Interviews

ENTHRONED

We made a nice interview with Nornagest, the guitarist and vocalist of the Enthroned unique and succesfull black metal band emerged from Belgium.

Hails from Turkey your new album released in these days, what are the latest news about Enthroned?
Nornagest: Hails! We are currently preparing the world tour related to the release of “Pentagrammaton” and already writing new material. In the mean time, we added a new guitar player for the live element, Tzelmoth, as i developed a tendinitis in my left wrist; I cannot decently play long tours anymore so it was better this way.

I want to start my questions with a cliche ‘first days of the band question’, did you think that the band will last 16 years when you formed the band? How old were you when the band is formed?
I was 17 back then, we really didn’t think about how long or how short it would be, since then we have been doing our thing and here we are today.

Most of the black metal bands emphasise on satanism/ocultism, we don’t know how serious they are, what do Enthroned think of that? Do the members have a common idea?
In our opinion, if you wanna start a band with a concept like philosophy or occultism and pretend to be something, you have to be that thing or to be involved with it! Yes, we are involved and busy in everyday life with Satanism & occultism. I wouldn’t make any sens to me to just pretend to be something like this, where’s the point? It’s like pretending to be a guy while the person is a girl, there would be something seriously wrong then… to me it is exactly the same.

My personal idea is legendary man Euronymous and a masterpiece, mysteriis dom sathanas created the black metal sound first, what do you think of that?
It depends of everyones opinion and what is BM for such or such person, for me it could be Death SS (Italy), Venom, Coven etc… De mysteriis Dom Satanas was copied and re-copied again (at least some bands tried to) and that’s not really my idea of what Black metal is all about. Samael, Blasphemy, Death SS, Sarcofago, Mayhem and Deathspell Omega are all Black metal but are as different as night and day! You cannot say that Euronymous invented BM standards while beherit was already around at that time, same for Impaled Nazarene’s “Tol Cormp Norz norz norz”…

What do you think about the black metal bands are getting populer and changing?For example they play in the festivals to the thousands, personally, do you prefer to play to thousands in a fest or to real die-hard 100 fans in a filthy bar?
Evolution and improvement isn’t a bad thing as long as you do it as a natural continuum of your own self. Some people cannot just being creative or are just falling on their own nose when they started up a band for profit or just for imagery so they turn out into what they think might sell or into what people expect, that is of course not to be supported, now regarding the element you play its up to your own standards, views and concepts.

Let’s talk about your last album. It has some thrash riffs with powerful sound. My favourite is The Vitalized Shell,seems like a continuum of towards the Skullthrone of Satan and tetra Karcist. What do you want to say about the album?
“Pentagrammaton” is solely composed in a direct direction, where lyrics and music are at one, you can of course find elements of the albums you refered to, many people does in fact, maybe its the perfect balance for the band… at least this album, is special ins everal points, being the first one we produced, designed and aproximatively did everything ourselves for.

What do you do in your daily life, except for the band? Do you and the others on the band earn money only through the band?
We have our own recording studio in Brussels, Belgium so this is our second job if you wanna see it like this. We take care of band/artists productions and as well as graphics artworks/ layouts and also paintings.

A gig of you to Turkey, with Corpus Christii and Nocturnal Depression is cancelled, what was the reason?It’s the best to learn from you.
We got contacted by this person some time ago… when we started to get closer and closer from the date we still didn’t get our contract back and the guy still didn’t book the plane tickets for us to get there. When we tried several time to contact him through his e-mail, post mail, phone etc… he simply vanished, impossible to reach him or anything. We started to get mails from people all over Turkey and even from fans from other countries who wanted to attempt the gig, telling us that they’ve been ripped off regarding their pre-sales tickets. So we and Corpus Christii decided to cancel the show.
I heard that some fans were really pissed off, as they paid for their tickets but never got them or never got their money refunded.

Which are the bands you are a fan of?
A wide range actually, I’m very open minded when it comes to music, here’s a little list:
Sarcofago, Dead Can Dance, Bestial Warlust, Coph Nia, Suicide Commando, Funeral Mist, Mgla, Venom, Sodom, Vulcano, Beherit, Led Zeppelin, Nick Cave and the bad Seeds, The Velvet Underground, Sephiroth, Lapis Nigrae and a lot of other bands/artists.

It’s said your vocalist Nornagest wrote the lyrics of a song of Blood Libels album of French band Anteus. How did this happen? How did you contact?
Me and Mkm (Antaeus) are friends since 1996, he participated to the recording of “Tetra Karcist” doing some backing vocals on one track and one evening he was at my place, I showed him some lyrics in which he found himself into, so I gave him those and they used it on their “Blood Libels” album.

In an interview of you, you said your best concert was in Brazil, how was the athmosphere? What charmed you?
South America is definitely another world when it comes to the audience!
They are way more dedicated and involved within a live performance than in Europe. You simply cannot compare those people to what you are used to over here, you just can’t. The intensity of a show over there can only reach you, as a musician being on stage in front of such people!

