As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Sometimes (almost all the time, actually), it takes a while for genius to come to fruition. Such is the case for progressive black metal stalwarts, Borknagar, who return next month with their first album in five years, Fall. Much has changed in the past half decade. In this regard, so has Borknagar, exploring new musical territory on their 12th studio album. We sat down with founding guitarist Øystein Brun to discuss the making of Fall, the importance of nature, and the intricacies of Pink Floyd. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
Greetings Øystein and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Øystein Brun: Hey ho! All good! It’s a beautiful day in Norway today actually with a lot of snow, so it’s suitable for the interview I guess.
It’s the same weather here in Chicago, where Borknagar played their first ever American show on July 9, 1999 at the Congress Theater as the opening act for Emperor. Do you have any special memories of that tour or that show specifically?
ØB: Yeah, I definitely have. I actually remember I bought myself a video camera before we went on that tour, so I also have some old tapes lying somewhere in my archives from that tour. It was our first trip to the US. We were young. We were adventurous. It was very cool in so many ways. It was early on. I don’t think Mayhem or Emperor played in the US before us, but I think we were one of the very first bands from Norway, at least the black metal scene, that came to the US.
I have a lot of great memories, meeting people and playing shows and seeing the *laughs* big world in a sense. But I also remember that it was a really rough ride, in the sense that it was old school back then. We were driving around in the US with a van and the air conditioning in the van was dysfunctional. There was a heatwave coming. There was hardship as well, but I guess we survived. Thinking back now, I have just positive memories from it.
It’s been five years since the last Borknagar album, True North: The longest gap between Borknagar studio albums to date. What did the band set out to achieve with this latest album, Fall, to separate it from past releases?
ØB: For me, it’s always about music. For me, it’s always about fulfilling musical missions, to push myself and the band to a new horizon musically or climb another mountain. That is my main target in all of this. Everything else, like touring and promotional work and all that stuff, it’s of course a cool thing and part of the business, but for me, you can say that music is the leading force in a sense. For me, the music and the focus on always progressing, evolving, taking a step further in terms of music, that is the most important thing for me.
I think we achieved that on the new album, Fall. It still has some of the elements of True North and even the albums before that. The core sound is still there, but I think we’ve been able to make an even more diverse and interesting album in a sense. That’s very important for me because, as a band, I’m not just an entertainer, so to speak. I want to also bring the listener into a musical journey, an experience. I think we achieved pretty much what we wanted with this new one.
How would you describe the songwriting process for this album? Was it collaborative or did each member bring in their own individual song ideas and passages?
ØB: Yeah, as a starting point, I write my songs and Lars (A. Nedland) writes some songs and Simon (ICS Vortex) writes a couple of songs. Then we gather everything, rough sketches of these songs on the table basically, and start from that point. Maybe single out some songs that aren’t strong enough. At least on this album, and also True North, I have a home studio here. I do a lot of studio production and mastering and stuff. I spent a lot of time in my studio, hours upon hours trying out different ways of putting things together, and also the mixing side of things. What kind of guitar sound will fit to this? How do I achieve this and that sound?
For me, on this album, what was very important, which I focused a lot on…one day, you can experience this path through a forest, for example, just to make a point here. But if you walk there at night or on another day, you might see other things. For me, when talking about musical journeys, one of the ways of achieving that is to make music that has this complexity that makes you hear different elements each time you listen to the album. Even if you walk the same path or listen to the same song, if you do it by headphones or monitors or speakers, you will somehow get a little bit different experience walking this path or this song, if you get my point.
I spent so many hours trying to work on the soundscape of this album. That being said, I have to address that Jens Bogren doing the mix, the final touch of everything, he did a marvelous job. He’s a magician in his craft. There is no one alike in my opinion. He has a lot of the honor of the actual sound of the album, but our intention from the band’s side was, as I told you, to try to make this diverse, interesting, with different layers and different…music that is compatible, so to speak, with different stages in life.
