Elvenking

Elvenking
Something More Than The Music

17.10.2019

Архив интервью | Русская версия

A tenth album is somewhat of a milestone in the career of any band that has been fortunate to make it this far. What’s really unique is when album number ten puts a band on the charts for the first time. Italy’s Elvenking generally have a very consistent discography, but over the past few years they have really been going from strength to strength, and with their latest album, “Divination – Reader Of The Runes”, they have all the chances of becoming the go-to band in European folk/power metal. Unfortunately we at HeadBanger.ru haven’t covered them that much in our interview section, actually the previous interview we did is now nine years old. That is why we took this opportunity to talk to singer Damna and find out what’s been happening to the band over this period of time and how they have managed to make such successful headway.

Let’s begin with recalling your shows in Russia, because they were both really spectacular. You came to Moscow for the first time in 2010 in the midst of that infamous Icelandic volcano eruption. What are your memories about that trip? You got to stay in Moscow for a few days, didn’t you?

Yeah, exactly. The first thing we remember, of course, is the great crowd, the great show we had that night in Moscow, it was amazing. I mean, it was the first time we were playing in Russia and in Moscow, and it was amazing really. Then the second thing… (laughs) As you mentioned, there was this volcano in Iceland that produced big clouds of smoke. Unfortunately they had to cancel a lot of flights, and we had to stay in Moscow for, I think, four or five days. On the one hand, it was an unfortunate event, because we had to stay there, and all the expenses, and so on, but fortunately the guys from Delta Mekong were really supportive. On the other side, it was great to visit Moscow, we had some days that we usually don’t have, and a chance to see the city a lot, to be tourists for a couple of days. Yeah, it was great.

You came back to Moscow in 2013 with Martin Walkyier. Unfortunately this cooperation did not last long after that. Could you explain a bit how did it happen that you started playing shows with Martin, and what went wrong between him and the band?

I remember it was a really great show with Martin as well, I think it was also the first time we were playing live with him. That was amazing, because we got to play some of our favorite songs by Skyclad together with our hero. Martin was actually one of our heroes for his lyrics and his way of writing, and he’s a very bright and intelligent person, and a chance to work with him was amazing. We got to do a couple of more shows, I think, in the Netherlands and maybe the UK, but I’m not sure. Then unfortunately there was this small tour in the UK, and it couldn’t happen for us, because of some agreements we had over flight tickets or something like that. Martin was one of the organizers, and he couldn’t afford to give us the first part of the money, and we couldn’t fly to the UK to make it to those shows. On our side, it wasn’t a bad intention, it was just like if the money isn’t there, we can’t buy the tickets, and we may lose four or five days from our jobs, which was not possible for us. But unfortunately Martin was very angry at us, and that’s why the collaboration ended. It was a pity, because we really think he is a great guy.

Now let’s move on to the new album, “Reader Of The Runs – Divination”. Before that album your deal with AFM Records expired, and you said that you received many other options. Why did you decide to stay with AFM? It’s actually the only label you have been signed to so far…


Yeah, exactly! (laughs) As you said, we had a chance to discuss with some other record labels, which were interested in us, and we talked with AFM a lot before taking this decision. Apart from the fact that they are very close to the band, very supportive and very much willing to bring the band a step forward, they practically made the best offer. Add to it the ability to work again with the guys that we know, with the guys that have worked with us for so many years, and now with the intention of forming a team. AFM have always been supportive to us, but this time they are working as an additional member of the band, they’re helping us a lot. That’s what made us choose AFM again.

“Reader Of The Runes – Divination” is the first Elvenking album to enter the German charts. What was done differently this time by the band or by the label to make this success possible?


I think the first thing why it happened is because for the past five or six years the band has been growing step by step. Ever since “The Pagan Manifesto” (2014) we have really found our identity as a band, we are consistent with our sound, and I think this has been paying off. Of course, there is a lot of hard work, a lot of promotion by AFM this time, even more than it was in the past. Then, as they are telling us, we have done a good album. These things combined made this little jump forward possible for us.