You’ve given many concerts and been to many tours, what was the most unforgetable tour memory? For example did someone vomit on you on the stage or things like that?
In the US, a fan climbed on stage and sliced his wrists while we were performing, he was bleeding like a pig and before passing out he felt on his knees in front of us and said “This is for you!” the guy was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital and was bleeding to death, apparently they couldn’t fix him up.

You have a live album called Black Goat Ritual: Live in thy Flesh, as a black metal band, whose idea wat to publish a concert album? You know concert albums aren’t published often.
We had the opportunity to record a live album over there in Brazil, so we took that chance and it ended up with that live album. It was first an idea from the tour promoter and finally Napalm Records got interested to release it.

There have to be black metal bands you’re following, at least you have some favourites and non-favourites for the future, can you share those bands that you think have a good future?
I discovered some excellent bands lately that are worth attention and in my opinion a good future: Kerasphorus (the new band of Pete Helmkamp), Goat Torment, Deathhammer, Iperyt from Poland, Emptiness (black/death from Belgium) and a few others…

Is it true that Blackened Records published your records again without your permission after the agreement between you finished? It is said you denied the album?
Indeed, we had some re-issues with different layouts, some compilations etc… brought to us by fans during concerts to sign those items that we never saw before, having a closer look at those we saw the Blackened Records logo and we tried to contact them regarding this but our mails were ignored of course…

You worked with Napalm Records for your album before this one, what was the reason to workd with Regain Records for this one?
Simply because Regain Records proposed us a better deal, our contract with napalm was over and although they wanted to sign Enthroned for three more albums we decided to give it a go with Regain as their proposal was just outstanding compared to the other ones we received at the time!

You recorded a tribute album, Regie Sathanas (A Tribute to Cernunnos) and honored a precious friend’s and band ex-member’s soul, I don’t want to upset you by reminding those days, but whose idea was that tribute album? How did it happen?Can you tell us?
The idea came from me, I thought that knowing him it would have been the biggest honour we could give him. A tribute he was worth for, but the label who released it, didn’t respect the guideline regarding the layout etc… so it ended up as another cheap “product” for them I supposed, we tried several time to get the rights for a rerelease but our calls remained unanswered. Anyhow, I hope one day we can give that release the whole thing it deserves.

You use occult themes in the albums, I know you have interest in occult stories in your personal life, do you have any publication to share with us?
I’d rather not share any of my sources or any specific book, as each being has to search themselves for their own path to their own illumination within the darkness. When it comes to our concept of things, there’s no need to quote any specific philosophy, religion of even less moral to face the fact that our world is a bitch but this is a part of universal balance. Nature itself is so revered for its equilibrium and only survives through the horrible cycles of birth and death. Species, may they be animals or humans (same reign but different state of mindset) kill, destroy life for survival. The ecosystem that we know has its substance and reason through crime and the suffering of another weak being. That’s the legimity of Nature. Us, men, we are that criminally insane creature that never stops creating excuses for his own murderous acts. Since 2000 years, a so called Yeshua (Jesus- Christ) is pulling the nails of despair staring to how his "divine concepts" are teared apart by most of his "lambs". From any point of view, this naive message doesn’t get through, why? just because it doesn’t appeal to the imperial slaughtering instincts of mankind.
Only a few recognise and know how to see behind the veil which is since ages named: occultism.
When most people are focusing on their daily pointless life following what they were told but in the typical moronic way, we have leart just as many occultists through the world to use and interact with the other side of this "reality", using it to improove our life, milieu and own selves. We are just being logic, putting behind the brain washing dogmas and logos of the last millenniums. Think about it; people are stating that Satanists are evil (at least some does) but what is that word? There’s no meaning, its definition vary from one to another. This is even more true when you analyse that when "evil" throw over "what’s right", Evil is becoming the reference of good; take for example the soldier who kills an enemy is not an assassin but a hero and vice-versa. Personally I invest myself more within the ancient, traditional way which were effective until the 19th century. Since the dawn of the 20th, things got just ridiculous and misunderstood or mostly exagerated in every single directions. To resume, let’s say that we are more in balance with our own primitive instincts than most people just because we choose to be objectives with what lies behind the veil. ( this is one of the best answer I have recieved in my life, thanks Nornagest – Cenk )

What is the expectations with your new album, and did the audience reacted as you expected? Your Turkey concert didn’t happen, or couldn’t happen, would you wish to come if you were invited again?
Sure, it would be a great thing to come to Turkey; we are actually looking for some serious promoters interested to bring Enthroned to your shores. Our expectations regarding the album are already accomplished: releasing the album we wanted, I know it’s just this but it’s a strong point as far as we are concerned. The audience reacted in the utter most positive way so I guess it’s a good thing, heh…

You know there are so many fans of you here, do you have any messages to be delivered to them?
We will try to get in Turkey as soon as possible, so if there’s a serious promoter from Turkey over there do not hesitate to contact us!!

* Thanks for help our good friend Morbid Tales.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Back to top button