Aeternus – “… we feel we’re pretty much done with this “Death Metal element-mix” thing now.”

Aeternus, a band which doesn’t need any introduction anymore. Every self-respected metalhead around the world should at least heard something about this fantastic band. Because of the fact that Aeternus have a new brilliant album out called “A Darker Monument” and they’re finally going on a European tour after three years of silence I decided to do a little talk with Aeternus mastermind Ares once again. Because the last Aeternus interview for VM dates from long ago I decided to ask about some older subjects as well…..but enough talk from my side now. Start reading what Ares had to say!

Greetings, how are you doing?
Hello, I am doing fine. Starting to get sick again actually, but that’s life! Busy days and so forth…nothing really new really besides from the tour which will start soon.

First of all we go back in time a bit. Why the departure from Hammerheart records after all these years of cooperation?
Man, I thought this question was answered enough already. Disagreements, basically. It happens to everyone. It was time for Aeternus to move om ahead and find something different! Though we are still happy with several things HHR did for Aeternus. That should be said.

You choose to sign with Nocturnal Art Productions. How is the cooperation with them and are you satisfied the way they work and the promotion they make? Is it easier to be on a Norwegian label as being a Norwegian band?
Yeah, communication is easier and things are going fine so far. We are happy with signing to NAP and I hope they feel the same way.

Oryan is a while in the band now. Is he already a permanent member in Aeternus or is he still the session bass player? And how does he combine all his bands (Helheim, Cult of Catharsis etc.) with Aeternus?
Oerjan is still in Aeternus, yes, as a permanent bassist too yes. He also writes lyrics as well as doing the bass lines for Aeternus’ songs. This he did also on “…Monument” except from the main bass-verse line on “SlaveState”, I made that as my vision was so strong there…I had to make it myself. Not that he couldn’t have done it, I simply wanted to make that bass line. Everything else is done by him and he’s written some of the lyrics on that album too. He will continue doing all of this on the next album too and hopefully further more into Aeternus’ future as we are happy with him as a replacement for Morrigan.

How do you write the music nowadays, is it done as a band or do you still write all music yourself? How big is the contribution from all members in creating music? Have things changed alot since Morrigan left the band?
Well I made all the music on “A Darker Monument”, like I have done all along. There’s been wishes from the other guys to work more on the new songs as a band and that’s a great idea for me. So far I am the one who’s made the riffs we’re working on though. I guess things will change. The others contribution lies mostly/so far at arranging things, structuring things. I basically make the riffs and then we all discuss them. Erik does the drums alone usually, it’s not often he needs us to tell him what to do.

The composing and arranging of songs has changed in ways of course since Morrigan left. She is a very strict musician and has a strong insight in Metal music. Though the changes are not bad or good, it’s simply there, the different feel of the fact that we’re doing songs together without her. I miss her opinion sometimes, then again I don’t sometimes if you see what I mean…

Your new album is once again a very dark and heavy album. I think it is in the same line as “Ascension of Terror” which means once again alot Death Metal orientated music. Will you keep on moving to the more Death Metal kind of metal and leave the more epic heavy metal behind?
No, we feel we’re pretty much done with this “Death Metal element-mix” thing now. Especially since “A Darker Monument” ended up having allot more of it all on it than what I at least personally wanted. It just happened really. Not that I dislike that fact or regret anything at all. I truly enjoy having “…Monument” on the strereo and it’s a great album, but if I shall be real picky I would say that it has a bit to much Death Metal related stuff on it. Though I wouldn’t say it’s similar to “Ascension…”, it’s different in many ways in my opinion, but I understand the ones who says it’s similar…I also disagree.

And did you lose fans or won new fans with the slight change of music? I have to say that dedicated fans will stick to the band anyway because a good ear can hear the development throughout all the albums. How do you look upon this as creator of the music?
Yeah, well some people got sad and disappointed not having the folksy elements on the albums any longer when we on “Ascension…” really went for the Death Metal feel. Then again, some could hear what we actually did and that was to mix Death Metal with our own style that we had going all along. Those elements were “hidden” perhaps or let us say: Hard to hear, but they are there…on “Ascension…” as well as on “…Monument”!! Surely, we’ve won some fans, allot of people was digging us going into the realm of Death Metal and even Thrash a bit, but they will be disappointed this time…or next time to put it that way. Like I said, we’re done now, fucking around with Death Metal.

As the creator of Aeternus’ music style and music I feel that the Death Metal elements gave the style itself allot of good. It opened also my horizon as a composer and it allowed us to do more extreme stuff. This I feel is important for us, that we could enter the extremities within raw Metal.

We all got more technical and complex, we got more intense and this is good. Now I feel like taking another path with all of this on my back and see if I can’t keep the brutality and so forth only by not using the elements from Death and Thrash Metal!

