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BACK
 The
Return…of Bathory
By Adam Wasylyk
NET-only
It’s
been a lengthy wait for Bathory’s brand-new studio album—about
six years, in fact, not including the reworked Blood on Ice opus.
Destroyer of Worlds is a mix of sounds and styles from the past
10 years (give or take), from epic-sounding atmospherics to thrash-tinged
moments. Not to discount the talents of Quorthon, but my apprehension
towards a new studio album in 2001 was considerable before receiving
a copy for perusal. A few spins reveal an underlying spirit to some
of these tracks, something that was much more commonplace in Bathory’s
early-to-middle era. Of particular interest are the tracks reminiscent
of Bathory’s Viking/epic days. The triad of songs that begin
the album, "Lake of Fire," "Ode" and the title
track represent the more inspired and atmospheric works of recent
years, as does the album closer "Day of Wrath." The aggressive
tempos and chugging riffs in "109" and "Death From
Above" respectively will remind those of the Requiem/Octagon
years, as will other moments scattered throughout the latter half
of the record. Don’t expect a monumental effort from the newest
Bathory release, but do expect to find some quality herein.
A lengthy chat with Quorthon took place in June of 2001, about a
month and a half before I had the chance to hear the record for
myself. So many specific questions about the album had to be omitted
for obvious reasons. During what turned out to be a more retrospective
chat than anything else, I found Quorthon to be his usual self—soft
spoken, polite and articulate. After a discussion of hockey, centering
around the Swedish player Mats Sundin of the Toronto Maple Leafs,
our interview began.
So what song did you record today? Has it been titled?
"Well, the chorus goes ‘Black death, pestilence’
so we haven’t quite decided yet," he begins. "It’s
like when we recorded Requiem, we actually printed the album cover
out before we were 100% sure on the titles of the tracks. So we
haven’t entirely decided on the exact title as of yet."
Needless to say, Bathory fans are wondering what the new material
will sound like—whether it’ll be a mix of styles covered
throughout the career of Bathory or an extension of the last Bathory
studio album, Octagon. Perhaps you could describe the aura of Destroyer
of Worlds as you’re writing and recording the new material.
"It’ll contain one piece of each sound and style we’ve
gone through. Eighteen years down the line, you’re bound to
have learned something about the studio shit. But each time I go
down to the studio these days there’s all of these technological
revolutions since the last time I was there. Now when we’re
recording, everything is basically done through a computer, and
I can’t even fucking surf [the Internet]! Not that I’m
non-technical, but all of this computer language…it’s
not my thing. It’s different than the early ’80s, when
you’d stand in your garage with a small 20-watt Marshall and
you’d record, making sure your neighbour’s lawnmower wouldn’t
end up on tape. Today it’s very clean; it’s very technical.
Being down in the studio today is different, but hopefully it’ll
turn out like the old Bathory but with a new sound. I’m reluctant
to say it’ll be more intelligent as well, because that would
be like saying we were stupid in the old days. But back then we
would record albums and wouldn’t care if a solo was played
wrong, or my voice would break up. These days CDs are more expensive,
so you want a quality piece to release. Not like ‘Ah, it’s
Bathory, just put it out. We don’t care much about production
or anything.’
"Destroyer of Worlds sounds basically like the lost compilation
album. One track sounds like it came off Hammerheart, another sounds
like it was recorded during the Twilight… session. A couple
of songs will remind you of The Return… So you have everything.
It’s difficult to please all of your fans, but hopefully they
will have at least half of the record pleasing them."
Discussing his vocals for a brief moment, Quorthon commented, "Actually,
I never rehearse my vocals. We don’t have a rehearsal space,
so we just go to the studio and try it out. About 95% of all of
the Bathory songs, at least in the last 10 years, goes in B [as
in B note? – Adam]. I’ve never been able to figure out
if that’s too low or too high for me, so I just scream and
wait until blood fills in my mouth and I get a headache. I would
just stand there and scream."
As some of the lyrics deal with war and death (although others deal
with much different topics) are there any underlying concepts or
themes that tie the tracks together on Destroyer of Worlds? Or does
each track exist on its own?
"No, I wouldn’t say there’s a particular theme. The
whole idea behind the title Destroyer of Worlds deals with Oppenheimer,
who while standing in the Nevada Desert saw the mushroom cloud from
the first atomic explosion, remembered a quote from a Hindu script:
‘I have become death…I have become a destroyer of worlds.’
The title track is about Enola Gay dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.
And having spent so much time in Berlin, because Black Mark used
to be Berlin-based, although it’s always been a Swedish label,
I could vaguely imagine Berlin in rubble. One track is called ‘Death
From Above’ which is about the air force of Berlin. There’s
another track dedicated to the 109 fighter, so there’s a lot
of air warfare on the new album, but there are no themes to connect
the songs.
