EquimanthorN: Let's start with some questions concerning your new album Nordland: After a few spins the most obvious thing I noticed was the fact that it's much more difficult to listen to than your other epic songs/albums. Choruses don't work in a 'singalong'-way, hooklines are very rare etc. - surely not a negative thing in my opinion, but I wonder about the reasons for this change...
Quorthon: I am puzzled how come anybody would even think of something like that. I am of course terribly sorry if you feel you can not sing-along in the choruses, if that is very important to you. I promise to write more sing-along choruses in the future if one other person would ask for it….just curious… how do you sing-along to Slayer and other extreme metal acts? The intention with the music, lyrics, instrumentation, arrangements and theme on Nordland, is to create a pure Nordic atmosphere that goes along with the story line and scenery. The last thing on my mind is to write choruses one can sing-along to. You didn't specify what you meant with "much more difficult to listen to", but I guess you mean other things than your ears or your stereo. Not knowing what's so difficult about it, it is of course very hard for me to try and defend whatever it is about Nordland that's so difficult for you.

(I guess this was my fault as the question wasn't very well formulated (especially 'singalong' and 'hooklines' are not appropriate, but my english isn't THAT good so such things can happen) and I could see why he misunderstood it. So I re-wrote it and gave it a second try... EqN)

EquimanthorN: 2nd try: After a few spins of Nordland I noticed that it works in a different way than your other epic albums as it has less 'memorable' single parts, but instead delivers a constant flow of music, even more than Blood On Ice did as a concept album with a continuing storyline. This makes it more difficult to get into the music at first, but also provides a deeper, somehow more spiritual listening experience later on. I wonder about the reasons for this different approach - was it done that way to fit the concept, is it natural progression, maybe both,... ?
Quorthon: When lyrics and music are written for a track or an entire album, it is truly one of the last things on my mind that a listener must be able to find hooks and recognizable passages with a theme. However, should a track contain a hookline, a theme or a recognizable melody-line, it is strictly unintentional and something that has occurred during the writing process. If it feels and sounds good, then it usually is. But just the same, recollecting the tracks on this first part of Nordland, there are plenty of recognizable themes. So let's see what we have: Nordland is made up from an easily recognizable and repetitive passage with a melody. Vinterblot is actually to fifty per cent made up from a chorus-like passage. Dragon's Breath has a backing vocals/chöre-theme with a clearly definable melody to it. Ring of Gold too contains a melody line right through it, a melody line repeated in every verse. Foreverdark Woods has a clearly definable theme in both introduction, bridge and chorus. Broken Sword sports both a chöre-like theme and a hook in the bridges. Great Hall… has a recognizable melody in every verse and every bridge. This track also sports a definable hook in the chorus. "other Earth… is offering already in the introduction a theme repeated several times throughout the song. But all this you of course already now from having listened to the CD yourself… Still, you never told me how you sing-along to Slayer…

(Hmm... seems like Quorthon still didn't want to understand what I was trying to say as this answer doesn't have much to do with my rewritten question and would rather fit to the 'old' one. Maybe he's already pissed off after dozens of interviews and wanted to let off some steam, but I guess he (rightfully) doesn't care a bit about my disappointment on how he's handling this, and neither do I care about the problems he has with my stupid questions... EqN)

EquimanthorN: To which of your other 'Viking'-albums can the new one be associated most closely? Or do you think it should be completely separated from the material you've done before?
Quorthon: That is up to each and everyone to decide for himself or herself. That is if one desperately needs to associate albums to one another. I know that an album like Twilight Of The Gods is considered a "Viking" album. I have never considered it to be a "Viking" album. It was primarily based on philosophy. I would confess Hammerheart to be sort of "Viking", though. But whatever sub-category's there are to file an album by, I still think any album should be judged on its own. If a record would have to be filed according to category and filtered through some kind of image-philter, then image has become more important than musicianship and songwriting.

EquimanthorN: How would you sum up the 'concept' behind Nordland? I think comparisons to Blood On Ice are not really valid as every song seems to be a closed chapter in itself instead of moving along a specific storyline.
Quorthon: Blood On Ice was in every respect a theme album with a story line entirely based on its own saga. Nordland does have a general frame of topics, but is in no way a theme album. It is a concept album only in the respect all lyrics deal with linked stories. But it is written in such a way should one NOT want it to be a twin-release containing tracks loosely linked to one another, then one can easily just consider each track as a closing story and enjoy the tracks for what they are. When one does have both parts of Nordland, it'll be easy to link some tracks from both parts to one another.

