Dark Funeral
Wywiad przeprowadził Michał Kowalski 
My favourite music style is death metal. However, I must admit there are few interesting bands playing extreme black metal, e.g.Marduk, Lord Berial, Dark Funeral. At this page you can read the interview with creators of such as great albums as "The Secrets Of The Black Art" and "Vobiscum Satanas". So sit down and sink in! Lord Ahriman will teach your children to worship Satan! Hell-o! First introduce the present line up of your band. There were few personal changes in your group, am I right?"Yes, and the current line-up consists beside myself of; Emperor Magus Caligula(bass/vocals), Dominion (guitars) and Matte Modin (drums)."
In my opinion there are three reasons of rows between musicians in the band: I) personal problems, II) different point of view when it goes to musical progress of the band, III)money. So, what went wrong in Dark Funeral?
"Well, most of the times it has been a matter of a lack of dedication. It is simply impossible to run a band along with people who don't have the same dedication as yourself. All the members must have the same goal otherwise it just doesn't work. Money has NEVER been an issue of disagreement in Dark Funeral. We are a four piece unit and we chare everything equal."
Let's talk about your latest release - "Teach Children To Worship Satan". Why didn't you record the full lenght album instead of MCD wit covers? Many bands record covers nowadays and it's becoming boring..."To begin with Teach Children..was never really ment to be an official Dark Funeral release. We did record the cover tracks for
various tribut albums and when our label heard the final result, they felt it was too good to have them featured on the tribut only. The suggested we should release the cover songs along with some new material as a sort of special "in the wait for the full-length" kind of release. We thought the idea was good and wrote as well as filmed the video for the new song An Apprentice Of Satan."
Talking about covers, Dark Funeral has already recorded one at the debut CD. So please, tell me more about VON, because I haven't heard anything about this band."VON SATANIC, as the band originally was called came from the US. Back in 1989 (can't recall the exact year) they released a demo called "Satanic Blood". We decided to honour them by doing a cover of one of their tracks."
Being honest, I really like only two songs from the new MCD: "An Apprentice Of Satan", and cover of Mayhem's "Pagan Fears". Couldn't you record the whole material in this way, I mean with fast, blasphemous style of Dark Funeral?"Dark Funeral will always be playing fast and extreme black metal, but the few times we decide to play covers we preferably pick slow songs. Sometimes it can be nice for a change to play something different from what we usually play you know."
Please, don't get me wrong. I also enjoyed King Diamond's, Slayer's and Sodom's covers. But the most I like those two songs mentioned in my previous question. Now, I want to know which one do you like the most and why?"Besides "An Apprentice Of Satan" personally like "The Trial" the most. It's indeed a challenge to cover one of King's songs, and I'm pretty satisfied with how our version turned out."
As I said before, Mayhem's "Pagan Fears" is one of my favourite at "Teach Children...". As you can guess now, I'd like to know your opinion about the latest release of this Norwegian band - "Grand Declaration Of War"."Honestly, I have only listened to it one time so it's really hard to say. I will most certainly buy the album one of these days, but right now I really don't have any opinions about it."
"An Apprentice Of Satan" is the only one new song on your MCD. Can I expect that your 3rd full lenght album is going to be kept in the same style as "An Apprentice..."? It's said that the third CD of the band decides about its future..."Well, the new album is going to be a bit different from An Apprentice Of Satan. It's going to b more extreme and intense,but we are also working on some slower songs. All I can tell right now is that the new album is going to offer plenty of surprises so be on the watch outfor it!"
I must say I saw an illegal, pirate copy of "Teach Children.." and "Open The Gates" at one CD. The one I'm talking about was "made in Russia". What would you say to people who buy that shit?"I have seen several Dark Funeral bootlegs throughout the years. It's kind of flattering in a way I guess. But on the other hand these bootlegs often hold a very crappy quality and since I want all of our products to hold a very high quality I somehow feel the fans who buy these bootlegs are being totally ripped off. And it would indeed be a nice gesture if these bootleggers could send us a few copies for free..."
Let's talk about something else than music. Anton Szandor La Vey wrote in his famous bible that children are the biggest treasure of man, because of their purity and innocence. Do you agree with it? By the way, what do you think about A.S. La Vey and his controversial opinions?"It's indeed true. Children are as pure and innocent as a human being possible can be. When one grow older one get a bit destroyed by outside influences, wether you like it or not. I have always been a sort of silent supporter of CoS and dr. LaVey. I might not always agree with his philosophy but he was indeed a very wise, talented and interesting man."
Try to imagine yourself as a teacher: many children around, toys everywhere, fucking noise! I think it wouldn't be easy job, would it? ha,ha..."It would most certainly be like the worsed fucking nightmare ha, ha."
By the way, are you father? Logically, do you have pets that children like to play with?"Yes, I have 2 kids. A daughter named Julia (see picture on the back of "Teach Children...") that is 2 years old and a stepdaughter who's 10. The kids love pets but unfortunately the only pet we have is a desert rat. I would love to have a dog, snake or something but it would demand too much of my time and I'm busy enough as it is right now."
