The Downbeat - IHSAHN: Legendary Musician Talks Emperor, Black Metal History & Spirituality

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

My guest on the podcast this week is Ihsahn of the legendary black metal band Emperor. We talk about how his music and opinions have evolved since starting Emperor as a teenager to his solo career as simply Ihsahn, as well as revealing some amazing stories from the golden era of black metal, and some great outlooks on life.

Welcome back in, my friends, to the Downbeat Podcast. I hope you've been well. I'm going to try and make this intro real fast because I've got a feeling we're going to get some people watching it who've got no time for funny business, no time for laughing, no time for any kind of hijinks or capers or any sort of just general jovial activity. That's because my guest on the Downbeat Podcast this week is Ishan of seminal black metal band Emperor and his own solo stuff, is amazing by the way. The man is responsible for shaping black metal. First kind of guy to add

synths in. One of the first bands to have corpse paint and then the first band to get rid of it. Huge stories there. I'm a gigantic emperor fan. Like the biggest. They are my number one black metal band. Just amazing that he wanted to come and have a chat. We talk about his solo stuff. We talk about obviously about emperor, about the early days of emperor. He's got his finger on the pulse. For a guy who is responsible for some of the most important 90s black metal. He's up to date with technology, an unbelievable guitarist. I saw him after, and I haven't seen them since 2006, and they absolutely ripped.

I couldn't believe it. Amazing guy. Before we get started, though, guys, I want to tell you, we have a Patreon, patreon. Patreon.com forward slash the downbeat. On it, you get early access to the episodes. You can get ad-free versions of the episodes. You can get early access to merch, early access to anything I do.

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Check it out. Displate.com, use the code Downbeat. It's Ishan of Emperor on the Downbeat podcast. Ishan. Welcome to the Downbeat. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers.

Cheers. I'm already getting served there. You've got a Highland Park Scotch, single malt. It's very nice. Thoughts? I don't know anything. Neither do I. I just like the way they taste.

As we talked about prior to getting on here, when in Rome. When in Scotland, do as the Scots do. You said you got in at 1 a.m. No, I left home at 1 a.m. At 1 a.m. last night. Yeah. No, this morning. Yeah, this morning, yeah.

What sort of flight got you here? Yeah, it was a. 630 flight from the airport, but I have quite a drive, you know, from where I live in telemark. And we'd like to get there early, you know, get all the gear ready. And then we have a, we flew to Amsterdam, Skiphol, had to wait there for everybody who comes in from Denmark and Germany and Poland to join there. Is that all the crew?

Yeah, yeah. So, and then we, you know, took the, everybody went from Amsterdam to hear. Is the band still based in Norway? Yeah, yeah. Everyone, but crew is everywhere else. Yeah, well, some Norwegian crew and some, some from around, you know, but a very steady group of guys. And at this point, I mean, I think, I have to say, you know,

just the crew and band and the culture within the people that travel, they travel all over the world, do these, you know, relatively few shows. Yeah. And with just a bunch of friends having a great time. And it's, you know, it's never really been better. Like, there's, you know, the jobs you have to do on gig days. But apart from that, it's just like a mix and match of friends, go for dinner. Is it just the two shows?

Yeah. This trip is. They're just the two shows. Just the two shows. First time in Glasgow since 93. Yeah. No, no, first time in Scotland since 93. We played Edinburgh.

Ah. The Credula Filth has support. Wow. Was that your first? tour yeah it was about first the first show abroad we played London and Liverpool Edinburgh and Birmingham how old were you in 93 17 17 they had to sneak me into some of the the places because I was not old enough to get in that's amazing but you were headlighting yeah do you remember what venues I have no idea and was the

what sort of capacity no idea no idea probably probably I think it were like, close to 200 in London. Yeah. Apart from that, it was like very small, small stuff. And I think in Birmingham there were some kind of demonstration, like religious things. They moved the venue, you know, with very short notice. I mean, Emperor and Cradle of Filth in 1993 is pretty. There's quite a lot of bones to pick with Christians.

I guess, you know, but we went over with a gig bag with guitar. Yeah. a sleeping bag. No idea. It was Lee Barrett. Lee Barrett, I know Lee. Yeah. He organized everything and literally was a van registered for two people and we put Lee's home couch

in the back and that was the rest of it. So we were like probably at most 10 people just in the cargo space of that van. That's incredible. And we drove all the way. That's incredible. Fun fact about that. If you've seen, we have this, it's kind of, it's not like a bootleg, but like a version of the Brassal of the Tyrant demo.

Yeah. With this kind of tower spear. It's a red vinyl, you know, red cover with this kind of tower. And that's a picture that Sam was took when we were lost in Edinburgh and were just in the middle of night. And I think our driver was pulled in for drinking and driving. And we were just there at all. and we didn't know if anyone came back.

But he took that picture. And then it was used on it. What, official bootleg? Yeah, kind of. I can't recall. He always, he deals with all that. Right.

One of those candlelight money pumpers. You know, I think, no, this was some Norwegian label like doing a limited edition, something way back. It's also on a picture desk. I have found some photos

from that 1983 UK tour. You've got photos. I didn't look too good because I am, at the time, we were doing a lot of fire breathing back home with lamp oil. A lot of fire breathing. Yeah, yeah, like, you know, the typical stuff. As you do. Yeah, as you do. We would go through me and sounds, we would go through like, you know, three liters in a night.

Just, you know, rehearsing that stuff. Taste like shit. And the idea was that, you know, we wanted to go big when we came to the Great Britain. and we wanted to buy some lamp oil over here. For some reason, it had a different color. And we found it was some kind of, you know, toxic things, like not good for you kind of thing. Probably wasn't too good for you in the first place.

And then Samo says to me, well, you know, Abbas, from immortal, he uses sippoliter gas. I said, are you sure? And he said, yeah. And then we got sippelighter. gas and I filled a glass like this and had to go like this for it not to evaporate, filled my mouth and you can imagine, you know, it's not a good idea. So I ended up with like two or three degree, you know, burn all across my face.

You could see that in picture like I had like the source paint outside of this, you know, so I, yeah, it was horrible. This photo. Oh, there you go. Can you see your face in there? Is there a burn? No, you can see them in the back there. But there are plenty pictures from corpse paint back then.

Yeah. And then got rid of it? Yeah, I think we were one of the first bands, if I'm not mistaken, to go all in on the corpse paint. Yeah. And then I guess just because everybody started using it, we were first to drop it. Innovator.

Yeah, no, it was just, I guess I've always been, I don't know, the English were like, you know, going against the grain a bit. And I know my band colleagues, you know, they were not too happy about me, like some later tour. Like they printed up emperor's shirt, you know, with this Icon, E thing, black ones, and I said, I'll have a white one. It's just, I'm not sure.

You know, I guess the whole collective thing, you know, this is the way it's done, is just rather than the wrong way. So if you were 17 in 93, Raff of the Tyrant, what age were you when you started Emperor? Yeah, I guess when we, I was born late in the year. So it's, I would have turned 18 shortly after, I think. But so I was 16, 91 when we formed Emperor. But I started playing in bands with Samo's when I was 13.

