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August 24th 2010, Mumbai, India

Mikhail: Why did you quit Dimmu Borgir a day after the news was made official?
Snowy: I understand that people are curious to find out just what the hell happened here, but I've signed a contract that prevents me from revealing any details on the subject, in time I will, but not now.

Mikhail: Was this a leave Dimmu Borgir to re-join Therion situation?
Snowy: Well, Like I've explained so much lately, I had every intention to continue playing with both bands but as things developed and with both bands releasing the new albums and start touring at the exact same time, that simply wasn't possible and so one had to go, I just wasn't sure which one obviously.

Mikhail: What are the tour plans for Therion? I've heard South America is on the list this time.
Snowy: Yeah, in about two weeks time we'll start touring all over south, central and Latin America then full tour of Europe before X-mas. That's all I know for the moment, but there's been some offers to tour Japan, China and Australia that I assume they are looking into right now. We'll see what happens.

Mikhail: Did you rehearse with Dimmu Borgir for their tour or quit before the rehearsals?
Snowy: About a month, three weeks before rehearsals would take place.

Mikhail: Tell me something about the band Opera Diabolicus and the album that took so long to be released.
Snowy: It's a lot more than just a regular band, more like a doom metal version of a rock opera, with several singers doing different parts like a cast of characters. But nonetheless hell yeah, it's surely been an extremely long process, but now they've finally reached an agreement and inked with a record company and will release the album within shortly. I think. Perhaps the two main guys suffer from that same ominous disease as Axl Rose...hahaha!

Mikhail: You were also asked to join Manowar (drums) and you didn't join but you recorded Manowar's 'Thor' as a cover with Therion. Can you explain why?
Snowy: Well, without elaborating any further on that, it didn't happen quite like that, and there is no relation between the two, except that I was and still am a huge fan of their early stuff.

Mikhail: King's wife (Livia Zita) sings on King Diamond's 'The Puppet Master' and 'Give Me Your Soul... Please'. What do you think of that?
Snowy: Don't think I've even noticed, but yeah, why not? As long as they are happy with the result, that's cool.

Mikhail: The book of heavy metal is considered to be one of the greatest power metal albums of all time. Can you share some stories from that album?
Snowy: Thanks, that's awfully nice of you. It was a great album to make and I worked hard and enjoyed it. To my great surprise Dream Evil had been very successful with the previous two albums, despite not putting a tremendous lot of effort and work into them, especially Evilized that was basically written, recorded, mixed and mastered within two weeks time. So before making the critical third record I said to the others Look guys, we get handed one golden opportunity after another here, just imagine what could happen if we put some real effort and thought into it for the third album, then we could probably make miracles. But I guess they were too busy with all the other things going in their lives because no one really seemed to care too much except for me and Fredrik. I rolled up my sleeves and went to work and wrote shitloads of songs and lyrics. I remember we took turns working in the studio and once the drums were done during daytime then I'd go home to rest for a few hours while Niklas was doing vocals with Fredrik in the evening. Then I'd return for the graveyard shift at about 2AM to record all the rhythm guitars all by myself. We figured since I had written the bulk of the material it'd be easier if I did the guitars myself rather than to have Gus learning all the songs. Needless to say, we didn't practise or play the songs together before we recorded them, we never did.

Mikhail: In the actual book of heavy metal, in the page which says Snowy Shaw, what would it say?
Snowy: Hahaha! I don't know, you tell me. I'm more interested to hear what you have to say about it.

Mikhail: Which bands have you designed stage props for?
Snowy: I've done quite a lot of props for videos, photos etc for Dimmu Borgir among others but specifically for stage it's basically just Therion, Dream Evil, XXX and Notre Dame.. And some stuff for Kee Marcello's K2 and my old bands.

Mikhail: You did photography for the band Wolf. Which other bands are you working with?
Snowy: A bunch, I can't remember all the names, Therion, Engel, Dream Evil, Hardcore Superstar, Amon Amarth, Passenger, Aggressive Chill, Falconer, Hellfueled, Easy Action, The Crown, K2, Medusa, Loud N' Nasty, Nightrage, XXX and Notre Dame of course

Mikhail: Why did Illwill split up? Can we ever expect a reunion in the future?
Snowy: I doubt it, we never actually verbally said that we split up; it all just fell apart and deteriorated long before the album was in fact released because things didn't quite work out as we expected and the unit was more or less divided into two camps.

Mikhail: We know you're a big AC/DC fan. Did you check out their new CD-Black Ice? What did you think of it?
Snowy: No, I haven't. To tell you the truth, I haven't bought an AC/DC album since 8th grade and that was For those about to rock.

Mikhail: Is it ironic that you played Shagrath in the Kamelot DVD a cold winter's night only to join Dimmu Borgir years later?
Snowy: Yeah, it is hahaha! Haven't thought about that. Another of those funny incidents that Silenoz reminded me of a while ago was that I was in the team of Revolver Film Company and we shot a video for Stormblast and I somehow noticed they didn't have a bass player and asked Eh, where is the bassist? From their surprised reaction it seemed that hadn't even thought about it. So I said well, if you want I can always step in and masquerade as bassist in the video.

Mikhail: What do you think of King Diamond's recent long overdue Grammy nomination?
Snowy: That's just terrific, if not for anything else than for long and faithful service. Should have happened 20 years ago, so not a day too soon.

Mikhail: Any message for the millions of Snowy Shaw fans out there?
Snowy: Are you sure there are that many really? Anyway, thanks for all your support, I really appreciate it - stay true!