Ereb Altor
You Only Got This Life, So Don’t Waste It

30.01.2022

The Swedish metal scene is incredibly diverse and that’s no wonder: while in Sweden and especially far from big cities it feels so natural that since childhood everyone absorbs this poignant freshness and full majesty of surrounding nature; simple and sincere people say “du” to everyone, (which is more informal than “you”) and their melodic language with special rhythmic structures sounds like an endless song itself.
This is exactly how Ereb Altor sound, very melodic, straightforward and sublime, but not devoid of some gloomy charm at the same time. The founders of this project are also known by their epic doom band Isole; all of them are from Gävle, the oldest town in Norrland. Ereb Altor are a worthy, original and prolific band, with 9 full-length albums in their discography and numerous tours and gigs at such major festivals as Hellfest and 70000 Tons of Metal.
I talked to multi-instrumentalist Mats Crister Olsson, the frontman of Ereb Altor (and Isole guitarist) about the journey from the band’s inception to the present day, about finding their own original sound (which they simply call “Scandinavian metal”), Bathory influences, main sources of inspiration; about the brand new album “Vargtimman”, some strange traditions and just about life.

Hej, Mats! First of all – congratulations on the release of the new album “Vargtimman” Are you satisfied with all the positive feedback both from fans and critics?

Thank you very much! The feedback has been overwhelming this far and I’m pleased to see and hear that people seem to like our latest effort.

You started Ereb Altor as a side project from your doom metal band Isole, it is also thriving although not as much as Ereb Altor which is getting even more recognition than your first band. Your first LP, “By Honour” (2008), contained the material mostly from the 90s, the doomy songs that didn’t fit Isole. Looking back in time, are you surprised of how far you got with Ereb Altor?  

I didn’t have any particular goal when we started the project Ereb Altor, it was more or less a fun thing to do back then and I didn’t have any expectations. Still I wouldn’t really say that I’m surprised, I knew that we had some good quality within us. But looking at my younger self and my dreams when I started to play guitar makes me kind of amazed. All my dreams I had are fulfilled and beyond. I didn’t even consider playing music outside of Sweden and singing was not really even on the map for me. If I had told my younger self that someday you will be singing in front of thousands of people at Hellfest I would have thought it was a joke. And I never expected to have released as many records as we have.

Then the second LP, “The End” (2010), was planned as the final Ereb Altor album. Did you feel back then that your mission was fulfilled since “The End” was mostly inspired by Bathory and you probably thought that you did everything to honour Quorthon?

Yes, it was just like I said more or less a fun project we did. A homage to the late Quorthon or something like that.

However, the 3rd album, “Gastrike” came out 10 years ago and it was mostly black metal, did you feel like experimenting?

Well I had some black metal songs in my musical archive and starting another project felt wrong. Since Ereb Altor already existed an idea to maybe try to unite the epic with black metal was born. Tord also joined the band; he had been a session drummer on the gigs/shows we did back then. Tord was more into black metal than us and it might have boosted the songwriting in this direction. “Gastrike” may have come a bit too harsh though when I look at it retrospectively. The leap between “The End” and “Gastrike: was too big and it took years in my opinion before we actually reached the unity between our somehow broad spectrum.

To be honest I’m happy that you didn’t stop there and released “Fire Meets Ice” the following year. And it seems you started playing live with this album more often so that I had a chance to see you live several times. Each time when I heard “Nifelheim” it was completely mind-blowing, but later you dropped it from the setlist for the new songs. Do you think you’ll ever play “Nifelheim” live again?

Well, we had a steadier line up in this period mainly because we got more offers. But we did some festivals and also a European tour before “Fire Meets Ice”. Putting together setlists gets harder and harder when you have more albums, we still rehearse “Nifelheim” sometimes and it might show up if we play an extended set. I have to confess that for a songwriter the new material is always the best and I like to include and promote new songs as much as possible, but you also can’t ignore the past entirely and it’s important to do some of the classic songs at some occasions.

And in general – was it after the release of “Fire Meets Ice” when you acquired a taste for live performances? Or maybe you were noticed as a band and started getting more and more offers, resulting in longer tours with Månegarm, Cruachan and other bands?

Mikael (bass) joined the band after “Fire Meets Ice” and the lineup we have to this day was complete. Ereb Altor got more noticed and offers started to come. We also got a lot of help from our booking agency Doomed Events and things started to move slowly forward during this period. “Fire Meets Ice” is also in my opinion the start of the Ereb Altor sound which we have tried to develop since.

Do you miss playing live now? You could have played more shows to promote your album “Järtecken” (2019), as I understand your last big one was at the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise in 2020, just when the pandemics started. Isn’t it ironic that it all began when you were “at the top of your game”?

We did a European tour alongside In the Woods directly after the release of “Järtecken” and if I remember correctly we also played a few smaller festivals but everything ended after 70000 Tons of Metal. We even heard about the virus when we were on the cruise and suddenly there were hand sanitizers everywhere. We didn’t think much about it then. We simply had a wonderful time enjoying the cruise.
Yes… this is what I miss the most, playing live. It’s frustrating to only do some shows in Sweden during all this time. I truly hope this pandemic will end soon. If you look at the history, the pandemics during the previous century lasted three years and hopefully this pandemic will end during 2022.