But that was, you know, heavy metal. And then you had different iterations. We had a band called Xerasia that we did demo with, then Embryonic that we did demo. And we even released a single with our band, That Shall Suffer and also Demo. So Emperor was kind of started as kind of a side project. It was more like more, not by today's standards,

but like influenced by more technical death metal stuff. And then Emperor was kind of a side project to do more battery Celtic Frost-style things so we were already doing things where I did keyboard layers and stuff, you know, more epic stuff and then the process of the time

is more very back to basic. And just eventually when we decided that was the kind of the band that we felt most compelled by I guess we brought everything into that. How did you write such complex orchestral

like synth parts in their comparatively complex comparatively complex comparatively to what I just released it's not I mean

no yeah we're gonna get on to that but like in my head like 93 like there's no computers that you couldn't load up logic and just like put in some synths so like how were you writing

so like let's say nightside when it got really synthy how did you how did the song get re-end. No, it was, you know, we wrote, you know, in the rehearsal space at that point. But then I would just, I will always heard layers in my head. And it's just a matter of, but it's very, very simple. It was like, you know, just string patches and choir patches and playing it in

live to tape. So you would write, you would write in the rehearsal room just guitar-based drums. Yes, and then I would make out, you know, the parts and we did some trials of. And we did some trials of touches with a simple keyboard at rehearsal space and yeah did that for the recording but uh i soon realized that it was too limited so by the time we did anthems yeah i actually got my first my own first computer with with kubase because i started using one week my first encounter with kubase i think i'm not sure it was called kubase at the time uh but it was on this atari s-1-thousand machine and just had this orange dots on this old school small monitor. And I remember, I think, I thought that, you know, if I had that, I could do anything.

And literally, I've, since we did Eclipse, I got my own computer, I learned to do the programming and had this JV,0,080 Rowland module, which is kind of a classic by now with the orchestral card. Have you heard this kind of mock-up orchestral version of Innu Asatana called Opus Asetana? Yes. Part of that. That was literally how I learned to use Kubez. Really? That's my first encounter programming on Kubez.

I learned it that way. And I literally, for anthems, I did all the kind of keyboard orchestral things in Kubez, but just like for an arrangement part. But of course, we had no idea how to play to click or sync things up. So literally when we got to Grighalm to record anthems, I had everything pre-prepared. So I brought my computer and then I would listen to what I programmed and then I had to record everything live, you know, to tape.

Oh, wow, yeah. So it was just like a reference. So you recorded, did you still record all, like, guitar-based drums first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you went back, re-learned what you, what you, done before and played it over the top yeah that's incredible that's like a weird reverse engineering yes but also also uh learning that of course when i wrote all the orchestral parts you know for for that album it was only me you know playing without an amp at home in front of the

computer and like yeah this fits this fits and it sounds great but of course you hear 10% of what i put in there because there's only so much room until now Now you have all the room. Okay, while we're on anthems, while we're talking about the recording of anthems, is it a real owl? Did you have to go, you know that owl going, who-hoo, in the intro? How in 1996, it was it 96 anthems? Did you go out with the microphone and get the out?

No, no, this was because Pitten, you know, legendary producer for at Grighalm, who did all those early black metal records. His background was, of course, as a musician and as a producer, but he was a TV host for Norway's like one youth program at the NRK, you know, the national state channel. So he had access to their whole sound library on that. He had an assistant, I remember, who got some kind of early iteration of Pro Tools. And so this was kind of added all after the fact.

And I remember we were at this guy's apartment and he had the tapes with a master's and he, managed to add, you know, these samples. Amazing. So it was an active choice to put an owl in there. I just want to know for myself. I've got no clever question. That's one of my favorite intros of all time. And then later on in the song, my favorite tempo change of all time.

Okay. The tempo change to the blast. Like is one of my favorite moments in blackmail ever. So hats off to you. Can't wait to see it tomorrow. Hopefully. It's on the set list. I assume.

Of course it is. While we're on the synth thing, did you ever get any, like, blowback from the black metal community for having synths because your music was quite a lot. This is not supposed to be insulting

because I love black metal, but quite a lot more, like, clever than the other bands at the time. Was there anyone that didn't like you because of the synth element? I'm not sure. They didn't tell you. No, no, but the thing is,

of course we knew everybody, But it's really always Samu He had the connection He had the network So I kind of Most of the people in the scene I knew You know through him

Some people might find This is really surprising But you know When you start playing this kind of music When you're 16 It's not necessarily Because you're too worried About what people think of you

Yeah Quite the contrary I'm not surprised What inspired you With the orchestral stuff I think it's a mix of two things and first of all our maiden you know seven son yeah keyboards i know that was controversial for for older iron maiden fans but for me that was just what made it even more epic you know

that extra layer and then at the same time we were watching of course a lot of you know old school horror movies you know omen being one of my favorites great great still jerry goldsmith oh amazing amazing Evil. Yeah, and of course, you know, that soundtrack was a very common intro for many of black metal show back in the day. Avae Satani. Oh, yeah, for sure.

So that was kind of my trajectory, you know, like the gateway into orchestral music. But for me, that just, it added that element of epicness. And that was kind of what we were going for. I mean, it doesn't. Even before Emperor, you know,

Brassus's Tyrant had no keyboards, but prior to that, we had doubtful suffer with a lot of keyboard elements. Some people find it, I've been talking about this lately, you know, impressed with the kind of mix that I've been doing now, like, oh, strange, you know, to mix orchestral music and metal music. But to me, the two always kind of went together, like beyond the actual instrumentation. it's kind of trying to achieve the same thing. Yeah. So it's just a matter of instrumentation, really. And I think compositionally, and with the ebb and flow of things,

I always felt that a lot of extreme metal was very one-dimensional in the sense that it's always on 11. Yeah. You know, and there's no build. So at least, it's just from a sonic perspective, but then at least when you kind of can add these other elements to it, at least you can simulate a sense of ebb and flow. I can fully relate.

My journey into getting into black metal was Metallica S&M. Remember when they did the thing with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra? I was like, when that came out, I guess I was, I don't know when that came out like 99, maybe. I think I was 12. And I'd kind of liked Metallica and then that came out. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, metal with strings is the coolest thing I've ever heard.

I wonder if any other bands do it. And I, like, 99, so I think it was on Ask Jeeves. And I was like bands with orchestral emperor. And then I literally, I went from liking new metal and metallica. And then I found emperor. And I just went, oh, black metal. Okay. And that was my introduction, because I agree.

Listening, of course, this is also not typical, but one of my favorite Black Sabbath albums is Born Again. Yeah. You know, with Ian Gillen. And in particular, like, disturbing the priest. And if you listen to the midsection, if you listen to what they're doing, you know, Tony Ome is doing with the guitar,

creating these textures and like atonal, you know, scratches and, like, small. It's kind of, you know, doing this very similar thing to what Jerry Goldsmith it's probably attempted with all the dissonance and this kind of, you know, this stacking seventh chords, you know, in the alien soundtrack.

