Twi
>
But at least I hope it`s your MAIN project…
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, well it`s besides 2 solo albums which were released in the 90es out of
sure fun as a sort of a holiday,
because … with a lot of other bands you have musicians tied up with 5 or 6
other projects … and I don´t have that kind of freedom, everything that I do
is basically on the record out there and will be judged by press and Bathory
audience by the same rule… this is something that comes from Quorthon and
Bathory… and therefore it must always sound exactly the same. So I was trying
to test the level of tolerance out there, and I was producing 2 solo-albums
which was something as far away from Bathory as you could possibly get. Because
I wanted to know what people would think of me as a songwriter, if I came up
with something that was NOT Bathory. But you can have a guitar player in ANY
band, and if he produces some kind of a solo project or a project on the side,
he will be applauded for that. But as soon as I come up with something that is
not Bathory, they go: “Ooooooh, that`s sacrilege!” .
And
… if people want me to be this serious blood-drinking, baby-eating monster,
then okay… there`s really not
that much I can do about it!
Twi
>
It´s just my problem, if you say it`s a “project”, because I really have a
feeling that Bathory has all your… how do you say?… that you put all your
heart into it, you know … and “a project” sounds like something “beside
the way”.
Ouorthon
>
Yeah…. my whole heart… of course… my whole heart is into it, because
nobody else could actually do! If I would give Bathory away to 200 other guys,
it wouldn`t sound the same, it wouldn`t be the same! I´m tied to Bathory for
life! And this just happens once in a lifetime! And not even that! I mean how
many guys can say, I haven`t had a job in 20 years, and I´m making more money
(just to making Bathory albums) than 5 of my best friends working full time as
an architect or something… with an academic education!? And I don´t even have
to go on the road to play concerts!
Twi
>
You DON`T HAVE TO go, you mean!? Because I thought you don´t WANT to go…
Ouorthon
>
No, despite not going on the road, (because everybody`s telling you “Why don`t
you take Bathory on the road?”) there are a few problems with that!
I heared, Greek Bathory fans kicking the living daylight out of
each other down outside a rock club one night in Athens, because one
group was wearing BLACK METAL Bathory T-Shirts motives, and the other group was
wearing NORDIC Bathory metal-T-Shirt motives. So it`s like insanity! How are we
gonna make a Bathory show? Are we gonna have riot fans right there in the middle
of the audience? And if we play a black metal song half of the audience is gonna
go and have “ein Bier” ((a beer))!?
Twi
>
From all your fan mail, do you have a feeling that your whole crowd of
fans is separated into 2 parts?
Ouorthon
>
3 or 4 parts… fractions!
Twi
> …because
for instance me: I like both styles, the BM albums and the Northern…
Ouorthon
>
Then you belong to the first category!
Twi
>What
do you think, which is the majority? Hopefully those who like both!
Ouorthon
>
The majority are those who enjoy
all styles of Bathory and that is the first group…. well, fractional. And then
you have the second fraction, and they love everything from Bathory except for
something we did in the 90es. So they are very very traditional and conservative
about that. And then you have the third category, and they just love the Black
Metal stuff. And then you have the fourth category, and they only like the
Nordic stuff… and they are the second-largest group. So whenever… imagine,
you`re in the studio and you`re recording (it`s you and your friend), you´re in
the studio, you`re recording material, you `ll be writing for 6 months and
you`re arranging for 4 months and you`ll be recording and mixing for another 2
or 3 months … and… ähm…you`ll be spending all this time and all this
money and all this effort in producing an album, and even though the album
hasn`t been completed yet, you know 50 % of your own audience is going to HATE
it! No matter what it sounds like!
Twi
>
((* sighs and is speechless *))
Ouorthon
>
That`s like Coca Cola would come out with “ein Menthol Coca Cola”!
Twi
>
We have Vanilla Coke here in Germany! :-)
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, we have that too! Actually I got in touch with the president for Coca Cola
in Sweden, because I´m a real sucker for Vanilla! And I said: “I heared in
the United States was an experiment with Coca Cola Vanilla. Are you gonna
release that in Sweden?” and he said: “Absolutely not!” Six months later
it was in the shops. So I sent him another e-mail and said: “Hahaaa! :-( “.
