Dark Funeral – Lord Ahriman

Hailing from the cold, frost bitten regions of Sweden. Dark Funeral have been at the forefront of the black metal movement since the early 90’s. While the band have had a revolving door of various musicians over the years, their traditional pertain to Satanism and anti-Christianity are still the driving force behind their extreme music.

Metal Obsession had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Lord Ahriman, to discuss the band’s upcoming tour of Australia this November, touring and the black metal movement.

Metal Obsession: You guys are coming to Australia for one of your bigger tours here, is there anything you do to prepare for something like this?

Lord Ahriman: Well we’re fairly busy until we come to Australia, but now we’ve just finished off the festival season and we just keep rehearsing. We’re leaving for the (United) States on Wednesday next week for a four or five-week tour.

MO: Woah man, do you ever get a break?

LA: Uh well, we get a couple of weeks here and there [laughs] it doesn’t stop really we just keep going, you know?

MO: Do you ever wish you weren’t so hectic with tours?

LA: Not really, it’s the classic syndrome – when on tour after a while you’re like ‘fuck it would be so nice to just go home and take it easy’, you know? Then when you come home after a couple of days it’s like ‘so what what am I doing now? I need to go on tour’ – it’s better to just go for it, you know, try and keep as busy as possible. This is what I enjoy doing and to travel and to tour and experience new places, people, crowds, cultures – that’s it for me it’s been such a big part of my life for the past 15 years you know, it’s just where my spirit lies and what I enjoy doing.

MO: With your style of music do you ever find adversity, people not so willing to experience your culture?

LA: Of course [laughs] you always run into those people who have no acceptance level for different things, but I’m fine where they are – I kind of like being the black sheep among the pack, I don’t mind being that. It’s always been like that – I learn how to enjoy that sensation.

MO: There’s been a lot of anti-establishment acts from black metal bands in Scandinavia in the past, what makes you choose it?

LA: Just being natural path for me to walk down, I’ve been doing this for more than half of my life, you know, it’s just for me, it’s just normal way of living I don’t know any other way of living. Once you get into this extreme kind of music it takes certain types of people to really keep going as long as I have.

MO: Well, how about the music – it’s been a while since your last release. Are you guys working on new songs at the moment?

LA: Next year, at the moment we’ve been too busy touring and then in between touring it’s been pre-production for the next couple of tours. At the moment I’ve been working on three tours at the same time that are coming up before this year is over, so I haven’t really had time to work on the new stuff during the last couple of months and I curse myself ever morning when I wake up it’s like `fuck I really should have time to do this’. Why I’m doing this is to write the music but somebody has to take care of everything around the band too and I’m on old feet basically.

MO: It sounds like a lot of work and dedication man?

LA: That’s, I guess, what kept us going this long, it’s always just been one focus crossing a path forward and a lot of dedication and hard work, as it is to say: there’s now way around success but hard work and dedication.

MO: The harder you work, the luckier you get, right?

LA: Not always but sometimes [laughs] if you don’t work hard and are fully dedicated to what you’re doing you will obviously not achieve it. One in a million will have that super luck that you will manage to just rise up, well maybe not in this kind of music, you know, but in pop culture – you will have that one-time hit. In all music you need to be dedicated and hard working.

MO: It’s funny you mention that, there’s no real popular version of black metal but there are bands these days – I think Behemoth is one of them – who crossed from raw black metal into a more widely appealing style, do you agree with that?

LA: I give my full support to Nergal and the band, I am good friends with them and I know they are fully focused on what they are doing and it’s all for real. I mean, other than that it’s up to every band, every band is unique in its own way, it’s up to each to decide their own path. That’s what we’ve always been doing, we’re not following any sort of set rules for what we are doing, we are just fucking full force giving it all at all times wherever it leads us, it leads us. Of course there are some bounds we would never cross, we are not that open to any compromise in doing things and talking to other people. Compromises are good but otherwise it’s got to be our way or the highway.

MO: So there’s no give from the band?