Yeah, yeah. The alien chord. Yeah. I was so fascinated by that, you know, with people who did this experience with quartal harmony and quintal harmony. And apparently that was their Goldsmith's inspiration

to do the alien chord with like stacking sevens. So what is the alien on chord? What is the alien on chord? stacking sevens, you know, all the, you know, from the bottom and just going seven, seven, seven. Wow. And if you do that, they're like, ah, sounds like alien. Amazing. That's so cool.

So it's just like a theoretical approach, yeah, I think. From what I understood, I'm not too good with that stuff. You definitely are. At this point in the podcast, you are probably thinking, how can I start a band and be as cool as the guest in this podcast? Well, I mean, I play the guitar, but usually I just play it without an amplifier because I can't afford an amplifier and all sorts of stuff like that will stop because the lovely people at neural DSP are giving you 35% off plugins. You can make yourself sound like royal blood. You can make yourself

sound like Gojira with archetype Gojira. There's a, I think I'm saying it right, rabia, rabia, I don't know. You know the guy with the afro? Well, he's got a absolutely rocking pack. If you play the bass, right, I'm not going to slag you off, right? You know what? I was thinking about it. Realistically, if I didn't blow drums, I'll probably play the bass. Well, they've got the bass, they've got a dark glass pack,

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You just plug in, you go. Plug in, press a couple of buttons. Away you go. Neuraldispy.com. The code is the downbeat. The black metal scene had a lot of enemies with

Christianity. You've been known to, at least in your younger days, to have pretty anti-Christian views or pro-pagan views. As you've got older, has that changed? Am I wrong about that? Hopefully it's changed in the sense that we all have those friends who are the same now as when they were 16. And it's not always were that charming. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So hopefully there's a journey in between. But I guess, you know,

it's the rebellious side. And I think with rock and metal, you know, this the devil and that kind of imagery, the adversary, you know, the opposition. And really asking the question,

why? You know, it's like, here are the moral rules. And then you as a rebellious young man, you know, you ask, why? And you want to figure it out yourself. So again, as, as, I guess, as the horror movie soundtracks was a gateway to, to orchestral music, I guess, you know, teenage relations with, you know, Anton Labé and the likes, which more like, true and gum style philosophy.

But still, it was a gateway to reading Nietzsche and the more, you know, thoughtful stuff. We all have to start. We don't start with the answers, you know. We just try to figure out more questions along the way. I mean, I was the same. Like, I used to be staunchly atheist. Again, rebellious, super, read all of the Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, all that stuff. And I was like, when I was a kid, I was insufferable with.

it like i was so like if you believe in this you're an idiot real bad and then now as i've got older i'm like i don't really know like i think i'd put myself as agnostic now do you have anything spiritual that you would consider your belief or are you i think uh spirituality in relation to music and art is something that i relate to you know like a metaphysical thing is probably a bit blunt to put it like that. But it's like, I feel through art and music, we kind of communicate the stuff that we don't have words for. And I think it taps into the same mechanisms in us as religion, in a sense,

you know, the unanswerable things. But still the big existential stuff. And this is, you know, if you look at the antique, you know, the Greek, and everything, the philosophers, it's the same questions today. We have evolved in so many other ways, but like the pure, you know, anxiety of death and questions and the existential stuff of, and all kinds of stories of love and hate and ambition and disappointment and loss. It's universal in a sense.

And that's, so as a belief system, I guess I'm different in the sense that I, I, I'm different in the sense that I, I tend to go along better with people who have some kind of moral code, even if that's, you know, if you're a Christian or anything else, I've, you know, acquaintances that are Christian that I find very highly intelligent and really nice people. And the people that I tend to be more cautious with are people who don't really have anything to go by, you know? Yeah.

And then it's like they don't care. So, so was that, wasn't that from the series, the wire? Did you see the wire? Yeah, that's all the wire. Every man needs to have a code. Yeah. You know, I like that. Okay, my religious, my religious belief is the wire.

That's. Yeah. I'm not saying that. No, but, so for me, it's just like always more, more questions. And I guess my biggest fascination, like, philosophically has always been Nietzsche, you know, and he would question, and again, it's back to the, why you know and and of course he he proclaimed god is dead famously and then but you know it was more from an analytical point of view the way i understand it that you know okay we're going into this kind of secular way of life and then and a way of perceiving the world and what do what do we

fill in that gap in that vacuum of people not having that kind of sort of superimposed moral, you know, force. We need to be careful what we fill that space with. That's how I understand him. And he would continually question, not only everybody else, but he would also question himself. And a lot of people say like,

oh yeah, he turned mad in the end and he's so contradictory even in his books. And said all the more reason to enjoy reading him because it's, you know, didn't never settle for one set of you know he didn't stop the question yeah you can see the conflict with his own opinions yeah yeah yeah so he would question even himself and his own views says i love that have you seen a t-shirt like with a nikea logo but it says nita just doubt it i haven't seen that i should i should get one of those we're on stage the only reason i asked

about the spirituality thing because you i think you mentioned you're doing yoga before you came here No, no, no, no. Please don't imagine me doing yoga. That would be a horrible thing. No, I just, because I haven't had that much sleep. And it's a yoga needras thing, which is like a deep rest thing. A guided thing so that you kind of can catch up when we do what we do with these kind of flights and everything. It's from Andrew Huberman, one of my favorite podcasts.

Huge podcast. Oh, it's the, what's it called? It has a name to it. and edit out of me. NSDR. N-SDR, yeah. Similar thing, similar thing. Non-sleep, deep, whatever, whatever it is.

So what do you do to practice that? I love human, and I'm a big human. I just, you know, you do search on YouTube and you find someone who softly guides you through this and you get more rested. Oh, so it wasn't yoga. I was wrong. Yeah.

I didn't know the actual term for it. I knew it as is. NSDR is, you know, the. science. Yeah, the science version, I think, but yoga leader is basically the, from what I understand, a similar thing. But it's just with an older tradition. Yeah. So I'm sure if you Google or YouTube search NSDR, you will get a similar. Do you do anything like that before you play a show or have you got like a pre-show warm-up or ritual? No, not really. Just like regular warm-up stuff. But, you know, I try to keep some regular regularities and training and

and breeding exercises and big into like, you know, Wimhoff. I love Wimhoff so much. It's related to two ice plunges a week. Ah, have you got one? I mean, I guess. No, no, like we've, we have a frozen lake. Yeah, oh, amazing. What, outside your house?

No, no, it's close by. And what time do you go eat first thing in the morning or? No, it's usually some midday-day-ish, maybe in the afternoon sometimes. I wish I had access to, too. I can't do, I do, it's great. I've done them when I've been on tour and there's been a gym that has an ice plunge, I'll do it.

But I do the breathing every day. Yeah. And I'll do a cold shower. But it's not the same as the plush. Yeah, cold, cold showers every day, but it's like to choose it. It's just something different. You know, like get five, six minutes

and like almost zero degrees. Just the way to feel how your body responds and warms up again. Yeah. You know, the dopamine release afterwards. And you trigger something. That's what I like about Wim Hof. He's crazy.

