One thing about this band is certain, you'll never receive same thing twice. During The Kovenant's career they never released same music twice and with "SETI" the trend continues. For some it's a good thing but for some metal fans that's unacceptable. From black metal on "In Times Before The Light" to cyber/industrial "SETI," the Kovenant surprises, shocks or disgusts but like mad scientist never stops in a search of new forms of sounds. I had a pleasure to talk to one of those mad scientists in his computer laboratory about their new creation and here's what Lex Icon (vocals, bass) had to say.

Chris


It's been almost 4 years since your last release, what took you so long and what have you been doing over that time?

Nothing. [Laughs]

Last year you re-released "In Time Before The Light" and for people that didn't know Kovenant in '95 this might be quite a music shock. Was it your or label idea to reissue this album?

No, they really didn't want to have anything to do with the album. [Laughs] You know, when we recorded this album we were 16-17 years old, that's ten years ago. We paid for everything ourselves and we ended doing everything we wanted to do with that album. The production was a little bit poor and . I thought about this as a great opportunity to redo the thing and make it as sort of ultimate edition but mainly we did it for ourselves.

Where does this cyber/electronic fascination come from? Do you still keep track of what's going on in the metal scene or did you cut the cords with your past? For example do you now what Dimmu Borgir is doing nowadays or you could care less?

No, I talk to them everyday. I know they're going into the studio to record a new album, I pay attention and I still listen to metal but the thing is when we did "SETI" we really wanted to do something different comparing to so many black metal band these days. I really don't have any inspiration toward making black metal anymore. I also grow up listening to 80 pop music like Alphaville, Depeche Mode, bands like Duran Duran and I wanted to incorporate some of that electronic 80s into the music and still keep it metal.

Comparing first and last release how would you describe the drastic change in the music style?

Very, very different. "SETI" is so much more mature version of The Kovenant. I think the greatest difference is the vocals other than that we're still extreme. When we recorded the first album we were more or less a black metal band but things progressed. We've been doing it for over 10 years, people change. Except if you play in Mayhem [laughs].

What's the idea and meaning behind the title "SETI"?

"SETI" title reflects upon seeking towards something greater than ourselves. The longing and willingness to explore new paths and to go beyond what's expected norm of our existence. There's also social logical aspect to the album and title. We preach and prophesize and try to highlight the ambivalence that exists in our collective individuality or what people might call a conspiracy theory. It is however in essence of doing "SETI" record, proclaiming and demanding the soul of our world that everything we know is true. And we're strong believers in technology that can be used to recreate, improve and rearrange the old. And that's on all levels; musically, lyrically, visually and conceptually.

Based on the promo material it's also about "proving that God is wrong"?

Well, it's not really about that God is wrong it's always been about that God doesn't exist and never existed. There is no God. Religion is the greatest danger that people face today. Having that message and the kind of music we do at this same time is a great combination to make people think. "SETI" is so much more acceptable in so many ways that I feel it's more of a universal album, potentially for everyone. Some of the music styles on this album are very acceptable to a lot of people and with our lyrics we hope to influence them in some way. Religion is the reason of all wars.

I'd definitely have to agree on that.

We started this whole thing with our previous album "Animatronic" with songs like 'Jihad' or 'New World Order'. 'Jihad' of course was very prophetical about what happened on September 11th and the whole situation. Religion can drive people to do many sick and weird things. Doing it in the name of God doesn't make it right it's still wrong. Religion was created to control people by government or someone who wanted to control people. They're using it because they want you to have a job that you really don't want. You're living a pointless life, you get up at 9 in the morning, you go home at 5 after busy day of work and that's it. Maybe you'll have a beer, watch some football or some pointless thing and deep inside you'll realize that this is actually pointless and it doesn't bring you anywhere. That's why these people had to invent religion to make you believe that ok, if you do this now you'll have a better time when you die. And that's why the new album "SETI" opens up with a song 'Cybertrash' that's about people that are so terrified that they might disappear when they die, cause there's nothing. I mean, would you die for something that someone else created? Hell no, when you die there is nothing, that's it. That's what the whole album is about, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We couldn't find any intelligence down here so we have to look elsewhere.