You stayed with the old label, but you changed the entire production team – the recording engineer, the mixer, the mastering engineer, the cover artist. How did you choose the new people, what were you criteria? Dan Swano, for instance, is known for working with quite different types of music…


Actually we like to change a lot as far as the artwork artists and producers are concerned. We are always trying to do something new. As you may also see from our back catalogue, after a couple of albums, we always turn to a different artist. It’s a good thing to keep things fresh. Especially this time, since the album is a concept album, we needed someone who could interpret a certain image, yet being very artistic and the way we like a cover artist to be. I think on the recent albums we had much more… I wouldn’t say abstract, because they are not abstract, but they are more kind of artistic, less eye-catching, more poetic, if you know what I mean. But this time we needed the same feeling, but from an image that could represent the concept very well. We saw some other works by Zsofia Dankova, for example, for Powerwolf, Fifth Angel and so on, and we decided that she was the one that could do this thing. And she did! I think she did a marvelous job just putting the whole concept, the whole idea of the story in one image.

Talking about production, yeah, we changed a lot of producers through the years, and I think in Simone Mularoni we found a great guy to work with. “The Pagan Manifesto” and “Secrets Of The Magick Grimoire” (2017) are both great productions, but this time we wanted to change a little bit, because we were kind of running behind this idea we had of having an album with a sound of heavy metal bands of the 90s. We wanted to have that feeling, because our main influences are from bands of that era, including death metal and black metal, and that’s where Dan Swano comes from, because back in the day he did a lot of death metal and black metal albums. He also did other things like Therion, Rage, or Insomnium, for example. It was our choice to try to have the sound that could really feel like the 90s, but still have a huge modern vibe, a huge modern low-end to the result.

Then how do you now look back on your previous album, “Secrets Of The Magick Grimoire”? Are you still satisfied with it, or would you change anything in it after two years?


No, I would say I am completely satisfied with it. There are always things that we would change when we close the mixing, of course, it’s something that always goes on, due to wanting to improve as a band. You also have to consider that we were coming from a very difficult situation as we had released a very strong album in “The Pagan Manifesto” and there was a point when we were very unsure of doing a new album, because we didn’t know how to top the previous one. It was pretty difficult to start writing new songs, but then we had a very open-minded songwriting session, when we opened up and wrote all the things that came to our mind. The result is pretty cool, I love that album.

“Secrets…” featured very interesting guests – Snowy Show on vocals and Johnny Maudling of Bal-Sagoth doing orchestral arrangements. How did you get both of them to work with Elvenking?


We absolutely love what Johnny did in Bal-Sagoth, we are big fans of that kind of music, and also what he did with My Dying Bride. Their piano album that he made (“Evinta”, 2011) was really marvelous. We just contacted him and asked him if he was interested in doing some session work for us, and he was happy to do it. He also plays on our latest album, it’s the second time we worked with him, and I think he added a really great orchestral vibe, which is still kind of coming from the 90s – I’m repeating myself now, but it something we sought pretty much, because it’s the heart of our sound and our influences. As to Snowy Shaw, we are great fans of Snowy, of the bands he played in, and of the things he made as a solo artist, we really love him. We just contacted him as fans (laughs) and asked him if he wanted to sing a couple of parts on our album, and he was in.

Why aren’t there any guest singers on “Reader Of The Runes – Divination”? Especially given that it’s a concept record with different characters…

Basically we didn’t feel the need for that. There are many bands nowadays that are doing this to drag attention to their band, and this is something that we really don’t like. We wouldn’t like to attract people’s attention just because we have some famous guest singers. This time we wanted people to focus on the album, on the songs, on the story, not on someone famous singing on it, do you know what I mean? This was the choice that we made deliberately.

How it’s time to speak about the actual story behind the new album. First of all, who came up with the concept? And who actually wrote the lyrics? In the past you would always share lyric-writing duties equally with Aydan (guitars) – what was it like this time?

It was once again me and Aydan taking care of the lyrics and the story. Basically when we are starting to write songs for a new album, we always do a first meeting, where we just discuss how we would see the next album, how we would like it to be. If we have any ideas that we’ve written separately, we listen to those ideas, and we put together some kind of a draft of how the album will be at the very-very first stages. And we always talk about lyrics before starting an album, we talk about the main concept, and even if it the older albums were not concept albums, we always discuss what the possible link between all the lyrics is this time, there has to be a theme of any kind. This time we said, “Why not finally do this thing that we have wanted to do since the beginning of the band?” We always wanted to do something like this, but I think we never had the right idea and it just wasn’t the time. This time we started to talk about it, Aydan came up with an idea, I developed it, and then it was like ping-pong between Aydan and me. The story started to take shape, it was becoming bigger and bigger, and we ended up having this big fascinating story, and we didn’t know how to fit it into one album. There’s too much going on. So we decided to do the first part, which is “Divination”, and then there will be two other parts on the next two albums, which will develop the story.

