Dead Rhetoric: If you want to look at it on the flipside, there are some bands of your ilk that you are lumped in with that can be considered commercially successful, like Dimmu and Cradle of Filth. They are lucrative entities.
Satyr: At least Cradle are. Dimmu, seems to be really lucrative to everyone surrounding them, but not necessarily the band. [laughs] That’s more their fault. You have to keep an eye on what people surrounding you are doing. I think in our case, it’s like everything else in life. If you want to after having done this for so long and keep on enjoying it and remain motivated and inspired, which is an absolute necessity if you want to make something that sounds good, you have to go look for that. It will not just magically appear. I’ve had this talk with one of my live musicians a million times. He will sit in the dressing room and complain about something, some stage technician that he doesn’t get. Again and again, he will complain, and I will say, “Have you told him?” “No I haven’t.” Then I ask him: “How is this situation going to improve? What are your expectations? How will things be different for tonight’s show?” And he’ll go, “I know, I’ll tell him.” And I know he won’t. [laughs]
With Satyricon, I felt like the break after The Age of Nero was really interesting because I had a different way of discovering the world. I began working a little bit on a wine making project with wineries and wine makers all around the world, and I got to the see the world without my tour bus perspective. That was really interesting. For example, in France, I worked with a small underground producer in Burgundy. I did a whole wine harvest with him and stayed with his family. I didn’t do a lot of grape picking – grape picking is monkey work. [laughs] We did it for vinification. That’s where you actually make the wine and to be a part of an old-school traditional French family. I stayed with them. We worked 12-hour days, then they’d gather the entire family for big traditional meals with wines from previous vintages. We’d get up really early in the morning and continue work with the vinificaiton. I also went to Lebanon and there was a winery there where I got to know the people. I stayed with them and their vineyards are in terrorist-controlled areas.
Dead Rhetoric: Oh, that’s nice.
Satyr: I know, really. It was all Hezbollah-controlled and we had to pass through Hezbollah checkpoints to get to the vineyard. I remember the winemaker told me, “As we approach the checkpoint, don’t look at them – act normal.” And I said, “What’s that supposed to mean? Now you’re making me nervous.” I was going to act normal and now you’re saying “Don’t look at them?” That’s not normal. If someone approached the car, it is natural to look at them. And then we had all these shady-looking characters with machine guns coming up to the car talking in a language I don’t understand and I’m just sitting there staring like a robot out of the window. [laughs] We were out in the vineyard, I thought to myself that there’s world out there outside of the bubble I live in as an artist.
Dead Rhetoric: And out there, you’re not Satyr from Satyricon.
Satyr: Exactly! It was funny how the winemaker, one of the days we were walking around the vineyards and I was wearing a t-shirt, and his English was rather good and he said, “I don’t want to offend you in anyway; I know you’re musician, but you have tattoos.” And I said, “Yeah, I have tattoos.” And he said, “Wasn’t it hard to get a job as a musician with tattoos?” [laughs] And I said, “First of all, you don’t really apply for a position in a black metal band like that. And secondly, I don’t think tattoos are going to be a problem. On the contrary, I think it’s going to be just fine.” And he was like, “Really?”
It’s interesting for me to meet people like that who have no idea what’s going on. He’s in his own little world in Lebanon and working in his vineyard in the terrorist-controlled areas. For me to meet people like that and hang out with such characters, I did that for a year and a half and when I came back, I had a very clear understanding of who do I need in my organization? Who needs to go? Now I know what to do, and one of the things I really wanted to do was make a quite “rustique” album. I wanted to make something that was melodic, atmospheric, analog…really down to the core. That was one of the moves that we made when working on the record.
Dead Rhetoric: We talk about the album being stripped-down and organic, but it’s not like you’ve gone the over-produced route for any of your albums. The most “produced” thing you’ve done could be Volcano, but still, I’m curious: How much more stripped-down can you get without sounding like a basement black metal band?
Satyr: The interesting thing for me, is the last time I listened to the record was today, but we’ve also been rehearsing for the tour. I’ve been driving around and running all kinds of errands, and I’ve been listening to the album in the car, and I’ve been thinking to myself, I have a really good stereo in my car: “How can people write the review, whether they like it, or dislike it, or whether it’s analog, or don’t like the fact it’s analog, how could they not talk about the great sonics?” I was listening to the drums and I’m thinking and listening to the drum fill which in itself, is nothing special – it’s the fill at the beginning of “Nocturnal Flare.” And, I was thinking “It’s rare that drums come across like this. This sounds like a really good drum kit played by a really good drummer and it sounds like it’s being tuned by a drum tech that really knows how to tune drums.”
Dead Rhetoric: It’s “human”-sounding, in essence.
Satyr: Yes. So, sonically speaking, whether you like it or not, this is a fantastic-sounding record. To me, many of the records that I like, are like that. When I listen to digital, overly-processed sounding records that don’t sound human, to me, they actually sound cheap because that recording technology is really cheap.
Dead Rhetoric: Like if you make a mistake in Pro-Tools, the computer will fix it for you. Whereas in the analog area, you physically have to go in and repair it.
Satyr: Right, you have to. And I just remember this conversation I had with Hellhammer of Mayhem; he’s completely changed his take on that, so in all fairness he doesn’t stand by that comment anymore, but he did say to me years ago, when we were talking drums and I was talking about the drums on the Volcano record which were recorded analog as well, as were the guitars and bass, he said, “I don’t like it.” And I asked, “Why don’t you like it?” He said “It sounds the way my drum kit sounds when I play it at rehearsal.” And I was like, “Yeah?” So I said, “Basically you are suggesting you don’t like the way drums sound when they sound like actual drums.” And he laughed and said, “I know it sounds funny, but I don’t.” He changed his mind and I didn’t give him a hard time. I just told him I was glad he changed his perspective on that. For me, it’s definitely not a goal in itself to sound black metal in a garage, but I just wanted to try and come across with the emotions and the personality and character that lies within the song itself, but also the performance.
Dead Rhetoric: After Rebel Extravaganza – which had a lot of riffs and complex songs – was that the point where you felt you went too far, and had to scale your songs back?
Satyr: I think Rebel for me, was always the black sheep. I look upon it as a very important record and one those records that got more acknowledgement in the aftermath of its release as opposed to when it was released. I think that the scene needed a record like that at the time. What I felt – and I’ve been saying since the record was released – black metal during 1997 or 1998 was at its most…the genre I despise most in the world is Gothic. I hate that scene.
Dead Rhetoric: And that’s when Goth started to creep into black metal.
Satyr: Exactly. A lot of the stuff I had written was way more melodic…
Dead Rhetoric: More melodic than some of the stuff on Nemesis?
Satyr: Yeah, more of a continuation of that record. I thought to myself, “Fuck it, I want to make a record that’s a killing machine. I want to be cold, misanthropic, and hateful and relentless.” I wanted to move away from what I considered to be many of the lame theatrics of black metal. So we did that record, but I think that record was necessary for the scene as well because I think many bands probably dared to do things they wouldn’t normally do because someone did it before them.
Dead Rhetoric: And if you wanted to play it safe, you could have done Nemesis Part II.
Satyr: Safe is no fun. No one remembers a coward.
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