He's crazy. But in the most lovable way, I think. And he's just with all the kind of craziness that goes on. Maybe I'm just getting old and kind of old school. But I find it very satisfying doing stuff that is so core. Like the breeding, you know, holding your breath for three, four minutes. And, you know, going into the eyes, you don't care about the instability. and old bullshit anymore.

You know, it's usually like core things and deeper, you know, metaphysical stuff. That's what I want to feel, you know, important stuff and artistic stuff and try to minimize the boring metal stuff. Have you ever had it? I get it, very rarely on the breath holds. If anyone doesn't know what we're talking about,

Wim Hof is a guy who basically, He owns a lot of Guinness World Records for doing insane stuff, like marathons in the desert and holding his breath. And the most interesting one was he scientifically helps, I think it was 17 people to not get E. coli. E. coli has a 99% success rate of infecting you. There's a breath work that he managed to, all of these people didn't get E. coli.

So it works on your immune system. and the breath work whenever I do it there's sometimes you know the hold at the end there's been a couple of times that I have like tripped out like I'm on drugs

like it's been insane the weirdest thing I remember it really vividly I was doing it in the bath you're not really supposed to do it in the bath but it was kind of cool and I like had this vision of me at the Empire State Building

and it was like just to the surrealist, like, you know, have you ever been knocked out before and you have like a crazy dream? I don't know if you've ever been knocked out, but... No, no. So...

And I never did any drug centers, I don't know how to relate. You take a lot of breaths, you hold your breath, and then you do a big hold in. Now, one of these times I did a hold in, I had this vision of being at the Empire State Building.

And it was the craziest thing. It was so vivid. And I hadn't been to the Empire State Building. before. And then like two years later, I went to the Empire State Building and then I had deja vu from being in my bath doing my Wim Hof. And it was the most surreal thing. And since then, I've just thought like, is there some sort of weird time transient thing happening? You've got all spiritual about it. Honestly, I can understand that. Ever since then, I was just like, I was there, but in my bath and two years later I went

I got the deja vu but this time I knew where the deja vu was from it was the strangest thing I got no questions for you based on this I just know but I find it fascinating because it's hard to you know I'm not trying to win and the one over to because of science

and it's so good for you and I feel it is it definitely is but but you know the cold showers every morning and the ice plunges and you know breath holding and all that the breath work it feels good to do something that let's face it it's pretty difficult challenging yeah and especially when you start a day like that you know

it's like when you when you're on some kind of you know healthy food period or something when you start out good you don't want to break it yeah you know and when you start your day doing something that is difficult and you do it anyway you kind of keep you kind of keep it good you don't want to break it yeah you know and when you start your day doing you kind of keep that mentality throughout the day yeah it's amazing that is that is cool i fully agree i that's how i sell it to people not i'm trying to sell it to people but like it sucks for like a second until you get out of the shower and then you're fine and you actually feel quite quite like energized but it gives you this like resilience throughout the day yeah yeah a small challenge that would probably annoy you you just did a big annoying challenge in the shower in the morning it's

I just feel more chill with it. Yeah, and really, I've stopped reading much, you know, I read far less news. You know, I try to, to greater extent, I'm not, I'm not perfect. I have many things to work on. But just trying to weed out all these things, not that it's not important, it's really inviting a lot of negative stress into your life that you can't do anything about. And there's a lot of out there to be stressed out about. There is an awful lot.

Let's talk about your new album. This is very nice, by the way. Thank you. You are very welcome. Thanks for coming on zero sleep, on just NDSR sleep. Is there a reason eight solo albums in that this one is self-titled? The reason is that given the complexity of there being two versions, two parallel storylines, two parallel storylines

and all this kind of my first chronological conceptual album it was just so hard to find a title that would capture what it was about and at the same time I mean prior to that it's been six years

since my last full length but in between I've been doing these EPs which were kind of like outer edges you know one of them were like super old school black metal with a horn section and the other one was more indie pop rockish so I kind of went in both directions

coming back now I guess I approached this as instead of adding an unknown element I wanted to take core elements like you know black metal band straight up symphony orchestra there's no hybrid stuff Yeah. You know, and subjectively try to elevate that to a level that I've never done before. And then the idea of making two albums as one, where the orchestrations would support the metal production, but also arranged them in such a way that they would work independently as their own thing. Conceptually, and, you know, just the storyline is very archetypical.

Can you say that? Yeah, yeah. The, you know, musical ingredients with traditional symphony orchestra set up, a traditional band set up. It was very down the middle of what I've been doing since my very beginning. Yeah. So I thought this might be a good opportunity as any. And it's really easy to call it a self-titled album. Yeah, because it wasn't like too left field of anything.

So it's really down the middle. I thought, you know, either it's the first album of some artist or somewhere down the line I just found. To me, this is a good opportunity. To me, it sounded like the album I think Emperor would have made after Prometheus. Like, obviously, just talking, if it came out under Emperor, I would have went, oh, this is where they're going. Do you know what I mean?

Prometheus, where you started digging into the progressive side of things. Yeah, but then, you know, it's a matter of, of course, I did Prometheus, you know, probably I play more of the instruments on that than I did on my solo albums. Oh, really? So that was kind of the last, I ended up doing more and more of the Emperor's music and by Prometheus, I did everything. You know, that's kind of, and it was very obvious that Samus and Trevon wanted to do other stuff, I wanted to do other stuff. So that was a natural, you know, turning point for us to go our separate ways. And I followed just my trajectory creatively and they followed theirs. Yeah.

Simple as that. And of course, I will always, you know, my music will always be compared to emperors. Have I offended you with that? Not at all. I hope I haven't. People make different associations. and of course I get that all the time. Will there be another emperor album?

And, you know, in the beginning of my solo career, I think I was more like, you know, I'm kind of doing the best I can. You know, I never, so, so, but now I tend to look at it as, there's a compliment in there. People had a great relationship to music that we did with Emperor that I was part of.

in a similar way that I have a strong relationship to music that I grew up on in my teens and everything and people want to feel like that again. But at the same time, I don't think that we could get together and make something that would satisfy that urge. Right. If you know what I mean. If we were to continue as we do

being totally uncompromising. Jazz album. Yeah. So, and really, and with no disrespect to my colleagues and emperor, we're in a great place now, just the culture within the whole, you know, emperor thing and doing what we do is amazing. But creatively, I feel I'm in the best place I should be. I truly think it would be very strange for me to go back and do that as a joint thing.

I don't think when people say that they want the Notre Emperor album, I don't think they mean continuing from Prometheus, where I just do even more. Yeah, see, that's why I brought it up, because I love Prometheus and I would have, I love your solo stuff, I would have welcomed either. But this particular album, I don't know if it's the mix, the Jens Bogram mix as well is like pretty metal.

