Interview By: Bastard Son Of God
First off i wanted to thank both of you for taking the time to do this interview.I truly appreciate it.
1.I guess i would like to start off by asking you when or how you both became involved with music.Was there a certain album or musical piece that just grabbed you and made you think"I WANT TO DO THIS"?
silenius.
first of all i have to state that i had musical lessons since my childhood. i was playing flute and piano. later when i was a teenager i started to play bass; in that time i already was a big fan of metal music of all kinds and i jammed in a band called shadowvale. but all this was not very serious. i think the breaking point when i really wanted to make music seriously was in the time when the second wave of Norwegian black metal started and this type of music really fascinated me. i that time names like burzum or emperor where not famous at all, but this new black metal scene really captured me. in those days i moved from the countryside to Vienna because of having a job here and in that time i got in contact with other metal fans and young musicians who have the same idealistic goals and where hungry to make music. and so everything started slowly.
protector:
with about 13 i started to learn drums in a public music school, and later played in a stupid school band playing some boring cover songs of non metal bands. my first metal band was called malignom and played some kind of progressive thrash-death metal style. after that i was a bit sick of doing rehearsals all the time and focused more on making music with synthesizers and more on creating songs than on practicing them over and over again. so finally i got to know silenius and we realized that we both where interested in making music in the black metal style, so summoning was born.
2.What was your introduction into metal? Was it something you were interested in from a musicians standpoint?
silenius:
i got in contact with metal music very early; it was on the days of primary school when there where two bands which have been very popular, even to us children, namely abba and kiss. first i was an abba fan but shortly after i was a kiss fanatic and from that point on i was looking for other similar bands like alice cooper, later i was interested in harder stuff like king diamond and so on. in the end of the 80ties i was a fan of death metal which was a big thing in that time and even i still was familiar to older black metal bands like bathory, venom or celtic frost this new type of black metal in the early 90ties just caught all my attention immediately and this was of course the breaking point in my musical life.
protector:
its weird in my case. it was a cousin of mine who is actually organ player in a church who presented me an iron maiden CD as christmas present. from that time one i searched more and more in the metal scene for new bands and following that scene i sooner came over thrash metal, to death metal and finally black metal.
3.What were some of the bands that got you both interested in playing metal?Was there any particular band that inspired the creation of summoning or was black metal always the proper vehicle to express your ideas?
silenius:
during the 80ties i was a natural follower of different types of metal from melodic to thrash, from doom to death. i spent all my money i had for buying lp after lp and so i was inspired by a lot of different types of metal music. just to mention a few bands like candlemass sacrilege, cirith ungol and of course bathory. i think the epic records like hammerheart of twilight of the gods have been a big influence to the musical direction of summoning.
4.I know that both of you are also involved in several other projects,mostly in the darkwave and ambient genres.What is it about electronic music that you like so much and have you always been into it?
silenius:
during the 80ties and untill the midst of the 90ties i was just a pure metal fan and did not like any other types of music beside this genre, but after having experienced all the extremities in this type of music it was getting of course a bit boring in the end of the 90ties just to listen to the same type and so i was searching for more extreme sides of music on the one side, and on the other side i was simply interested in new types of musical expression. and so i found it within the dark ambient power noise or dark folk scene just to mention a few of those different musical styles.
protector:
i got to know dark electronic band such as leatherstrip at the same time when i got to know black metal; and at the same time i started to make music in that direction. before i did not like anything electronic at all, and considered anything done with synthesizer as pop music; only during the time i understood that its not that matter what instrument a person uses, its the matter what that person does with the instrument.
5.With so many other projects,are you always feeling the need to create?Does this help or hurt summoning in any way?Do you ever run out of ideas for material?
protector:
the different projects are really important for us to keep our creativity and to prevent summoning to get a boring routine. it keeps your minds flexible and each time after finishing one project and starting the next one i have this feeling of starting something really new, not continuing an old way over and over again. its also essential because this is the only way to full fill all our musical desires and not to abuse summoning for any ideas we have that would not suit to the atmosphere of summoning. its also the best way not to split up if each of the members has it own project where he can do whatever he wants, so no need for band quarrels.
6.Lets talk about the bands development for a second.There aren't many bands if any at all that sound the way you guys do.Obviously the first release LUGBERZ is not considered your debut album,but rather a collection of demo material.MINUS MORGUL saw the beginnings of what would be considered "The Summoning Sound".Was the progression known to you since the bands inception or does your love of ambient and darkwave find it's way into summoning?
protector:
there was nor real plan how summoning should sound after the debut. the main thing that changed the sound was the departure of our drummer and the use of our keyboard drums as replacement. i still remember the time when we heard those might drums coming out of the bass speakers, instead of those hectic metal beats that our former drummer created and i still remember this power we felt, and this feeling that something totally new has been born. anything else came automatically; but it would not have come with the lineup we had on the debut.