What is your opinion about the new album? Satisfied the way it turned out? Very cool booklet by the way!!!
Yeah, the front cover is directly inspired by the album-title. Very cool indeed, also the title is very Aeternus. We are very satisfied Marcel, great sound, great mixing and mastering besides from the fact that we made 9 Darkened songs that really kicks ass in their very own way. Some of the songs has a great original feel over them and there’s allot of good old Aeternus atmosphere on this album actually.

Can you tell a bit more about the production of the album, where it is recorded and by whom?
Easy and short answer, Pytten were the man as always and of cousre we used Grieghallen Studios here in Bergen as we’ve always done on all all our full length albums. We get things the way we want it in Grieghallen so for me personally there is no way I would do this anywhere else.

The lyrical side of Aeternus is up now. What are your lyrics dealing about nowadays and are the lyrics as important as the music. Do they have a special, or even a deeper feeling behind them or is it just pure fiction?
Allot of fantasy and fiction, very often. It adds to the music, the music comes first for me and that makes me easily write fantasy stuff and “stories” (whatnot) to easily add to the “darkeness” or feel/atmosphere of the song. Some songs are more directly related top things. Such as “The Trident” who speaks of Poseidon, the God of the mighty Sea in Greek mythology. “Sons of War” is about Ares’ 2 sons in the same mythology…things like that for example.

Well, you’re finally going on tour now after three years of silence. To me Aeternus is a real live band and it was about time to see you on the European stages again. Why did it took so long because three years is a very long time (well,about the supposed tour with Windir it was obvious that venues were not interested in this package. I know all about it hehe).
It took a long time as we left HHR you know?! I can assure you we’re damn ready to hit the European stages again after all these years. We gotta show people what we got and what we still got that people already know of… The hardest thing I think, thinking of gigs, is the damn set list…it’s real hard to put together a list of songs these days when we’re going to play gigs. We got too many songs now…damned shit. Anyways, we will be ready for these 10 gigs and we hope the crowd is too…

Can you tell a bit more about this tour… The other bands, which countries and so on?
Well, the tour list with dates can be found for example on our web site http://www.aeternus.ch/. This is a tour that contains 3 bands: Aeternus, Red Harvest and 1349. All Norse bands and there’s no real headlining band, we simply play together on this tour and hopefully we’ll have something varied to give Metal Heads around Europe during these 10 dates as we’re 3 different bands playing quite different music. This should make every night interestig to the crowd and hopefully not too long and so forth.

Have you done other gigs elsewhere those years or was there a complete silence these years. I have been only at the ‘Hole in the Sky’ gig when “Ascension…” was just released (a kind of release-party) and at the ‘Inferno’ gig last year. How were those gigs for Aeternus. Specially the Inferno gig was a real killer with alot of Norwegian banging metalmaniacs! A very enthousiastic crowd indeed…
Yeah, Inferno was awesome. Though we had sound problems and I played on a shitty amp. We’ve just done some shows here at home since the Mayhem tour.

What about side projects/other bands nowadays.Do you guys have enough time for that? I know You had Corona Borealis going on and also did the bass in M-eternal (Malignant Eternal), Eric plays in Bourbon Flame (very cool!), Radek with Amok and Oryan with his own band Helheim, Cult of Catharsis and Deathcon if I’m correct so all in all that’s alot of other bands.
Well yeah…I don’t play with M-Eternal any longer as they really don’t exist really anymore. I am engaged and doing some wary efforts in a band that my neighbour has: Chaos Predicted. Here I am trying to sing differently than I usually do and these days I am giving that band some Death Metal riffs as the man behind it all wants some brutal shit for the next Demo/album (whatever). Erik will also drums here on this “project”, to call it that. Yes, Erik has Bourbon Flame too (Cool indeed) and Radek has Amok. V’gandr (Oerjan) has Helheim too and Deathcon. So, allot to do I guess, but we make it work. Basically I do shit with Aeternus, that’s what takes mostly my time.

As you know, Hammerheart/Karmaggedon will re-release the first four albums with diferent lay-out and bonus songs. What do you think of this?
What can I say, it happened and we couldn’t do much. Never knew it was gonna happen until it did. Don’t know what to think really… Haven’t totally made up my mind. This re-mastering isn’t needed for the last 2 albums we did on HHR so I am not happy about that.

What are your future plans at the moment?
We’re gonna do this tour and then continue with our work making new songs for the next album. An idea is to hit the studio during the upcoming summer.

Well, thanks alot for the interview and as usual,the last words are  completely yours!
As usual, I say: Metal to the bone and all that…

Well, good luck on the tour and we’ll see eachother in Rotterdam and share some beers again!!!