Sioux: Greetings, since LEGIONS OF WAR is relatively new on the scene, can you give us a little history about the band? When did you form and how did you choose the name?
C. Stalinorgel: Hello Miss Sioux! Well, we thought the theme for the band should be about war when we started up so we just started to look for a name that could suite for that theme. First we tried to find a name that should been written in one word and content the word “war” but there was of course tons of other band that had taken all the best names so it turned out to be “Legions Of War” instead which in the end turned out to be a good choice, if you ask me, even if its got a bit more modern touch (look at Sodom, Venom, Motörhead, real cool band names content only one word compared to modern band which often have three-four-five word in their band name). We started up around 2002-2003 out in the forest, and we still practice in the same barn we started in. From the start it was Zyklon and me, C. Stalinorgel, but we realized we were too few and not good enough, hehe, so we had to get in some more competent people. Sometimes too competent for my personal taste hehe, anyway, Widowreaper and Hellwind entered the realms of LEGIONS OF WAR. The main course was and still is to play metal, drink a beer and get away from the reality!! We terrorized the underground with three demos before Inferno records got in between and offered us a fair deal.

Sioux: You just completed your debut album Towards Death for Inferno Records. How was that experience? Are you happy with the way the album turned out?
C. Stalinorgel: it was a pleasant experience! It’s always nice too get in the studio, have a beer, been nervous, angry, disappointed, stunned, surprised and so on. I guess it turned out really well in the end, our studio guy Johan Goksöyr is a hell of a man since he can turn gold right out of shit, hehe!! The album content a lot of “live” feeling I guess, and the sound is pretty dirty and “old school” but still its like a beautiful caress of your ears! The cooperation with Inferno records couldn’t turn out better than it has until now, Fab and Bea are really serious and dedicated metal heads, they put in a lot of hard work to promote both us and the other bands at the label.

Sioux: The lyrics on Towards Death focus heavily on war. Was someone within the band a soldier? Did anyone in the band happen to be involved in combat?
C. Stalinorgel: Nope, we’re deer hunters instead!! And that’s not a joke, thou. But, no, no one in the band has been involved in such matters, some of us are interested in the war history from the last century and it’s very easy to get inspiration from such tragic and devastating issue as war. The dark history of men fits well with the darker sides of metal. I wish I could say we are real soldiers, sick bastards who are in for the kill, and love to rape, sacrifice children blah blah, then I guess we would sell a lot of records, but we’re not. We are ordinary working class heroes! But, for living I work as a paramedic so I deal a lot with death and misery among people, which could give me some inspiration sometimes, but it’s nothing like war thou.

Sioux: Who writes the lyrics for the band? Who comes up with the music? Is there one key songwriter, or do you all figure it out together as a band? How long does it take for you to write a song?
C. Stalinorgel: I write most of the lyrics. Then our both singers, if we can call them that, hehe, edit the lyrics and change them a bit so the word will fit the music. Sometimes the lyrics are written in a serious way, as a consideration of the war - like an attempt to paint a picture of, for an example a war scene. Sometimes it’s more “Manowar” likely written lyrics but with a great portion of Motörhead way of writing…did you get all that?? How the lyrics come out depends on which temper I’m in.
The music is written by the other guys in the band; I think I contributed with only one riff on the album. We work with the songs together in the rehearsal room, its just Mr. Hellwind that sometimes can come to the rehearsal with a song that are finished. Or he thinks it’s finished, but then we modify the material for him ha ha! How long it takes to write a song depends on how much we have rehearsed, have in mind that we are old, tired and sometimes a bit lazy. Sometimes we can put together a song on two hours and sometimes it could take a month, in those case we change them several times before we decide which version that’s best.

Sioux: LEGIONS OF WAR has a very tight sound. Do you plan on doing any tours or playing any festivals in the near future?
C. Stalinorgel: Well, I’m sorry to say that it’s been years since some of us entered a stage. Everyone in the band has been involved in other bands over the years and played live before, but we have been off the scene for a while and Legions of war as a band have never played live. But that’s going to change now. First we’re going to play at a local gig this summer just to practice and see if we can manage to do a descent show. We have also started to send out a few promos to see if we could get some more gigs around here. If this will work alright, the future will tell. But tours? Not for the moment, don’t know if we have the energy to put together a tour, or even going on tour, it’s a lot of hard work behind such matters and it hasn’t been a topic for discussion so far.

Sioux: Coming from Sweden, what is the metal scene like up there at this time? Is there a lot of competition from other bands?
C. Stalinorgel: Yes, there are tons of bands around here but competition? You can’t win a race with the gods of warmetal can you?!!! To be serious, it’s not easy to get heard and discovered around here if you play in a band that got a deal with a small label. There are good bands with record deals in almost every town here in Sweden. Just around the corner we have Suicidal Winds, Grief Of Emerald, Hathor, Reaktor 4, Axis Powers to mention a few of decent bands in the harder school of rock, they have records out but nevertheless manage to “hit the stars”. But over the last few years there seems to be a better situation when it comes to live shows, there are more opportunities to get gigs done. But I think it’s harder to get people to buy records today. Well, I guess it’s almost the same situation around here as in the rest of the music business upon mother earth. Some will success, some will not. Guess it’s a matter of circumstances as long as you have a descent record out.

Sioux: Where do you see LEGIONS OF WAR in the next five years?
C. Stalinorgel: Probably lurking around almost at the same spot! Hopefully we play metal, threw down a beer or two, do a gig from time to time, print some merchandises and stuff like that. If we managed to release a few albums too it would have been great...and hopefully five years can make us better musicians too. But there’s only one thing I really, really want to achieve in the next five years, a personally goal, and that is a release of a picture disc. I have “been on vinyl” before with other bands but I never had put my ugly face upon a picture disc! That would have been awesome to have on the wall back home!!

Sioux: Thank you so much for your time. I leave the last words for you. Anything you would like to tell the metal hordes?
C. Stalinorgel: Thank you for the interview Queen Sioux and thanks for showing interest in LEGIONS OF WAR! Metal warriors! Raise your wallet; buy our record so we can get bigger, fatter and richer warmetal gods!! Or just get in touch for trades, booking of gigs and that usual stuff. And remember: “Stalinorgels sending out concerts of death as we marching out to the tunes of war”!!!