7.Would you say the more "Raw" sound of your earliest works projected what you had intended?Was the progression in sound do to having better resources or in your mind a better expression of the tales within your lyrics?
silenius:
i think the release of the first cd lugburz was the result of our lets say teenager time of starting music. i think its the same thing like many other bands started. that means there was not a big plan behind everything, we just could not do it better in that times, and more or less lugburz was an outburst of teenage musical aggression. it is natural that the more we get skilled on our instruments and the more we get skilled in the way of composing the more we had a plan of how the result should sound in the end, but of course this progress took many years and does not come from one day to another.
8.The band was pretty consistent in releasing albums in the '90's but it was almost 6 years between"LET MORTAL HERO'S SING YOUR FAME" and "OATHBOUND".What was the reasoning behind this long break?
protector:
at the beginning i was a student with far more time than now, so its natural that the albums occurred in faster intervals. later i dealt with programming, which is now my job, and other essential things that took away the time i needed for making music. i also had huge problems with my darkwave project "die verbannten kinder evas" and finding female singers for it, what delayed the complete music for 2 years. also silenius got problems and so the time passed. we did not think for a second about ending summoning, we just knew that it was a hard time that will pass and that new albums will follow.
9.I guess for my own personnel interest,"LET MORTAL HEROS SING YOUR FAME" is the only record to not have mountains and such on the cover.Which dragon from tolikien lore is depicted on the cover?
silenius:
originally the cover painting was not related to tolkiens world, but was the cover of a book of michael moorcock and his eldric saga, but i liked this cover a lot and so napalm records arranged a deal between the painter to use it for the summoning cover. it could be glaurung or any other dragon in tolkiens universe. that is not so important for us; in general the cover layout always shall stimulate the listener to get deep into tolkiens world and has its own personal mind adventures.
10.A lot of your later material is very orchestra like,specifically on stronghold(in my opinion).How big of an influence does classical music play in summoning?Do you listen to that type of music in your own time?
protector:
its funny, because of us stronghold is the most rock styled of all because of the reduction of polyphonic structures. anyway for me the music of summoning has just some similarities to classical music on the surface but not on the inside. the keyboard sounds we use are samples of real orchestral instruments, but that's does not make our music classical for us. classical music is not done in that repetitive riff style as we do, and classical music is also not done is that strophe refrain way. there are really far more differences between summoning and classical music than similarities, and whenever you play the music of summoning to any conservative classical music fan you will surely just get elitist snobbish comments about our music;-)
11.Now getting into the concepts of the band.You used PK from abigor to write the lyrics for DOL GULDUR.What was the reasoning behind this?Who usually writes the lyrics for summoning?
silenius:
i can not remember for which reason pk was writing lyrics for us for dol guldur, but in the end it turned out that most of the lyrics he wrote also where taken directly from the tolkien poems and so this was no big deal. usually not one of us writes lyrics on our own at all; all of the lyrics we used are taken from tolkien poems or other authors which we consider to fit to the tolkien universe.
12. In the beginning you had another member involved in the band.Why is he no longer involved and do you feel that things run smoother as a duo?
protector:
definitely! the less members in a band the more smooth the bands cooperation is. but apart from that we our ex drummer was simply a handicap for our band and we never regretted his departure:-)
13. STRONGHOLD was the first album to be almost entirely not about tolikien related subjects.Why is that?I know that it is one long, giant story.Care to share what it is about?
silenius:
after we have taken so many lyrics from the tolkien universe it was obvious that sooner or later we run out of lyrical inspiration from tolkiens books and so we started to use lyrics from unknown english authors and other famous fantasy authors like michael moorcock to intertwine their poems to the summoning universe to have more variety and we definitely will continue to do this that way; but it is not true that stronghold is a pure concept album. neither like any other album of us.
14.How does composition go about within the band?Do you actually get together and rehearse before recording or while writing an album?Is it a total "band effort"?
protector:
no there is nothing like a classical rehearsal, the main melodies come from the keyboards and the guitars and vocals are sung at the very end. our musical meetings are more like composers meetings, where we come and play a melody in order to store in on the hard drive. the only thing thats more close to a classical "rock jam" is my improvisation over the melodies silenius plays. normally he comes with a finished idea, records it so that i later play something suiting spontaneous over it. once this is done we start with the next song, but due to our use of music technique there is no need to play the old songs over and over again.
15.What determines who sings what parts of the song?Is it determined by whoever wrote the lyrics?
protector:
as all the lyrics are taken from poets like tolkien, this can not be a criterion for us. in most cases we already know who will sing the finished song before we have chose which lyrics to use. the normal case is that we always have different favorite songs and just take the ones we like best. of course there are sometimes songs that we both like most, but in this case we just decide who did most for that song. it was never a problem at all to get such decisions.
16.Richard i know that you are a drummer by trade?Why use sampled drums?Is it just part of the sound(which i think is great by the way).Would summoning not sound as epic with real drums?What would you say is your best instrument?
protector:
i think real drums are best to create real authentic rock music, but for my taste not so good to make rather unreal sounding epic music. i even dont use the typical rock drum sounds to much. instead of the rock crash cymbals i use those orchestral cymbals played with two arms, instead of hi hats i use rather handcuff sounds. i also dont care about the limitation of the 2 hands and 2 feet a human drummer has; this means if there is a tom tom roll the cymbals and handcuffs keep on playing what would not be possible with a rock drum set. i rather think about a percussion group when i make the summoning rhythms, but never about a single drummer doing all those drum lines at the same time. i like the combination of military drums, kettle drums, hand cuffs, but also those tom toms and bass drums, but i always feel each of those drums a single drum lines added together to a kind of drum orchestra instead of having that single man feeling.
