Year Of The Goat

Year Of The Goat
When Pain And Suffering Disappear

25.01.2017

Архив интервью | Русская версия

Satanism seems to be one of the most well-trodden topics in hard rock and metal, however, Sweden’s Year Of The Goat have managed to do something seemingly impossible: to combine the lyrics that would make our local religious fanatics grit their teeth, with very upbeat, almost cheerful music. This approach nearly made my world turn upon my first encounter with the band’s output, so I approached the musicians briefly at Germany’s Rock Hard Festival and agreed upon doing an interview with Mikael Popovic, keyboardist and second singer of Year Of The Goat. The resulting chat was far from brief, as Mikael turned out to be one of the most interesting interview subjects I have ever had. As to the unlikely combination mentioned above, you will have to make your own judgment.

It was great to see you at Rock Hard Festival. You were one of the bands I expected the most. Did you like the festival?


Yeah, absolutely. From the moment we got there, we really felt welcome, everybody was really nice to us, took care of us, helped us find our places. It was very well-organized,  

Did you manage to see any other bands?

Not that many, because we had signing sessions, there was some interview time with Rockpalast TV, dinner, then we had to book a shuttle to the hotel – somehow the time just went on. I think we saw a little bit of the band before us and something from the band that played when we were signing stuff. It’s usually like that, there’s always too much of carrying stuff and having things to do. (laughs) That’s the worst thing about playing festivals. The best thing might be that we get to stay in hotels instead of tents – that’s the difference from when you go to a festival on your own.

I know that you are going to play Wacken Open Air this summer. What are you expecting there?

We have no idea. I’ve heard it oftentimes it’s very muddy.

Have you ever been there before, as a listener maybe?

No. I think it’s the first time for all of us in any capacity. Some of us have wanted to go there a few times, but it’s usually that the tickets go out really fast. Let’s hope there will be no rain, only hard sun-dried mud. (laughs) There will also be another festival for us this summer, a week before Wacken, it’s further down south in Germany, it’s called Rock Im Wald. But we have already started writing for a new album, so we will probably do a lot of that this summer. We usually have some time off in the summer and just do occasional festivals. If we are asked to come, we will come. (laughs)

You are a six-piece band, and I imagine that you might have some problems with scheduling things. How do you deal with that?


Usually we plan touring pretty far ahead, so nobody has any chance to book anything else. Most of the time it’s not a big problem, but it can be a problem that because we’re a six-piece, our costs are usually a little bit higher, meaning that there’s not a lot left after the touring. We have to work to pay the bills, and we cannot tour that much, because we’re six people, and some people need money more than others, I guess. Usually we don’t go out for longer than two weeks, for example, this early spring we did almost two weeks, and it looks like we’ll do another two weeks in the fall this year. It’s usually about four weeks of touring a year and then some weekends and festivals. We always say yes to festivals, because it’s a good way of meeting new people and seeing the world.

You are now a welcome guest at major festivals, which is quite impressive for the band which played it debut gig like 5 years ago…

Actually the first release (“Lucem Fire” EP) came out in 2011, but the idea of the band was formed 10 years ago. It was a side project for everyone back then, and it didn’t get that much attention from the members, because everyone was busy doing other things.

What bands did the Year Of The Goat members play before? You said it was a side project, so there should have been some main projects…

Yeah, there were some main projects. The drummer (Fredrik Hellerstrom) and the guitar player (Don Palmroos) had a black metal band called Misericordia, and Thomas (Sabbathi, vocals, guitar) was in Griftegard and some other band called Bokor. Everybody was pretty much involved in other things, but Year Of The Goat started growing on its own, and after the first release it sort of exploded compared to other things.

Are you satisfied with what Year Of The Goat have achieved so far?