EquimanthorN: The release date for part 2 of this opus is already set for spring 2003, so it's an obvious question if you wrote the material for both albums in one session...
Quorthon: All the material was written, recorded and mixed simultaneously. When we realized we had too much material for one album, and the choice of a twin release was quite natural, we concentrated more on one half of the material intended for part one. Part two hasn't been mastered yet, so in the mixing process we didn't have to concentrate on the material for part two as much as we had to mind the material for part one.The material on part two will receive its final touches later on in the year. There was no special reason for selecting certain tracks for part one and others for part two.We simply just divided all of the material in two halves, although it was of course important to have the title track on part one.

EquimanthorN: I think it's quite interesting that the production of Nordland is quite similar to those of your other 'Viking-albums even though it was recorded almost 10 years later and at another studio. Was it done that way on purpose by using similar equipment etc. to achieve that typical sound?
Quorthon: The material is written by the same mind, so of course there should be some similarities. The typical BATHORY atmosphere is very important to our audience, and we couldn't really make an album containing a pure Nordic theme without making sure it also feature typical BATHORY arrangements.

EquimanthorN: Did you ever think of letting someone else produce one of your albums at a bigger studio? I guess money wouldn't be the problem in that case considering the status BATHORY has...
Quorthon: I think our audience wouldn't care who's producing. What's important to them is what you hear and feel. I know several young extreme metal acts use special producers. But to me they all sound the same. BATHORY sounds like no other act, hence I believe we're doing the right thing in not letting anybody from the outside even touch BATHORY

EquimanthorN: Most of the reactions for Destroyer Of Worlds I heard/read haven't been very positive, even though I personally think that at least the epic songs are as brilliant as most of the other stuff you did in that style. Which reactions did you get, and what do you think of the album almost one year after its release?
Quorthon: I think anybody who claims Destroyer Of Worlds to be a disappointment, usually base his or her opinion on that particular album more on reviews than an open mind free from fashion filters and image frames. (I think he's making it a bit too easy for himself here...EqN) Also, it only describes the very high esteem in which they hold BATHORY. Reviews say more about the person who wrote the review than what they say about an actual album. If I would have lunch and then wrote in a magazine what it tasted like, would you be interested in reading that and have your lunches according to that? Most BATHORY albums have received crap reviews throughout the years. Even the now legendary albums of the mid 80's were laughing matters when they were first released. Today they are hailed as vital to the evolution of extreme metal and the main source of inspiration for tons of other acts. Usually it seems to take a few years for people to grasp a BATHORY album. I receive tons of fan mail on a daily basis, and the fans speak with other words than reviews. I rely more on fan mail than the press, because fan mail is an honest force, even when they are negative about something. You believe fan mail more than anything media would ever write about you, and I don't mean just bad reviews but positive remarks as well. Destroyer Of Worlds was intended right from the start to feature one-third heavy epic stuff, one-third brutal hardcore stuff and one-third tongue-in-cheek stuff. I think therefor it is impossible to pin it down in a corner as an album of ONE specific style and sound and consequently difficult to grasp.

EquimanthorN: The break between your second solo album and Destroyer Of Worlds has been almost four years - what did you do during those years?
Quorthon: In terms of BATHORY activities, we were involved in several different projects, toying with ideas and trying out a few things for fun and to keep a creative atmosphere. We had decided to take a break for a couple of years in order to get perspectives and to allow for people to calm down a bit. There was a very vivid debate going on during most of the 90's regarding which style and sound was truly genuine BATHORY. We felt we weren't allowed to develop and evolve. So much of the debate was stuck in the past. So we just sat down and said that the best thing we can do would be to take a break. Destroyer Of Worlds was regarded as a sort of come back album. I find that to be a ridiculous remark. We might have come back into people's discussions again, but just because you're not in people's lap all the time doesn't mean you were gone. I didn't know there was a rule one had to release a new album every 10 months if one wants to evade talks of a come back.