You have two new members, are the permanent or just session musicians?

Angel is a permanent member since 2000 he's not on the new album although he contributed with some parts here and there but he's a permanent member now. Eric was never supposed to be a part of the band. He was just someone we brought in to the band to help develop effects and programming stuff. He was more of a sound designer. He came in because we knew he had a lot of experience in the electronic music field and we really wanted to bring someone in who understood that more than we did and he did an excellent job.

Who's the female that gives her voice on couple of track?

Her name is Allin. She's a professional opera singer at German House of Opera. She never worked with any metal or hard rock band before "Animatronic" album. She didn't have a clue about metal or The Kovenant but I set down with her and talked to her about it and I asked her if she'd be willing to participate on the album. She did a very great job and she really enjoyed the music. She's not the part of the band though [laughs].

In your own words how would you describe the music style you perform now?

I really don't care. You can call it whatever you want. Some people call it nu-metal, some people call it gothic metal, and some people just call it black metal. The main idea behind the whole record was to combine the old classical, beautiful music with hard and dirty machine like stuff, for example the song 'Industrial Twilight,' the last one on the album, where you clearly have the symbiosis between the two. If I had to categorize it I would call it electronic cyber metal [laughs] or something like that.

Since you music style changed so much how different is the composing process right now? Do you still start with a guitar riff or keyboards or electronic samples are main tool now?

The whole thing has changed. Of all our previous albums most of the music was made at the rehearsal place but with "SETI" we really wanted to try something different, to create everything on computers. Since we didn't rehearse, we haven't actually had a proper rehearsal in 5 years [laughs] last time we played together was 3 years ago, I didn't even see the drummer in the studio because everything was finished when I went down there. The whole process was basically me sitting here behind the computer and Psy Coma sitting almost at the other end of the country with his computer and trading fillies. We have a server where we upload everything to and than he downloads it, he recreates it or changes it or rearranges it and than he sends it back to me and we do it back and forth until we're satisfied. It completely changes the way you compose the music. When you are at the rehearsal place you kind of know how it's going to sound life and you get a whole different feeling but when you're sitting behind the computer everything changes so drastically. Actually, the vocals on the album were suppose to be extreme metal vocals but once we got into the studio we found that it really didn't work out that well to use it all the time. We really didn't know what to do and the producer was like "Why don't you try singing it?" and I was like "What? Fuck you! I can't sing" but I tried and everything worked out really well.

Well, it sounds like 21st century studio, two guys with computers trading files.

Exactly, it was a really interesting process because we've never done this before. Everyone else is busy having rehearsal place and... we're broke [laughs], we never got any money from record label so we can't afford the rehearsal place [laughs].

Come on it can't be that bad?

Almost. you know it's a great record label when it comes to promotion and selling albums but when it comes to the financial side it's a little bit harder.

You need to tour more than.

Yeah, we should tour more. That's the plan for this new album. We're going to tour as much as possible, do as many festivals as shows and we're not going to have any manager that takes 20-40% of your money. We've learned our lesson.

Can we count on seeing you in States again sometime this year?

Yeah, there are plans to go there later this year, maybe October, November. I really want to get back there as soon as possible. We really enjoyed playing in States. The whole mentality of the listener is so different from Europe. People here just stand with their arms crossed and watch. In States, I think people are more into it really. They really don't seem to care about this whole "you have to stand around looking evil all the time" sort of things; it's more about energy in the music.

I think that would be all for now, do you have anything to add or say to our readers?

What can I say? Buy our album, get drunk and buy it again [laughs] just don't download it. The only one that's not making anything out of it is the band. I love Internet, it's great for finding new music but if you like it download it but buy the whole album also.

With "Heimdal" Norwegian Enslaved have recently released their 20th album (read review here). It is quite a huge step forward for them but in some cases also pretty much back to the roots so I had a lot of questions to ask. Iver Sandøy (drums, vocals) was so kind to do a very nice Sunday morning chat with me via Zoom where I got a lot of answers and a deeper insight into the band which is still burning full of energy and creativity. Enjoy reading.

