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CELTIC
FROST – The First Rays Of A New Rising Sun
By Paul Schwarz
You might be wondering whether the title of this story was misprinted;
whether "Apollyon Sun" should have headed this page. After
all, former Celtic Frost mainman Thomas Gabriel Fischer (Warrior
while in Celtic Frost, and Warrior to me) has long maintained that
his work in Apollyon Sun (his post-Frost band) banished the possibility
of a Celtic Frost reunion, and thus an interview. If this is your
thinking then let me bring you up to speed. Not only did the key
original Frost members meet in New York last year and discuss the
possibilities of a reunion, but reunion rumours were further fuelled
by the delaying of Apollyon Sun's first full-length, supposed to
have been out in September, and more recently by the impetus behind
this interview: the reissuing of Celtic Frost's back catalogue onto
CD, done properly for the first time ever.
For a man who once fronted one of the most daring, innovative and
extravagant metal bands ever to grace this planet, Thomas Gabriel
Warrior (as he will be from now on be referred to) comes across
as surprisingly down to earth and unpretentious. Before I asked
the question near incinerating my mouth as to whether a reunion
would occur, we discussed the batch of now properly packaged and
mastered metal classics that made my dream of talking to such a
key figure in metal's development a reality.
"They were entirely designed by the ex-members of the band,"
begins Frost's long-time mouthpiece. "The proposal was handed
to Noise about a year ago and they did provide one hundred percent
co-operation, but the reissues are designed by the band and reflect
exactly what the band wanted for the very first time. They're really
the testament of the band's work. Every photo, every letter on these
albums has been approved and done by the band. We are happy with
these reissues and we're not gonna do any more."
This includes permanently leaving out the band's Cold Lake faux
pas from the reissuing process...
"Of course!" Tom exclaims, laughing at the prospect. "The
record company agreed with not reissuing Cold Lake, but they have
the rights to reissue it on their own. They will not receive any
co-operation from us. I am not denying that album; I had to stand
behind it and I cannot say I want it to fade into obscurity because
people know about it and it was there, but that doesn't change the
fact that it's a piece of shit. There is absolutely no quality.
It is a Frost album -- it is just not an essential Frost album.
We wanted to reissue the essential Frost albums, the ones that are
important to the band's history. We don't really give a shit what
happens to Cold Lake."
OK, enough stalling -- what is Frost's reunion situation and thus
Apollyon Sun's position at present?
"Well, the Apollyon Sun album, Sub, is gonna come out in late
February. It is probably the closest I've ever done to ...Pandemonium
and I am very proud of it. It is very diverse, very dark, very heavy
but extremely experimental as well as having very wide-ranging material
on it."
Should we despair? If Apollyon Sun are on track does this now dispel
the possibility of a Frost reunion? Apparently not.
"I am still very good friends with the other members of Frost.
We communicate on a weekly basis and of course we often talk about
the possibility of playing music together. We met last year in New
York and actually decided to pursue the idea of an album together
again. We're gonna do it as a side project. We don't know when,
but it will probably happen within one or two years."
In the past Tom was the one to banish the idea of a Frost reunion.
So what changed his mind?
"Yes, I was always the one to disagree with the numerous reformation
proposals," agrees Warrior. "What changed my mind was
just the basis of the friendship we share. If I had wanted to do
it for money I could have done it much earlier, because we got such
amazing offers. But it had to feel right on a human basis. If Celtic
Frost do something in 2000 or 2001 it has to be contemporary and
adventurous like our old work was, and you cannot base that on money.
You have to base that on band chemistry."
But which of Frost's various line-ups had the chemistry Tom was
looking for?
"The core line-up of Into the Pandemonium [Martin Eric Ain
and Reed St. Mark in addition to Warrior]. Also possibly Curt Victor
Bryant [guitar on Vanity/Nemesis] because he was a key person in
Frost's history too. We'd also be very open to working with guests
and former members."
Celtic Frost left an unfinished album, Under Apollyon's Sun, partially
recorded in demo format when they split in 1992. Would the reunited
Frost finally bring this attempted successor to Into the Pandemonium
into fully recorded existence?
"No," Tom begins. "That album was written in 1991-92
and it would be very dated now. We would probably take elements
and modernise them but pretty much design a new album that is contemporary
in its origins." However, though Under Apollyon's Sun will
never, it seems, appear as a Celtic Frost album, its music has not
been entirely forsaken. "Apollyon Sun's birth was pretty much
on the basis of that unreleased material and Sub is, in parts, directly
derived from that album. We have developed that material massively,
but you will still hear maybe a fourth or a third of it on Sub.
"Apollyon Sun has pretty much arisen out of the ideas that
we worked into ...Pandemonium. Any future project that we were gonna
attempt would have this spirit in it -- looking for new horizons,
trying to break through barriers and so on."
What is the greatest possibility that has been opened up since Frost
split which you want to make music with?
"Nowadays? The advent of the possibility to use computers in
music. I am saying this very carefully because I don't want you
to have the impression that I am just going for any computer music.
I think it is a very delicate thing, combining this warm form of
music called hard rock with computers. It is difficult to do this
the right way. I personally don't like industrial metal because
I think it is done too cold and has no groove. But I think the advances
that have been made on a technical level allow you to do it the
right way. If you do pay attention to it and study it, you can mix
the two genres without losing the true heaviness and the true nature
of the hard music. You can only gain by the possibilities that you
are able to exploit. I think that has been the most significant
advance. I think ninety percent of the scene doesn't exploit that
yet or doesn't exploit it the right way, and I don't know if we
do but we're trying to get there with Sub. We're learning and we
hope we're gonna perfect that in the next few releases."
This is what Tom seems to also have planned for Frost if the reunion
comes to fruition. In any case, he won't be going back to his early
albums as some reunited bands do.
"We did that stuff already. I am in touch with my past and
I deal with it, but I basically look to the future. When I've done
something, I've done it and what I wanna do is learn from, apply
that the next time and try to do something new and fresh. I'm not
dead yet; I still think I can create. I am proud of what Frost has
done, and I would never deny it: the good and the bad. But I gain
so much adrenaline from new work. That is exciting enough."
Tom's views on bands who feel they can preserve Celtic Frost by
rehashing their back catalogue are not favourable either.
"You cannot just copy Celtic Frost. That's exactly the opposite
of Celtic Frost. Celtic Frost was about innovation, about being
original, and a lot of those so-called Celtic Frost derivative bands,
that doesn't apply to them."
Though the prospect of new Frost album is appetising to say the
least, the chance of live exposure is perhaps the most exciting
prospect about a successful reunion.
"Half the fun was to play live," Tom reminisces, "and
if we do an album we would take it on the road. We'll certainly
promote the album in live form."
What kind of set list would you tour?
"It would incorporate everything. The last Celtic Frost tour,
our set list was something like 26 songs. With Celtic Frost you
can make quite a long set without it getting boring because you
can make it so radically different from one quarter hour to the
next that it always stays interesting."
With all this talk of the future, what, ultimately, are Tom's feelings
about Celtic Frost's past?
"I am very proud and I feel blessed that I was in a band like
Frost. There were so many bands around, and which bands are still
being remembered? We are one of the few, even though we haven't
been together in six and a half years. It's amazing. We didn't know
that would happen."
Tom's humility, which I referred to earlier, shines through as I
give him the floor to deliver the last word.
"I just feel very grateful that fans were open enough to follow
an excessive band like Celtic Frost, because we never made it really
easy for the fans to understand us and we still had an incredible
fan-base. I'd just like to say that we were aware of that and that
we'd like the fans to know that we were aware of that -- that they
gave us this chance."
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