EquimanthorN: Twilight Of The Gods was supposed to be the final BATHORY-album, but after a break you returned with Octagon, which was the complete opposite of its predecessor. Why did you want to let the band die back then, and why did you change your mind and return with a completely different style?
Quorthon: Twilight Of The Gods was not suppose to be the last BATHORY album, that is an after construction based on false rumors. The break we took after having recorded Twilight Of the Gods was intended to generate ideas for the future. We had more or less painted BATHORY into a corner style and sound wise at that time. The arrangements had become bigger and bigger. The production was becoming evermore distant from what BATHORY had been during the 80's. Not that our audience didn't enjoy this new style and sound, but to us the evolution of BATHORY had led us to a point where we felt lost. So we said we'd better take a break in order to come up with an idea for the next BATHORY album that would feel interesting. In the meantime I recorded a solo record for fun. A record that was intended to be as far away from BATHORY as possible in every way. When I traveled around Europe around the release of both the solo record and the two first Jubileum volumes, the fans I met asked for a return to the days of brutalities and energy. Out of that came two albums based on a more brutal and high energy hardcore style, which was of course far from Twilight Of The Gods. But on the other hand, that was the whole intention. We didn't want to do that big arrangements and bombastic stuff at that time. The two albums that followed Twilight Of The Gods were as much as possible less produced and arranged than previous albums. And…to answer your questions fully…the albums that came out after Twilight Of the Gods was entitled Requiem. (Sorry, my fault... it should have been Requiem and Octagon as these two albums belong together very closely, but I somehow skipped the first part... EqN) Perhaps because it does not fall within the Nordic/epic frame, some people will ignore it as BATHORY, and it is therefor sometimes overlooked. Nevertheless, I would never want BATHORY to be an enterprise that produces the same stuff on record all the time. You don't wear the same clothes every day all year around. So why should BATHORY stay with just one style and one sound all the time?

EquimanthorN: Lords Of Chaos contains a part which points out that the lyrics of 'nder the Runes hint at the German SS, and there are also some quotes where you state that this was done as an intentional provocation. I know this book contains lots of gossip and misinterpretations, so I wonder what you think of the way you were presented there, as well as of the song itself.
Quorthon: I am sure the people who wrote Lords Of Chaos are able to read and therefor capable of directly quoting me from several interviews throughout the years when I've talked about the Under the Runes thing. The provoking pun made in Under the Runes is no secret at all. I haven't seen or read Lords Of Chaos myself, but I have heard it contains tons of errors in regard to BATHORY. Kind of sad, I mean to produce such a pretentious piece of work and not even consider doing something so simple as dropping us a letter and ask us a few things. I think the guy's who write these books and Lexicon's of metal, write them to feel important and initiated. I was once sent a Lexicon by some German journalist who'd written a Metal Lexicon, and 75% of what he wrote on BATHORY was totally incorrect. I wrote Under the Runes in such a way it would make every paranoid German journalist go bezerk. We had had to take a lot of shit in Germany because of a sunwheel on the obverse of the cover artwork for Hammerheart. To us it was an ancient Scandinavian symbol for the sun and cycle of life, linking with the Nordic and mythological theme of the album. But in Germany, they got it all wrong, and they didn't care the sunwheel had been a perfectly normal symbol in Scandinavia for two thousand years before that twelve year jackboot period in German modern history. I felt we had been used as a pawn in their "going-hysterical-for-the-sole-reason-of-going-hysterical" game. So after that, I decided to include "hot" issues in BATHORY lyrics every now and then. Just to keep them on their toes frothing their hearts out. People like that will find crap all over the place anyway. It's like when the church goes bezerk over a line in a Queen or Madonna song, instead of focusing on extreme Black Metal acts or the pedophiles within their own ranks. Attacking Queen and Madonna gives the church a bigger exposure as oppose to wasting their energy on lesser-known extreme Black Metal groups. They'll play the records of big acts backwards and claim to have uncovered the devils plan to conquer the world or something.