Are there any recurring lyrical and musical themes on this album, whether they be intentional or coincidental, that fans should look out for when listening to Fall?
ØB: Not really. I’ve always been the kind of guy that I prefer art that has some sort of open door to it. If it’s rounded off and well done and everything has two lines under the answer, to me it’s a bit boring. I want to keep the door open for a little bit of the listener’s own interpretation. That said, when we started on this album and discussing the lyrical themes or ideas behind…we’ve always used the nature of scenery and forces of nature, the roles of scenery and mysticism and all that kind of stuff.
This time around, I had this very basic idea that I wanted to, in a sense, scope in on and salute or appreciate all these things that live and exist, things being places, animals, humans, whatever, but all of those things that are on the outskirts of our existence in a sense. There are so many things that live far out in the desert or on the glaciers or in the North Pole or South Pole or whatever that has an incredibly important role to keep the ecosystem going, to keep the balance in the world and protect us from the big fall in a sense. I’ve always been fascinated by those things. There is bacteria that live and exist on lava. I don’t know how many degrees lava is, but it’s crazy that stuff like that even exists.
That was the starting point. Then of course, each and every song, each and every title has a different scope on things or angle on things. The first song on the album, “Summits”, is a very classic theme, but it deals a little bit about finding your own peak in life, in your own summit, your own best potential. For some, that might be being a CEO of a big company. For others, that means being a musician like me or a journalist like you.
This everlasting struggle of man and woman, both on the outside and the inside, there is always something you have to fight your way through because by nature, the day you are born, nature does everything to get you back down in the ground. This everlasting fight, that was kind of some of the ideas. It’s basically nothing new under the sun in terms of lyrics from our side, but it’s a different scope on things. We leave the door quite open for people to find their own kind of meaning and value so to speak.
With nature being a prominent theme of Borknagar’s music from the beginning, would you say that its role in life, its complexities, and humanity’s interaction with it serve as a never-ending font of lyrical and musical inspiration?
ØB: Yeah, to me it does. There’s different reasons for this, but it does. The complexity of nature, the way to approach nature is so diverse. You can look at it so many ways. You can put it in so many contexts. We are humans. We are part of nature. I’ve also been very fascinated by this almost primitive meeting of nature and humans. How did we come to be humans with a huge brain that re able to plan the next day and stuff like that? All of those things have always been very intriguing.
I’ve always been, ever since I was a little kid, intrigued and fascinated by these very classic existential questions. I find it so beautiful in a sense. Of course, there are a lot of beautiful documentaries about nature and different species, all those sorts of things, but very often, I find that nature and science and those things, that kind of scope of nature is kind of gray and boring. It’s about learning and shitloads of words and all that stuff. I want to project the beautiful, the amazing side of what nature actually is.
I think we take nature for granted sometimes a bit too much in a modern society, even I. I still live in the countryside and I myself sometimes take everything a little too much for granted. When I walk up the forest, up to the mountain from here, for me, it’s such a profound feeling. It’s an important thing for me in my life. I guess some of my goals in all of this is to try to give some of this notion, this quality of life, call it whatever you want, this experience of nature, I want to give that to people listening to our music. If I succeed or not, I don’t know, but it’s part of my agenda so to speak.
Again, back to this point, for me, I never regarded myself as an entertainer. I would never set out to be an entertainer of any sort. That’s not me. I’m too shy. I don’t like to be onstage, but I’m much more like a travel guide, experience nature and that kind of stuff. I try to project my music more as a musical adventure rather than some simple, cheap element of entertainment. Sometimes entertainment is well enough and good enough and all good about that. Nothing negative about that, but as a musician, I regard myself more in the line of being a musical adventurer rather than a musical entertainer.
It’s hard to pick a favorite off this album after just a few listens, but thus far, “Stars Ablaze” stands out to me the most, coming off as a blackened twist on early Queensrÿche and Fates Warning. How did this song come about?
