By Andrew Bansal
For more than two decades, Norwegian progressive extreme metal stalwarts Enslaved have delivered music that’s ‘extreme’ not only in the conventional sense, but also in its thought-provoking progressive patterns. This aspect of their musicianship is perhaps more evident on the latest album ‘Riitiir’ than anything else, and the band has been touring in support of the album for the past 18 months. They just completed a very successful North American tour with Amon Amarth and Skeletonwitch, and a few hours before they took the stage for their last show of the tour at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on February 15th, guitarist and mastermind Ivar Bjørnson spoke to Metal Assault about the tour, plans for the next album, and more. Enjoy the conversation below.
Ivar, how are you doing today?
I’m doing really well! It’s a bit sentimental and nostalgic, as it’s the last day of the tour for Enslaved. The other two bands are doing one more show tomorrow but we’re flying home.
It seems like it’s been a very fun-filled tour for you guys. You had the Superbowl along the way. Then there was an NHL game that some of the members went to. Your other guitarist Ice Dale was passed out drunk and you guys drew on his face, and things like that. Sounds like you had a lot of fun!
Yeah! I think the guys from Skeletonwitch said at the beginning of the tour that this is going to be fun, and they were right. The first thing we noticed was, it’s the first tour we’ve been on in many years where everybody has long hair (laughs), just good old classic metal dudes in all the bands, and I guess we all have the same kind of humor. Some people are interested in sports as you mentioned, and everybody’s interested in drinking, obviously. So it’s been a lot of fun. It’s one of those weird things, the more you travel to weird places and meet new bands, the more you discover that being a metalhead is pretty much the same thing no matter where you are.
It’s a universal language that brings us together.
Absolutely. It’s cheesy but it’s true!
Right. A lot of bands jump on tours with bigger bands just for the sake of exposure, but I think for you this tour makes perfect sense because not only does Amon Amarth have a bigger crowd, you guys go well together.
Yes, absolutely. We did Opeth and Dimmu Borgir tours in America a couple of years ago as special guest. To be honest, we didn’t have a lot of names on the list of bands we’d like to open for. We’d rather do smaller headlining stuff than being on a bill that we wouldn’t fit into. But when Amon Amarth invited us along, we figured that it would be a good thing, and it turns out to be true. A lot of their fans that had a pre-conception about what Enslaved was and got a bit surprised. Some people thought it would be just Norwegian black metal from 92, and some thought it would be the other way, just esoteric, medieval prog or whatever. So they would come over to the merch after a show where we go every night to sign stuff and meet people, and we got a lot of new fans on this tour, which we like.
I think your slot is perfect too. You’re pretty much the mid-point music-wise, after Skeletonwitch and before Amon Amarth.
Yeah I guess so. The first evening we were listening to Skeletonwitch and we were like, ‘These guys are intense!’ Those two bands are more like the Motörhead, AC/DC kind of tradition of metal, which is extremely important and they’re preserving that. Skeletonwitch are of the death/thrash heritage and Amon Amarth is, for me, a classic heavy metal band with a death metal sound. And I guess Enslaved represents all the other stuff in between (laughs).
A good portion of the set on this tour has been the ‘Riitiir’ material. You’ve been supporting that album for the last 18 months or so, since it came out. How did you go about picking which songs from the album you were going to play, specially for a shorter set?
The important thing for this was, as you said, we’ve been doing this album cycle for a while and it was the second time around in the US on this album. So we wanted to start representing the other half of the album, so to speak. So we’re doing ‘Death In The Eyes Of Dawn’ which we didn’t do last time. If we had a little bit more time we might have done one more that we haven’t played. If we’re coming back again before the next album, it’s certainly going to be the three last songs that we haven’t played yet. The disadvantage with long songs is obviously it’s a bit tough in support slots. The advantage is you’ve got a lot of material to choose from, so you can keep coming back and still have new songs people haven’t heard live.
With a shorter set, you have to fit in your whole catalog to represent yourself. That must be harder as compared to picking a headline set.
Yeah, absolutely. You have to do so much more in a shorter time, and on this tour I would say it takes quite an experienced band to do the kind of set we’re doing. Earlier we would focus on a certain aspect of the band, may be go for the more thrashy songs or go for a special atmosphere. But this time we decided to try and show everything in 45 minutes. We start out very mellow and a few people get surprised, because as we talked about Skeletonwitch, they melt faces with the most intense stuff and following them we go the opposite way and start out all the way down. But in those 45 minutes, we go backwards in our own catalog, end up in full fury with the ’92 kind of intensity and round it off with ‘Isa’. We tried that in rehearsal and we thought it sounded like it could work. We just had to take the chance and do it. I would say it has worked!
You’re going back to the really old stuff, as you said ’92. Even Amon Amarth who’re playing 90 minutes are not playing songs released earlier than 2006, for the most part. In that sense you’re representing more of your catalog in a shorter time.
Yeah, for us that’s important. Everything for us is based around holistic thoughts. We look at everything from a holistic perspective, our lyrics, our concepts, our own personalities or whatever it may be. And of course, the music also. Sometimes it’s not linear, and that’s what we’re trying to say with our music. It’s more like a Devin Lynch movie where time and place aren’t necessarily on a line. In some places there is a direct connection between a song from ’92 all the way to 2006, and we go from 2012 back to 2000, and so on. It’s more like a chaotic map than anything else.
That’s very interesting. So, talking of the next album, what’s the word on that? Have you started writing it yet?
Yeah actually I wrote quite a lot before we left for this tour and the last thing we did before leaving was getting the first song properly down in the rehearsal space. I guess we’ll start with the second one when I get home and get a few days away from the other guys (laughs), get my sanity back and it’ll be time to start rehearsing again. New recording is scheduled for August-September.
With ‘Riitiir’, I think you achieved what you set out to do. It’s a very dynamic and multi-layered album. From that, how do you go to the next step? I felt that Riitiir was like the pinnacle of your musical career at the time it was released.
Oh, thanks! I don’t know, I’m as surprised as anybody else when I’m writing the music. I try to not make it a conscious effort. I’ve gone through so many stages of thinking of my own role in songwriting, why am I doing it, where is it coming from, and what does it make me, and so on. I guess the most boring explanation would be that the music is there already in a sense, on a metaphysical or psychological level. It’s sort of pre-built in me. I look at myself more as a craftsman. Some people have a talent for doing leads. I have a talent for developing ideas, I guess, like a photo guy. Some people take the photos, I’m good at developing them into the full-scale picture. So I don’t really think about it when riffs come out. I just let it happen, and I guess the natural step could be this or that. I’m a bit surprised actually, because the new stuff sounds quite aggressive!
More aggressive than Riitiir, you’re saying?
Yeah, that’s how it sounds. But let’s see how the rest of the album turns out. It could get more complex, it could get more straightforward. I don’t want to judge it because that kind of kills it.
Right, so other than the recording, what plans do you have after this tour?
We actually recorded a song during this tour. We’re going to be part of a Norwegian naval festival this summer which is kind of weird. They’re going to have old-school sailing ships, and they had this idea that Enslaved is representing a culture that’s close to the old sailor culture. I don’t know if it’s the beards, the tattoos, or the drinking, or possibly a combination of all three. But as part of that we recorded a song that’s a mix of a viking chant and a traditional sailors chant. So we’re going to release that. We’re also working on a DVD that we’re hoping to put out by the end of the year. There’s a bunch of festivals coming up. So it’s going to be busy.
Related – Gig Review + Photos: Amon Amarth, Enslaved & Skeletonwitch Perform At Sold-Out Wiltern
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