Unlike some musicians who make their best albums before the age of 27 and then run out of ideas you’re growing steadily with every album, becoming more professional and able to express your ideas even better. The recognition came to you at quite a mature age; did it come with developed professionalism? You’ve evolved as a composer significantly during all those years…

I am still 27, am I not? Jokes aside, age is just a number to me. As long as one can have fun, enjoy oneself and still feel hungry for more there is no limit. Age can be a good thing also, you are not in the same hurry and of course you get more professional if you have been in the game for a long time. Still, like I said… You have to feel the need and the hunger for doing more art. The day I don’t feel that anymore is the day I quit. Music needs to come from the heart.

You seem to do more clean vocals than you used to and in general your vocals are getting only better with every album. Are you doing anything special about it?

Yes, I kind of like clean vocals more than harsh vocals but both styles have a point if they are displayed in the right environment. I often try to almost make a symbiosis between both styles of singing; perhaps you could call it harsher clean vocals, to have a more edgy approach. I spend countless hours by myself in our studio, recording ideas, making pre-productions for the next album. That means I sing a lot. So I guess with practice comes result and I try to sing from the heart to actually express feelings while singing. I have never taken any singing lessons or something like that but I have read about technics with breathing and such to make the vocal cords last. Still in my own opinion I have many things to work on to get better at singing.

I remember you telling me that Quorthon’s spirit was living inside you; in fact you’re still paying a tribute to the legacy left by Bathory keeping the Viking dream alive. Is Bathory still the main source of inspiration to you?

Did I? I don’t know about that but he made a huge impact on my musical life and still does. Bathory is one of the sources of inspiration but I don’t consider it to be the main source any longer. The Ereb Altor sound have travelled further away from the sound of Bathory on the last couple of releases. Maybe this sounds like a cliché but I find my inspiration in everything from hiking in the woods, visiting historical places, feelings, insomnia and of course music. I find a lot exciting things that inspire me in our old Swedish folk music for instance but everything I listen to has an impact more or less.

“BLOT­·ILT·TAUT” (2016) (which is old Swedish and means Blood - Fire - Death) is an album full of excellent Bathory covers. No doubt you put your heart and soul into the whole record, but maybe you have a favourite song? For me it’s “Twilight of the Gods”, you resurrected it in the best possible way.

For me it’s the title track “Blood Fire Death”, I think we managed to put the Ereb Altor touch on that particular song to almost make it sound like an Ereb Altor song.

Tell me more about other sources of inspiration, from Scandinavian myths and tales to forests and the countryside? How often can you go hiking, for example?

This is the good side of the pandemic. I got to spend a lot of time in the nature and I also started to hike in the mountains up north in Sweden as well. This is something I will keep on doing even when the pandemic ends. It’s very soothing and relaxing even if the body needs to work pretty hard. It’s very beautiful and this year I will at least give Kebnekaise (the highest mountain in Sweden) a try. I also started to do long distance ice skating on lakes the recent years.

How about the Swedish language, do you have favourite pieces of the poetry which are inspirational to you? I see it as another sign of maturity that you mostly sing in Swedish now; the songs sound more authentic this way.

Thank you for saying that! At first, I was a bit afraid of the reactions when we started to sing in Swedish, that no one would understand anything but the feedback about this choice has been great. It was also harder to write in Swedish in the beginning since I was very used to write lyrics in English. But I grew to like it more and more and I nowadays I prefer to write in Swedish, it gives me an ability to be a little bit more poetic since it’s my mother language. I can mention two poets that I like, Karin Boye and Bruno K.

How do you usually write music? Do you just “go inside your own box” and stay there until you get something that you can present to the other members of the band?

More or less, yes. I get ideas all the time even in the strangest occasions or places. I am a collector of ideas which I put in my musical archive. Then I work on the seeds from the archives and sometimes I get extremely focused and can’t think of anything but the compositions taking form into an album, then I am inside my own box and won’t get out until a full album can be presented in the form of a pre-production recording. This is a way that works very well for me and has been the formula for a long time now.

Coming back to “Vargtimman”, the title track is about the last hour in people’s life, usually before the dawn. The video features a dying man in an old house and the lyrics - “Tid är sand som flyktigt rinner mellan fingrar” - sum up the idea of how fast the time flies. You chant it first as if you’re doomed, then quite angrily. How do you feel about getting older, is there any anger or frustration or just wisdom inherent to it?

I have accepted that fact that I grow older and some day everything will be over and I am fine with it. To me it’s important to pursue my dreams and to have no regrets, you only got this life, so don’t waste it.

Another song from the new album “Den Dighra Döden” sounds very ominous. It’s about the Black Death carried by the wind. Did you want to make any parallels with the spread of plague and the present-day Covid situation?