Can you say a few words about what the story is actually about? Do you already have all the details for the next two parts of the story?

Yes, we have the main plot, the main story in mind, but we will see how it will develop when people read it. We will see how the reaction is, but basically we have the idea on our minds. What is the story about? Well, I can only say a couple of things. The story is all based on this mysterious character, who is the Reader of the Runes. You can also see him on the cover, you can see his back with a staff in his hand. Basically it starts from there, from this mysterious figure that appears in this village that is, I would say, out of time, it’s not placed in any historical period or anything like that, it’s in this imaginary dark world where this Reader appears, and he starts to do divinations to all the villagers. There are eight characters that are the focus of his divinations, of the visions that he has, so there are eight songs on the album each talking about one of these eight characters, and finally each song has a divination that the Reader has for each of these characters. In the first part you get to know them, you get to know what the first vision of the Reader of the Runes is for every one of them, and in the next chapters you will get to know more about the link between them and between the Reader of the Runes, what is happening, what is going on.

Not every metal fan is interested in reading lyrics, and a lot of them don’t speak English quite well. In your opinion, is it possible to enjoy the new album to the full extent without understanding what it is about?


Absolutely! It is one thing that we considered, and we wanted the album to be enjoyable even if you don’t care about the concept story, even if you don’t care about lyrics, which is something that will make you want to live this experience. But yeah, I think you can still listen to the album, and that is why we didn’t want the album to be too complicated, we didn’t want to make a lot of intermezzos, short songs, spoken songs and things like that. We just wanted the album to be straight and to be enjoyable even if it is a story. Basically yes, even if you don’t care about the lyrics, you can still enjoy the album.

Actually we do care about the lyrics!

Oh, very good, nice to know!

Let us continue with lyrics for a while. Could you comment a bit about the meaning of some of the songs from your back catalogue? The first one we would like to ask you about is “The Voynich Manuscript” from “Secrets Of The Magick Grimoire”…


“The Voynich Manuscript” is about this manuscript that actually existed… We don’t know a lot about it, because it’s a manuscript that was found in the 15th century, and it was written in a totally strange way. It’s a kind of writing that has not been deciphered yet. It seems that it contains a lot of mysterious chemical formulas, mythology and a lot of strange things that have not been deciphered yet. Still we don’t know if it is something that was done on purpose by someone in the 15th century, or it was a really serious way of writing that is unfortunately not yet deciphered. It is a very mysterious book, and we wrote a song about that.

The next song is “Poor Little Baroness” from “Era” (2012).

I think it’s a very decadent and romantic lyric. It may be a sad and decadent story coming out from a book of tales out of the 18th century or something like that.

The last one is an old favorite of ours, it’s from the first record, and it’s called “Hobs And Feathers”.

(laughs) A funny one! “Hobs And Feathers” was a fun song actually, the lyrics at that time were not meant to mean anything at all. It was like a small story coming out of Irish folklore mixed with “The Lord Of The Rings”, but a very funny and light one.

On your albums there are a lot of references to being “pagan” or “heathen”. There words may seem to be quite clear, but it turns out that different people mean different things when they sat “pagan”. What does pagan mean in the context of Elvenking, and for you personally?

In our context, we’re not dealing with paganism as a historical thing or as a religious thing. Let’s say it better: of course, it has some links with the historical and religious meaning of the word, but for us it has another meaning. It is a more, I would say, inner and philosophical meaning, where being pagan is a way of being. There are a lot of people like us, I think, that have through the years been outcast from the society for the way they are, they kind of don’t fit into the society and the environment, meaning this kind of small space where we live in, maybe our daily job or anywhere in the society, and this feeling of not being like the others is a way for us of being pagan, being unaccepted in some way, like it was basically in history, when pagan religions were the ones to be hunted, they were the despicable cults for the Catholic religion. What we talk about is basically a metaphor of that. Being pagan is not something bad for us, like it was it the past and like it can be for a lot of people nowadays. It’s something to be proud of.

We were looking at band photos in early Elvenking albums, when we were getting ready for this interview, and we found out that you started using makeup actively only on ”The Pagan Manifesto”. Why did you decide to do it? Once again, what does makeup mean in the context of Elvenking?