Michael

Hi Iver, how satisfied are you with the reception of the new album?

Well, we are extremely satisfied with it. The reception has been at times overwhelming. So the spirits are high in the Enslaved camp!

Personally I am totally flashed by the album and "Heimdal" is by far the best album since "Frost" for me. These breaks and the alternation of quiet parts with the eruptive black metal outbursts are great and always provide a surprise, because it all comes so suddenly and yet fits perfectly into each other. With which ideas did you go with the songwriting?

All the music, the instrumental bits, are written by Ivar so it's kind of hard for me to go into detail or to know the details of his initial inspirations. But for instance for a song like 'Congelia' we talked about in the early stages when we started talking about vaguely planning the new album. I said something like: "maybe we should have a section with that slow blast beat this time". In Norwegian we say "langrennspinne" which is translated into cross country skiing blast (laughs). Of course that comes from Darkthrone; Fenriz and his love for cross country skiing so it's not extremely fast it's just that slow going (laughs) but a very insistent kind of beat that we always have enjoyed. And that turned into a whole song when he started working on it. That's an example of discussion within the band when we say "that kind of beat is cool" and he will come back with this.

Let's take 'Forest Dweller' as an example - did you compose this incredibly versatile song in one piece, or did the ideas come gradually? You first have to come up with the idea of pairing these harsh black metal riffs with clear vocals and a Hammond organ in the middle and then suddenly starting with acoustic guitars again...

This I cannot tell you because this time it is very much Ivars album to the very details. Even many of the drum parts I didn't really change from his compositions. What Grutle and I contributed were more the melodies on top of what we are singing. Those we wrote on top of the musical compositions. But when I know how kind of Ivar works, I guess it starts with the loose ideas of course and then you get to a point like in 'Forest Dweller' where you arrange the calm with the rocking parts. Normally it comes quite intuitively.

So when you did do the vocals, was there already a complete song or how did you progress with it?

That's how it normally works. We do quite extensive demos before we record the album so when we get the instrumental demos from Ivar we start to decide where we should have clean vocals, distorted vocals based on the lyrics that we have for the song. Most often we write the vocals on top of the finished arrangement. What can happen is that when we start writing the vocals we see that we need to extend a section to make it fit with the lyrics. A song can be longer or shorter when we actually start working on the vocals so that it's not a totally rigid thing. But it is being more worked on in sections. The way it works is that Ivar presents us a finished instrumental composition and that we stay to that arrangement lengthwise with the vocals or like in 'Forest Dweller' we changed some duration of the instrumental sections to fit with how we wanted the vocals to be with melody and lyrics.

So do you write the lyrics also after the compositions?

I think that varies but most often the compositions come first and Grutle and Ivar write the lyrics after that. But for this and the latest albums the lyrical concept has existed even before all the music has been written.

How long did it take to record "Heimdal" with all the pre-production and demo stuff?

This one actually took a while. Ivar wrote intermediately and the songs didn't come in one session. It was over the course of a bit of time the demos arrived and every time we got a new song, Grutle and I got to work on the vocals a bit. I'm not sure how long exactly it took but maybe about half a year to write it and writing vocal demos and writing vocal lines took the same time. When we recorded it, we always aimed for a pretty concise, intense period for that, it took a month in total and then mixing came later and also the Dolby atmospheric mix that we did. This is also interesting and you can listen to it at Apple Music to the surround mix that we did this December.

And with 'Caravans To The Outer Worlds' you wrote an awesome thrash song, maybe the fastest song in a long time...how did it come about? Is it some kind of homage to the old heroes like Kreator?

I guess those influences will creep into the songwriting when the riffs are kind of thrashy and I come more from a thrash metal background from my youth. I wasn't really a metal drummer for many years so I wasn't part of the black metal thing in the 90s. I was more into psychedelic and progressive stuff then. When I got back into metal, my references kind of stopped in 1990 (laughs). So what I have to go on is the stuff that I learned from Slayer, early Metallica, Kreator, those kinds of bands. So definitely there will be an old school thrash metal vibe in those kinds of songs.