Twi
>
Okay…. let`s talk about your fans a bit more! Sorry, I always say
“fans”… it`s …I can`t change it somehow…
Ouorthon
>
Well, it`s an universal expression and sometimes I use it myself…
Twi
>
How was their reaction to this first official Bathory website, since it went
online?
Ouorthon
>
It´s been online for only 3 or 4 months. And I´ve been drenched in e-mails, I
received 12 to 15 e-mails per DAY. Normally there would be
around 20 per WEEK > e-mails. But now they have sort of like.. you
know… the lazy new generation, …while people in the 80es >
everybody would write, type or write, a letter and would send it to you
and you would receive it 2 weeks later, and they would have to enclose stamps or…
you know. Today it`s very quick… so, sometimes they don´t even present
themselves. They just pop you a question, or they don`t even tell you where they
live or how old they are. So it`s very impersonal!
Twi
> Should
I have done this ((introducing)) at the beginning of this? :-/
Ouorthon
>
People are sure not doing this, because they are lazy in that
... and sometimes people pick up demonic names, so you can`t even spell
their names! It`s like “chalachberebelachnach” ((Twi doesn`t give any
guarantee for spelling those noises right! :-)….. !))
and they live in hell. And sometimes “George”, 16 years old, in San
Francisco, are e-mailing me, saying “Under the sign of the black mark” is
the best album he`s ever heared in his life! Oh my god.. he`s 16! He wasn`t even
born when I recorded that album!
Twi
>
Did you know that “DC” in english (Damned Child), of our website, he´s only
16 too! ^^
((D.C. = founder and ex-writer/editor of Sheol-Magazine))
But
I have a feeling he knows what he`s talking about…
Ouorthon
>
Well, can you imagine MY position then!? Because I have to try to understand
what it`s like to be 15 or 16 today! … When I was 15/ 16, nobody knew about
PCs, or the internet, or CDs! So I´m coming from an entirely different
planet… in terms of what’s everyday life subjects to other people.
Twi
>
That was the same in my youth, but…
Ouorthon
>
I talked to people I know in Germany who come from the east side…and only
until 10 or 12 years ago they didn´t know about a lot of things that`s
… you know… quite natural to us!
You
know, the Beatles was a spy-group! “Ein
Propaganda von der West”… you know!
Twi
>
But that was only officially! And us normal people (because I am from the east
side, too) always recognized the … how do you say?… real meaning of a band!
It didn´t matter to us what the state said… if propaganda or not… we cared
a damn fuck, to say it…
Ouorthon
>
WE should have a propaganda company like that! I mean, the Christianity must
have had a really good propaganda! “Oh yes, the vigin gave birth to a baby,
and yes, he can walk on water, and yes, he can do this and he can do that!”
And 2000 years later everybody`s sort of like … even the man on the moon was
saying a prayer! I think that`s even in one of our songs on a record, you know,
something like that… “and in 1969 a man
stood praying on the moon” or something like that! We should have one of those
propaganda companies!! Because that would mean, we wouldn´t have to … ähm….
putting up against all those crap rumours, “Did you die in 1991” and things
like that!
Twi
>
Alright… as you said you get 15 or 20 e-mails each day… why don´t you just
put an (how do you say?) a forum on the website, where everybody can post an
opinion … and then you know what
the fans like, even without all the e-mails.
Ouorthon
>
We had that for 9 days! We had “eine” ((an)) chat-forum! And it turned
out… there were so many people writing obscene words and racist shit and
satanic stuff! So we put out a message for everybody: “If you want to join
this chat-forum and you just want to place your opinion, then please respect
everybody who joins the forum.” And people didn´t respect that, so we closed
it down after 9 days! You know, if people are not mature enough to respect our
hospitality, and you know, to make their opinions or obscene words known… then
it`s kind of a drag actually, but …. you know… I´d rather close down the
forum, than to have a lot of assholes just writing a lot of obscene stuff on
there… you know: “Kill all homosexual people”, “Niggers shall burn in
hell” and things like that! It doesn`t have anything to do with Bathory, it
doesn`t have anything to do with music, and it just shows up a lot of people to
be immature.