Actually if you have a good look, you can see that we tried to wear some makeup also on the very first album. If you see the pictures from the “Heathenreel” session (2001), you will see that we had some kind of makeup on our faces. (laughs) It was an attempt, and also with the costumes, but we weren’t ready, I think, because, of course, you need to have a budget, you need to have experience, and you need to have someone helping you. All of these are reasons why we abandoned that kind of thing after the “Heathenreel” album - but also, I think, because we were searching for our identity. We were doing that for some albums, but finally, I think, with “The Pagan Manifesto”, as I said, we found all the pieces of the puzzle, of the Elvenking puzzle, and we put them together. Musically we found our definitive identity, and we found it with costumes and with the makeup, which are kind of a visual representation of the music. It is a way, especially in our music, the kind of music that we do, to get to the listeners something more than the music, to make them live our experience, to make them also see what we’re talking about. I think it’s like an extension of the music. Also with this new album, we also have a limited boxset with the book that explains the story and with some real objects, some tarot cards. It is an extension of the music and the lyrics, and I think it helps our listeners to enter our world where they can forget about anything else for an hour or so, for the time they're listening to the album, be with us for that hour, be in a different world, play with their fantasy, be free of all the shit that’s going on in real life, if you know what I mean. Makeup helps a lot to make our listeners live this experience.

After 10 albums, does it get easier or more difficult to write songs for Elvenking? Does it get easier or more difficult to get inspired?


Actually a couple of years ago I would have said it’s more difficult to find inspiration and new ideas. But when we were writing songs for this album, I was surprised by the fact that it’s even easier right now. I don’t know why, probably because there are some things that really pushed us, like the fact that this is our 10th album, that AFM wanted us for this new contract, helped us a lot and had a lot of ideas and suggestions for us. All these things, all these inputs put me and Aydan in a kind of new situation where the ideas came on their own. It was really cool, it was a very creative environment that was very stimulating to us.

Have you ever considered writing songs in your native language? A lot of folk-influenced bands are doing it, an in Italy, Rhapsody are doing it regularly…

Well, yeah… Some years ago I would have said no. (everybody laughs) I wasn’t a big fan of doing this, I don’t know why. Actually because I think the kind of folk music that we play is nearer to the north of Europe. Even if we’re from north-east Italy, very near the Austrian border and the Slovenian border as well, the music we make is closer to northern European folk music, that is why I myself find it a little bit hard to put Italian words over it. It’s like something is not working, you know. But nowadays I think it would be a nice idea. For example, now we’re using a lot of Latin words, it’s part of us, it’s what we studied when we were kids, and it’s like the old version of Italian. This is the first step, so, who knows, maybe in the future.

Of all Elvenking members, Aydan is the only one who does not have any side projects. What is the reason?

He’s the truest one of us. (everybody laughs) It’s something we talked about sometimes, and he just wanted to focus on Elvenking 100 percent. I understand him for this. Maybe in the future he will do something to express some of the things that he may not be able to express with Elvenking, but so far he’s been totally focused on Elvenking.

Elvenking plays live quite often, and often it’s outside Italy. I assume you all have families and kids, and probably also other jobs. Isn’t it getting difficult to combine the regular life and the band life, especially given that the band is becoming more popular at the moment?

Of course, it’s very difficult. It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of choices and sacrifices. That is why in the past some of our members left us – they just couldn’t make things work with their regular life, their jobs and families. Basically we’re here because we have been able so far to combine the things, and we have been setting our lives in order to be able to do this, to be able to play with Elvenking as much as we can. Of course, we can’t leave our jobs or our places at the moment, because it wouldn’t be the right thing to do, but of course, we try to set our lives in order to be able to give all the time we can to touring with Elvenking and making albums.

What are the chances of seeing you in Russia again? Have you received any offers lately?


Well, I really hope to come soon to Russia. We haven’t received any offers, but we wanna talk to some promoter there because we really want to play in Russia. Now we have been focusing on some European tours, today we have just announced the first one that we’re gonna do in January, it will be a co-headlining tour with Brothers of Metal, mainly in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Then we’re gonna do another tour in April, and we will be, I think, more in the eastern part of Europe, and then we would love to work with some promoters in order to do something in Russia and in other countries where it’s difficult to play. We’re gonna work it out, I hope, and I’m confident we will do something.

Elvenking on the Internet: http://www.elvenking.net/

Special thanks to Irina Ivanova (AFM Records) for arranging this interview

Interview by Roman Patrashov, Natalia “Snakeheart” Patrashova
Photos courtesy of AFM Records
September 9, 2019
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