I dare say that with "Heimdal" you have an even wider range between progressive and black metal than ever before, do you agree?

I think that's a fair assessment. As we've grown older, we have started not giving a shit even more (laughs) so the references are probably even clearer. If we do a black metal homage then we just go full on and a thrash metal riff we don't hide. We just explore that to the fullest and also the progressive elements. Hopefully we managed to go further in every direction. It just makes the ideas more fully realized in a way. If you're going to go Krautrock and early Kraftwerk, let's just go for it!

Maybe it depends on my age and the fact that I'm also into some prog stuff like Rush after all these years only being into death, black and thrash especially when I was a teenager but with "Heimdal" it is pretty much easier to listen to than albums like "Isa" or the other stuff you released in the early 2000s – this was pretty more difficult to access to….

Well, that's interesting because in the minds of a lot of people probably the Heimdal album is the difficult one and especially compared to Utgard or albums like Isa. So it is interesting that you say that! Maybe it has to do with our age group but Heimdal is just more logical for us now. It explores more fully the influences that maybe have always been there but it's out now on display a bit more.

Yes and I think that there aren't so many compromises this time. All these twist and turns on the album are very surprising so that at least I quite often think: "wow, what the fuck is happening here?"!

(Laughs) There are less excuses. If we go there, let's just go there.

What made me a bit puzzled is this intro on 'The Eternal Sea'. It totally reminds me of some techno songs from the 90s. What was the intention behind it?

Yeah, I think you can totally say that. It's kind of repetitive, almost programmed to it and influenced by those 90s dark techno. But that's just a long lineage that comes from that 70s Krautrock German electronic music approach as well.  It's just logical and wrapped in metal and rock sounds but the way of thinking has probably much to do with the dark ambient techno electronic world.

"Heimdall" is the guardian of the rainbow bridge and the sound of his horn "Gjallarhorn" is supposed to warn of the downfall of the gods at the beginning of Ragnarok – so are you warning at the beginning of your album about the beginning of a dark time to come? I mean, since 2021 everything is kind of getting shittier and shittier….

Well I guess that's up to the listener to interpret it but it's not that we're being secretive about it. The album is called Heimdal and it's based on this Norse legend when he blows his horn one of its signals is Ragnarok. But the whole concept of Ragnarok is that the world is going to shits but let's not forget that the whole point of Ragnarok is the new beginning after it. So it's this circle but I don't want to go too literally into the lyrics because they are there for anyone to read and interpret in their own way. But yes, it signals both – the end of something and the beginning of something new. Your going into this album is going into a dream state and also coming out of a dream state.

Nevertheless I have to come back a little bit to the lyrics. Looking at the cover and reading through the lyrics, I get the impression that the sea and something to follow (Navigator, Beacon, etc.) play an important role.

I was born and raised on a small island and all the people who are in Enslaved now are coastal people so the sea holds a special importance for us, definitely. The sea and the ocean hold such strong symbols for all of us and it can be used poetically in so many ways because it has such a meaning and such significance for our people. I can only speak for the tradition where I am from but the sea is kind of both: a life giver and a life taker. So many men from my family, both my great grandfathers and his father disappeared at sea and this mightiness and the duality of the relation to the sea of taking life and giving life is important. In hard times people could always rely on the sea to survive as well while in the inland when your crops failed you had nothing to fall back on. The coastal people always had fish and other stuff so you could always survive from the ocean. There is a red line and I feel that we explored that on the previous album and on this one perhaps even more especially in songs like 'The Eternal Sea', exploring the history and the significance of the sea for us as people.

So you switched to another topic than the "Frost" theme….

Well, we're not Immortal. They can deal with the frost and snow and Enslaved is more about the water in its liquid form which is also appropriate for the music.

How much are you affected by the climate change in the area you live?

