Dark Fortress
Wywiad przeprowadził Bartosz Donarski
DEATH HOLDS THE KEY
For Lucifer's sake! This band really turns me on. Frankly spoken, I had no idea about Austrian DARK FORTRESS until I received their debut album - "Tales from Eternal Dusk". You know what? If you let yourselves to miss the record you'll be still gushing out in tears for Dissection. I state, there's no sense now. DARK FORTRESS simply dethroned them and placed themselves as true leaders of aggressive, yet melodious black/death metal. Such music is meant to catch your ears between harsh riffing and melodious passages. And they just do that with highest proficiency and pure talent. I'm in love with these melodies, gloomy mood and sophisticated atmosphere. Let's see what DARK FORTRESS is all about. Highly recommended.
First off, I must ask you about the way you create and play your music. To be frank, I really like the mood of black/death metal you try to achieve. I guess you agree it's not that commonplace these days.
Azathoth: "The way we create our music is really simple, 'cause most of the riffs are ideas of Asvargr, our guitarist, and in some cases also the second guitarist has some ideas, but it's just easier, when just a few people are involved in the songwriting. For sure the who le band creates the song, but mostly out of the ideas of Asvargr, and the melodic riffing was always a trademark of him since the beginning of Dark Fortress."
I suppose you won't be angry with me if I say the music Swedish Dissection played had a lot in common with how you approached to own accomplishments? Very resemble atmosphere, I'd say.
"Yeah, Dissection was for sure an influence for us, lyrically and musically, cause Jon Nödtveid is in our opinion a mastermind, but anyway, in my opinion we are much more melodic than Dissection ever were in their history. The only Dissection album similar to our "Tales from eternal dusk'-album might be probably "The somberlain", but I don't think, that "Storm of the light's bane" has a lot of similarities to our music, because its much more aggressive."
Your image is typically black metallic, although, "Tales from Eternal Dusk" is an album that offers much more that black. What kind of scene or genre you feel more familiar with? (black or death)
"To be honest we feel more familiar to the black metal scene, but we have a lot of other influences in our music, that might be the difference to other black metal bands. That's because we listen to every style of heavy metal, and we just do what we want to do, if anyone says.- "Hey, that's no black metal !"- it's no problem for us, cause we don't want to limit ourselves by saying: "Oh, we cannot take these riff because it's no true black metal riff', you know. But I can promise, that our next album will have more black metal influences, but still you will hear the typical melodies."
First agreement with CCP Records Dark Fortress sealed wasn't fulfilled in any shape or form. What happened? Did they rip you off or something like that?
"Well, everything seemed to be clear, and normally we should record our first album in November 1998 in the CCP-studios, but 3 days before the studio date, the deal blew, because CCP phoned us, and told us, that they forgot the date, and now the studio is booked by a band of an other label (in this case it was the Austrian band Third Moon from Napalm Records), which was the reason for us to tell 'em, that we won't sign any deal of them, because in our opinion, they just lied to us, because the true reason were financial problems, they always have, and in this case it was just more important for them to get some money from Napalm Records. In our opinion there should be a kind of trust between label and band from the beginning on, but such things like happened with CCP are not very reliable, we thought, and so we were quite happy, that we didn't sign the deal with 'em."
Continuing the label topic I'm anxious to inquire after the deal you eventually signed with, really reliable and honest to me, American Red Stream? How did Patrick run on you?
"Well, we sent some promos of the finished recording of "Tales..." to some interesting labels for us, of which Red Stream was one of these, and in January 2001 they offered us a deal about 2 albums, and we decided to sign their deal, because they seemed more reliable to us than the British label, we had also an offer of. And now we are still very satisfied with Red Stream, so we don't regret anything."
As it's been written you have got quite profound experience background with former bands you played in. Didn't they fulfill your musical ambitions?