"I should write a song about hockey, shouldn’t I?"
Actually, I was just thinking about that!
"I wonder if we would have time to do that?"
Perhaps
it could be a bonus song on the vinyl.
Quorthon chuckles aloud. "Call it ‘End Zone’ or something."
[Incidentally, some time after the interview has taken place I eventually
receive a copy of Destroyer of Worlds. And sure enough, there’s
a song titled "Sudden Death" complete with segmented lyrics
into "periods," with organ, crowd cheering and skates-on-ice
samples throughout the song. An UNRESTRAINED! influence? Hmm…]
The conversation turned to the mystique that Bathory have formed
over the years, which Quorthon points out was more accidental than
anything else. 
"I remember up until ’86/’87, during the time when
I was actually trying out a tonne of bassists and drummers, I found
Sweden to be not such a good place to form a band like Bathory,"
Quorthon reminisces. "First, you have Europe that sets the
standard for what a metal band was supposed to look like, to get
up on stage and get a record deal. So then people would come down
to the rehearsal place and say ‘If I have to play this song
or do what you’re telling me to do, I’ll sweat and won’t
be able to get laid afterwards.’ So we wouldn’t release
any pictures, and for all of the interviews to fanzines would be
my pictures. And that came out of a necessity of contact with our
small fanbase in those days. The whole anonymity and mysteriousness
just came out of it, and we realized that some people were attracted
to the mysteriousness. Then there was all of this talk of a one-man
band. Of course I played 80% of the bass on The Return…, I
played 50% of the bass on Under the Sign…, I played all of
the bass on Hammerheart and Twilight… and stuff like that,
but there’s never been a one-man band situation. But then we
realized that every time people had to make a comment about Bathory
in magazines, they always had to print a picture [of just me]. But
we didn’t do much to dispel the rumour. We’re a project.
We’re two guys having fun in the studio once in awhile. We
don’t feel the pressure of trying to make people believe that
there’s a band behind the Bathory name. So for the mysteriousness,
we just kept our mouths shut. And since then I’ve realized
that people have more problems with my image than I do. People think
I’m living in a bat cave in Sweden, eating babies and drinking
blood.
"That’s one of the more stupid rumours. I’ve heard
some more serious rumours as well. They’re great as long as
there’s a little tongue in cheek in them. And about 50% of
the time, I won’t do anything to kill those rumours."
What other rumours have you heard over the years?
"All kinds of things. I’m going through town dressed as
an SS officer on a Harley Davidson. Hmm…there’s just about
everything." A loud sigh comes from the Swede. "And from
all that, you have fans send you the stupidest things. I’ve
had people send me their kid sister’s decapitated cats. Particularly
during the mid-’80s, the Bathory fans in America—who were
twice as many as our European fans—I would have girls send
me their pictures naked, covered in nothing but pig’s blood.
One girl would send me a plastic bag containing earth. I had to
read her letter to understand why she had sent this. She said ‘I
went to this graveyard under a full moon, I masturbated, and I figured
that this earth would be great for your magical ceremonies.’
You start to wonder, ‘Man. I’m just a hockey-loving, Harley
Davidson-riding, longhaired hard rocker. And that’s all.’"
Fans usually always take an image too seriously.
"One night I was out with this girl, and I was on the subway.
There were these three or four teenage guys dressed up in black
leather coats, black boots, spikes, black leather pants and Bathory
T-shirts. Their faces were as pale as sheets, with long black hair.
They just looked at me and went, ‘UGGH! Quorthon!’ How
do I explain to a girl who doesn’t even know I can play guitar?
At least 80% of my friends don’t even know I can handle a guitar.
Whenever something like that happens, when business creeps into
your private life, that’s when it aches. It’s difficult
to handle. I don’t want any part of that. That’s another
reason why we don’t have photos. I communicate to those who
enjoy my records through the music alone. But they want this guy
dressed up in black leather underwear and spikes and blood all over
the place like some of pictures from the early ’80s or something."
Since we’re on the topic of rumours, why not get comfortable?
I heard that an ex-Bathory drummer now directs music videos, with
recent work including Madonna and Metallica. True?
"That’s Jonas. Yeah, he was the first drummer of Bathory."
I also heard that he’s semi-interested in making a Bathory
video one day.
"Well, he didn’t tell me about making a Bathory video.
I bumped into him some time ago. The one thing he told me was after
he had done some shots one day with Metallica for their video, the
Metallica guys were in the studio playing some Bathory songs and
were asking him for autographs and asking him if he could ask me
for an autograph. I don’t know of any of that is true, but
in order for him to get any more jobs over there he wouldn’t
be saying stuff like that if it weren’t true."
