Well, some things take a bit longer ... The last day of No Mercy Festival (check out the live review) at Zeche Carl in Essen ( Germany ). I had an another date to get a MARDUK interview, but first it seems it wouldn't work at all. Pure chaos around, two bands were still missing. The rest of the bands were pretty fucked, Marduk also were not really motivated to do anything. In thoughts the guys already were on upcoming US tour. So it still took till the eighth band played (1am), as Marduk's singer Legion bumped into me unexpected, fresh showered, worn out, dead tired and coughing. Time to attack him with lots of questions of Mephisto and me. But, at least, talkative he is ... really ...

Dajana: Ten years of blasphemous music, ten years of MARDUK. Is there a special date on which you'll celebrate?
Legion: No, not really. I mean, most of it came about some time in 1991. We didn't really do anything special. We put out that informal Eternal Live album, and we also had that show on Halloween, and now it's the first time that Marduk will actually play there since 1993. Apart from that, we haven't planned all that much. Just like that, it's like the first ten years have passed and now it's like the next ten years in front of us.
We have started booking up stuff until the summer of 2003, at least. That'll keep us busy for a while.

Dajana: I have read you will release a limited special box then. Can you tell us a bit about it you've got planned? When's it gonna be in the stores?
Legion: Halloween 2001, actually, and it will contain a bunch of shit. It will contain all the unreleased lyrics from our previous albums, tons of photos... there'll be lots of stuff in that booklet. We've got a 1 ½ hours video. Maybe a couple of CD's, but we don't know for sure yet, because we want to keep the price down. If we can get two CD's with 74 or 72 minutes or something, and we'll have to skip a couple of tracks, then we will do it. We'll just have to see.
We've scheduled to get to it when we get home from our tour in July. That's when we'll get busy putting the whole thing together.

Dajana: Have you achieved all the goals you set yourself when you started the band?
Legion: No, no no NO! I'm never satisfied, because the day I'm satisfied there's nothing worth fighting for, so why be satisfied? Life is like a big feast and I'm invited, you know? I mean, I always find out new stuff out there. Things I want to go for, and so I just go out there and get them, no matter what. I'll be like that until the day I die, because then it doesn't matter really anymore. But until then I'll keep on going.

Dajana: How long are you planning to be present on stage?
Legion: As a band?

Dajana: Yes (what else ? - Cal)?
Legion: As long as we are going to be around. Metal bands that don't play live suck, because they aren't competent, they can't play their instruments and that's why they don't play live.
I can understand if someone just has a hobby band, but all that shit about being to busy recording to go on tour and blah blah blah, that's mostly guys who can't play their instruments. They usually are even in trouble if they just want to release a couple of albums ( i just wonder, who's meant here ...*lol* - Cal ) There's some certain bands which don't go on stage, which I still appreciate, like that of Morgan. But, we are gonna be that tour thing and the stage and albums, and we'll be that till the day we die, or fade away, or explode, or whatever.

Dajana: Last year at Wacken Open Air, there was some trouble because you changed the place with Immortal. There's that rumour doing the rounds that somebody has stolen your vanity-case and you wouldn't enter the stage without make up. Any truth to that?
Legion: No. I mean, we could have borrowed makeup from Immortal, if that had been the case, but it wasn't. So that was not the big deal. We're friends, else they wouldn't have changed the spot with us. Yeah, they are cool towards us, so we could easily have gotten stuff from them. The thing was, that when we got there we left all our stuff in the backstage room, which we shared with Dark Funeral. They came off-stage and they were totally shit-faced, so they didn't know what they were doing. They took all our pedals and equipment and our entire stuff we need for each performance and got it on their minivan and went away. We called them and asked, but they were so drunk, they didn't know what was what. So their driver, when we got him on the phone, he just double-checked and got our stuff back to us. But by then it already was our time, and so Immortal said "Hey man, we'll go on stage instead," and we took their place.

Dajana: What about the year before?
Legion: Then we were stranded with a broken-down van. We called them and said we can't make it there; we can't perform because our fucking van is broken down, and they said, like yeah. They could reschedule us for later and I was told that the audience went to see a strip show instead, but that's cool and we did last year's set.

Dajana: The rumour was that MARDUK were too pissed to play.
Legion: Yeah, sure. It's like people can talk whatever they want. For instance, I can tell you that when we toured in Scotland, I spent all day puking in the backstage room. I puked 5 minutes before the show started in the backstage room, and I still made it on stage. Then, up there we played 9 songs, and then I puked and collapsed. I was shaking because I was so dehydrated. Everybody went "MARDUK! MARDUK!" so I got up and played one more song and then went to the hospital (um... hello ? what's the question? *lol* - Cal).
We'd never cancel a show if there wasn't a reason that makes it impossible to play, because every cancelled show is a bad show that makes people start to talk. And everybody is a wise guy, and then the next guy changes the rumour a little bit and so on. And in the end it's something completely different.