"Well, the thing is, that most of these bands, were just projects consisting of 2 or 3 people, and the problem is, that most of these people have got no Motivation in most of the cases, and so every band or project split up, and because of the situation, that there are not too many metalheads where we live, and everyone knows everyone here, people know, that we are one of the few motivated bands here, and so we often had the luck, that some of these people asked if they can join us, even if they just like the music, and they are normally more into American death metal or whatever, which was always a reason, why so many people also left the band ... just musical differences after a while."
"Tales..." is not that fresh material, originally prepared to be released by the end of '98. Nevertheless, the new one, already entitled "Profane Genocidal Creations" is schemed to be recorded in the beginning of the year 2002. Hope it will be as good as the previous one. What to expect anyway? Any musical changes?
"Well, like I told you before, it will be more aggressive, in my opinion more black metal And also the keyboards will play a bigger role on the new one, 'cause we want to create a more mystical, but yet aggressive atmosphere, but don't expect any constant blastbeat-orgies from us, that's not our thing ! Just more aggressive, but yet melodic, and there will be also one or two melancholic songs. The problem is, that the next album is lyrically a concept album, a blasphemous and barbarian fantasy story, and the lyrics were finished already 2 years ago, so we had to write the songs in that way, that they fit to the length and also to the feeling of the lyrics, which is very difficult, but I think, we have done a good job at the moment, as we have already written 6 of the 9 songs, but what I wanted to say is, that we knew, that the songs have to be more aggressive, so that they fit to the aggressive meaning of the story, and so you can expect a bit more aggressive album than "Tales from eternal dusk" from us next time."
Your line-up hasn't been stable for years. Is there a chance for Dark Fortress to stop these replacements for good? I sate it's always recommended to put the stick into the revolving door for any band.
"Yeah, maybe we have found now the perfect line-up, who knows ? But in my opinion the actual line-up is stronger than ever before. We have now a new drummer, and also a new second guitarist, who replaced Crom, and both guys are very motivated, so I'm very optimistic for the future, even if we have no guarantee as always."
Did any guests appear on the album during recording session? Besides, why did you choose Klangschmiede Studio?
"Well, Markus Stock of Empyrium who is also the owner of the Klangschmiede Studio did some choirs on the song "Twilight" for us, because we had the idea in the studio, and so we asked him, and he agreed. We had chosen these studio because we financed the recording by ourselves, cause at that time we had no label, and so we had not too much money, and as the Klangschmiede Studio had some cheep offerings for bands without labels we decided to record the songs there, and to send the finished material then to the labels in hope to get a deal then, and as it seems we were the lucky ones."
Are there any plans for touring, or even hitting the road in the US?
"No, unfortunately not. We would play more gigs if possible, but unfortunately we had just 7 gigs in the whole band history, and that's not very much to be honest. The problem is, that the situation for gigs is not very good where we live, cause there is not really a metal- scene, and most of the people, who are living here, are very deep catholics, so there are not many chances for a black metal band here. We would also like to play a tour, which is a big dream for us, but it's a financial problem to realize such a tour, so we hope for the future to get the chance one day."
Have yon got any ideology concealed behind your music? Reportedly, the forthcoming record will be a concept album. What will the one be dealing with?
"The ideology behind "Tales..." was mostly visions of death, cause I'm very fascinated of death, and in my opinion death is the one and only sense of life. The problem concerning the next album is, that I didn't write the lyrics for it at the first time in the band history, but it deals about a warrior who is sent back through time, and sees some historical happenings and who is damned to immortality ... it's a little bit comparable to Bathory's "Blood on Ice", but it deals not with these Viking topics, it's just blasphemous and barbarian."
Alright, I guess that's all for the time being. Feel free to end the interview as you wish.
"Thanks a lot for your support man. All people, who are interested in melodic black/death metal should listen to our debut "Tales from eternal dusk", and thanks to all metalheads out there for supporting us.
Never forget: Life creates the doorway - DEATH HOLDS THE KEY."