I think that everyone is affected by it. It's A difficult time in Norway  - we have had such areas that were still untouched by industry and now they are really pushing to take that away. I don't want to get too political here but it's just as important to protect whatever is left of nature as it is to electrify everything. Even though we are talking about climate change and moving away from fossil fuels the politicians are only talking about more, more, more. How many cell phones do we really need? How many cars do we really need and how big do our houses need to be? This is something that we should discuss.

Yes, it is the same here in Germany. So many things have changed and forests not far away from here completely died and nobody really cares about that. It is unbelievable!

I can definitely feel from my youth that the weather is getting just more extreme. Well, it's probably a nice excuse for all the climate change deniers, at the moment it's about 30 cm of snow in Norway and this is also extreme, even in Bergen that is traditionally a wet city. It's getting wetter and wetter and the weather is getting more extreme, like you guys had this summer in Europe this extreme drought. And let's not forget it's us, the humans. When I was born in 1974, there were 4 billion people on the planet and now it's doubled. Only in my lifetime! I know the theories that it will level out is what they predict but we have to reach 10 billion before that starts happening. So will there be anything left of nature? Or will it all be industrialized when we have finished killing all the insects. Then we won't have crops anymore. It sounds like a thrash metal dystopia from the 80s and now we are there.

Coming back to the history of the band - you never paid attention to any boundaries or opinions of others in your band history, was that the right way in retrospect or should you have made one or the other compromise in retrospect?

Do people have regrets? I am sure. We all spend time thinking what we shouldn't have done or what he should have done in another way but at the same time you just have to leave it behind. For Enslaved, in retrospect you can look at some of the albums and maybe say "okay, that wasn't the right direction or it could have been done in a different way". But at the same time you can say that we wouldn't have arrived at Heimdal if we hadn't been for even the missteps. Even if some the albums maybe weren't as artistically fulfilled and, not that it matters but some of them were less commercially successful but it was all part of arriving at the albums that did really matter and getting us to where we are now: where 16 albums a lot of people really care about what Enslaved do and that's a fantastic privilege. That we have people like yourself that actually care enough to go deeply into the stuff that you create, analyze it, have opinions about it and discuss it with us. As an artist that is the ultimate goal: to create something that holds relevance for people. Of course you have to start from yourself but you wouldn't be creating art and putting it on display if you only cared about yourself. We want to create something that people can relate to and hopefully find value in it.

Are you planning anything for next year as a 30th anniversary to celebrate "Frost" and "Vikingligr Veldi" accordingly? And this year a tour?

For 2024 there are no details yet. It will be a busy year this year. Vikingligr Veldi was released in 1993 and it is already announced that we will do a Vikingligr Veldi show in Germany at Party.San. We already did two Frost shows in 2019 and that was the 25th anniversary. So we did that and I'm not sure if we're going to do that again. To my knowledge we haven't been asked, at least not officially by anyone. We'll see. This is one year ahead from now. Anything can happen. We have plans for a little tour in Europe later this year but first it's the festivals like Brutal Assault, Party.San, Beyond The Gates in Bergen and a few others. But the US tour is coming up first for the whole of April and this is the big one this year. This will be interesting. We haven't been on a proper tour for that long since 2019 because it has not been possible.

Orchid is unmistakably one of the biggest sensations if it comes to vintage or as some call it doom rock, and their new album "The Mouths Of Madness" proves it in full. About their newest album we talked with Orchid guitarist Mark Thomas Baker. Read on!

Kubiccy

First of all, congratulations on successful "The Mouths Of Madness". Are you satisfied with it?

Yeah, I guess I’m fairly happy with it. I guess I’m most satisfied with the fact that it is done and out. I don’t really listen to our stuff much past that point, unless we’re adding a new song to the set or something like that and I need to learn a part.

Frankly, I wasn't impressed by "Capricorn" too much, but "The Mouths Of Madness" is a totally different story. This album is way better than a debut, it’s a huge step forward. Would you agree?

Oh I don’t know really. They’re both our children. I don’t like to choose one over the other. I don’t think the songs are that much different, we’re just a little better and more confident in what we do. I hope it’s a step forward, but I guess the listeners are really the judges of that. I’m sure a bunch of people will prefer Capricorn. I think Capricorn is a bit of a darker feeling album.