Dajana: Did you enjoy the W:O:A?
Legion: Yeah, it was great. Despite being so big it's well-organised. It's cool for that reason and for all sorts of things.
It's always great to play in Germany, it's always great to play. Here we play in front of, I dunno, 10.000 people who just go ... that's amazing.

Dajana: Will you be playing there again this year?
Legion: We won't do any festivals this season, except for Graspop in Belgium. After that we'll take 2 months for our boxed set. Then we'll go to the States again and to South America again, and after that we'll do the Christmas festivals in Europe. So maybe the year after that we'll do a festival tour again like we did last time.

Dajana: How about No Mercy Festival? You've been on large european tour for the last 6 weeks now, with 9! bands every evening. Many people complain that it's too big (and I know what I'm talking about ... ? - Cal).
Legion: Definitely! I totally agree. 9 bands is way too many. It's like the first year we did it they had 6 bands, then it was eight bands and now it's nine. Every time we were told that this one's gotten too big, too unorganised and too chaotic, but I think that's the way life is.

Dajana: So it's all baout money then?
Legion: Yeah, errmm... I dunno.
But I'd definitely rather play for a crowd like we've seen here than for one like we had in Holland. We really had a good response and we came over fucking well. People have already been there all day, drinking beer and banging their heads. But still, it's way better to play for your own crowd.

Dajana: When you have seen MARDUK several time you may miss killer tracks like Legion or Glorification Of The Black God from Heaven Shall Burn album? At least not at No Mercy Festival last year in Vienna or various other shows where I have seen you.
Legion: Legion we did like for three tours. We always alter our set a little bit, so we won't always hear the same stuff. Tonight for example, we got rid of pretty much of all the older stuff that we usually play. But then we did stuff like The Funeral Seemed To Be Endless and Darkness Breeds Immortality, which haven't been played by MARDUK since 1992 or something.
With Glorification, we just don't play it because for that one we'd need a second guitarist. Without a second guitarist it just sounds like shit. It's the thing with the two guitars, that's the problem.

Dajana: You had problems with your voice last year at No Mercy in Vienna. How come?
Legion: Yeah, after a while, yeah. Why do you think? Take a wild guess. That's when you're always on tour, yes? I mean, it's bad air on the bus, out in the cold after the show. The smoke machines and the way of singing is really ripping my throat apart.
It's always like that, I've always had some problems there. It's like that. That's touring. You really get sick, no matter what. All the guys on our bus have had the flu. That's just the way it is.

Dajana: One might get the impression that you're not fully stretched. Especially Morgan has got the label and the side project Devil's Whorehouse.
Legion: Yeah, but that's just something Morgan's got going for two weeks of recording. Especially because Morgan is a bass player who really lives to play.
Whenever I see him he's is listening to a CD and playing along. That's all he does. He really lives for music, and he always likes to play different stuff, so for him it's quite a cool idea. But it is nothing that takes away from his work with MARDUK. We practice every day for hours. When we give ourselves a vacation we rehearse 3 or 4 times a week. That's pretty much it.

Dajana: With roughly one album a year and all the tours do you lead a private life?
Legion: No, not really, but I don't really care, either, because MARDUK is all I want to do.
I've been working so hard to get here and it's really like going for your destiny.
But you've got to sacrifice a lot.
Everything else is number 5, because MARDUK is numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. You've got to give up a lot, but I think that MARDUK is totally worth it, and everything else is number 5.

Dajana: How about your label? Is that exclusively for MARDUK?
Legion: No, it's more like Morgan's little thing. We're signing other bands and stuff. Morgan's working at it because he's enjoying it, but I am only involved in the MARDUK part of it. That's what I spend my time doing. Working to get the albums out.
But right now everything is going really great like that, because when we got off Osmose Production it was like *pfffrrrzzz* good luck with your distribution and blablabla. He had 8 fucking years and he never ever pulled that off. Right now we have our distribution through Century Media in the States, Canada and South America, and this year we are doing two tours there, so it actually works out better. Plus, we've got total freedom to do what we want. We're totally in control and that's a good thing.

Dajana: Will there be a Devil's Whorehouse tour (for upcoming album)?
Legion: No, I don't think so, because there is no time. Devil's Whorehouse played live once, and that was supporting MARDUK at Halloween, but that was just a one-off thing.
It's more like a cool thing for Morgan, because he's enjoying playing music.

Dajana: What do you think of your first albums nowadays?
Legion: We don't regret anything we've ever put out, because it tells you where the band was at the time.
I mean, Eternal Live is still working very well for us and we still play songs from it, just like we do from albums 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
The old material still works very well and I don't regret anything we put out.

