are on the road? I would be very annoyed if I had to do that after a long day on the road and a tiring show.
Grutle: Of course it can be annoying but this is not the 80s, it is not even the 90s; this is what you have to deal with and this is what the world of music looks like at the moment and you just have to cope with that. I mean, you cannot stop technology and everything, of course, is happening way too fast and I do tend to miss the old days when I used to correspond through letters, tapes and magazines! Those days were actually a lot better but the Internet is quite useful and as I said we simply have to cope with it.
• You are in the happy position to be getting much exposure around the world and especially the UK, where both the press and the fans have been quite kind to you over the years and we have seen you perform in many different venues around the country. Today you are one of the opening acts for Cannibal Corpse, another very popular band and also will be sharing the same stage with Thomas Gabriel “Warrior” Fischer who is nothing less than a living legend! Personally speaking, I would have preferred to have you guys performing a one and a half hour set with all the accompanying projectors and proms, but I guess I would have to settle on a forty five minute set, right?
Grutle: Yes, we are given a forty five minute slot and, as you said, reality dictates that. We saw this tour as an opportunity to play in slightly bigger venues than usual and maybe get some extra attention in the process. This is all about the headlining act in terms of marketing and promotion, of course, but this is also a very interesting package for many people too and that is another important aspect of our involvement in the tour.
• A great number of artists that I had the pleasure of interviewing in the recent past have pretty much confirmed that for any tour to make any real financial sense under the current economic situation and for people to part with their hard-earned cash, you need to provide them with a billing consisting of a number of impressive bands. Do you also think that this is the way forward?
Grutle: Well, we had decided back in 2008, and especially for the American market, that we would be a support band for a couple of tours and see how that goes. Things went very well, so last year we decided to go there for a headliner tour and that worked almost perfect so I guess we can do headlining tours from now on in the States more or less. In Europe there are still a few territories that we need to work on but we just did a headlining tour in Europe, eleven days before we started with the Destroyers Of The Faith tour and the attendance was very good. We had more spectators in Germany, for instance, this time around in comparison with past tours – it was the best in recent years. The French concerts we did were very good, as usual, and things were pretty good in Holland and Belgium too, so yeah – we are all pretty satisfied! That was a short tour in hand-picked venues so we might go on a support tour , a larger one than this one, in Europe so as to increase the band’s exposure before the next album comes out. I mean, opportunities like these just do not pop up every week, as there is a lot of logistics and money involved in order to be able to get things going actually. There are many pieces that need to be put together – a great puzzle!
• You guys are quite active in terms of producing and recording your own music, turning a few knobs in the studio and then subsequently promoting yourselves with the help of technology. Do you reckon that there will soon be a time that Enslaved will not have to rely on any specific record label in order to get music out to the people? Do you see record labels becoming obsolete in the near future?
Grutle: No, I don’t think so! I mean, it costs so much money to organise promotion that we couldn’t even get close to cover it ourselves. We are not Radiohead for God’s sake (laughs); we are not able to give our albums away for free and stuff like that – that is not a possibility! It costs shitloads of money to record a proper album in a proper studio and it is supposed to sound good too and that is not something you can do from your living room! Many people might think that it is possible but I totally disagree (laughs). So, we still need a record label behind us, definitely, for many, many years. Actually I don’t see it happening that we will release something by ourselves! I mean, it is a big risk in terms of money and marketing and it also takes a lot of effort and a lot of money – money that we don’t have (laughs).
• Grutle, is it too early to ask if you have already worked on any ideas for the next Enslaved album? Are you the type of band that doesn’t write songs when on tour?
Grutle: Well, we have been working on a few ideas already and we know what we want to do…
• …but, you don’t want to reveal anything just yet?
Grutle: No, we don’t (laughs).
• Grutle, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you but it is time to let you relax and prepare yourself for tonight’s show. I hope you enjoy it and win many new fans– something that you guys definitely deserve!
Grutle: I hope so too! Thank you.
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