17.Silenius,you sing the song MIRDAUTAS VRAS,which is written in the black tongue of mordor. How difficult was it to get the phrasing right?Did you also write the lyrics.What did you use for reference?
silenius:
the lyrics of mirdautas vras have been written by stefan huber from the band greifenstein exclusive for this summoning song. in the beginning it was very difficult for me to get the lyrics into a rhythmic form of singing. i tried different types of vocal styles from whispering to grunting and screaming. in the end i decided not to make to much experiments but to sing the vocals straight ahead just with a little word stretching up and then.
18.Let's talk tolkien for second.I know his writings are a big part of what summoning is,probably more then any other band.When did both of you get into his works?
silenius:
although i was a big fan of fantasy literature since my time as i was a teenager i get into the world of tolkien a bit late. i think the reason was because i still knew the content of the book from a friend who tried to praise the book. but as he told me the whole story i was not interested in it anymore but later i watched the tolkien cartoon which i liked a lot; and so i gave it a try to start to read the book the lord of the rings and from this time on i was captured by this unbelievable detailed fantasy creation and so i read everything from and about tolkien during the next years.
19. What is your favorite books by him? Do you still read fantasy novels? What do you think of writers like r.a. salvatore?
silenius:
maybe i like silmarillion the most because of its very unique style of shaping a whole world from the beginning to the end but in general the works of tolkien should be seen as a union. and so it is not fair to pick out this or that story out and put it over the rest. of course i know many books of salvatore but in contrary to tolkien this is of course just fast food.
20. Is tolikiens family aware of you guys? What do they think of the band?
silenius:
i dont know if they are aware of us, but honestly i dont think so.
21.Could you envision a summoning album done entirely based on something else?
silenius:
there was a time when we thought to make a different concept; for example we had the idea to make a musical translation of the nibelungenlied but we gave up this idea and from this point on we never talked again about changing the concept. summoning is connected with tokleien; thats the point.
22.What in your minds is the best album you have done..the one which is the perfect representation of your vision. Do you each have a favorite album?
protector:
i know i am boring if i say that, but its always the last one for me;-)
but i think this is simply obvious, because as i am able to realize any idea i have in my head, the newest album is naturally most close to my musical taste and therefore my favorite ones that does not mean of course that all people in the world have to consider always the newer as the best one, nor that each album is better than the last, its just more up to date to my musical preferences. with oath bound i realized that this rhythmical guitar style i started with stronghold already bored me, and i was longing for a more opened floating style again, thats why i change the guitars on oathbound, and thats why i like the guitars on oathbound more than any other guitars of summoning. this is just one of many example how i adapt the albums each time to my preferences.
23.I have to ask about the logo. It is very unique and instantly recognizable. But being as that summoning isn't a satanic band,why the pentagram?Is it because of the style of music in which the band started,or does it hold a more personal meaning?
protector:
actually non of us ever followed any satanic believes, but we can not deny that our roots are black metal and we also will not pretend anything else. on our demos we just wanted to shock and actually full fill any black metal klische that was possible; including satanic blasphemous lyrics etc. in this time we wanted to have a logo that showed clearly what kind of music summoning stands for, and now that our music changed that concept totally we still think that summoning has black metal elements inside (vocal and guitar sound) and that we would not sound as we do now without those influences. apart from that we dont like the idea of changing the logo. a logo is a symbol for a band and shall cause strong associations between the shape and the music. changing it would be contra productive.
24.How do both of you feel about black metal today?Any bands that you really enjoy or have you completely separated yourselves altogether?Would you even still call summoning a "black metal band"?
silenius:
to be honest i have separated from the nowadays black metal scene and metal scene in general, simply because my musical taste changed of the years. and after having been a pure metal follower from the early 80ties to the mids of the 90ties it is natural to be open minded against other musical types when you get older. so i dont know most of the bands nowadays. but in contrary i still like to read metal magazines and stories and interviews with bands i am not familiar with. that is a kind of strange passion of mine.
25. Ok last question,and i'm sure you knew this was coming,Is there ever going to be a new summoning album?Are you still bound to napalm records.When if there is going to be an album can we expect it?
protector:
yes there is already a lot of work done for summoning. but its rather done by me than by silenius because he was busy with kreuweg ost all the time. so i made a lot of solo summoning songs, waiting for silenius to complete them. but as i did quite a lot of those fragments i dont think he will be able to complete all of them, so maybe after dol guldur there will be again some pure protector songs. one result of tha6t is that after dol guldur there will be again this typical medieval sounding melodies that we did not do since that album.
26.Well i want to thank the both of you for this opportunity.Any final words and or thoughts for our readers?
protector:
everything important already said
thanks for the interview.
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