Dark Funeral (en)

"I’m from Europe and for me it is quite natural that you don’t mix religion with politics. The history has proven enough that it doesn’t work and it is not going to bring any good to anybody… absolutely nobody. So, stop it."
Check out this interview that SOM did with the guitar player from Dark Funeral, Lord Ahriman!!

interview Dark FuneralFirst of all, let’s talk about this tour with Morbid Angel and Grave. How have the fans been reacting to the tour’s lineup so far?
I think that this is one of those tours where the bands and the fans really like the whole unit, you know? I just think it is a great tour, especially for us because I see that we meet lots of new fans everyday that are coming to the concerts more for Morbid Angel or Grave. It is good to hear that we manage to impress new people every night.

Do you have time to watch the other band’s sets?
Yeah. I try to watch both bands every night. When it comes to Grave, we need to get ready when they are onstage but we try to catch a little bit of their set. Morbid Angel, I’ve been able to see them not every night but 90% of the shows and I still enjoy it every night.

Dark Funeral had some lineup changes last year. After a year of having the new band members and a returning band member: how different has it been?
We are still learning things about each other (way of working, doing things onstage and stuff like that). I think that everybody has taken their “rightful” spot on stage. I think we are a stronger force onstage than we have ever been before. Everybody gives 666% every night. It’s amazing to go up onstage with the new guys.

Besides having more energy onstage, do you see any other big differences?
We are from different generations, with different backgrounds, different bands we grew up listening to and stuff like that. It’s good to have this “younger” blood in the band.

You have also signed with Century Media this year. How have you decided to go with Century Media?
They are one of the few labels or the only label who could manage to build up [our] trust. We didn’t have such “lucky relationships” with our previous labels. When it comes to trusting a label, it is really hard, especially for me. I don’t really trust labels. They [Century Media] knew that so, we discussed all that from the very beginning. I said: “You really have to work hard to convince me in so many things”
interview Dark Funeral. They didn’t really push me; we talked and discussed things in open. That way they built up our trust.

So, looking in retrospect now, how was 2012 in general (with the new band members, the new label, etc)?
When we started touring with the new lineup, my intention was to show the new lineup to the world, live onstage. For me, it doesn’t work to just write about the new guys and say something like: “We are so fucking good now”. Anybody can write that. I rather show it onstage because there’s where it really counts and that’s what I wanted to do, especially for our old times fans who had a big problem with [us] changing vocalists which we can, of course, understand.

I felt like we needed to “go out there” and let Nachtgarm prove himself and impress everybody the way he impressed me, you know? And that’s what we are still doing. We’ve been around the whole world already and the response to the new lineup has been phenomenal so far.

I wanted to ask you about that: how are fans in general accepting the new band members?
Well, before seeing us, live onstage, they have been very doubtful but when they witness the new force of the band and what Nachtgarm and Zornheym can bring onstage, they change their mind fast.

As I said [before], this is one of the main reasons we are still here… touring with the new guys: to build up a new trust before we come with a new record.

So, are you guys already talking about a new album?
We’ve been together for almost two years now… So, we already started to work on the new record. But, we are still busy touring and I’ve never been able to focus touring and at the same time writing, it just doesn’t work for me.

“Angelus Exuro pro Eternus” is considered your most technical album to date. Is this path, going to be followed for the next album? Do you have any ideas for it so far?
Oh yeah, I have lots of ideas of what I want to do but I don’t know if everything is going to turn out exactly the way I want. You know, things can easily have new twists during the writing process so, I never have special exp
interview Dark Funeralectations until everything is ready.

If you ask the other guys they would be like: “we almost have enough stuff for a whole new record”. But, if you ask me, I will say: “Oh! There’s so much work still”. My mind isn’t really set to all the new things yet and it won’t be until it [the writing process] stops. It’s always been like that for me. That’s the way I work. I don’t want to make any empty promises [about the new record] that I can’t keep.



Caligula used to be the band’s lyricist. Do you already know who will be the main person writing the lyrics from now on?
Nachtgarm is going to be the main responsible for that. We’ll see… when we’ll be closer to putting music and lyrics together, then I’m definitely going to be involved one way or another. We will see how much involvement I’m going to have. Even though people may not know, I’ve always had “a thing” around the lyrics too.

11. Talking about some “current politics”. USA will be electing a new president this year [the interview was done before the election]. One of the candidates is a pretty religious person. How do you see this “mixing” of religion and politics?
It’s the most dangerous combination you could ever think of, for sure. It has been proven that this has never been good… to anybody, to any side.

So, you think this should be avoided?
Absolutely. To any cost! I’m from Europe and for me it is quite natural that you don’t mix religion with politics. The history has proven enough that it doesn’t work and it is not going to bring any good to anybody… absolutely nobody. So, stop it.

How do you see 2013 for Dark Funeral?
We are going to be touring, we are going to celebrate 20 years as a band and there are a lot of thing coming out for that… we are going to do some special shows. So, it is going to be a lot of work for us next year. I’m looking forward [to it]. I like to keep [myself] busy.

Any messages for the SOM readers?
Make sure to come out the shows if you have the time!

Interview done by Deesse_de_la_nuit

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adrien86fr - 18 November 2012: Hollywood Black Metal.. Thanks for the interview which keeps convincing me that Dark Funeral is a phony band since it came up. I enjoy the classic and epic "The Secrets of the Black Arts" though.
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