The lyrics of this one were inspired by a really old book I read about the Black Death. It’s just a coincidence that Covid-19 entered the world. To be honest I can’t really recall if I wrote the lyrics before or after the pandemic started. When the Black Death came to Sweden according to these old writings they thought it was unleashed/born by a very bad storm, everything turned pitch black and when the black mist was shattered by the wind. They thought the plague was in the mist and carried by the wind. I wanted to make a song that sounded like a nasty black wind to reflect the lyrical content.

Maybe you intended to say that things were much darker back then, emphasizing it by the next track, “Ner i Mörkret”?

“Ner I Mörkret” is a song about the witch trials in Sweden during the years 1668-1676 where the church used children to point out the witches. The children were called “visgossar” and some of them like in the lyrics in this song pointed out their own parents which later were executed.

In “Heimdals Horn”, the final track form “Vargtimman”, only 2 lines are repeated: “Hear the sound of Heimdals Horn; Chaos is coming for us all”. Is there any deeper meaning apart from reminding us of Ragnarök, Norse legends and myths?

It’s a fitting end of an album. The end of the Gods, yet the start of the era of mankind. Our Ragnarök will also come one day, we all know it.

Talking about disasters, there was a flood after the storm in your hometown Gävle. How do you feel about natural disasters in general – do you feel lucky that you and your family weren’t hurt or are you furious because it was so unpredictable and did some damage?  

Well, Mother Earth is damaged so I guess these kinds of things will be more and more frequent. We are the destroyers of this world. This flooding did a lot of damage to me though. Our studio got flooded but we were able to secure the equipment (and the almost finished recordings of the next Isole) but the building got really damaged and will be torn down. So we don’t have a studio since August last year, everything is packed in a storage room except for the equipment we need for rehearsals. We got a small rehearsal room at the moment and we are waiting for our new studio to be rebuilt. A lot of people lost belongings in the flooding including most members of Ereb Altor.

As for Covid-19, did it interfere a lot with your plans in general? Maybe you had to break some restriction rules to meet up secretly as a band for rehearsal or making the album? Is the Covid situation still an obstacle?

The plans of promoting “Järtecken” were interfered vastly, we wanted to do more shows on this album but maybe we will put some focus on this album in our sets when the world opens up again. Well, we couldn’t live with no rehearsals, no recordings, no meeting up, we are like a family in this band you know. Nowadays the Covid situation prevents us for doing live shows but that’s it.

I can’t help asking about Gävlebocken (the goat made of hay, a famous Gävle landmark). I just can’t understand why people keep burning it even if they’re usually arrested, what is your opinion about that “tradition”? Is there any special meaning in burning it? And why isn’t it guarded properly?

Well, I don’t understand it either. It’s almost like everyone wants it to burn as a tradition. It’s just stupid, maybe they should make it legal after Christmas has passed, it would be a nice bonfire thing.

Your wife and daughter appeared in the “En Synd Svart Som Sot” video. How important is your family support and sharing the same values, the same interests? Do you think you could have come so far in your musical career without them?

They are everything to me and their support means a lot. They are also a source of inspiration in some ways.

Is everything you’re doing DIY? What is your relationship with Hammerheart Records? How important is it to support the band by buying your records and merch? Especially these days when you can’t go on long tours and sell the merch there.

Almost everything is DIY. On “Vargtimman” we did everything ourselves except parts of the layout (i.e the cover by Tomarum av Christine Linde). It’s a lot of work but we like to be in control and we like to work countless hours. (laughs) Even if we don’t have the knowledge or the skill to do something we simply learn how to do it, anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
We have a good relationship with Hammerheart Records, our co-operation is moving forward all the time. We are constantly discussing ongoing stuff with them and we have mutual goals.
The support by purchasing our albums and merch is extremely important when things are like they are; we depend on it to continue this journey. Sales are also harder when you are not doing shows, especially t-shirts and such are often sold on the shows. But as I understand when talking with Hammerheart Records the sales of the album are going pretty good, we are very pleased about that and we welcome the support we have received this far.

I would like to end on a positive note. The song “I Have The Sky” and the video for it are highly powerful and sort of optimistic. What exactly did you want to express by words “the sky in my hand”, apart from singing a hymn to Odin and praising the skyline?

It’s a “power song”. Nothing is impossible; there are no limits what you can achieve. You can climb your mountains but it doesn’t stop there, you can reach the horizon!

Ereb Altor have never played in Russia although you came here with Isole. Lots of people appreciate your music and would love to see you here. Can you say some final words to your fans in Russia and worldwide?

We truly hope we can visit Russia for the first time, it’s about time for sure!!! Until we meet, Keep the Flame Alive and Hail the Hordes!!!

Tack så mycket för den tid du har lagt ner på att svara på frågorna!!! (Thank you so much for the time you’ve spent answering my questions!)

Tack själv, på återseende. (Thank you, see you.)

Ereb Altor on the Internet: http://www.erebaltor.com

Interview and live photos by KNfromSU
January 24, 2022
(с) HeadBanger.ru