Dajana: Your new album La Grande Danse Macabre is an absolutely crusher again, more varied and more mature, like in direction of your Nightwing album. Getting away from your old "We want to sound as chaotic as possible" motto. Are you becoming serious now?
Legion: We've never been really chaotic. We've been fast and brutal as hell, but it's always very controlled. If you compare a MARDUK CD to any other black metal bands, that are just **brrchk**, we are **skzzzt**, even though we're playing very fast (*lol* .. nice description of other genre-mate's music - Cal).
If we always did the same thing that'd be stupid, because then it's like getting boxed in and everybody goes "aha, right, that's it."
We always play like the way we feel like playing. That is the only way we can judge if a new song of ours is any good.
This time we wanted to do something different and I also think it's like a really nice wrap-up of the entire concept of the album, so it's like the music illustrates the lyrics.

Dajana: Was there ever the thought to split-up, could there be a split-up in the future?
Legion: No. Never ever ever. Although you can never tell what will happen in the course of someone's life, we will stay together regardless, because there's literally nothing in this world that could make me stop from getting forward, and the others are just the same, even though you'll never know what might happen in your life, of course.
We've never had any real fights, everybody in the band is best friends, and if we weren't it'd just suck and that would make it impossible to work together.

Dajana: I don't really want to talk about Morgan's faible for wars, the misunderstandings from it or the infighting in the Black Metal underground...
Legion: I dunno what you're saying about the Metal underground, because everybody is just trying to fuck each other out of jealousy. It would be much smarter if everybody just teamed up instead of fighting each other, but that is not for me to decide, so I am in MARDUK and I work for MARDUK and that's all I care about.
If somebody is bullshitting us, we don't even respond. It's like pouring water on a ghost it just goes through.

Dajana: ... maybe more unusual questions, well-knowing you're not really in politics. What do you see the current state of world affairs with George W. Bush as the new U.S. president?
Legion: Better than Al Gore, definitely, because I hate him above everything else. I mean, Tipper Gore, she should be executed, because she is like Mrs. Scumbag, fuck -face no. 1.
She stated that musicians don't need a first amendment right, like the right to disagree. Therefore she was the one who actually put the "Explicit Lyrics" stickers on records. And now she's even trying to ban this music, telling these bands that "you can't play your music, you can't say what you want, because I have a problem with what you're saying!" So I am really happy that Al Gore lost, because he is such a scumbag.
But no matter who actually wins such an election, be it in the States or Sweden, I loose.

Dajana: If it comes, do you admire ancient churches as demonstration of great architecture or do you see them as a hatred monument of Christianity ( because your attitude is clearly antichristian )?
Legion: About churches, I dunno. I mean, MARDUK is not a band they would invite to the local church to party. I mean, sure, if some politician in the future wanted to reform everything and take Christianity out, I would be the first to applaud him.

Dajana: Now a pure hypothecial question ... supposed, you would be nominated for the MTV Music Award or something like that. Would you play a show there, also after bands like Back Street Boys?
Legion: Yeah, definitely. I would just get it on and be so vulgar, so that the audience would just choke on us. That would be really great. I wouldn't mind that at all, but then it's like I don't care. Or rather I do care. It would be great if we became that big a thing, as big as fucking Elton John, or whatever. You name it. But only as long as we do our own thing, and not have to sell out like Metallica or something. But if you do your own thing and get on with it, that's what life is about. Of course we would do it. No problem. We'd play Jesus Christ Sodomized and everybody would go like "huh"?

Dajana: Favourite food?
Whatever. I like sweets. And Italian stuff. Whatever. I used to be a real McDonald's maniac, but that is in the past now. Always burgers an pizza, but now I actually do some cooking.

Dajana: Favourite beer?
To be honest I am not much of a beer person. Heineken is fucking awesome, Beck's is pretty good, I think, and all sorts of different stuff. But it's like we are hard liquor guys and when we drink we really drink, but on tour we don't really party around that much. It just fucks up your system and there is no way you can go on and do the full tour if you're fucked up all the time. It's like if you've got a regular job you don't go there drunk, and when you play in a band it's not different. I really enjoy Black Tube which is 50% Jim Beam and 50% Coca Cola that is quite awesome.

Dajana: First concert, first album?
First concert I can't even remember. My first album was A Piece Of My Mind by Iron Maiden. It was the year before I saw them for the first time live.

Dajana: Maybe you remember. Once Ozzy Ozbourne has bitten a rat's head off on stage. Would you like to do the same for your shows? Maybe a bat's head or a rat's balls?
It would be awesome to do something like that, to put on a good show, but it's not something I've really thought about. We will see.

Dajana: How about groupies?
What about them? I think they are great. I adore them, because what is up with that stupid chastity thing? If some girl feels like it's her mission in life to be with people who are famous and because she gets something out of it I say go ahead. It's not like I go all the way all the time, but I think it's a great thing.