Enslaved

Interview with Ivar, appeared in issue #22

I first heard thy band on a horrible split album with Emperor. Art thou still friends with them, or hast thou become disgusted with their homosexual tendencies?
Yes, that split really sucks! It still angers my primitive Viking brain how it turned out! We specifically asked that it should be released as a banana-split, paying homage to the great tradition of fancy and imaginative desserts in the Norse Viking culture, not as a goddamn split-Cd with those over-sexed she-males who ironically called themselves Emperor. I think it should be more like Empress of Emotionally Fragile Pussy-Music. I have tried to tell them this, but neither threats of homosexual orgies seems to help convincing them. I even brought Samoth and Trym some exclusive fruits wearing my finest lingerie, but they wouldn’t budge. They even had the guts to suggest that we should change our name. They thought Submissive Sluts to the Sexy Emperors would fit us better than simply Enslaved. I will have my revenge! Some time I will pull Samoth by his hair and testicles and tell him that he has become an unattractive old fart in the passing of time. Now if that isn’t blood-vengeance, then I don’t know what is! And I think it is time to tell Ihsahn he is really the brown lizard, not the black wizard. But it will break his heart to hear this from us…

Is Bard thy Faust-er Father?
He might be. My family relations are somewhat alternative… my claimed father being a transsexual Polish miner, and my alleged mother is a priest in the 14th Church of Regarding Jesus Christ As the First True Agitator for Urine and Mint Sex. You can imagine how Christmas was like in our home. My mother and her friends pissing all over the place, while my father and his friends were digging holes through our floors on acid, trying to find gold and Wunderbaum-trees in the ground beneath us. I, of course, soon began my escape from reality by making Viking Metal. It all started out with me blowing up different electronic devices my father had stolen from the mining company’s recreational room, and I realized how the different devices sounded when they were blown up. I was especially intrigued by the effect from blowing up guitars, pedals, amplifiers and similar devices. Some day I got the insane idea of trying to do other things with these electronic devices. I got the idea from a hobby-column in a magazine for suicidal gay miners and men working in hotels, and I discovered playing. So I guess we could sum it up by saying that Bard Faust has had a great impact on my upbringing, yes.

I have not heard thy band since throwing that split into the garbage. I have been told that Enslaved have become one of the best Viking Metal bands around. But I have a feeling that if this were true, nonetheless thy forthcoming album will be somewhat gay and commercial, disappointing even thy loyal followers. If I am wrong about this, feel free to correct me. But otherwise thou must praise me as the Oracle of metal.
I guess I would have to praise you for eternity. The new stuff is a collection of commercial and cunningly calculated crap that is meant only as a means to give us money for buying sex from performers of true metal. There’s some pretty nice working girls in that Swedish outfit HammerFall. I think they would like being depraved and tied up by some strong Viking cavemen! The true metal scene is really a fine selection of hot girls, with their tasty clothes, sexy make up, and wet look in their eyes. On this new album we do our best to copy their success, and we have removed all signs of originality, honesty, and heterosexuality from our music. It sucks, but it will make us rich.

Wert thou not signed to an extremely homosexual French label? I am curious how Enslaved came to Necropolis, especially since some of Paul’s beloved Scandinavians have turned against him.
Homosexual is just the beginning of it. Osmose is still our label, though, despite their extreme and outrageous degree of homosexuality. The deal is that we have Necropolis releasing it under license in the U.S. Obviously Osmose Productions in the U.S. didn’t work out at all, and we had some sexual differences. Now we have two homosexual labels, and the possibility for an music industrial threesome is finally possible! I don’t know what happened with Paul and his Scandinavian friends, but Paul has a reputations for sleeping in more than one bed. He’s a kinky Englishman, he is.

Is it true that Paul and thee kissed, just to see what it was like?
Yes and no. We wanted to, but Grutle caught us just as we wanted to. But since Paul had promised Grutle his virginity flower, it ended up in a sad fight, and I think, jealousy that Grutle experienced after this, has really been a challenge in our cooperation with Necropolis. But someday maybe all three of us can go out and have some sexy drinks together.

