INTERVIEW WITH MORTIIS PART II

"We showed up with the makeup and the masks and there were all these art lovers, it was like a gasp went through the crowd, because we looked like fuckin bums."

So, this is part two of the in-depth interview with Mortiis, the first part can be read HERE. This time we talked about his influence on a whole genre and a lot of other music, artists, bands and projects. It's about ABBA, Björk, Beherit, Ildjarn, Swedish hardcore, Nine Inch Nails, Apoptygma Berzerk, the rating of Mortiis by Barney from Napalm Death and the cover of the "Stargate" album. Furthermore, it is about the payment of musicians by streaming services and the effects of the Corona pandemic. Have fun reading!

Of course, in mainstream terms, you are not so popular, nevertheless, how does it feel to have virtually invented the "dungeon synth" genre and to have inspired thousands of people, myself included (back in the distant 1997), all over the world to start similar projects, sometimes with more or less success? Of course I can only speak for Germany, but at that time incredibly many people from the black metal scene had such a Dungenon Synth -Project at the start, I don't even want to know how many recordings in some cellars or attics live their shadowy existence for decades....

But it's not as easy as it looks, you know?

Yes, of course. 

Oh, I guess that's flattering. If they're inspired by me, that's always nice to hear. It's always cool, I like seeing metal guys starting these projects because it means they have an open mind in music, it means that they don't only listen to one thing and that they do have a broader interest in music in general. It doesn't have to be limited to Cuban music. I mean, you know, if they're into fucking jazz, I think that's cool, too. You know, I used to be kind of a narrow minded guy myself. Like in the very early '90s, it was black metal or nothing. And I just think that sometimes that creates a bit of an asshole. You know, when all you care about is one thing and everything else can go to hell, I just don't like that. That attitude, to me, seems very limited and simple, so I'm glad to see people that want to do something else at the same time. You know, looking at things in a broader light. That's a positive thing to me.  

Have you ever listened to all the things that were and are clearly inspired by you, or are you not really interested in them?

I always thought it was interesting. I never went out there looking for it or anything like that, you know? But in the past, people send me tapes and things like that and some of that stuff was pretty good. Other things were not necessarily my taste. I still get links sent to me,  if I'm interested to listen to  certain projects, but to be honest, these days, I don't listen to it, it's simply because I don't have time enough. You know, when I was 22 years old, I didn't have a lot going on. It was just music. I didn't have a job or a wife or a house or all the kids and all the stuff, all the responsibility and so I had enough time, so I could listen to everything at that time. There was just music, it was the only thing I had to worry about. I mean, these days, if somebody sends me a link, I literally liked shit. Today I have like eight other things I got to deal with. And by the time I'm done with that, I mean, I forgot about that link. And so I just never really get to listen to it. That happens quite a lot. But it's not because I don't want to. It's simply because time and stress, you know, that makes it difficult.

Let's move on to a previous project of Fenriz, namely Neptune Towers. Do you like it?

Yes, I heard that when it came out, and it was very obvious immediately that he had his ideas taken from completely different places than me. I never thought Neptune Tower sounded anything like Mortiis, and I don't believe that it should ever become so, I'm not even sure if Fenriz ever listened to Mortiis. I know he was really into techno and stuff like that back in those days, and I think the interest we shared was probably, you know, the same one that I shared with Euronymous, which was, these sort of early '70s German electronic music like like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and things like that. And I think that Neptune Towers were a lot closer to that style of music than I ever was, because I never tried to sound like those guys.

Yeah, of course. It's closer to Tangerine Dream.

Tangerine Dream is almost more, it's almost like Hawkwind, a space rock kind of thing. You know, where it's a lot more psychedelic, in a sense. That was my impression of it, whereas I was heading more in the medieval direction.

Moving on to other bands and projects, what's your take on Summoning?

To be honest I never listened to it, believe it or not. I've seen their artwork around and it looks great. Yeah, it looks fantastic. But admittedly, I don't think I've ever listened to it.

If you had the time to listen to some music, I would recommend their album "Minas Morgul".

That's straight out of Lord of the Rings.

This is their best album in my opinion with very atmospheric cover artwork. When we come to other metal musicians who have made electronic music, Dissection's Jon Nödtveidt with his project De Infernali also comes to mind.

I knew him. But I don't know this. No, did he make an album like that?

I think Dan Swanö from Edge of Sanity was also involved (and Jon's roommate at the time, Mikael Andersson from Midvinter-post research-note from the author).

That's a little embarrassing. I wasn't aware of it. Yeah, I suck a little bit of paying attention sometimes. I drop out of reality, sometimes for a long time. And then, you know, a lot of shit happens that I'm not catching.

I think the guy from Beherit, Marko Laiho, was also partly involved in this whole techno thing.

Yes, I remember. What was his pseudonym?

Something like Holocausto...(it's Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance-I researched it afterwards - note from the author)

Yes, something like that, right. I think he got into more like hardcore techno stuff. Quite early on, I remember I was at a festival in Finland. I was there with Roger Karmanik from Cold Meat Industry because he was apparently with Brighter Death Now. Do you know his project? And I was going to be on stage with him. But his show was canceled for some reason, so we were just hanging out and getting drunk. And then somebody told me that Holocausto is on the other side of the festival, and I went over there and talked to him a little bit, he was a very nice guy and he worked there as a DJ, this must have toaken place in 1995 or 1996. He was quite early with doing non-metal stuff. I think it was like really hard techno.

Speaking of Cold Meat Industry, there was also a band called Arcana. If I remember correctly, the guy also had a hardcore band called Meanwhile.

That might be. Peter, which was his name, I think he came out of a background of like metal or punk.

I think before Meanwhile the band was called Dischange, and as the name indicates, was quite a Discharge epigone.