ØB: Good question. To be honest with you, I don’t remember exactly that song though, but I agree. That’s a good song. I really love how that song turned out, the flow, the feel of that song, and also the lyrics. Everything fits and sits together so nicely. I don’t remember exactly how that song came about. *laughs* It’s kind of complicated to get into this area, but I’ve always had a very visceral relationship with music. Even as a music fan myself, when I listen to music, I always…my favorite band in this world is Pink Floyd. That’s my mothership of music. It’s always been.
Each and every song that I like from them has different shapes and forms and colors and shades. I have contours of the song in my head as a mental map. On the other side of the table, being a musician and actually making music, I tend to use the same thing. I spend a lot of time before starting to write songs to map out songs. I want this and that kind of songs. I want blueish or it should be this shape or it should be like this, blah blah blah. This is impossible to describe very precise because it sounds quite weird, but somehow I do this mental mapping of songs that I have some kind of shape of the song, if you get my point, before actually starting to write the song.
I remember this. “Stars Ablaze” was a song that, I didn’t struggle with it, but I spent quite a lot of time trying to write. I love the riffing. I love a lot about the song, but I remember I had some struggles with some bits and pieces, just to get everything together. Apart from that, when I’m in my creative bubble, I just grind on and don’t really think too much, to be honest. When I write songs, I get in this creative bubble and just lose the grip of time and place and everything. It’s just happening there and then in a sense.
For me to talk afterwards, “Yeah, here’s how I…”, it’s very difficult. It’s so integrated in my life by now. I’ve done this my whole older life. Since I was 16 years old, I’ve been sitting around with a guitar, making riffs and then recording riffs and making songs. It’s such an integrated part of my life and my being and all that. I don’t reflect as much about it anymore as I did back in the day. I kind of just do it, so yeah *laughs*.
I feel it’s wrong to ask what your favorite Floyd album is, so I’ll word it this way: Which Floyd album do you gravitate towards the most and why?
ØB: Honestly, it depends on what day you ask me. It depends on my mood. For me, Pink Floyd is such a treasured entity of music that I use it for everything. When I’m down and sad, when I’m happy. It depends very much. I love a lot of the early stuff, but I remember one time, I had a very big crush on The Final Cut (1983) of all albums. I know there’s a lot of people that don’t like it that much and stuff like that, but I remember for a long time I had a real crush on that one.
Albums and songs like “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, it’s always a good thing. That song works every time I put it on. To pinpoint those things, it’s quite difficult, maybe even impossible. It’s difficult, but I love the way they approach music, how they are able to make atmosphere that grips me so deeply and profoundly. That is some of the qualities I find with Pink Floyd, and definitely other bands as well, but Pink Floyd the most is they do something to me emotionally that otherwise nothing else in this world does, if you get my point. Without Pink Floyd, my life would have been bleaker or grayer in a sense. It’s the music of my life.
I couldn’t agree more. For me, it’s nearly impossible to choose a single album. As far as songs go, it’s either “Shine On” or my dad’s favorite, “Dogs”. That song in particular, put that on and you’re just in the zone for the full 17 minutes. You know what I’m talking about. It’s something words can’t explain.
ØB: Oh yeah, absolutely! I also have a real crush on “High Hopes” from The Division Bell (1994). It’s quite a new song. Some people don’t hold…the older, more conservative Pink Floyd fans say the new stuff is not as good as the old and stuff like that. It’s the same in black metal, I guess. *laughs* All of these conservative guys that are clinging on to the demos and rehearsal tapes. “High Hopes” is, for me, a very important song for example. So important that when I lost my father, that was one of the songs that I chose for him because we had a non-religious burial.
We had three songs played during his funeral. One of those songs was “High Hopes”. I guess maybe that song has a special place in my heart just because my father and all that stuff, but I think that’s a brilliant song. I think that the lyrics on that song have seriously inspired me throughout my career. They’re not necessarily dark lyrically, but in a way of…the scope of my lyrics is kind of inspired by “High Hopes”. There is this something, “The grass was greener”, this nostalgia thing. I don’t know. I just love the approach on that song, both musically and lyrically.