EquimanthorN: The line-up on your early albums (up to Twilight Of The Gods) still remains a mystery not only to me. Did you actually record some of them all by yourself (as it is often told) or did you always use session musicians or even work as a 'real' band?
Quorthon: If I'd say my aunt is playing bass on one track and my neighbors baby sitter is doing some backing vocals on another album, would that then please all those who are still mesmerized by the absence of names and photos?! If that ends the discussion, I'll happily also claim that the supermarket owner down the road played on one track and that my cat once did some lead guitar on a few albums. I mean, if names is what people want, and the names of short time ex-members of BATHORY in the early days still wouldn't mean shit to people, then I can give you thousands of names and you just pick whatever names you feel looks good, ok?! To me it is totally uninteresting all this old line-up's talk. I remember how hard it was back then in Stockholm in the 80's to form a line-up that would hold together for even four months. To me, all this old line-up's talk is just reminding me of all the Joey Tempest look-a-like idiots who came down our rehearsal place thinking they'd be the next rock star. Virtually all of them had absolutely nothing of what a member of an act like BATHORY would need to have to be a creative and vibrant pillar of the group. This created a situation back then in the early 80's where it would be my answers and my pictures in the fanzines. I didn't want to make people feel BATHORY was just a constant problem in terms of line-ups. The problem wasn't BATHORY or me, but the scene in Stockholm and Sweden in general in those days. So we just kept our mouths shut and tried to concentrate on making interesting albums. A lot of people were attracted to BATHORY because of the mystery and anonymity. Realizing this, we of course we didn't release any photos of people who were no longer in the band just because one or two fanzines asked for pictures. The anonymity and mystery wasn't something we created, it just happened out of an emergency. It's no secret that I did a lot of bass on most early albums as well. And I have been doing the bass on all tracks since 1990. To me it is not important who is playing what, what's their names and what they look like. To me it is all about the music.

EquimanthorN: Do you still listen to your early works, especially the first four albums? Do you have any favorite songs from those times of which you are especially proud?
Quorthon: I listened through all the old albums in 1992 when we compiled the tracking list for Jubileum Vol I and II. But other than that, no I am not listening to any old albums. I have no favorite tracks simply because I don't look at BATHORY music in that way. I am proud of BATHORY and the impact the music has had on the entire scene, the importance BATHORY has had on three generations of fans, and the source of vital inspiration and influence BATHORY has been to thousands of acts.

EquimanthorN: As far as I know from the unofficial website there are still tons of unreleased BATHORY-songs in your closet. How many of them do you consider being worthy to appear on CD in the future, and which plans do you have for them? I'm especially thinking of Occulta, a completely unreleased album from in between The Return and Under The Sign... - many BATHORY-fans (including me, hehe) would probably give their right arm to hear it...
Quorthon: If I'd have tons of home made porn videos, I'd still have no plans to release that simply because they're also in "the closet". The unreleased material from several BATHORY studio sessions would be stuff that's in various stages of completion. They're not complete, mixed and ready to be released tomorrow. We have some material on tape, but they're certainly not ready for release in a fortnight. We would have to sit down and check each and every piece out first before any decision is made when and how old unreleased material could be released.

EquimanthorN: Talking about this website: I think it's almost perfectly done with tons of information, but not as well-known as it should be. What do you think of turning it into an official site in cooperation with its creators, giving it a more professional design and a better URL to make it easier to find for all the BATHORY fans?
Quorthon: I have always said I want to have a creative audience. Up until just recently, my idea of the web and websites, was that this was something the fans should handle. Things like that shouldn't be organized from corporate level. Now, I have been convinced that perhaps an official BATHORY homepage is necessary. Not the least to straighten out false rumors but also to open a channel of communication between BATHORY and those fans that never write a fan letter. Hopefully I'll have worked something out soon.

EquimanthorN: Since when does BATHORY bring you enough money to live comfortably without having to do a regular job? And what did you do for a living before those times?
Quorthon: Since around the late 80's BATHORY has been quite able to cover my expenses. Any activities one had prior to that would have been not regular jobs but short time projects that enabled you a small income on the side. Before BATHORY we were too young to have jobs, we formed BATHORY when we were just coming out of regular high school.

EquimanthorN: Compared to other extreme bands from the early 80s (Slayer, Celtic Frost or even Metallica) BATHORY has always remained what one could call an underground act. Did you ever strife for higher (commercial) goals and did/do you regret not having pushed the band to its boundaries in that aspect (the potential to become 'big' surely was there)?
Quorthon: I think that 20 years is a very long time for any act to be hailed as one of the most influential forces and important enterprises in extreme metal history. That's one way to describe something as "big". You can't be shit or considered unsuccessful by any standard if you have achieved something like that. Things like that say more than the number of times you are featured in "wochen metal". There's a way to walk for every person and for every act. One needs not to have achieved anything special or vibrant just because one is mentioned on MTV. BATHORY has sold a million records without having had to play Wacken or follow fashion by putting corpse paint on. Yet, I don't measure things by commercial figures but by gut feeling. If it feels right and if it pleases your creative spirit, then it is good for you. If you're a member of the number one metal act in the world and on all the top lists, yet have to spend half your income on numbing yourself with cocaine because you only feel like a miserable product and a sad cog in the machinery, then something is wrong.