He really nailed it. Cudos to him. It's always, you know, to be a bit pragmatic about it is you you mentioned you know Metallica as them and it's I've done just from my own person doing it the wrong way so many times when you try to to squeeze big metal production and a big orchestra yeah into the same sonic space and as a consequence both has to be smaller to fit you know and also I'm not saying particularly for for the Metallica thing, but in some cases where they do this,

it's been very traditional to do this, like especially big bands and yeah, they're doing it with a full symphony orchestra and it's really old songs and they kind of superimposed an orchestra on top and it's not meant to go together. So that was something that I was particularly conscious about when I did this new one that, okay, where the metal side of things, is very dense and extreme, the orchestral part needs to back off. And where the metal arrangement opens up

and it's more kind of open, the orchestrations can bloom through. And hopefully that would also make the orchestral elements alone on that release also follow a different dynamic in the road flow in drone. It's not like, they're not. they're not moving in the same direction all the time.

I've used this example just because it's so obvious in the first single Pilgrimist Job Living, the hardest track on the album. And it starts up with just a scaled run and just blast beats and screaming and very extreme. And the orchestral version starts with whispery quiet tremble of cellos. Same riff, even in the same range. But it's just like the same music but presented in an entire different emotional range. Yeah, that's amazing.

Which was kind of part of the fascination for me to try and to express the music, the same music at the same time, but with two different emotional impacts. How did you go about writing that? Was it the orchestral arrangement first or the guitars first? Do you have a particular workflow?

Both at the same time. What do you mean you've only got one brain my friend. No, but I sketched it out. Let's do this. Let's do this. Tell me exactly how you write a song. From inception to it being recorded.

It may vary. And I always try to switch up my work methods because I've been playing guitar for so many years that muscle memory will make you play the same things. So this time, since, you know, that was kind of one of the core. core elements. So before I write an album, I always wait to get this may sound very metaphysical again. I get an impulse. Like I feel how the album should sound and feel like an abstract punch in the gut. Wow. And then I had this one book where I have all my solo albums scattered, literally where I do write-ups of image associations, what kind of sounds, what kind of textures.

and gradually in modern days they would probably call it a mood board. Yeah, you know, but Pinterest. Yeah, but literally just gathering all the things that I feel fits in with that initial impulse and then you build layer on layer.

And since I knew that I wanted to do this as a dual album with the orchestral parts being individual, the only way I could do it was to write both. as a sketch. It's like a pencil or charcoal sketch. And in the press release, some people got confused by that because it all started with a piano. I don't, I wish, I don't play piano that well. But I would have like five, six tracks with a piano sound in my sequencer and just write all the bass parts, all the choral parts, melody parts, you know, counter-melodies and embellishments.

all this kind of stuff and just make the composition work and then i would you know arrange it you know give the bass guitar the bass part and sometimes i would give it to the bassoon sometimes to the trombones you know like building but i had to make the kind of the charcoal sketch work as a whole thing first and then i just went very systematically arranging it for the different ensembles this is all just in your door on your computer. And then how do you get an actual orchestral person to play those parts? Do they do it by ear?

Or do you have to, you have to notate it for them? No, no, no. I used the orchestral parts are predominantly Spitfire Audio, BBC Orchestra of Pro. No way. I assume they were real. Oh, thank you. They're so good. I fully assume they were real.

Oh, no, thank you. Spitfire did, you know, an amazing job. I'm amazing stuff. But I had some of the percussion. I recorded with my drummers in the studio to have like, there's always a real element. And I had amazing violin player called Chris Baum from the US who did,

layered up like, I think was 10, and eight versions of all violin ones and all violin twos but that's kind of blended in with everything but the rest is just me you know orchestrating and

but it's no there are no patches like you know mock up things I wrote it you know piece by piece you know so there's you know I had the pickle lines heard the pickle alliance

and or so it's written as if I was writing it for a real orchestra. Amazing. I always like to add these kind of educational elements to my album projects

so, you know, add on to the Goodall. Yeah. It must have been the violin that just made me assume it was real because the violin, when it's on its own, it's obviously a real violin,

so I just assumed everything was real. Yeah, but that's the great thing. I mean, in an ideal scenario, I guess, you know, it would be great to do. Hopefully down the line I get to do this with a full orchestra as well. Because I've been talking to, I talked to Devin about this as well. He's been using real orchestras and Joel Dulli, who mixed the orchestral version, who specializes in these kind of hybrid recordings for, you know, TV and games and everything. He said that it's a very romantic idea to use the real orchestra if you don't get the real, you know, the right one.

I think even Hans Simmer said somewhere that for the shorter articulations, actually they would still use samples from his. Because it's so hard to get an orchestra to kind of hit the transients, especially like, and Devin said the same thing when he works with some orchestras, like to get them to play in tune in that kind of, you know, every tune set up and to get the transients to line up with that kind of kick drum. Especially how it's miced often, like an orchestra is miced. It's more blurry.

And that's part of the... So it's to get them into this hybrids, you need an orchestra that are used to doing that, you know, to play to a click and like really hit. I'm not Metallica. And I think... I'm very pragmatic. You sell yourself short.

No, but I'm speaking financially. I wish. But no, so I'm very pragmatic like that. like it's better for me to have Spitfire Audio that would have a higher quality than the orchestra that I would have access to. You'd spend more money for probably

a worse result. Yes. And in a similar way that like the ever going debate of say, you know, guitar amplifiers. Is it a real amp or or is it a plugin? Whatever sounds best. It's much better to have if you have a bad mic,

and a bad room and a crappy cab you're probably better off with a plug in unless it's black metal yeah but then unless it's 993 yeah yeah we we recorded those albums with um the two first ones with uh transistor pvs wow just miced up yeah how are the drums miced can you remember no idea probably just one microphone no no emperor had good drums yeah yeah no no the pitton did you know of the real deal. Yeah. I talked to him. We played in Greg Holm, you know, in the, in the, in the, in live station, he would

do like, these, you know, guided, guided tours for, for the audience and everything. And we talked about this. I, I didn't remember this, but because we had so many things going on with all the keyboards and everything, of course, we, we had, you know, the analog tape machine, but that wasn't enough. So he said that he had a sequencer running for some of the keyboard parts and some of them were

tracked directly to tape, but he also had this ADAT machine that he needed to sync with the tape. So literally, he said it took 30 seconds to play, to press play and to get everything to get in sync. Wow.

Because he really had to bring out all the guns. Yeah. I never thought about that. Eight track for all those. No, no, no, no. I think it was a 16 track plus the ADD plus the... Yeah, unbelievable. You touched on the concept of the album.

Could you go into any detail about that? It's a very traditional... I mean, some of my thoughts of this was trying to... With the orchestral parts, I was trying to kind of make an imaginary soundtrack. And then, you know, to play around with light motifs, you know, and reoccurring themes, these kind of things that I love. about, you know, soundtracks. And also to, you know, to learn and try to apply that.

So literally I wrote as a starting point, a synopsis, just for a novel kind of story, but very traditionally based on this Joseph Campbell, you know, hero's journey, kind of saying, references to Dionysus and Apollo and the juxtaposition of these extremes. And I've been reluctant, not to be mysterious about it, but... You are being mysterious.

