After eight years of silence, Dimmu Borgir will release “Eonian” on May 4th via Nuclear Blast. For this occasion, RockUrLife met Shagrath and Slienoz in Paris to chat a bit more about this long-awaited new album.
You release your next album in a few weeks. How do you feel when a record is about to come out?
Silenoz (guitar): We feel complete. (laughs)
Shagrath (vocals): Yes it is an accomplishment. We both missed that and it feels good to be back after so many years.
Silenoz: It was a long pregnancy. (laughs) The beast will soon be released from his cage.
Shagrath: I know people have been waiting for it for a long time.
Silenoz: I feel like it has been as long for us as for the fans. You have to be constantly active in the music industry and we haven’t for a while.
Yeah, we missed you!
Silenoz: Yeah, we missed not being around. “Eonian” in particular needed the time that it needed to be finished. It’s a good thing and a bad thing to not have a deadline but but this time it was a good thing to not have a deadline.
Shagrath: There are so many other bands to listen to.
Do you think about ones in particular?
Shagrath: No, just speaking in general.
Can you tell us why the wait between the two albums was so long?
Shagrath: The last album “Abrahadabra” was released in 2010 and we had toured until 2014. And when we’re on tour, we have to focus on our live performance. I cannot make music when I’m on the road. So already four years had passed. And after that, we needed a break, we had to think, there were changes to the people we were working with.
Silenoz: It’s normal for us to always have a break after a touring circle album. Maybe this time the break was a bit longer than usual. Some of us became parents again, so we had different perspectives. But I mean we were working on this album since 2012.
Shagrath: Yeah we write some ideas when we are all at home separately then we send our ideas to each other. So, we keep on working all the time.
Silenoz: Even when we do not have a lot of inspiration, we always get ahead of other things. But we can not force the inspiration.
Shagrath: This is very mysterious. It’s not like a normal job, like you wake up every morning, you sit behind your desk. This is very strange and very different.
Silenoz: Waking up in the middle of the night, at 4am, just to write the few lyrics we have in mind, recording the melody is now part of our routine and our daily lives.
Shagrath: We really have to stay focused on the album every day of the week and then sometimes for three months, we’ll spend three months without touching an instrument. It’s pretty strange. But I think it’s a bit similar for people who write books.
Silenoz: That’s how it works for us. Sometimes I deliberately choose not to touch a guitar for a week, when I pick up my guitar, and there is often something new in my head. Like your mind is refreshed.
Shagrath: And sometimes you write something, you think your idea is great. And you read it a week later and you realize that your idea sucks. (laughs) So you have to start again. It’s not like you’re creating something continuously. We need breaks, to start again sometimes. There are so many materials we put aside.
Speaking of that, have you ever written a song that did not end up on an album because it did not sound like Dimmu Borgir?
Shagrath: On some previous preproduction, there were some things that sounded a little oddly.
Silenoz: But we are pretty open-minded.
Shagrath: Yes! Even though we both have different musical tastes, we often agree. And the only difference between the two of us is the different musical tastes. And that’s cool, that’s why we do good things. We are very open-minded, though sometimes we have different perspectives on parts of a song or the whole song. And that’s why the writing process can be very long, because you want to arrange a song in many different ways and you have to know what is best. But there are no songs that have been put aside on this album. Obviously there are parts here and there that have not finished on the album, but not the whole song. But we tried to introduce old recordings that dated from 1993 until 2007, I think. There were a lot of old tracks, about 25. We were like: “Fuck! We’ve got a lot of songs that never been on an album”. Then, afterwards, it was more like: “But shit, why did not it end up on an album?”. (Laughs) So it was pretty interesting. Maybe we just forgot it.
Silenoz: Or maybe there was a real reason. (laughs) By the way, we always try to find our the reasons why we never used them.
Can you tell us more about the recording process?
Shagrath: It was important for us to take our time to complete the pre-production. Before we went to the studio, we did not want deadlines for when we should go back in. It is more important to complete and finalize the songs first.
Silenoz: We did the preproduction while we were writing the songs. We wanted everything ready before we started recording. So the sound of the orchestra, the choruses and some vocals were already ready to be recorded, and then we started recording the drums, the guitar, and the bass in the studio. It’s a long process even though we were quite efficient, especially at the studio. We had two months, and we managed to do almost everything during these two months. Usually, it is normal to exceed this duration. We were very well prepared, worked very hard in the studio and gave the best of ourselves.
Shagrath: And Jens Bogren (ed. the producer) was very specific in the way he wanted to work. We had never worked with him before, we did not know what to expect. He kind of broke us down mentally. He pushed us to the max so we could make the best album possible. In the way that, whether it’s guitar, singing or whatever, you have to do it 20 times. 20 fucking times. It had to be perfect.
Silenoz: But he does that to other bands too! It’s nothing new I think, but we had never worked like that before. He got on our nerves. On several occasions, we wanted to hit him. (laughs) So although sometimes it felt like hell, the result speaks for itself.
Shagrath: Yes, that’s exactly it. He is a very good producer. Although his way of working was very different from what we used to. We wanted a more organic sound, especially for drums and we really liked the way his was mixing.
Who had the idea of this title, “Eonian”?
Shagrath: I think Silenoz had the idea of this title but we thought about it a million times.
Silenoz: A bit like on the previous album, and the album before that.
Shagrath: I think we really decided and approved after we finished the album. We thought to continue with these three words as we used to do before. I think that we have concluded with “Eonian” because it represents perfectly the universe of this album.
Silenoz: He has this mysterious thing, that’s the main point of the lyrics too. The title as well as the lyrics are to be analyzed rather than explained, and the name is a good introduction to our world.
Can you tell us a secret about this album?
Silenoz: A secret? I think this time we did not have ghosts at the studio.
A ghost?
Silenoz: Yes we are used to having one. Something weird always happens in the studio, something that can not be explained.
Shagrath: Like a curse.
Silenoz: That’s it!
Shagrath: Now it’s like we’re used to it, when something happens, we’re not even surprised at all. (laughs) On the previous albums, we worked in the studio, and the whole system totally crashed. It happened more than once. For example, we were recording “Spiritual Black Dimensions”, we were singing. In fact, we were working with a vocal guest, and then there was this tape we were working on, you know that kind of tapes that there are eight tracks kind of connected to each other, I think that the number seven has completely crashed (He doe the noise). I think it was when there was a kind of journalist who came to check the album and he was fucking surprised. And we were like obviously it happened at that time. So, we have a lot of studio curses.
Silenoz: It happened on another album too, after recording the drums I think. But this time, everything went well.
Many writers ask themselves a lot of questions in their songs but we noticed that you usually don’t. So are you more answerers than askers?
Silenoz: It’s a tough one. For me personally, I am more of an introverted person. And I express myself in music. I take more and more distance from the world and things in general.
Shagrath: I totally agree. In the way that we both live in our little world. I think it’s really important when you’re a creative person because the less distraction you have from the outside world, the more creative you are.
You are going to play Hellfest this year. Can we hope to see you for a headline show in France soon?
Shagrath: Yes we are preparing a European tour right now. It will probably be in November/December.
Finally, we are “RockUrLife”, so what rocks your life?
Shagrath: My kids rock my life and the music obviously. We love music, it’s not just our job.
Silenoz: I would say the same.
Website: dimmu-borgir.com