Twi
>
It´s very unfortunate, because I´ve seen forums of other bands and it works
quite well, I think.
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, but probably they have a lot of people actually are sitting down as some
sort of.. ähm … “ein Guard”, you know….checking out whatever the people
are saying and they are erasing the things, and they have sort of like a time
lapsus… 2 or 3 minutes… if somebody`s writing something down, it takes 2 or
3 minutes before it ends up in the forum, and they have somebody… you know….
cencoring. And we don´t have an organisation like that!
Twi
>
Hm… okay! ... In the “Blood on Ice” booklet I´ve read those inside
stories and then on your webpage I read that you wanted to make a book actually,
but after the fans’ reactions you cancelled all this..
Ouorthon
>
Yes…
Twi
>
But don´t you think, sometimes you should just do what YOU feel is right
… against all …. how do you say?… bad
voices or different opinions! … just follow you own ideas, you know!?
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, but the problem is… at
least with the “Blood on Ice” booklet… what happened was… we didn`t
think we were talking shit about Bathory… we were just telling the people
that we recorded most of our legendary Bathory albums not in a
professional studio, but in what was actually a garage. And sometimes, when
there was a car outside, I would have to sit and sing or play acoustic guitar in
the toilet. Great sound, you know! But it really didn`t suit to the image people
had of Bathory. So I would receive a lot of e-mail and fan-mail saying things
like: “How can you talk about Bathory like that?!”
Twi
>
But it`s the truth.. I mean…
Ouorthon
>
It WAS the truth! And people can`t handle the truth… and so it!! But on the
other hand there was this sort of limit… there`s only so and so much you can
say without actually starting to punch a hole in people`s idea about something..
or you`re making people very sad! It`s like if your boyfriend or girlfriend is
making you a cup of tea and “Was it good?” … “Hmmm, really good!” and
it tastes shit! It`s called a white lie! So instead of presenting white lies to
hold up an umbrella of image and make people believe in that image… because
it`s something to their idea of Bathory… we decided: “Okay, let`s keep our
mouths shut for a while!” … and then see if people are growing up and
understand that it´s just MUSIC! And they can enjoy music or the records as
much as we enjoyed making them! And now we figured, the time was right… when
we released “Nordland” we had sort of a test-site on the web, where people
could send us questions, and we would answer them… and from the reaction of
that test page, we realised, that people have been growing up and matured, and
they no longer believe in the rumours about me eating babies! I mean, nobody can
believe that! So, we realised, okay, the climate is pretty much…
not as insane as it used to be, but a lot more mature…you know…
with the webpage and everything… “Maybe
we should have a web-page!” A couple of years ago I didn`t think that was very
much on the ground. But now I even realised, that, if WE don`t do it, then there
will be 2000 webpages on out there, webzines that feature a lot of incorrect
imformation. And that is just gonna hurt the contact between us and our audience.
And I believe your question also said “Why don`t you follow your own ideas?”
Well… I don`t have an own idea…. but
((*
something missing …. SOOOORRY!….. because I had to turn around the tape in
the tape-recorder…. and Quorthon didn`t wait for me ‘til I had the B-side
running…. *))
*Meanwhile
Quorthon talking about some experiences with women a long time ago with an old
band-member, each of them “having” a girl in a different room… *
Ouorthon
>….
we had a rehearsing place, and a grammophone in the rehearsal-place … and I
wasn`t wondering when one girl ..ähm… he ((the other guy)) was in the other
room…. with this other girl… while the grammophone was on. And … because I
didn`t have any condoms with me, I
had to run out into the other room to pick a condom from my jacket … and then
I was going back inside MY room
with this girl… and then
afterwards, you know, 20 minutes later or whatever…
I said “You want a drink?” – “Sure!” … so I had
to run out into the other room again to pick up some Coca Cola … and
the first time I had been out there, he was lying between her legs, using his
tounge … and 20 minutes later I come back and he was still lying there using
his tounge… but he turned the record to the B-side… !!!!