It could move along faster, I guess. (laughs) Maybe sometimes it’s kind of hard to reach a new audience, but we’re slowly but surely getting there. It would be nice to have a bigger breakthrough, because that would mean we could do more shows, afford to go on tours more and everything. Everything is connected somehow: the more people listen to your stuff, the better shows you get, everything goes together. I think that’s maybe the main problem with music – it takes a while before you can pay the bills with it.

Is your label, Napalm Records, helping you a lot or just releasing your music?

We haven’t been with them for a long time, we’ve only done one album for them (“The Unspeakable”, 2015). It’s a record label, what can you expect? (laughs) Yeah, they have ideas, and we have rather good communication, and they help us out with tour support. It’s good that they’re staying far away enough, they don’t get involved with the creative part, they leave it to us completely. We send stuff to them, and they just go, “Yeah, that’s great!” It’s the way it should be, I guess, from a musician’s point of view.

As long as we’re talking about music now, let’s discuss your most recent record, “The Unspeakable”. To me, this album is a huge step forward comparing to the previous one (“Angels’ Necropolis”, 2012). But could you personally kind of introduce this album to the people who haven’t heard it?

We feel very much like you. We feel like it’s a big step forward for us sound-wise and also song-wise, lyrically and creatively. We had a lot of… I shouldn’t say “fun”, “rewarding” is the word; the work on the album was rewarding. We could really indulge in our creativity and enjoy making music together.

Speaking about the album, the first thing you see when you look at it is the piece of artwork made by a couple of Russian artists, they’re called Rotten Fantom (Elena and Vladimir Snegotsky – ed.). We had seen some of their work, and when we were thinking about the concept and starting to get the songs together, we contacted them, told them about the album and what it was going to be like, and also referred to an artwork they had done, saying that we really liked what they had done and would like to have something in the same vein. They took all the information and made the album cover that we love.

Then it comes to the music. For us, I think, the music has some melancholy in it, and it kind of shifts from lighter and sweeter melodies to rougher and maybe heavier guitar riffing. We’re really into the music from the 60s and 70s, and I think that shines through a bit. Music from later on, like New Wave of British Heavy Metal, touched some of us too, way back then (laughs), and I think that shines through as well. In addition, we all listen to some progressive stuff, older stuff as well, Genesis is a household name with us, the early stuff with Peter Gabriel. I think some progressiveness shines through, too. It’s all kind of covered in a darker melancholic veil. That’s what the music sounds like, at least to me. We did an interview with a Norwegian magazine, and the interviewer thought that we had many traits from Scandinavian folk music. I don’t really think so, but he’s Norwegian, he should know. (laughs)

But you’re also from Scandinavia…

Yeah, I should know, too. (laughs) But my fathers came here from the Balkans, so I also have a bit of that melancholic folk music in me as well. I think we all have – from different veins. And it all comes together and goes through like a gold filter and turns into what it is. It’s interesting –I wrote a song for the album and I felt about my first sketches, “Well, maybe it doesn’t really sound like a Year Of The Goat song”. Then we worked a little bit on it, and now it is a Year Of The Goat song. When everybody puts their dirty fingers on it, it just comes out. Maybe we should try to take something completely different and see if we can “goatify” it. Maybe we will do it, we were thinking about doing some cover tunes just for fun this summer. Let’s see if this idea comes through.

Another thing which, in my humble opinion, distinguishes your band from many others occult acts is the atmosphere. You combine gloomy lyrics with rocky and catchy music. And the melodies are sometimes almost cheerful. Was it planned to sound like this from the beginning, or do you just play what comes to your mind?

Thomas, the singer, had a very clear vision, an idea, he really wanted to go into that melodic direction. Also there is some black metal in all of us, I guess, just enough to give the dark gloomy component to our lyrics. It can be a sense of mixed emotions, not really as if a person is smiling with their mouth, but not with their eyes, cause that looks really scary, but maybe more like there is some sort of beauty in evil. Maybe it’s evil that is beauty, and what is considered good is actually ugly. One only has to read the Old Testament to realize how ugly the so called “good” can be.