In my opinion "Capricorn" was mainly focused on reproducing Black Sabbath style. And when I listen to "The Mouths Of Madness" I still hear the same inspirations of course, but this time it sounds much more mature, plus there's more of your individual style. What's your point of view?

I would probably agree with that. The songwriting progresses, the players progress. We’re all a few years older and wiser.

Some people say that Orchid is the best band ever who plays music in style of Black Sabbath, they call you a heir of BS heritage. Do you care about such comparisons? Agree or disagree?

I don’t really care. I get pretty sick of talking about Black Sabbath really. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. Every interview that I get asks me a lot of questions about them. I like them, but Theo is really the Sabbath worshiper in the band. I’m not fixated on them really, although certainly, they’re one of the greats.

Why did you divide recording session into 2 parts, which were done in two different studios? Could you please tell us few words more on "The Mouths Of Madness" recordings?

There’s never really a big plan to do things any certain way. We had a group of songs that we’d written and learned and we wanted to go in and get some basics down before we were bored with playing them. Three of the tracks from the first session ended up on The Mouths of Madness, the rest ended up on the Heretic EP. The second session was done after we signed with Nuclear Blast and had a little budget to work with. They were all done in the usual way, play the songs live in a room and then overdub whatever you need to add or fix.

How do you assess your composing skills today? Are you better musicians than two or three years ago? On "The Mouths Of Madness" we can find interesting instrumental parts, like harmonica in "Marching Dogs Of War" and piano parts (or piano-sounding keyboards) in "Mountains of Steel".

I don’t know if I can really play any better at this point in my life than I did 20 years ago. I think I just have a better idea of what I want to do. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s a huge struggle. With Theo being the main songwriter in the band, I often find myself in the position of trying to interpret what he wants it to sound like. A lot of times it’s not even what he wants it to sound like, but what he wants it to 'feel' like. My brain works in a very logic based way, while his is more about ambiguous color and feel and texture. It can be a pain finding the balance between the two worlds at times.

Sound of "The Mouths Of Madness" is much better than of "Capricorn". Last album is much cleaner, still retro but without exaggeration, and at the same time it sounds very warm. Correct me if I'm wrong but in my opinion this is one of the most important advantages of it, alongside more interesting songs.

I like the sound of, the tones of the instruments and all that. I don’t really worry about the production that much to be honest with you. I’m happy if I can hear everything. The producers have a different agenda to carry out than I do.

You play Gibson SG, the guitar very associated with Tony Iommi. What is reason behind this choice? Did you decide to play it because of its specific sound or of something else?

In my opinion, it’s just as associated with Muddy Waters, Duane Allman, Carlos Santana, Pete Townsend. It’s a bit short sighted to see it as just an Iommi thing. The reason I play this one is very simple, when I joined the band I hadn’t played guitar in a few years and I didn’t own any equipment. Theo had bought this ’61 reissue for himself and that’s the one I started using. I think they’re great instruments, very light and balanced but still with a nice, warm tone. It’s no wonder they have been so popular over the years. They’re very versatile.

What gear do you use (amps, effects) and what premises made you choose that particular stuff?

Studio work and live shows are two very different worlds for me as far as equipment goes. Live, I’ve been using an Orange Rockerverb 100 most of the time. It’s very reliable for shows and gets enough of what I’m looking for. I’m not much of a gear nerd by any stretch, but it is really nice to have a bunch of amps that sound great. Most of the new album was tracked with an early 70’s Laney 60 watt Supergroup and an early 70’s Sound City Mark 3 Custom 100 watt. Usually layered on each other. They are the real deal for tracking, but I don’t trust them live. I have a ton of different pedals, but I try to use as few as possible. My pedalboard has a Maxon analog delay, a Crybaby Wah, an old MXR Phase 90 and a Boss tuner. We mess around with a bunch of different stuff in the studio, like a vintage Fuzz Face and a Parapedal Wah, but live I like to keep it really simple and not be dancing around on the pedalboard too much.