((*
common laughter*))
Twi
>
Should I leave that away in the interview?
Ouorthon
>
Oh, it`s up to you… it`s just one of those Bathory stories, that`s gonna live
on forever, I believe.
Twi
>
Okay… I will think about it! … ähm… okay… now you confused me with this
story! I have to find my way back into my questions!
Ouorthon
kidding >
Now I confused you …!? Don`t think you wonder, why do I wanna take 20 minutes
in bed ….
or … what kind of LP was
it ???
Twi
>
Okay… about what you talked before… so you are afraid to lose your fans?
Ouorthon
>
No, I´m not afraid to lose my fans, but they are paying my rent!
Twi
>
But you would win NEW fans….
Ouorthon
>
Ja, here`s the point! There was one journalist one year ago when “Nordland
I” came out, and that person said: “Okay, so Bathory`s back to the nordic
stuff, which they used to do in the late 80es. Bathory don´t have anymore
ambitions or no new ideas.” … or anything like that.
I´m trying to tell them, Bathory is not about trying to find the flavour
of the week, Bathory is not about trying to hit the trend, right in the middle,
Bathory is not about trying to receive “Album des Monats”- reviews, Bathory
is not about trying to be on the charts. Bathory is about a communication
between the audience and us. And nobody else really should, you know, bother!
Whenever a journalist says “Why don´t you come up with something fresh and
something new?” and then I go: “But then it wouldn`t be Bathory!”. It`s
like, we talked about Coca Cola before…
Twi
>
But I think it WAS something fresh and something new when your style suddenly
changed from black to Nordic…
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, with Bathory we could practically do everything! We could make a Black
Metal album next week… and it would still be Bathory! But it would be a
different kind of Black Metal than Black Metal in the early 80es, when we used
to do that kind of stuff! When we made “Nordland”, it was Nordic metal…
yes… but it was a completely different type of nordic metal, because we had
matured as people and as song-writers, and as musicians! And the times are
different, and the audience is different! I had one American guy, who had been a
Bathory fan for 18 years, almost an entire life spent of Bathory, and he bought
“Nordland” after having not been listening to Bathory for a very very long
time … and he said: “I´m 15 again!” … and then you realise, that
there`s an atmosphere and a feeling in whatever Bathory is producing. Even
regardless of the style! And when you`re picking something like that up from
your own history instead of start
to write about space-ships or Margaret Thatcher or unimployment or “Fußball”
((soccer)) , you know, it`s … we solute our own history and our own
“Geist” ((spirit)) …all the time… whenever we make an album! And people
don´t like that! If they would want from Bathory to be hippie, militant,
vegetarian or lesbians … then… okay… NOT for US !!
Twi
>
… hm…
Ouorthon
>
When you go to McDonalds, you want to have a BigMäc… and you want BigMäc to
TASTE BigMäc…. I don`t wanna go to a McDonalds restaurant and realise, that
the chef is gonna be experimenting this week.. and comes up with a
pike-Hamburger and they go “Oh we are sorry, we have an originate chef this
week.” … or Semmelknödel, or Apfelstrudel or something…
Twi
>Do
all your albums…okay, let`s say from ONE style… do they sell the same amount
of copies? Or do you know there is a favourite for the fans? For instance from
the nordic albums, maybe “Twilight of the gods” or do you feel any album is
the most-liked?
Ouorthon
>
Well, I have a list of course, because I receive all the papers, regarding
sales-figures, radio play and things like that. Everything will end up in my Lab
sooner or later anyway. So of course I have very clear detailed list on which
albums have sold the most and which styles are more popular than other styles.