That was actually my first impression from your music – I thought it was written by a person who is involved in these dark matters, but these dark matters don’t seem so evil to this person. It’s like his everyday life. All this cheerful stuff seems to be in the right place.

I don’t wanna diss any black metal bands - some of my friends are playing in black metal bands, they are really good and are making really good stuff. Maybe some bands devote themselves more to the Biblical picture of evil, like in the movie “The Exorcist”, where Linda Blair is vomiting, and all this disgusting stuff. That’s more like the Christian view of everything that isn’t Christian. But there is lots of beauty outside the Christian world. Just every day you wake up, and the sun is shining, and the stars at night are beautiful, and there is nothing that is saying that it has anything to do with any supernatural forces. In our world, everything is beautiful, in a way, in its own way. And in a way, everything is pointless, because in the big picture, we are born, and we die, and there have been billions of years when we didn’t exist. There’s just a blink of an eye when we do exist, and then there will probably be billions of years when we don’t exist. Just the thought of it makes every life just a blink of an eye that you could miss, so it could be pointless in the big picture, but to the one living this life it’s pretty fucking amazing, isn’t it?

That sounds right, and it’s a pity that many people miss the point. Nowadays in Russia we have many problems with religious fanatics, and some metal shows have been cancelled because of these freaks. Year Of The Goat’s lyrics may sound provocative to such fanatics, too. Have you had any problems with religious people anywhere?

There was some guy on Facebook who wanted to save us somehow (everybody laughs), but that’s about it. It was after the first album, because it was a dedication to Lucifer, the bringer of light, not the biblical idea of Satan, who’s vomiting maggots and stuff like that. (laughs) More like the most beautiful of angels, who opposes ridiculousness. The funny thing is that I was approached by Jehovah’s Witnesses just yesterday in the street, and they asked me, “What do you think will happen after this life” or something like that. “Well, everything will go on as usual, it’s just that I will not be there”, that was my answer. “Yeah, but do you think that pain and suffering in the world will ever disappear?” “Oh absolutely! When the sun expands and burns the Earth and nothing is left of the humans here, all the pain and suffering will definitely be gone”.  

(laughs) And how did they react?

“Oh, it sounds like you’re really into this, and you have an understanding of this…” Then they tried to go somewhere with a quote from the Bible and everything, and I said, “I don’t really believe in these texts, because nobody has ever been able to prove that it’s verifiably accurate”. Then I said, “Life is beautiful”. I was out with my son, and we were gonna blow bubbles of salt water, we were planning to have a real good time - and they started talking about pain and suffering of life. I asked them, “Isn’t it really hard to go around every day thinking about pain and suffering and fearing what will happen when you die? Isn’t that taking away a lot of time from what is actually important for you – your life right here and now? Enjoy it as much as possible!” “Well, we shouldn’t argue – and they tried something about evolution. (laughs) “Excuse me, but we gotta go blow bubbles”. As the band, we haven’t really had any problems with anything. Maybe we have played in less secularized countries, I guess. Maybe we will have problems if these people start reading our lyrics. (everybody laughs) Right now they probably don’t even have an idea that we exist.

Then you should come to Russia!

We would love to, I can tell you that much. And our last album is not really in that department. It’s more of fictional horror of a certain writer…

That’s exactly the question I wanted to raise. I see that you are inspired by the works of Howard Lovecraft – “The Emma” is obviously is about this ship from his story “The Call of Cthulhu”. What are the other sources of your inspiration? Any other concept stories?