EquimanthorN: How did the 'cult' surrounding BATHORY change during the years from your point of view? Do you think your fans are more mature these days or do they still send you their dead hamsters?
Quorthon: It is more frequent these days to communicate via email, and it is very hard to stuff dead hamsters down your outlook express basket. I believe I succeeded in scaring away a lot of the extreme nut cases a few years back with my solo albums. When their "dark demonic god" Quorthon did stuff like that, they thankfully decided to abandon ship and went for other cult figures to adore. It is very hard to build some kind of relationship with a person that begins every letter with the words "you're my god". If people send you stuff like photo's of their naked girlfriend, dead animals or write their letters in their own blood, it is tough to see any connection made through the music. Some will have interpreted the lyrics a bit too heavily and made their own conclusions as to what sort of person I am and what I'd probably enjoy receiving in my fan mail. One girl in California many many years ago, sent me a plastic bag with earth in it. When I wrote back and asked what it was, she replied that she had visited a graveyard one night where she had laid down on a grave to masturbate under the full moon. The earth was from the grave and she figured it would help in enriching my midnight ceremonies…. Thankfully there are no more such "presents" in the fan mail. Whether that is a sign of maturity among our fans or the scene on a whole, I don't know. But it at least feels like people pay more attention to the music and enjoy that for what it is.

EquimanthorN: The last official promo pictures for BATHORY have been made in 1994, and ever since these pics appear with almost every interview that can be found. I wonder why this is handled that way, especially because you don't seem to like it too much when people create a mysterious aura around your person.
Quorthon: Depends what you mean by "official" pictures, there are plenty of snap shots taken every year. I never felt pictures to be of any vital importance, the music is what's important. I don't want people to be able to get an image in their mind of spiked leather underwear or corpse paint when they hear the word BATHORY . There are pictures out there of me wearing just jeans and T-shirt, and I've received tons of mail from people asking if it really was me in the pictures. They couldn't believe Quorthon of BATHORY would wear a normal pair of jeans… I don't think I have ever said I don't like it when people create a mystery around my person. The mystery as such most likely comes out of the fact that I find no interest whatsoever in promoting myself as a person or my person as a product. The problem is when people make up their mind about you as a blood drinker, a devourer of infants, a satanic neonazi and an eccentric figure without ever having met me. For every year, there are a couple of more pictures added to the bag of pictures of me and BATHORY circulating out there. I find these pictures to do the job very well without me having to hire a photo studio and act like poser just to inform people there's a new BATHORY album out…and that it has music on it too...

EquimanthorN: This is not a very original question, but could you name some of the things/artists etc. that had some influence on you and your work - maybe not only directly on the music itself, but more on an inspirational basis...
Quorthon: I am sure we are all inspired and influenced by everything we see or hear in our lives. Some of the acts or people that might have influenced or meant a lot to me, might not seem like a source of inspiration or influence on Quorthon of BATHORY at first glimpse, though. I very much enjoyed Steve Jones guitar style and sound. Early Kiss was a great injection. The first handful of Black Sabbath albums still rules. Early Motörhead is also a major source of influence. Early GBH was very important for the sound and style of early BATHORY . But since people didn't know what GBH was, they figured we had been inspired from listening to Venom all day long. Which was not the case, we didn't hear about Venom until two months after the release of our first album. I love The Beatles and Beethoven. Richard Wagner is my house god and Johann Sebastian Bach is the greatest musical mind in the history of mankind. I can listen to medieval music as well as punk, and my old Humble Pie vinyl and Nick Drake tapes still make up half of what I'll listen to on a daily basis. In terms of books or movies, I have a hard time watching movies, because I know that for the remaining two hours all I am going to see is fake. The books I read are all facts and the things I'll watch on video or TV is only factual stuff as well.

EquimanthorN: To conclude this interview, let's take a final look into the future: Do you already have plans for the time after the release of Nordland II, both for yourself and your musical activities? You may also add some final words if you feel like it... :)
Quorthon: I am writing material all the time. What a record after Nordland I and II would sound like, I don't know. The plans will take shape as times goes by. It may be totally Nordic and very atmospheric if the audience would like for the next BATHORY album to be all that. But it might just the same be very brutal and dark if I feel that is what I want to do at that point in time. There are no rules.

11/2002 © Robert "EquimanthorN" Schupitta • Bathory •