No, no, but in the same way, I've had some albums destroyed for me in the sense that the artist has kind of superimposed their original meaning, which was totally different from what I experienced. And I'd rather have my experience and my interpretation than what they meant. And a similar way, I made my story, even friends and colleagues that I played the album to when it was mastered and had no, you know, information about the album and so many of them went in blind and came back most of them saying

I feel like I'm watching a movie which I thought was a great compliment because then it's not important what my story is but I think that people get a sense of the story and of course with lyrics there are some references definitely so that

but that this sense of a story and the journey is more important than my interpretation of things. I think I I watched an interview with Rick Rubin recently where someone asked him. Love Rick Rubin. Oh, legend. I love the book. Have you read the book?

No, I haven't read it yet. I've read it twice. Twice, I need to do it then. It's an easy read. He uses different words with like one of those situations where you read something like, yes, this is what I've been thinking. He just managed to put it in some nice wording. I think about that a lot when I'm listening to him. Like he's so articulate with not only music.

an art but also how it relates to like the self and everything but on your point there i think someone asked him in an interview is this song about this and he said what do you think it's about and the person said what they think is about and he said then that's what it's about yeah and that sort of alludes to what you said and i think for me that's why i listened i listen to a lot of soundtrack stuff like yourself a lot of hands in my love hands emma um but also I listen to a lot of instrumental music because the minute I know what a song is about, like you're saying, if it's not about my personal inner conflict or experiences,

I can't relate to it. It ruins the music for me. Yeah, yeah, I get that. And sometimes, especially with, I remember back in the day with some death metal demos that I really enjoyed. and then I accidentally read the lyrics and they were... Accidentally.

Yeah, but they were very bad and also the rhythmical phrasing was off. You know, I'm very particular about the... Who was it? I can't remember some demo. But it made me even more aware of, you know, being very articulate. I've been talking to, you know,

when we met like with David Vincent, for example, my inspiration for, from, you know, from him being so on point and so articulate. And that, you know, the wording, the message gets across. It's just like, not like voices. And, you know, early, you know, Bathory, Quarton as well. I think it's important to be articulate like that, get a message across.

But then interpretation is an entirely different thing. And I'm sure you've noticed this as well if you read a book, you read a book when we're young, and then you kind of pick it up again after a while. And you experience it in a different way. It means something completely different, yeah. And that's the same with music. And also, since we talked about, this is something that I've been pondering.

Even though this is a new album is self-titled. It's the first time I've kind of written from a different perspective than my own. Try to. Anyways, inevitably, you're bound to bring some of your own personality in there, of course, and experiences. I think subconsciously and consciously, I want to come. create more distance between my person and stuff that I create. Not to make it less personally still as important to me, but with all the mundaneness of the industry right now,

because I remember seeing Iron Maiden October 5th in 88, and I'm breeding the same air as Bruce Dickinson and Steve Harris. It was magic. You know, that was part of the, of the, of the kind of this Dionysus ritual, you know, that the show, you're not there to be your mundane self. You're like there for the ecstasy. And, and these days where you kind of get under the skin of your favorite artist and you know what they had for dinner before they come on stage. And it's like it takes away, it's a distraction. And also all these kind of art forms.

where, oh, this picture is so important because the history of the artist who had this sad story and you need a user manual to understand why a piece of art is good. Look at the statue of David. You don't need a user manual to see that that is a great, amazing, divine piece of art. I prefer stuff that I can... You know, additional information might be valuable down the line

if you go deeper in the same way that I felt I went deeper and deeper when listening to our maiden. I didn't know anything about them, you know, but you read all the liner notes of the vinyl that you invested in, that you saved up to. So I know that it's very old school and the government probably because I'm closing in of 50. But that distance I think is important. And I think subconsciously people are also drawn to this. when you see the success of bands like ghost, Ramstein, Sleep Token, even if they now know who's behind the mask, you know, people go along with it

because they're not there for, you know, average show behind the mask. They're there for the ritual for the experience, the ecstatic, something otherworldly. It does make me think, only to start a band with masks. Not only do you get that privacy. you...

What do you think Emperor would have been if they knew that we were just spotty teenagers? You know? Yeah, but you were doing something different in the scene that was already pretty big. I think you could have come out with no corpse pain.

You would have been fine. I can't shoot myself in the foot here because, of course, now I've been... What people have been provoked about is me not having a metal look. You know, going on stage with glasses and slick hair. Who's been provoked about that?

No, no, but I've seen, like, reviews and, you know, Ejan metal with, with glasses and saxophone. Is that what someone said? Yeah, metal hammered Germany. That was just an example. I don't get provoked by that.

Yeah. But German people are an exception, though. No, but I do enjoy the bands, you know, and that whole thing with the myth. Yeah. But with my own sense, stuff, I kind of do the opposite.

In a sense, it was kind of, it's been a bit of satisfying with all the sensationalism that's been attached to the Norwegian Blackbellocene and with Emperor and everything that, you know, after all these years, we can go on stage just in jeans and the T-shirt and the music is enough, you know, when you kind of strip away all the bells and whistles and all the, that, you know, the music in itself, it's not. it's not dependent on that, which has been kind of satisfying. I think that the music also is valuable for what it is

and not just attached to all the bells and whistles. I do love a bells and whistle band though myself. Yeah, yeah. I love a mask band, but I feel like it's... For me, I'm conflicted with sleep token and ghost. I love Ghost because the songs are really catchy. And I actually, when I was working at Candlelight, the first record was on Rise Above and it was distributed in the same plastic head.

I had just listened to it. And I was like, oh, this is awesome. This is just like old school, little bit of like abber Judas Priest, like weird mix of things. This is great. And then about a year later, someone was like, oh, what? Doesn't it annoy you what they look?

look like and I said, what do they look like? And I googled it and I was like, oh my God, this is even cooler to me. Yeah, yeah. But like, I'm kind of. Conceptually, it's ingenious, I think, but with Papa kind of changing roles, that whole mythology they built around it. Did you see the one where the first time he changed? It was like, it was a magic trick.

I can't remember where it was. It was when they introduced Papa 2 or whatever. Okay, no, I didn't see that. Plays the whole show. And then for the encore. Even before the encore, they haven't even left the stage. It plays the whole show and then announces he's passing the torch like a Pope. This other guy comes out and he's exactly the same.

The other guy leaves and they do the last song with the new guy. But one of them obviously wasn't him. One of them obviously wasn't him. And it was just the most amazing magic trick. I was like, no one has done anything like that for a long time. But I saw that, so a clip of that. Somewhere in South America, when the next one,

not the, you know, where they announced the next Papa, you know, or no, they, the Cardinal Copia, and he was made Papa. Yeah. On stage,

which is, but for the most part, I don't really enjoy humor in music. Yeah. You know, it's, they've got it right, though. But they got the right balance. So because I oftentimes find humorous bands,

they use the humor as an excuse to not do it right. But I think if you use humor in your music, it has to be even better. Yeah, it needs to be a side product of already good music. Yeah. My thing with bands looking scary, weirdly goes to the exception because it doesn't look really scary. My thing with Sleep token is like I'm super happy for that.

success and it's like the music they obviously make good music they look spookier than they act and that kind of doesn't gel for me when I see it live like they look when they come out and I was like oh these masks are really cool like the music's cool and then I saw them live and they were like dancing around and I was like oh it's kind of hoping they do it like you ever seen botuska no there's a Polish band they sing in singing I think it's orthodox Russian and they have the full, I can't remember the name of the monks, those monks that have never like seen,

they're not allowed to see women. And that's like the robe and everything and they just stand on stage. Your drummer's behind one of those church things. Blast in a way, they just stand and the singer stands like that and the whole show. And it just looks evil.