Yeah, we are suckers, all of us, for horror movies and horror literature. The Lovecraft stuff really has a sort of weird scare to it, it has more to do with the atmosphere, I guess. Today when we read it, it’s like 100 years old, and some stuff doesn’t really sound that scary to us. We have seen and heard scarier things, but there’s something about the language and the way he uses certain words that gives it a tone. That kind of stuff really speaks to us and inspires us. As to the Lucifer thing, we will probably revisit it on our next album or the album after. There can be different views on approaching it, but it’s always from an interest in things. For me at least, when I look at fundamentalists, it doesn’t matter if they’re Russian or American, Baptists or Moslems, the idea that words written in a book by somebody they cannot really be sure who it is, is supposed to affect their lives, and they’re supposed to exclude others maybe even from the world, because of these texts, is completely absurd. Thinking about how little time everybody has, we should respect each other’s time a little bit more than that, even if we can’t respect our own time. For me, I would consider myself more of a secular Luciferian, but all of us have different degrees of that. Some of us believe in silly things like magic and stuff, but I don’t.

As long as you’ve mentioned writing new album this summer, could you elaborate a bit on that? Do you have any deadlines for writing?

Maybe we should have, because it usually takes quite a while. We tend to drag it out, and everything takes a long time. So maybe we should have a deadline, but we don’t have a deadline. Our idea is that the album should be out some time next year, and hopefully we will have a 7-inch vinyl out in the fall. Other than that, we usually release an EP prior to albums, maybe should try to do it this time as well. Usually we end up with a lot of songs, and we don’t wanna get rid of any of them, so we go like, “Can we make an EP before as well?”, and labels are happy to release such stuff, at least they usually don’t mind. None of that is certain, but we’ve got a tour being booked right now for October, and it will probably again be like Central Europe.

Will you also have any dates in Finland as well?

Not at this point. It’s been a while since we were in Finland. We worked with a booker there, and later on we somehow lost connection. He booked us up for Oulu at the Jalometalli festival, and we’re really missing it. We got an email the other day from a guy who listened to “The Unspeakable” on Spotify about 827 times from July to January 1, and he was in Finland, and he demanded that we should come!

Hopefully you will be able to come, because I would like to see your show again.

And hopefully we can have a longer slot. Festivals usually offer us shorter time slots, because we are early on, but the tour we’re doing in October looks like it will be a package with two other bands in the same vein, so we will probably get a bit more stage time. At least an hour, I think. But when we played in our home town last week, we did 1 hour 20 minutes.

Do you follow what other bands in the occult rock / doom metal scene are doing? Do you check out new releases a lot?

No, not really. Tom does this, he’s usually sending me links, the latest thing was the new Blood Ceremony album. That sounds really interesting, it would be great to be out on the road with them. But I’m not sure yet, and I don’t think our booking agency are sure themselves what bands will be on the package. We hope that there will be bands that have a bigger following than us and are in the same vein, so that we could bring in some people that would hear them, and they could bring in some people that would hear us. That’s the whole idea of package tours, I thinks, apart from getting to know new people and behaving like children for two weeks. E.g. having a guy telling you, “OK, the bus will leave at 1 a.m. If you’re not here, we will leave without you” – but they never do. (everybody laughs)

Have you tried it?

No, not me. I’m usually the guy going, “Where is everybody?” In Belgium, our previous bass player got drunk and ended up in the streets of Brussels and sort of missed our going to the sleeping quarters – we couldn’t reach him on the phone, everybody was tired, so we just sent him a text and spoke to his answering machine asking him to call us. He did come back, but we were gone, so he went to a porn video thing and rented a video booth, where he sat and slept for a couple of hours while a porn movie was running. That’s classic! (everybody laughs) Whenever we would come to town, we would always ask him, “Do you know where those porn cinemas are now if you need a place to sleep?” Or I’ve been sitting down booking hotels for tours, it’s usually, “We’ve got rooms at this address, and for you there’s a porn cinema, it’s already booked”.

And then he quit…

Yeah, and then he quit. (laughs)

Finally and traditionally – please say a few words to your audience here in Russia and to our webzine readers.


Well, what can I say? Just listen to the stuff, go into it with an open mind, don’t expect anything… and be surprised!

Year Of The Goat on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yearofthegoat

Interview by Pavel Vlasov
Photos by Olga Yuryevna, Katerina Sorokopudova
May 20, 2016
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