The vocals on here, as usual, are handled by ICS Vortex and Lars A. Nedland, who really outdid themselves with the harmonies and choir sections. Can you talk about the importance of vocals to Borknagar’s music and how they set you apart from other black metal acts?
ØB: It’s a really important piece of the puzzle. Since the very start, we’ve been kind of renowned for having these clean vocals. I remember back in the day when we did The Olden Domain (1997) and even the first album (1996’s Borknagar), especially on Olden Domain, I remember because we went to a studio in Germany. We did all this, not only clean vocals, but we also added some Hammond organ and stuff like that. Back then, nobody did that. That was unheard of at that time, as far as I can remember. There were probably a few bands that also did it, but not many.
After we did Olden Domain, and that was a huge success for us back in the day. I think it’s still one of the most successful albums. A couple of years after that, everybody started to do screaming in the verses and then the refrains come as clean vocals. Maybe we were a little bit pioneers back then. To me, vocals, and that was also some of my intention at least, I think it worked really good on this new album. I don’t necessarily want to single out the vocals. I want the vocals to be a part of the music in a sense. I want the bird to be part of the forest, not circle above the forest.
I wanted the vocals to, in a way, if you walk through a forest again…*laughs* I use this story again and again, but if you walk through a forest, I wanted this effect of you can hear birds in different places, different kinds of screams or whatever, the sound of birds. You get this feeling that there’s different kinds of voices. I think we succeeded pretty well on that. It’s an extremely important part of our musical expression.
Another musical quality that stands out to me is the guitarwork on this album, which seems to boast a strong traditional metal influence akin to Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate. Am I wrong in this observation?
ØB: No, you’re probably right. Personally speaking, I’m very eclectic regarding personal influences when it comes to music. I’ve done hundreds of interviews throughout the years and people say, “I hear something from this and that band.”, I go, “Yeah, sure! Cool!” I tend to not think like that. As a musician, I’m very let’s just do it. Let’s see what happens. I’m very analog in a sense. Of course, have some plans about it, but…there is something about studio and recording an album that is this capture of the moment, this Kodak moment, just with sound.
Sometimes, we leave the door quite open. Even though we have a plan, we have the song, we have the lyrics and stuff like that somehow prepared and ready. There always tends to be some progress and changes during the whole process of it. This time around, what I think you maybe heard a little bit of is Jostein (Thomassen), the guitarist of the band, was way more, on a different level, involved in the…maybe not writing, but arranging of the songs.
I invited him into the process of, at least my songs, way earlier than the rest of the guys. I did it intentionally because I wanted Jostein to be able to flourish in the creative process, not just add some leads afterwards. He was really involved in the whole process of arranging the guitar parts of the album. I totally agree. He did a fantastic job. I normally don’t do much leads and solos and stuff like that because it’s not my style. My style is big, huge riffs and harmonies. He’s a much greater lead guitarist and solo guitarist than me. He’s the lead guitarist and I’m more the rhythm. I’m more the texture and feeling and clean guitars and stuff like that. That’s usually me doing that stuff, but I think it worked amazingly well this time around.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Borknagar’s formation. You initially formed the band to push the boundaries of black metal sonically. What was it about the black metal scene at the time that inspired this and would you say the band has been successful in this mission thus far?
ØB: Oh yeah, I think we’ve definitely been successful. I’m just kind of amazed. I’m sitting here now, 30 years after like, “What happened?” I didn’t set out to be a rockstar. Maybe I was aware of it when I was younger, but I never had any dreams about becoming a rockstar or sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, whatever people want to be onstage for. The music was the thing for me. I was young at the time, but it (the black metal scene) was a handful of people in Bergen back in those days. It was the Immortal guys and…yeah. It was a handful of people.
