Here for you, metal lovers, my second (short) interview to Quorthon.

Mitsu: Dear Mr.Quorthon, how are you?
I'm Mitsu, your Japanese fan. Do you remember me?

Quorthon: Hi Mitsu !
Yes I remember you. I'll try to answer your questions the best I can. I receive between 20 and 50 email per day to read and answer, so I may not have the time always to answer emails instantly.

Mitsu: I need some information for my website and only you can give me answers because the websites are full of strange and absurd rumors regarding you.
For example that you died in the early '90s!

Quorthon: I have heard that rumor before and it is one of the more bizarre rumors I have ever heard. Of course you can only shake your head in disbelief. I have no idea who created that rumors and why.

Mitsu: Or that you live alone on a Swedish island in Viking style!

Quorthon: I have heard that rumor too. I have no idea why anybody would want to create a phoney story like that.

Mitsu: But some of these rumors aren't absurd and seems to be true. For example I read that the album "Under the sign of the black mark" was released in 2 vinyls in Sweden.

Quorthon: Not true.

Mitsu: And that now you're writing a book about BATHORY's story. Are this rumour true?

Quorthon: I worked for a while on a BATHORY book, but was asked by so many fans to stop because they didn't want me to write the truth about BATHORY. I had written a lot of information of BATHORY in the mini-bio in the CD-booklet for BLOOD ON ICE, and fans didn't like reading how I sometimes would stand kneedeep in dirty laundry or among car parts or washing powder boxes in the HEAVENSHORE studio/garage recording vocals or lead guitar or whatever. So I stopped writing that book. Maybe when BATHORY is no more I can continue...

Mitsu: I think that the metal critics judge your albums only with their personal liking and their reviews aren't made with impartiality. For example on one hand critics who love Trash metal considers as good works albums like Octagon or Requiem and criticize your "Viking" albums. On the other hand the "Viking" metal lovers hate Octagon and Requiem and praise your Viking albums. But how can you content all your fans?

Quorthon: Of course reviewers will review an album according to their own personal liking, and they have the freedom to do just that. On the other hand you can't judge an album from one person’s review. I therefore find the whole reviewing business rather suspect and unnecessary.
It's true there is one part of our audience who loves our more brutal albums like BATHORY, THE RETURN, UNDER THE SIGN, REQUIEM, OCTAGON plus the more brutal tracks on BLOOD FIRE DEATH and DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
Then there is a majority of our audience who loves the more epic and heavy nordic albums like HAMMERHEART, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, BLOOD ON ICE and the heavy stuff on BLOOD FIRE DEATH and DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
And it is true it is virtually impossible to please them all with one album. Therefor BATHORY has been doing a little bit of both during the past 20 years.
Of course a fan of more brutal stuff can not be forced to love heavy, epic nordic albums simply because it says BATHORY on it. And vice versa with a fan of the more heavy, epic nordic stuff, he or she can not be forced to love brutal dark and demonic stuff simply because it is BATHORY.Personally I regard both sides of BATHORY as being equal in importance and I would love for BATHORY to be free to do both things in the future as well.

But it is sad that BATHORY is only accepted when doing either the satanic/demonic/dark/brutal/Black and Death Metal thing, or the nordic/epic/doom/heavy Viking Metal. I have so much more I would like to do with BATHORY…

Mitsu: Many people criticize "Destroyer" because it doesn't follow only one style, but many. I think that they aren't able to judge a metal album. Isn't it?

Quorthon: They have their freedom to treat any album anyway they want to. I believe there was so much expectations built up during the years we took a break, people expected a new BATHORY album to be all HAMMERHEART part two or the sequel to UNDER THE SIGN.
DESTROYER OF WORLDS was written so that it would remind of and pick up from several phases in the BATHORY history. I am positive, had it been recorded not in 2001 but in 1986-1988, it would be a classic today. UNDER THE SIGN and BLOOD FIRE DEATH contains the exact same mix of all styles just like DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

Mitsu: I've heard also that you decided to come back to Viking metal style with Nordland because many fans didn't like "Destroyer". But I think that a singer have only to follow his personal inspiration, and not content his whole fan. I'm right? Or are these rumors true?

Quorthon: I didn’t write NORDLAND because anybody asked of BATHORY to go "Viking" again. I wrote NORDLAND because it felt like just the right thing to do. You don’t eat pizza everyday, I don’t wear the same shirt everyday, the sun don’t shine all the time. I would be mortally bored if I had to write and play the same style of music and write the same type of lyrics over and over again.
The Nordic thing felt like the right thing to do at the time. We had been on a break for a while, we had been tired of people talking about BATHORY only mentioning the satanic or viking imageries and not our music. After DESTROYER OF WORLDS, we felt a pleasure from working again and I wanted to bite into something big and complex.
To be doing the Nordic stuff is very challenging, to create the atmosphere and feeling is not easy. Few bands other than BATHORY can place you in a dragonship halfway across the Atlantic Ocean on route to Vinland so that you can feel the cold waves. Few acts other than BATHORY can place you in the foreverdark woods so that you can almost smell the moist heavy turf…
BATHORY has a unique trademark, a sound, a feeling and an atmosphere to nourish and mind about every once in a while. A majority of our audience loves our Nordic side, so of course we will be doing that stuff every now and then when it feels right. It’s the most natural thing to do. But we will also pick up the more dark, demonic and brutal stuff in the future as well.

Mitsu: Does Scandinavian Metal Attack is only a Bathory's work? Or is it a work of several bands?

Quorthon: SCANDINAVIAN METAL ATTACK is a compilation album recorded in January 1984 featuring 4 or 5 Scandinavian groups, among them BATHORY.

Mitsu: You told that many fans consider you as a GOD, but you don't seem to agree with them. Why?

Quorthon: I am not a god and I am trying my best to help people getting a more normal idea of my person by piercing a lot of faulty images of myself. People have created an idea about me for 20 years that’s not accurate.
I remember one fan once asking me if I really was Quorthon of BATHORY, and I said yes. He then looked at me for a while and said he didn’t believe me because I was wearing jeans and T-shirt, and "The SON OF THE DEVIL would never wear jeans and T-shirt!". I never had any idols and I certainly did not see or regard musicians as gods when I was young.

Mitsu: I've heard that HEAVENSHORE STUDIO closed. Are some HEAVENSHORE STUDIO images available? Have you got it? Where can I look for them?

Quorthon: The HEAVENSHORE STUDIO was never a studio but a garage where we recorded our first, third, fourth and fifth albums. I don’t know what it looks like these days. I haven’t been there since when we recorded HAMMERHEART. I have a few photo’s from HEAVENSHORE, but I am saving these for the future.

Mitsu: Thank you very much! I will publish on my website only news reviewed by you, so I will not publish absurd things! that's OK?
BYE!!!

Quorthon: Thanks Mitsu. Take care and good luck.
Hail the Hordes !