How your guitar adventure started?

My family was semi musical and all of us kids had to take lessons of some sort when we were young. I did piano for a year or two when I was around 10 or so, but I didn’t get bitten by the electric guitar bug until I was 14 and I heard the intro for Crazy Train come on the radio for the first time. That epic pick slide into that killer opening riff blew me away and made me want to know more about electric guitars. I worked a summer job and bought my first guitar and amp that year and starting getting into metal. My preferences were always the European players from the very start. I didn’t care that much about the flashiness of guys like Van Halen. Besides Randy Rhoads, who always sounded a bit European to me on the records, I really loved Michael Schenker and Ritchie Blackmore as well as Dave and Adrian from Maiden and Eddie Clarke from Motorhead. I think it was about a year or two after I’d been playing when Thrash Metal hit and I got really into thrash. The East Bay scene of Ruthie’s Inn and the River Theater in Guerneville were my introduction to playing live gigs. The band I played in wasn’t that popular or anything, but we played on bills with Possessed, Death Angel, Legacy, Violence, Attitude Adjustment, all the local bands that were coming up at the time. After that band ended, I went to college for a few years and fell deep under the spell of Jimmy Page. So I guess for more than 25 years now or so, I’ve been trying to be Jimmy Page. [Laughs] Along with metal or harder rock type stuff, I also have been really into early goth and modern rock stuff like the early Cure type stuff as well as Joy Division/New Order, Love & Rockets, Sisters of Mercy, etc...There’s a side of my brain that enjoys working with synths and programming drums just as much as playing guitar. That’s what I was doing for the few years leading up to Orchid. I lost interest in guitar and was deep into electronic stuff.

Do you have any guitarist paragon? If I’d have to guess I would say: Iommi and/or Jimmy Page. Yes or not?

Yeah, Jimmy Page for sure. He was always the coolest. Elegantly sloppy, I can relate to that style pretty intimately. It’s always weird for me to get compared to Iommi so heavily. I wasn’t much ever into him. I did like the Mob Rules album and Turn Up the Night was probably why I got my first wah pedal. I also really liked Born Again when I 16 or 17.

Are you self-taught or did you take any guitar lessons?

I did take some lessons from a local guy in my town who saw me playing at the music store and told me, "hey, you’d be pretty good if you actually knew what you were playing". I was just trying to play fast and letting my fingers land wherever they landed. Kerry King style! Hahaha...So he taught me scales and a little theory and got me into a lot of stuff beyond metal. I guess he expanded my horizons a bit. He was a fingerstyle folk type player, Like John Fahey. It used to just blow me away to watch him play. I still love that style of guitar work.

Pompously announced brand new Black Sabbath album, recorded in almost original line-up was released in June. Do you think "13" may bring a valuable music? What's your opinion on all this confusion associated with works on this album, I mean absence of Bill Ward, discussions about contract terms, etc.

It’s sad that everything is in the public forum these days. There’s no such thing as closed door discussions any more, is there? As far as the album, I don’t really care that much either way. I listened to the first released track and it didn’t do much for me. There might be a few good songs on it. I’ll see at some point I suppose.

You toured together with Witchcraft and Free Fall. What were your expectations in regard with it?

Well, just hoping for the best. It’s very hard for us to leave our jobs and homes for a month. I’m pretty certain that most of us will make much less on tour than we would at work, so it’s really depressing and a bit nerve wracking to wonder how it will work out. You just have to hope for the best really. I’m sure the time on stage will be great. We’ve been sounding great as a band in rehearsal leading up to all of this.

Nuclear Blast invests in vintage bands lately, which is confirmed by such contracted names like Graveyard, Witchcraft, Kadavar or Orchid. How did they find you?

I got someone’s email address from a friend at a big metal magazine and wrote them saying that we had a few other big labels talking to us and asked them if they’d be interested in checking the Capricorn album out before we made a decision on signing with anyone.

What's your plans for the nearest future, apart from forthcoming tour?

Nothing really, probably just work on writing some new material while we see how the new album goes over with the public.