I think it is funny that a black metal band is called “Enslaved” since black people were slaves. But then, blacks are making slaves of world governments by making it impossible to say anything negative about the nigger subculture. Is that what black metal is doing too?
That is very possible, but at the same time maybe not the case. I think rap sucks and that it is killing what common sense is left in young people. Singing about their bullshit cash-flow, stupid girlfriends, and shooting at their friends doesn’t really impress me. Neither does the culture of white trash. I think Britney Spears, Ronan Keeting and the rest of the bimbos, idiots, whores, and degenerates of modern culture should be expelled and put on an island. They should all be given weapons, and hopefully the problem would solve itself through a series of groovy rap shoot-outs.

Are there any acts of violence that have made Enslaved famous in the black metal scene? Surely there must be at least an unwelcome pinch in thy history…
There has been some punched noses and kicked some skull, but no time spent in jail or being convicted of anything. Violence not called for could send us to jail, and the band doesn’t need that. And yes, once we forced Udo Dirkschneider into sex. We said, “Squeal like a pig, Udo-baby!” And he really did! He sang “Balls to the Wall” all night. I think he liked it, because last week we received some used, brown/ yellow underwear from his label. It was these he weared for the entire recording of his debut album!

Different countries have different sports. England has Rigby, India has Cricket… and so on. King Diamond was a soccer player. That shows that it is not too rare for famous musicians to be athletes. I heard that in thy land there is a sport of “Pocket Pool” and that thou art a champion. Didst thou find it exciting not only to play “home” games because of the obvious advantage, but also to play the “away” games?
Of course the “away” games are more exiting, and more challenging. But the most exciting was always the team-games, where teams would consist of two and two player on the same “field”. A very inspiring team effort. But unfortunately my career ended abruptly, or was it while listening to Abruptum… I really can’t remember, as my opponent once used a very forbidden and dangerous tool of sabotage. My opponent was into the unbelievably homosexual culture of Goth, so long sharp nails found their way through the fabrics and seriously injured my “sports equipment.”

More than a few black metal bands have recently adopted death metal vocals. Why is this happening?
I think it is because of radiation from an inviable planet near us. Or, it could be because black metal has gone somewhat soft over the years and sometimes commercial, and true fans of extremity, including musicians, are seeking alternative expressions of hatred, brutality, and extremity. But that sounds very unlikely. The first theory is probably closer to the truth.

Has anything ever happened that almost ended thy band?
After “Blodhemn” was released and after a tour in the U.S. in March 1999, there were such strong signs of fatigue and loss of inspiration that I seriously considered packing in and staying out of music for some years. But luckily the other and very gay/ girlish members of my band convinced me that I should rather take a homosexual break for some months and then give it a new try. I did so, and voila!.. French homosexual expression meaning “right on, motherfucker” and sometime “I wear women’s underwear”… inspiration came back. It wasn’t really close to an absolute end, but that’s about as close as we have ever gotten.

George from Cannibal Corpse has a very thick neck. What does that say about him?
He’s probably a girl trapped in a man’s body, and he likes funk from the ‘70s. He could be into beach volleyball for people with an East European accent, or he could be headbanging all the time, since they are constantly playing live.

Is Cannibal Corpse a “life metal” band according to thee, or didst thou never subscribe to that marketing strategy?
No, we rather call it “Groovy Sex Metal”. It is really good, and no, the “life / death/ black” categories never really made it into our vocabulary. Too bad really… maybe we could be rich now instead of being poor miners like my hallucinating father, if we would have adapted this great tool of musical distinction.

Would it not be wise to wear peanut butter instead of corpsepaint?
We art not black metal, since we rather believe in the mythology of our good-looking ancestors rather than a horny goat with gender identity problems. But I will give you this: if we were black metal, we would definitely be wearing peanut butter and matching underwear! When you told me this great and useful information, after all, you really seem to be the Metal Oracle.

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