Ancient
I don’t think there actually
exist metalheads, be them melodic or extreme metal fans, that aren’t aware
of Ancient and their contribution to the extreme and dark metal scene...
Ancient has released albums considered to be “unholy gospels” for the blacksters
all around the world and thus re-releasing those hard to find gems is a
thing that must be treated with a lot of respect. So, the time has come
for those of you that hadn’t had the chance to get a copy of “Eerily Howling
Winds – The Antediluvian Tapes” and “Det Glemte Riket” to pay your tribute
to the past and hold in your hands those precious acquisitions...
1. FIRST OF ALL, I’D LIKE YOU TO POINT OUT
THE GREATEST MOMENTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF ANCIENT UP TO NOW…
There’s a lot… every album we make is a great
achievement, important concerts like Wacken Festival in 2000, playing in
Greece in 2003 with Kaiaphas as guest singer was very cool, the tour in
1997 with Dark Funeral, I could go on forever..
2. RECENTLY YOU RELEASED “EERILY HOWLING WINDS
– THE ANTEDILUVIAN TAPES” AND “DET GLEMTE RIKET”, WHICH BOTH CONTAIN PREVIOUS
RELEASES OF ANCIENT THAT AREN’T AVAILABLE ANYMORE OR AT LEAST THEY ARE
REALLY HARD TO FIND. WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO OFFER THEM WITH THEIR ORIGINAL
SOUND AND NOT GO IN THE STUDIO AND CHANGE OR REMASTER THEM?
There’s a lot of fans who have kept on asking
me if we will re-release the old demos, and I decided that it was a good
time to do it now, for many reasons, there will soon be some big change
in the band and in many ways. I feel we’re at a point where it can be good
to have a look back at the early days, so to speak. I can’t give you more
details about it now, but in a few months from now you will see what I
am talking about : ) I thought it was right to offer them with the original
sound, “Det Glemte Riket “ has a new mastering, but it’s not so different
than the old version. I think especially for the “Eerily… “ CD it was only
right to release it without a lot of polishing a touch ups in the sound,
the people who buy this CD are the ones who want to get the real thing,
the way it was released back then, not a polished version of something
that was totally raw and dirty in it’s original form, you know.
3. MANY YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE ORIGINAL RELEASE
DATE OF THESE ALBUMS. SO LOOKING BACK, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU HAD TO
REVIEW OR AT LEAST PRESENT THEM TO THE METALLERS ?
I don’t know, I don’t think I would enjoy
to do some kind of review of my own albums, it would be a bit like writing
a “critic” about your own children or so, every release is very personal
to me, and I have no regrets with the way they were made etc. Presenting
them to the metallers, well, these albums contain the old Ancient material,
some people will love it, and others will not, it is something for the
fans of the band though, not really something for a person who doesn’t
have any other albums by Ancient, these albums are something you buy when
you have everything, but want to get the extra stuff as well.
4. WHY DID YOU DO THAT NOW? ARE YOU PERHAPS PLANNING
A STRONG COMEBACK AND YOU WANT TO GIVE A TASTE TO THE NEW BLACKSTERS OF
SOME OF THE “DIAMONDS”, AS THEY ARE CONSIDERED, OF THE BLACK METAL SCENE
OR IS THERE ANOTHER REASON? ARE YOU THINKING OF QUITTING?
There is a big change in our horizon, but
I can not tell you right now what it’s gonna be.. There’s still some uncertainty
about it all and I can’t reveal exactly what we’re up to at the moment...We
are absolutely not thinking of quitting, hehe!
5. BY THE WAY, WHAT’S THE BEST AND WHAT’S THE
WORST PART IN YOUR MUSIC, ACCORDING TO YOU?
The best part, I am not sure, but I think
it is a plus that we have a sound that is different from most other bands
in the genre, that we have our own sound and identity, people always tell
me they can recognize the sound of Ancient when they hear a new album and
it’s often music that sticks in their mind, since it doesn’t sound like
the other 400 bands they come across. The worst part, depends on what you
mean by worst, it’s a matter of taste, we make the albums the way we want
and in our opinion there’s nothing major we would want to change about
it, if our music has something we think really is bad, then we change that
before putting the song on the album, so, in my personal opinion, there
isn’t anything bad in our music, but I know most people have different
views of course.
6. WHICH ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION? WHICH
ARE THE THINGS AND TOPICS THAT INTRIGUE YOU TO TALK ABOUT?
The darkness, the night, the fullmoon, the
realm of the dead, the nature in general, horror movies…, my life in general
actually.
7. DO YOU STILL PLAY LIVE? DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS
FOR A TOUR OR LIVE SHOWS IN THE NEAR FUTURE?
Yeah, this year we have been playing live
a lot, we have toured Europe, East Europe, Russia and more, there’s also
a lot more dates to come next year. We have been thinking of a live album,
but this is still something we haven’t decided yet.
8. HOW’S YOUR COLLABORATION WITH SLEASZY RIDER
GOING ON? WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN STORE FOR US? WHEN SHOULD WE EXPECT A NEW
RELEASE?
It has been going rather well, I think. The
label is slowly growing a lot and is starting to establish a good distribution
network and so on. We haven’t signed a contract with them for a future
album, we still haven’t made any decisions for a label to sign with for
the next release, I think we could be recording in the summer of 2006,
but it’s not really planned yet, we just started working a bit on new material,
but we’re still concentrating mainly on touring and keep promoting Night
Visit further.
9. ONE THING THAT I’VE ALWAYS BEEN CURIOUS OF
IS HOW CAN PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO BE MISANTHROPISTS OFFER THEIR MUSIC AND
LAY DOWN THEIR THOUGHTS TO THE PUBLIC. I MEAN I THINK THAT A MUSICIAN BECOMES
REALLY “VULNERABLE” WHEN HE CREATES AND RELEASES A WORK, BECAUSE THOSE
NOTES AND LYRICS CONTAIN HIS/HER INNERMOST THOUGHTS AND BELIEFS… PLEASE
COMMENT ON THAT.