If you take the Nordic styles for instance, those albums… people who are into
gothic metal, do listen very easily to Nordic metal. While people who are into
gothis metal or listen to Iron Maiden stuff, they can´t listen to Black
Metal… there`s too a big difference! So the Nordic albums are the albums who
have sold the most. And then you have a record like the first album, that album
has been out for 20 years, so of course that record has at last an enormous
sales-figure, but not because it´s the world`s best album, not because it`s the
longest album, it`s only 26 minutes ((* laughs his butt off *)) …. but it`s
the Bathory debut album and everybody sort of like needs to have it, because
it`s Bathory`s debut. And for these total reasons people are still continuing to
buy the record, and we sell something between 2000 and 4000 every month… and
it`s insane, because that album sounds worse than my washing machine. So it`s a
sentimental value, and for historical reasons that album is one of the top
selling records, and it`s also been out there for 20 years, so it`s been able to
increase the sales-figures than all of the other records of the 90es, that was
killed by the magazines.
Twi
>
So what`s your favourite of your own albums?
Ouorthon
>
Oh, it`s like asking a mother of five “Who`s your favourite Kinder?”
((children))
Twi
>
Okay… you don´t have to answer…
Ouorthon
>
No, but I mean, of course I respect all the records and are equally proud of
each and every one of them. Some of them I would have liked to…. if I would
have a time-machine I would like to
travel back of course and change a lot of things. But then you would change
Bathory`s history. And if you try to change history instead of looking forward
and to the future and learn something from history, then you´re one of those ,
who are saying “There was kein Gaskammer” ((no gas-chamber)). So instead of
trying to change history and learn something from history except the facts and
moving to the future… you know “back into the future”…
Twi
>
I just thought, that maybe from your FEELING, you maybe have a favourite… but
okay.
Ouorthon
>
No, I don`t have a favourite, because a lot of those albums I don´t even
remember. There was one kid asking me in an e-mail: “How did you write that
passage?” or “How did you do that?” and I had to call Blackmark and said
“Hey, can you send me that record!”, because
I don´t have that record myself and I can`t remember that song. And one week
later, when I received the CD and I was listening to it, then I could answer the
kid. If he had asked me face to face, I wouldn`t have been able to answer him.
But now when I was opening the record and was playing it, then I could answer
him.
Twi
>
On your homepage I read, you
started making music at the age of nine.
Ouorthon
>
Ja…
Twi
>
Was it that your parents forced you to take lessons or did you just try around
yourself with a guitar, or… ?
Ouorthon
>
No, this was the early 70es and this was the time of Black Sabbath and Kiss and
Status Quo and Sweet and all of those early 70es bands … and we were …ähm…
for us there were only 2 things = life… this was before girls… before
discovering the beautiful thing about girls… so there were only 2 things for
us, and that was Eishockey and pop music or rock music, we just said music. And
a friend of mine, his older brother had a bass guitar , and for us it was like
he had the “Holy grail”. A real bass guitar! Because we would just be
standing there with our tennis rackets in front of the mirror, you know, and we
were 7 or 8 years old… and so I realised, I have to pick up an instrument and,
you know, play myself. And so we started the band, we were 3 of us, and we
couldn`t play any one of us!
Twi
>
So… no lessons… you just tried yourself…
Ouorthon
>
No, I never had a single lesson in my life!
Twi
>
Oh, cool! And also you said that you could never imagine doing anything else
than music, which is good, because I mean, those are the real musicians to me…
but just imagine… for health reasons or whatever… you HAD to stop doing
music. What would you do then? Being bored… or…?
Ouorthon
>
I have absolutely no idea! Since the age of
9 music has been EVERYTHING! I haven`t been thinking about ANYthing else!
And Bathory is just 1 % of the stuff that I do. You know 99 % of the stuff will
never end up on a record. So I produce a lot of other kinds of music, a lot of
other kinds of material, every day since the age of 9 … and only 1 % will ever
be released, and that`s when we put Bathory logo on top of it, because that
music was written specifically for Bathory.