LA: As I said, it’s hard to be an asshole, you must always be open to some sort of compromise, that’s part of life, but still, of course, you need to have a strong will with what you’re all about – if you’re selling your soul completely then you’ve lost everything, people can criticise us, say we sold out or whatever, but if they really knew the game behind everything they would fucking applaud us.

Everybody who works with us, business partners and stuff, they know that we’re the one few band you don’t try to change, we’ll never compromise and that’s what matters. That’s the direction I get from people I work with, that’s why they like us we’re all so fucking focused on what we’re doing and we’re not going to give in to stupid things.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEVodXzNmPM&version=3&hl=en_US]

MO: Have there been any compromises you’ve made that you’ve regretted?

LA: Well, there’s always things that you, you know, have to do in heat of the moment and then realise maybe afterwards that `hm, maybe that wasn’t that good idea’. Sure, but all I can do is to make sure it doesn’t happen again and I can’t dwell in things like that, just got to move on now, be focused on what I’m doing at the moment. That’s life, there’s always being around a band when you did this, whatever. There’s always things when you look back – everything isn’t always efficient but at the time it felt right. You can’t fucking dwell on that, then you will never get anywhere in life you will just stagnate and die.

MO: Well, going back to the tour in Australia, is it difficult to come this far overseas, what brings you this far still?

LA: We’re always open to play wherever we’re invited as long as it’s financially possible. Of course long distance travel on flights and stuff is quite boring but I mean that’s part of the game if you want to be a touring band, there’s always some shitty things you have to go through after you reach the goal to be on-stage.

MO: You must have done hours and hours of travel?

LA: I guess you could sum it up in years at this point [laughs].

MO: How do you get through boredom?

LA: If I have long flight coming up I don’t sleep the day before, I make sure I sleep on the flight and hopefully I sleep through it all – I get the flight fucking blinders and, you know, just try to sleep through the flight: try to kill as many hours as possible, that’s my trick, you know?

MO: What about modern black metal bands like Deathspell Omega and Abigail Williams, do you like the different styles?

LA: In a way, of course, it’s good to see it’s developing, new influence coming into the scene. But, you know, I’m old-school, I prefer it the way it’s always been from my time. I still listen to stuff I listened to in the mid 80s and early 90s, with everything from Judas Priest to 90’s black metal.

MO: Do you think the style for the next album will change much, any surprises or tricks you’re hoping to try out?

LA: One thing I’ve been working on a little bit and going to continue to work with is to blend in a little bit more rhythmic parts. I guess I show a little bit of that on the last track, I want to bring that both on guitars and on drums, more rhythmic stuff that’s what we’re talking about.

Always, it’s like you know don’t really think about before it before you make it in the studio. Until then things can change so much, I never really get picture of what I’m writing and creating until it’s all completed and all possibilities are in place. I have an idea but it’s hard to say – I’ve always been like that.

MO: Have you written any songs in particular that you don’t think you can top?

LA: No. I always set up new goals, every time I go into the studio I realise `fuck I should have done that, that’s bit different – well I’ll do it next time’. I always have new ideas that I want to improve when I start writing again, if I don’t get that thought in my head then it would just be better to quit – I always have new things I want to use. I’m one of those guys, I want to keep going forward. I’m also very strict in keeping the core of the band, I’m really old-school in that way. It’s got to be a certain core that I don’t want to alter too much with our music, I still blend in new things to make it more interesting both as music writer guitarist but also for listener.

MO: Well, we’re running out of time and it’s a pretty cliche question but: What are you going to bring to Australia, what can we expect from you guys?

LA: Direction, I guess, that we have got since we started touring and playing with new line- up. We’re like stronger machine than ever, it’s like bulldozer entering the stage and I get that feeling myself when I’m on stage, we’re so much more intense than before. So much more focused and we’re going to fucking come and blast your face off: just run you over completely, you’re going to feel like you’ve been in a boxing game the next morning. It’s going to be a blast to play Australia and play some more stages than last time.

Dark Funeral will be touring Australia this November. Tickets on sale now!

Click here to purchase your tickets now. VIP Meet and Greet Packages are now available!