Well, the artist decides what part of his
(or her) thoughts will come out through the music and lyrics created and
released to the public. Even if I release this kind of music and art with
Ancient, doesn’t mean that I don’t have a thousand other ideas in my mind
as well that don’t come out, with this band at least. So, I never felt
“vulnerable” in this way, no. I’ve always been a person who prefers to
say too little rather than too much, it’s just in my character, I’ve more
of the “action not words” kind of attitude, you see. I care a lot about
my privacy and don’t open up myself to anybody just like that, I think
privacy is very important, at least for some people...
10. WHY DO YOU USE A NICKNAME? IS IT IN ORDER
TO CREATE A MYSTERIOUS AURA AROUND THE BAND OR DO YOU WANT TO SHOW THE
DISTANCE BETWEEN YOUR EVERY DAY LIFE AND ANCIENT?
In some ways I feel that when going on stage
as Aphazel, or creating music for Ancient, I sort of get into this darker
part of myself, which is Aphazel, when I am Aphazel I often feel more like
a kind of vicious beast, and it’s pretty much like I am a different creature
than the one I am when I go to the post office or supermarket, you know.
You could say I have a split personality perhaps, I always felt both are
just as real though. I do like the fact that there is a bit of mysterious
aura around the band yeah, I think this is essential for a black metal
band, although the black metal scene and the people in it have changed
a lot over the years.
11. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD
IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
It’s more than just 1 emotion, primarily I
would say “aggression” or “sinister pride”, but these are just some of
the emotions that are brought into the creation of our music and live performances.
One of the things I always like about black metal is that it’s really not
monotonous, there are so many different bands that today are considered
black metal, perhaps too many, I mean, listen to Darkthrone, and then you
listen to Dimmu Borgir, they’re both labeled black metal, but still sound
so different from each other, the thing in common is the feeling that’s
behind it though, the hate, pride, strength and love for the darkness and
the left hand path and so on.
If my music would be a painting, well the
cover of “Cainian Chronicle” is a good example, that one very much portrayed
what I was feeling, at that time especially, the Norwegian nocturnal landscapes,
but there’re a lot of other pictures too that could represent the music
of Ancient, a lot of covers in the style that you see on Stephen King’s
books for instance, that’s very much how I feel when I am working on Ancient
material.
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CONTEMPORARY BLACK
METAL SCENE? ARE THERE ANY NEW BANDS YOU LIKE AND YOU FIND THEM TO BE PROMISING?
I should be honest, I actually don’t really
follow the current black metal scene very much, when we play with local
bands around, I listen to them of course, but it’s not so often that I
get very impressed. I have noted a few bands though, we recently played
with Winter of Sin in Holland, I enjoyed their stuff a lot, and also I
would like to mention Delirium Xtremens (Italy) and Amphitrium (Switzerland).
13. BY THE WAY, DO YOU LIKE THIS NEW TURN BLACK
METAL TOOK TOWARDS A MORE SYMPHONIC AND KEYBOARDS BASED DIRECTION?
You refer mainly to the style that Dimmu Borgir
have on their latest album I assume, with the orchestras etc. Well, I actually
enjoyed that album, it’s innovative and good. I think it’s important that
bands keep developing their sound and don’t fall into some kind of hole
where they start repeating themselves and run out of ideas etc., that’s
important to keep the genre alive as well. It’s always more challenging
to create something original in a scene that has been alive for over a
decade, but it can be done when there is a strong passion and feeling for
what you’re doing. I think many of the “symphonic” bands in the genre have
made some good stuff, while some have mainly copied the others. I do understand
though that many black metal fans don’t appreciate this form of black metal,
and also the fact if it can be called black metal at all. With Ancient
we haven’t really followed this style, there are 2 songs on the latest
album that have some keyboards that could be called “symphonic” perhaps,
but we’ve always used keyboards, so I don’t think it’s something new for
us, we go our own way and do what is right for us, in many ways I see Ancient
as a band that’s not really part of a scene, our music today is not pure
black metal, it has too many other influences to be labeled in that way.
14. WHAT IS BLACK METAL FOR YOU? IS IT JUST A
MUSIC, A PHILOSOPHY, A WAY OF LIVING?
It is a kind of music, primarily, though it
can also be seen as a lifestyle in a way, Ancient is the most important
thing in my life so it’s definitely not just like some kind of hobby that
I care about once in a while when I have spare time. I live at night and
I spend most of my time in solitude, there are a few people that I really
enjoy spending time with, I like animals more than most people. I don’t
know if you can call black metal a philosophy or way of living, but most
people who are into it, are interested in Satanism and the occult to some
extent, and that is a philosophy, and often a lifestyle as well, although
there are lots of different lifestyles within Satanism..
15. WHAT TITLE/PHRASE DO YOU THINK IS IDEAL TO
PRESENT ANCIENT’S ESSENCE AND HISTORY?
The Mad Grandiose Bloodfriends (that’s us)!
16. THANK YOU! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE
TO MENTION AND I FORGOT TO ASK YOU?
Apologizing for the ridiculous delay in getting
this interview answered (it got “lost” somewhere, somehow), it’s always
a pleasure to speak with Greek people, I’ve had friends from Greece so
I know you guys are very nice people :) We are currently working with a
Greek promoter in the UK, Natasha Papadopoulos, so I want to say a “cheers!”
to her as she will be reading this. Thanks for the support and Rape The
Children Of Abel!
www.ancientband.com
^ Aphazel ^
Christine Parastatidou
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