Everybody kind of knew everybody and at some point, when I started Borknagar, I had this urge to…I’m not meaning this negatively by any means, but to distance myself a little bit from what I experienced as a little bit boring. To me, musically speaking, I’ve always been leaning forward. I’ve always been loving prog music. I’ve always loved the old…I don’t know. I just had this idea that I wanted to make my own musical bubble that didn’t really depend on any trends, this musical autonomy in a sense.
I had this really strong urge to just do something beyond anything else. I’m not trying to upgrade myself to being something, it’s not that, but for me, it was very important to find my own musical identity. I think that back then, at some point in the early to mid ’90s I guess, I felt that black metal…I still love black metal, and I loved black metal back then, but I felt it a little bit choking in a sense. In a sense that, to me, this was too boring *laughs*. It’s great music and it’s all that. I enjoy it and blah blah blah, but as a creator of music, and the musical journey that I wanted to do, I needed to distance myself a little bit from this quite traditional and in some ways conservative musical style.
Expanding upon that last question, as somebody who was there in Norway during that era of the black metal scene, how do you feel today about, specifically here in America, the romanticism of said era and its subsequent crossover into Hollywood movie and Mayhem shirts at Hot Topic? Is it surreal? Bizarre? What is your reaction to that?
ØB: It was a pretty crazy time, to be honest. We were young kids back then, and before the church burnings and everything, at least here in Bergen, I was 17, 16. I started my first death metal band (Purgation) in ’89 or ’90. There was an extremely small scene. There was just a handful of people. We were kids basically with long hair and stuff like that. I remember there was a thrash festival in Bergen. That was said to be, I’m not sure if it’s correct, the very first thrash festival in Europe. I think that was in 1988.
So before the church burnings, I think that Bergen was pretty much like everybody else. There was a very small, tight community in a sense. There was pushing and urging. I don’t know. Then, you’ve got these years of church burning and newspapers and police and whatnot. That was, of course, crazy because all of a sudden…I lived in the countryside and at that time, living in the countryside wasn’t that easy with black clothes and band t-shirts and stuff like that. “You are a satanist. You are burning our churches.”
I remember if we were even close to the local church, there were people jumping out and walking around the church because they were shit scared we were gonna light it up! It was a massive media circus also in Norway, massive massive. Most of us guys back then were too young to deal with all this, at least in a professional way. Then on, after all this dust started to settle, all of the big record companies came our way. All of a sudden, the boss of Century Media called me like, “Hey, I want to sign you guys.” I was like, “What the fuck?!” That was also kind of crazy because at that time, we had very little experience to be honest.
Everything was so underground. I barely had enough money to buy a guitar, so it was kind of crazy how things went from being a normal gang of kids hanging around at the same pub and enjoying the same music, to all of a sudden, in a matter of some years, we had this huge, massive media going on. There was “blackpackers”, as we called them back then: People coming from all over the world just wanting to see some of the guys or taking pictures and stuff like that. I remember the first time I signed an autograph in Bergen, I was like, “What the fuck’s going on?!”
I don’t remember which country this guy was from, but it was Germany probably. There was a guy from Germany coming to me and he wanted my signature! What’s going on here? *laughs* It was definitely very special times, but it was glorious in so many ways because there was a lot of passion. There was a lot of drive. There was a lot of competition in a good way, so it was a golden time in so many ways.
Two years ago, Borknagar returned to the United States for their first tour of the country in 23 years. Is it possible that us Americans will see Borknagar grace our shores again in the near future?
ØB: Yeah, I hope so. We don’t have any exact plan at the moment, but our record company and also ourselves, we really want to do the US one more time. I’m not sure. I can’t say anything concrete, but we are looking into it. Hopefully, maybe early next year or something like that. We’ll see. This year, in’ 24, we’re gonna do a lot of festivals in Europe and a European tour and stuff like that. We just have to see, but we will definitely be back at some point, I’m pretty sure about that.
The new Borknagar album, Fall, releases Friday, February 23rd on Century Media Records. For more information on Borknagar, visit www.borknagar.com.