Twi
>
I read on your homepage that you like to listen to classical music, privatly, I
don`t know if it`s a joke too…
Ouorthon
>
No, it`s all officially… privatly and officially… but it`s something that
happened around 1985 …
Twi
>
… and is there any musical direction that you absolutely don´t like listening
at all?
Ouorthon
>
Ähm… yeah… anything modern… because if you listen to swedish radio or if
you turn the Swedish TV station on, it doesn´t matter what kind of program, in
the background you will always have this hip hop music … and whenever you`re
listening to a Swedish radio station it`s like there`s a machine playing. You
know, everything that is being played on Swedish radio is 15 minutes old. And
they will play that song or style or crap for
24 hours a day. And they will do it for one week, and the next week
there`s another song. It `s this automatic, this ….. hip-hop, techno, rap,
whatever they call it. So sometimes I would like to say, there hasn`t been any
great music written since the 80es, 60es or something like that!
You
know, Wagner, Beethoven and things like that! So that`s what`s… you know in
1985 a friend of mine actually started to educate himself professionally as a
percussionist in a symphony orchestra at a classical music university. And he
got me hooked on classical music. And he said, he ought to listen to this stuff
in order to prevent to be influenced by whatever kind of music that`s around you
now. And this was in the times when you were talking to a lot of fanzines, and
the fanzines were asking “So, what`s your favourite band?” and “Have you
listened to this demo?” and 2000 other underground bands in Europe and
elsewhere were sending you tapes… and I realised “I don`t want to listen to
this!” because I will be unconsciously influenced by this. And I want Bathory
just to stay as much pure as possible from the other stuff that`s going around
out there! So I said, from now I’m not gonna listen to anything else than
classical music. And probably that had a great effect on what we were doing in
the mid 80es. The “Blood Fire Death”, the “Hammerheart” and the
“Twilight…” albums…
Twi
>
Okay… and …ähm…. one might guess that you are interested in Nordic
mythology and…
Ouorthon
>
How did you come to think that? Because it`s not true actually!
Twi
>
No?
Ouorthon
>
No! I´m totally uninterested in mythologies!
Twi
>…
ähm… because it causes an impression, that this is what inspires you for your
music…
Ouorthon
>
No! It inspires me musically, but not thematically… in terms of a theme! I
understand perfectly well, that you can`t take “The Wedding of Figora” by
Mozart and make a metal album inspired by that. But you can listen to
“Siegfried” or “Götterdämmerung” and be influenced by that,
and make a perfect metal album. Because the connection between some
classical music and the Nordic mythologies is very close.
Sometimes
even to the point when you`re having origin Black Metal bands, who are
Satanists, Neo-Nazis and Nordic lunatics at the same time… you know, sometimes
you will go to far… people will concentrate on the theme to much! They can`t
see the horizon, the scope of the theme itself! So, I told one of these guys
once: “Okay, so you´re both… a Neo-Nazi, a Satanist….
and a Pagan!?” and I told him: “Hey, look at yourself! You have a
ring in your nose, tattoos and long hair! If you were living in the Nazi`s
society, you would be the first one to go into the gas-chamber!” and he said:
“Uh, you`re right…”!
So
I think people are concentrating to much on the theme…
Twi
>
Hm… but I think those essential things like nature or whatever is also an
inspiration!?
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, nature is the pure musical inspiration! It`s like Beethoven`s
“Pastoral”- symphony ((= Sinfonie Nr.6 !!))… because there`s nothing more
powerful and pure than a thunderstorm or a sound of the nature. But today there
isn´t that much nature left… we`re just considering nature to be something…ähm…
as a sort of a material for our factories, or personal pleasure!
Twi
>
But I heared in Sweden the nature is still very beautiful…
Ouorthon
>
Ja, because we are only 9 million people, I mean, it`s like nothing! It`s the
biggest country in Europe, but we only have 9 million people … so there`s
plenty of nature sights!
Twi
>
Alright! ... Ähm…. now…. Damned child, he also gave me some questions and I
argued about it with him, because I just think those questions have been asked
to to many musicians and … I don`t know… so please > for the next
questions, if you don´t wanna answer them, tell me… and…
Ouorthon
>
I don`t dislike any question, you know, as long as nobody’s gonna ask me:
“Aren`t you dead!?”