And I'm like, oh, this is awesome. I do enjoy how, how ghost does it, because me and my son's been going to see several of the shows, you know, and, And just how they, you know, I think it's like half an hour before the show, they just start playing this, these choral chanting music.

And the whole line check is also ritualistic. And, you know, the crew coming bow and all in. I think it's quite ingenious how they does that. And as for sleep token, I think it's, I was, when I heard, because Darren sent me the album before, before it came out, the first one I got to listen to it. That makes sense because I was waiting for

when will someone take the dark stuff of neural kind of metal downtune guitars and all that and mixed that with the dark side of R&B and hip-hop. It was kind of bound to happen. And then, you know,

intertwined with this kind of masked mythological thing. It just made sense. I do, I do, you know, applaud their success and I think they do what they do very well. Obviously, it's not music that is intended for old men closing in on 50. But I can see why they are very successful. And also, in this day and age where, you know, the whole industry is so saturated,

it makes sense also because it's pointing in one direction. People know, and they will. remember, you know, and I, of course, I carry a torch for someone like, you know, lepris as well, who are, you know, a unique band. They're so good. Is the singer your brother-in-law? Yeah. Look at me, big brain, big brain, go. Me and my wife, we bought him his first keyboard. Really? And forced him to be in a band. No way. That's what became leprous. That's amazing. You're responsible. No, no, I'm not responsible, but we were involved, recorded, you know, their first demos.

And they were my backing band when I first started playing live in my solo stuff. The whole band? Yeah. That's real cool. So it was a win-win because when, like, I went to play Japan and then they played, you know, the support spot. And then I came on and we did my set. So it's like...

Easy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I and are played in Emperor, you know, on the first reunion stuff. And we've been doing things together. and it's just to see that their success now as well but considering how good they are it surprises me that they're not even bigger

but it's probably because they don't have this kind of concept they are out there with their like progressions but I think in the long term that we'll see them well but I know what you mean it's like they should be bigger from like nerds music nerds why isn't it's the biggest band in that band you know are just amazing, you know, board called sound drums.

He is a freak. And his songwriting, but also Robin, you know, guitar player, Toro was my guitar student from when it was very young. Oh, amazing. And then, he used to play in Lepros. He now plays in my solo band. He used to be my student when it was very small.

Wow, you're just out there. You've got to think ahead, you know, cheap labor down the line. I'm just kidding. Your son is featured on this album. People are making a big deal about that. I just want to know. Yeah, no, because...

It's in your press release. You can't play me. No, no, no. They put it in the press release because we credit them on the album because he does play, you know, percussion parts. And it's as simple as... I mean, both our kids are doing music and doing music education.

And, of course, you know, both their parents are musicians. And my mother-in-law is a musician, running the local musical that they've been part of since they were very, very small. And Uncle Einar is a musician. And they've grown up with touring and making albums is what people do. And that's what they want to do. How old are they? 16 and 18.

Oh, yeah. They're ready. Get on working. They're very ready. But also, our daughter, Ariadner, she's been doing voices, you know, like backing vocals on some of the eerie stuff on my early... you know earlier solo albums and you know it's just practical we you know bring people in to do stuff and he's been doing drum stuff on my previous albums as well when he was much younger

for this album i had both my tobias drummers i had tobias sulbach and tobias sernes yeah kind of dividing the the album in between them i'm very fortunate because they don't have weaknesses they have just have different strengths amazing you know and um literally I had but they were in the studio together I was going to say was it the same kit yeah they they mixed and matched you know but they were playing

off each other you know playing you know talking drum stuff yeah I was in big studio in Northern where I live and had two of Norway's best drummers my son is a drummer of course he wanted to be there you know get some free lessons and everything and for the percussion parts we

we just did a it's quite a big room really good sounding room like a stereo pair in the middle and did like percussion stations in the triangle and it's just instead of overdubbing it's just like they were playing off each other you know like a trio which is a really cool natural sounding yeah yeah do you have any

any sort of aspirations to have your son back your band at some point you don't have to you'd have to no no it's contractually binding no no but obviously if he gets you know good enough Yeah, if it's good. He's really putting in the work, you know. But he really wants to learn, you know, the business.

You know, we encourage them to be proficient on all aspects of things, you know, technically savvy, you know, being able to record yourself, you know, knowing that language of, so if you work with other producers and stuff that you can communicate on the same things. Yeah. He will probably be teching for me. you know, this summer and this year. Drum tech or guitar tech?

And there's like average assistant tech, you know, patching stuff and setting up computers. That's got to be cool to be able to bring your son on tour with you. But it's, I love, you know, they're that age now that they can join in and get to experience some of the stuff that I get to experience. That's kind of the downside of just, you know, I get the opportunity to travel the world. me and my wife we were touring Europe and the US together in the late 90s.

Just one year ago, I got to bring both the kids to Japan for the first time. Oh, amazing. You know, and I think that is experience for me to be able to, I love Japan. My favorite place on Earth. It's amazing. And I've been speaking very highly of my trips to Japan and the people that we work with there, amazing people from Smash and Trooper. They thought that I was exaggerating.

But when they got there, it's like, it's the best place on Earth. It's the best. And they still say, like, we miss Japan every day. I posted on Instagram that I miss Japan today. I'm the same. And it's always, it's the hard sell to everyone. Anytime anyone's like, hey, we're thinking about going somewhere on holiday. Where would you recommend?

Because you travel so much every time I'm like Japan. You just need to go to Japan. There's nothing like it. When we started touring, you know, getting to Germany was something different. But you know how the world is now Like everywhere you go in the Western world It's a you know H&M and Burger King

And it's the same thing So but coming to Japan is like coming to Alien It's alien Yeah And just the culture You know The politeness

The lack of crime Yeah I just love it The lack of crime is crazy Like in a bar And it's not even a very religious country And I was actually

many years ago I was there on tour with a grand tour of the Roland company we visited all the factories and get a grand tour me and board Colza you know from Repairs

we went together and the representative that was with us and we were fascinated that you know even in Shibuya you know Saturday night if you lose your wallet

they will pick it up and run after you and give it back to you yeah that kind of thing and I was like How is that? Why is it so? It's not a deeply religious country.

It's just very culturally deep. And he says, well, we have this saying that the sun sees you. So literally what he means, like, even if you're not caught. And if no one else sees it, but if you do something wrong, you know it in your heart. It's wrong, yeah. It's wrong. And you saw that with that horrible, wave, you know, the tsunami thing.