Does he still follow the band?
"I don’t know. We don’t have that much of a contact.
He was into this punk band, or would sing in this punk band many
years ago after Bathory, and they had a couple of very good songs.
I was tossing around the idea of actually producing them, but then
he started to make commercial videos and music videos."
And how does Quorthon look back at his self-titled project? Will
future releases under the Quorthon name be realized?
"After Twilight… I wanted to take a one-year sabbatical
from music and get on my Harley and ride around Europe or the States.
The record label sorta freaked out and said ‘Hey, you guys
stay active or you’re going to find out that there’s more
things to life than being locked up in the studio.’ They told
me to take what I needed—a guitar, a bass and a drum machine—to
go into the studio for a week and a half and record whatever shit
I wanted, to see if anything turns out worth putting out on a solo
record. That sounded very challenging because having been tied to
a band like Bathory for a decade or so [at the time], all of a sudden
you find yourself wanting to answer the question ‘Who the hell
am I? What do I sound like when writing something that doesn’t
have to fall under the Bathory umbrella either sound or style-wise?’
I grew up listening to the Beatles and Sex Pistols, so I figured
why not go in with my musical roots and go in there and freak out
for a week and a half with no ambitions or expectations? And the
nature of the critic is that if someone did buy that CD and if they
thought it sucked, they wouldn’t write a letter saying so.
When you go see a movie, you don’t write a letter to the director
to say the movie is shit. You just don’t recommend it to a
friend. But if you do see a good movie, you recommend it. For those
who enjoyed the first record, they wrote me and said ‘This
one took me by surprise’ so they are the ones who asked for
a second one. But 95% of the reactions were confused. I was very
happy that I didn’t receive any downright awful criticism like
‘Stop milking the legend’ or ‘Call it quits’
or ‘Produce a real Bathory album.’
"I probably won’t release other material under the Quorthon
name. The second one would never have happened if it hadn’t
been for 3,000 people writing me asking for a second one. And I
emptied my testicles at the time, since it was a double CD with
23 tracks. I sorta made a point—not everybody gets to make
a record. Not everybody gets to make 12 records. Not everybody gets
to make three solo CDs. If you can do it, why not try?"
Placing our attention back on Destroyer of Worlds, when was the
bulk of the new album written and composed? Had ideas for the new
album been gathering for weeks, or months?
"Hmm…that’s a good question," says Quorthon
as he takes a moment to ponder an answer. "Actually I wrote
about a dozen tracks and went into the studio, and I did so not
to hear what the songs would sound like but rather what the studio
sounds like. I then go home and into my basement, where I wrote
a couple of more songs. The sound and atmosphere of the studio is
very important. Sometimes you realize a song is really going to
suck no matter how you record it. When you get a feeling for the
studio, you can see how a style could fit a studio perfectly."
Quorthon takes another moment to compute in his head. "I’ve
written a total of 28 songs since the beginning of the year, in
which I scrapped all of them except for one. And in the past month
the majority of the album was written.
"Bathory is [Black Mark’s] business," begins Quorthon
on the eagerness of Black Mark to release the new album, who prompt
him on a regular basis to have the album out by the end of the summer.
"The label of course would have liked to have released the
album yesterday, and we’re still recording right now. They’ve
been asking for the past four years, ‘Are you guys going to
go down to the studio?’ About 40% of all of the records that
Black Mark sells are Bathory records. So that means for the past
four years they’ve been able to only sell the back catalogue.
There’s a big void out there as far as Bathory records are
concerned, as I heard last week they sold like 12,000 CDs."
We end our chat by discussing Quorthon’s passion for the studio
work, as it’s what Bathory have been about for over 15 years.
"If Bathory had promotional tours, live concerts, groupies
and drugs and whatever I wouldn’t be in this business at all.
All of this work is for the studio. I mean, Bathory is a studio
project and has been so since 1986. The studio is a happy place.
It’s a place where you can walk around in your underwear, eat
peanuts and watch a video. At least 80% of the time when we’re
in the studio we’re laughing and not recording! Some of the
greatest jokes and some of the funniest moments I’ve had in
my life were in the studio. Then at the end of the day we’ll
go, ‘Uh, should we record something today?’ ‘Okay,
let’s record a guitar or something,’ and the rest of the
day we’ll spend laughing."
Discography:
Bathory (1984)
The Return (1985)
Under the Sign of the Black Mark (1987)
Blood Fire Death (1988)
Hammerheart (1990)
Twilight of the Gods (1991)
Jubileum Vol. 1 (1992)
Jubileum Vol. 2 (1993)
Requiem (1994)
Octagon (1995)
Blood on Ice (1996)
Jubileum Vol. 3 (1998)
Katalog (2001)
Destroyer of Worlds (2001)
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