Let's back to serious things. I've found something interesting in one of interviews.Quotation: "We use our make up not only at the stage, but even in the studio while recording a new material". I was astonished! It was just a joke, right?"Actually not. It's not like we use the paint everyday when we're in the studio, but we have used it a few times when we wish to come in a certain mood while recording. We have also been doing a few rituals while recording."
Where do you buy your stage "uniforms"? I mean all those nails, chains, and leather staff. It must be uncomfortable to play wearing all those things..."If it was uncomfortable to wear my outfit I wouldn't be wearing it at all. I have always been a "leather'n spike" fetishist and I love wearing these kind of things. Back in the early days I was creating most of the bracelets and stuff by myself, but lately I have found this S&M guy/designer who creates much of the stuff for me. It's damned expencieve but it turnes out so much better then if I would create these, more advanced, stuff myself."
...fiery torches! A head of pig impaled at the front of the stage! Blood everywhere! How do you refer to concerts which Dark Funeral used to play few years ago? Why don't you continue putting all this crazy staff at your gigs nowadays?" We still do "crazy" stuff, as you called it, live on stage, but nowadays we only do it at special occasions. We don't want our live show to be too predictible so no one never knows what will happen on stage when they come to a Dark Funeral concert."
I saw you live at the No Mercy Fest 2000 in Austria. It was unforgetable festival for me, howewer I heard that guys from many bands weren't satisfied with the Arena club. Was it really the worst setting on this whole tour?"Oh yeah. That's even one of the worse place to play in the whole Europe. All bands that I know of, who have experienced the Arena Club truly dislike it. There's no bands who really wants to play there again. It's not the actual venue that sucks but the promotor. He got this kind of weired attitude and show no respect towards the bands. On the tour we did with Dimmu Borgir I remember we played another, much better, venue in Vienna. Can't really figure out why for ex Metallysee don't book this venue nstead of the Arena Club?"
There were also BLACK, and DEATH metal bands at the No Mercy Fest. I'm curious about the atmosphere beetween bands?"The atmosphere was killer. All bands got along really well. We are after all professional musicians and we all love extreme metal."
Do you often drink or take drugs after concerts? I heard something about Silesia Fest 2000. So, confess "all your sins" now, ha, ha..."Sometimes I drink (too much) but usually I'm sober. And the only drug I use is Snus, which is a Swedish tobacco product. Sure, at the Silesia we were all pretty wasted.hehe."
As we all know you have been touring around many countries. Are there anywhere more aggressive metal maniax than in Poland? Do you still remember gigs given in my country? When will you come back?"I'm sorry, but so far the Mexican crowd are the most aggressive we've yet experienced. They were all totally in for it. Don't take me
wrong here, we truly enjoy playing Poland and we always get a killer response from the Polish crowd. Hails to all of you!!!! We hope to be back on stage in Poland as soon as we have a new album out, which should be sometime next year."
Are you keen on Polish metal scene? Do you know some bands, labels, magazines? Do you think Dark Funeral is popular here?"I love VADER. There is a few other Polish bands that I know of, live Behemoth etc, but I have unfortunately heard too little of Polish metal. I'm not sure how popular we are on a scale from 1-10 but we seems to have one and another fan in Poland."
OK, we were talking about Poland, now let's do the same about your country. Do you have any metal clubs there? Where do you drink litres of beer, buy some drugs, or admire crowds of pussies?"I hardly ever go out on pubs and when I do I rather go to a Irish pub or something. There are a few metal pubs in Stockholm but hardly ever go there. Most of the times when I go to a pub I wish to relax and drink some beers while talking to my closest metal brothers. If I go to one of the metal pub I will be busy talking with fans, or just other metal guys, all night long. Some people might handle that pretty
good, but I prefer to be sort of in the background."
People say that Caligula (Dark Funeral), Fredrik & Morgan (Marduk) are really keen of fishing. True or false?"Yeah, they enjoy the nature very much and they like to go out fishing sometimes. I love taking a walk in the deep wood but I've never been part of their fishing trips. I guess we're all nature lovers.!"
That's all for today. Tell me about Dark Funeral's plans for the nearest future, and summerize yor answers please. Thanx for your time! Good luck!"Jan 24th we will enter the Abyss Studio to record a new, yet untitled, full-length album. If all goes well the new album should be out by the end of May 2001. Make sure to check it out!!! And be on the look out for live dates in Poland. Also, make sure to check out the coming debut MCD by WOLFEN SOCIETY. A new studio project I am a part of. It consists of members from Acheron (Vincent Crowley), Incantation (Kyle Severn), The Electric Hellfire Club (Thomas Thorn & Ricktor Ravensbruck). We're soon releasing a 4 tracks MCD titled "Conquer Divine". Hail Satan!"
DARK FUNERAL,P.O.BOX 4288, S-102 66 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, come.to/darkfuneral
NO FASHION RECORDS, www.come.to/nofashion