They would just stand in line helping each other out. It comes at the cost. There's a dark side to that strict mentality. There is. I think it's the highest suicide rates of that side of the world. Like the overworked as well. So, but fascinating, and we have some amazing friends in Japan.

I'm sure we know some of the same people. I'm sure we do. I'm honestly, now I'm going to. getting, I'm missing Japan, so we're going to move on. Two truths and a lie. Did you do, did you prepare, prepare this for me? I've tried. I don't really know how it works anyway, so.

But I thought, you know, there's so many, since I started out so early, there's so much about me online. Yeah. Already. Yeah, I'm not, no. So, so, but I thought maybe I'll focus on, on my childhood. Okay. Yeah.

Because it needs to be, it had to be, Lisa told me it had to be something personal. Yeah, it can't just be, this is. a glass of tea no because it's obviously a lie so three things yes I grew up on a farm and one of my summer jobs was tending and milking cows okay my gateway into playing guitar was borrowing this old ukulele that was my starting point before I got into music being from Telemark I did ski jumping I went to ski jumping school Now, it's interesting that one of these is a lie, but they were all told as if they were true.

That's what I do. Honestly, they were delivered with sincerity, which either means all three are actually true, which is a trick that people like to play on me. No, no, I follow the rules. There is a lie in there. Okay. How do you, I'm going to ask you questions to decipher.

Okay. How does one milk a cow? What's the prep? You wash off, you know, the bits and you put on a milking machine. Oh, so it wasn't. You weren't raw dogging. No, no, no, not old school. Feeding and pipes on.

Yeah. How long does it take? Depends. It's very variable, you know, how much milk they have, depending on. Give me a ballpark. Three to five minutes, I'd say. Okay. Per cow.

You're so dead pan that I'm like trying to decipher. Let's go with a ski jumping next. You ever had any injuries? I did fall and did have no serious injuries. No. And actually I even went to jump on plastic in Falun in Sweden. It was a summer activity. Hmm, this one seems true.

How many strings does a ukulele have? Four. Okay, there's like an easy, easy for someone with small fingers. Where did you acquire the ukulele? From a grandmother. From your grandmother. I think that's true. Is that the lie?

Yeah. I would never... I would never play a ukulele. It's not a real instrument. This is why this game is so good. You can't play real music on the uglah. Do you know why I thought it was true? It's for people with straw hats on the beach.

You came in hot with four strings, like, immediately. And I was... Because I know a ukulele's got four strings. And I was... I was like, if you elaborate on anything about the strings, then I know this one is a lie. But then you just came in real hot with four, four strings. And I was like, oh, no, he seems real.

So you used to milk cows. I thought that one was going to be fake. No, I was raised in the farm. That's why I probably started playing music in the first place. And, you know, this is something that I've pondered since I, you know, how did you, you know, go from emperor to do the gold soul? And really, I said, it was my grandmother's piano that I started filling around and they gave me lessons. Horrible piano student.

I never learned to read score properly. Then I got my first electric guitar when I was 10. But then I already, because of my piano playing, they bought me this electric keyboard. You know, with the dual keyboards and the pedals and the built-in rhythms. And for some reason, and I could jam along. I played the guitar. and I would accompany myself with putting on chords

and playing bass parts with my feet. For some strange reason, I got hold of this four-track, Post-Ex recorder. So I already at 11, I think, I was already, you know, over the... In emperor. No, no, no, don't but alone.

This is my... I remember this as my first love of making music. Yeah. And putting, you know, the parts together. The layers. Yeah, the layers and just like ping-ponging and overdubbing stuff on that four-track machine. So I was thinking my first love of making music was solo, so to speak.

There were no other kids around where I live. So I was really literally spending my hours after school playing and jamming with myself and doing these demos and writing songs, which eventually led me to play in bands. Then I just came back to my natural habitat, if you will. You just need to get a cow now and milk the cow and then you're full circle. I'm not responsible enough. We have two dogs and probably three dogs soon again. We've been a three, three dog household for many years, but my dear Arya left us recently. I don't want to

have more, more animals than that. No more, no cows. You've got a dinner to go to. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for having me. It's been pleasure to. Absolutely. You're a legend. I was saying to Simon earlier on. I was like, it's crazy that Ishaun is coming around my house. So it's really cool to have you here. I'm glad you see it that way. I'm looking forward to the show tomorrow. As do I. Check out Ishan's new album, Ishaan, both versions, the orchestral and the fully composed both versions together. Have you got any tours coming up with Ishan? I'm playing a lot of back-to-back stuff all over through the summer and into the autumn with Ishan's. stuff and emperor stuff. And emperor, so you're busy. And yeah, I'm busy.

And also, you've played Hellfest. Oh, I love Hellfest. Yeah, amazing festival, but you have to go to Nance. And literally I'm playing a different festival in Italy or Spain the day before with Ishan. Yeah. And it's like the routing to get to Nance from the, you know how it is. So there's some challenges. And I think I'm playing grass pop with both bands on the same day.

Same day. Yeah. Oh, good for you. Yeah, you know, like to keep busy. That sucks, though. I would hate that. Here's a funny story while we're on the subject. My first time going to Hellfest was because of you.

2006 Emperor reform. I never saw you. I got into Emperor, never got to see you, and then you broke up, and then you reformed. And initially, it was sold as Hellfest only. So me, at 18, I think I was. got a ticket, did the whole journey, went there, it rained like crazy when you were playing. You remember it.

Yeah, I remember it. Because what I remember, we shared the backstage with Megadeth and Dream Theater. Yeah. And they were playing ahead of us. It was like Megadest, Dream Theater, then emperor. Yeah. And I was, I remember standing, you know, warming up.

And seeing John Petrucci, you know, pulled me under and a blue, oh shit, I'm going out there. I'm doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, need. I'm the Black Wizards. Hey, I was there for you. Oh, thank you.

And I remember it was the muddiest year. I got bronchitis from watching you. Sorry. But it was amazing, but I learned, that was my first lesson that when a band says they're only doing one show, it means they are probably, like when it's a reform festival only, listen, they're always doing another one. They're just telling you that festival one, because I think you announced the London show like about six months, about six weeks afterwards.

I was like, fuck, I could have just went to London. Yeah. But it was a lovely time. Yeah. Help us. And that was even, you know, early Hellfest. That was only got better. Yeah, like now it's a theme park.

That was super early. So it's brilliant. I have some fun memories from Hellfest. Like, yeah, we shared the backstage. Of course, we didn't meet anyone. But like, you know how did this, but Helfest, but I played there with my solo band. Then you're kind of with everybody else. Yeah.

But we played there with, in 2000. 2014, in the Clips anniversary thing. And we shared like the special backstage with the Black Sabbath and Soundcom. Oh, yeah. It's like your headline spot kind of health first and then you go grab beer and then you watch Black Sabbath. From that nice balcony where you can just watch everything. It's the best festival. It's my favorite.

So it's not a bad day at the office. Amazing. Awesome. Thank you, mate. Thank you so much. Thank you.