Twi
>
Okay, I will just read it to you and…
Ouorthon
>
Questions aren`t dangerous in any way, but answers can be…
Twi
>
Okay… What do you think about the current musical scene, especially BM, in
Sweden and Norway and so on… and what do you think about artists that burn
churches in the name of Black Metal?
Ouorthon
>
Well…. well, first of all, nothing of that is happening anymore! That was more
than 10 years ago! And some parts of the metal media have been making those
individuals into rockstars! And they are still writing articles about an event
that was 10 years ago. And 99 % of everything that the media has been writing
about those guys, has been about burning churches and killing homosexuals… and
only 1 % has been about their music! So I think what those journalists really
should do is to concentrate on princess-literature and “Könige”-journalism.
You know, not writing about metal, but writing about fashion… or celebreties
… in the gossip magazines!
Twi
>
So they just make out to much of …
Ouorthon
>
Well, they`re trying to make stars out of people who are extrem! When bands like
Bathory and Venom and Helheim were started out 20 and 25 years ago, we went
certain distance to separate ourselves from bands like Saxon and Maiden and all
of those normal metal bands … but
the next generation have to do something even more extrem in order to rebell
against the previous generation! And in 10 years from now you`ll have Black
Metal musicians killing themselves on stage in order to get public attention! So
the point is not what you do in order to get attention… how much make-up you
have or how much blood there is in the pictures! I mean there are pictures of
myself, when I was 15 / 16 / 17 years old, with spikes and blood and everything.
Twi
>
Yeah, I saw that…
Ouorthon
>
Yeah, but we didn´t know anything! I mean, we just thought it was cool to do
it, because we wanted to hate everybody… or fuck the world, or burn down
churches. We were shit-kids… “Scheiße-Kinder”! You know, we didn´t know
anything! If Satan would have
jumped up and said: “Hallo! Ich bin Satan” ((“Hello, I´m Satan!“)) we
wouldn`t even have known him for… you know, a drunk down the street. There`s
this very famous story about us, the original line-up of Bathory… when we had
read in the Swedish newspaper that there was an American Satanic society from
California coming to Sweden for public PR. And we tried to figure out, okay, so:
“Where is this?”, you know, “Where are they gonna have this public
relation meeting?” and we were walking around Stockholm to try to find a
building that looked like Satanists would like to go there, because we wanted to
know. And we came to this building and we walked into this building and we met
this strange looking guy in a ceremonial dress, and we said: “Wow! So, when
are you gonna to sacrifice the lamb?” and
he said: “I think you got the wrong house! This is the Stockholm synagogue!”
And
we were like 3 Beavis and Buttheads! And 20 years later people are coming to us,
asking questions about: “How do I worship Satan the best way?” and I said:
“You are actually providing to the wrong person!” You`ve been writing Beavis
and Butthead in terms of Satanical knowledge! I know NOTHING! Don`t come to me!
Go to your own inner Geist! Because you can not worship Satan or be a better
Satanist or more Satanic than anybody else! Because Satan doesn`t excist! God
doesn`t excist! If you burn down a house, it`s just a house! It doesn`t matter
if it`s a factory, or a civilian house, or a churche… it`s a building, it`s a
crime. If you can`t write a good song, you burn down a church. If you can`t come
up with an interesting album, then you kill a homosexual! If you can`t get
famous, you`ll have silicon titts! You know, people are just using a lot of
excuses to hide up their own limitations! And then you have a lot of press
talking about these Norwegian guys who kill homosexuals and burn down churches
and they´re talking about them as if they were rockstars! You know… role
models for kids! Talk about their music! Because that`s the only thing that…
ähm… it`s the same thing with me > when they talk about me, they talk
about that strange guy in Stockholm… and they don´t even know me…
“drinking blood and eating babies and blablabla” and they try to make it
into something you are NOT!
Twi
>
But I think you made it quite clear on your homepage now that…