Meanwhile, yeah, I'd heard about, Meanwhile, and I've heard about a million Dis-bands.

Disfear for example.

Disfear, Yes. I love this stuff, I like a lot of that old crust punk stuff, you know?

Whereas with Disfear only the first releases were in this Dis-style. Disrupt were a great band! But felt there were once thousands of these bands.

Yes, I know that's why I listen to Amebix because I don't have to worry about the Dis-bands, or  The Varukers I loved a lot, stuff like that.

Or Wolfbrigade!

Oh, yeah, that is that German or Swedish band I think?!

They are from Sweden and probably changed the band name from Wolfpack to Wolfbrigade at that time in order not to be confused with a Neonazi group of the same name.

Of course you don't want to be associated with that.

I would argue that Sweden-like it was with death metal-has had quite a pioneering role as far as this kind of sound is concerned.

It was big there. I mean, I used to know a guy called Cliff. And I think one of his early bands were Back Uniforms.

Yes, and Driller Killer later on.

Yeah. Driller Killer. And he was a great guy, and he's very tall, he was like two meters tall, and that was back in the drug days in Malmö. He was a cool guy, Driller Killer were great. And I think actually, he told me a story where he actually auditioned for Bathory. How many people can say that, you know? You auditioned for fucking Bathory, I mean, that's not a lot of people can tell!

Ah, interesting, for which position then?

I think it might have been for the guitar position or maybe the bass. I mean, he told me the story in 1996 or 1997, it's a long time ago and we were probably drunk, you know? But I thought that was great, it was just a short little anecdote like, "Oh, by the way, I auditioned for Bathory"- it must have been around the time Quorthon had plans to finally take Bathory out and do live shows and things like that. And so it must have been around the time of "Blood Fire Death" or something like that, you know, in 1988, 1989, maybe. 

But when you talk about Black Uniforms, you also have to mention Anti Cimex. In Sweden this style with Skitysystem became bigger, also in metal circles, there were At the Gates people with it.

Yeah, that was Thomas from Grotesque and At the Gates. We actually saw them live at one point, like when Skitsystem was quite new. Again, I think that was in the mid ´90s, you know, and it was quite quite a new band at the time. And we saw that it was great though. Fucking great show. 

I saw Skitsystem once in Gothenburg together with Tribulation, Tormented, Tyrant and Lautstürmer at Truckstop Alaska, which by the way was a pretty cool location, that was in 2010 I think. Tribulation weren't that big back then, Lautstürmer included ex-Driller Killer members, Tormented and Tyrant. Tyrant made a really cool album and then a split LP with Alehammer from England.

I've heard about Alehammer. Yes, Tyrant, I was not aware of a Swedish Tyrant, I mean, there used to be a German band called Tyrant back in the '80s.

I think there were hundreds of bands with this of name.

But the ones that I own records from are the German ones. There was one called "Mean machine" that was a good album. And then there was a really cool sort of power metal band at the same time in the mid 80s from the USA that I think were released by Metal Blade. They had like three albums out, and one of them is really fucking great, too. Worth to check it out. German tyrant and US tyrant. I don't know anything about the Swedish ones.

The album of the Swedish Tyrant was called "Reclaim the flame" and is really cool, great, old black metal for Celtic Frost, but also Darkthrone followers. But after the split-Lp with Alehammer it was over. Another thing, do you know what the guy from Ildjarn is doing nowadays, he seems to have completely disappeared from the scene.

I don't I haven't met him in fucking forever. I don't think I've seen him in at least 20 years. He used to live pretty close to me and the Emperor guys, he was out there in the countryside, you know, and but he was more of same old acquaintance of mine. I mean, I knew him a little bit through Samoth. I mean, that's about it. I think he just got really heavily into like bicycling and things like that, so he would just bike all over the country and, you know, is in really good shape like a marathon runner or some shit like that. I have no idea what he's doing today.

Okay, let's get back to your music-I think I read once that Björk was a fan of your music.

I don't know. Her husband at that time, Jesus Christ, I forget his name now, was a really cool artist. I did a kind of a collaboration with him when I opened one of his exhibitions in Norway. We showed up with the makeup and the masks and there were all these art lovers, it was like a gasp went through the crowd, because we looked like fuckin bums, you know? That was our image. It would just look like fucking something that crawled out of the sewer, you know? And these people in their nice clothes, we just mingled with them and it was weird, but it was cool. And god, I can't believe I forget his name. I don't think they're married anymore.

I'll do some research after the interview, it shouldn't be a problem to find out the name.

I mean, he is a really respected and successful artist , he does paintings and sculptures and all kinds of weird stuff. I mean, I can't believe I forget his name now, but 15 years have passed since then, you know, so I'm sorry. 

Ah, I remember his name. Matthew Barney. That's the guy.

Matthew Barney. To be honest, never heard of him.

I just remembered. So I don't know if I Björk might have been into my music, she's a pretty strange person, I guess. So I wouldn't be surprised if she was into Mortiis, but I know her husband was a fan. You know, I was in a studio working on "The grudge" in 2003, 2004, and somebody told me that there was a call for me, and I picked up and there was Matthew Barney and asks me to open his exhibition in Oslo because he obviously was a fan, you know? So, at least somebody close to Björk was into it.

To your knowledge, are there other more or less famous musicians who like your music?

Someone told me that Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails was into my stuff, which was fucking great. I know, guys like Daniel Lohner, the old bass player from Nine Inch Nails and Chris Vrenna, ex-drummer are into it as well, you know. I know somebody used to tease Marilyn Manson that I had a more extreme image than him and he got pissed off. So that was a good story. I think the best one is a friend of mine, many, many years ago he worked in a record store, and the blonde woman from Abba came in and bought one of my records. 

Haha, cool!

I think it was as a Christmas gift for a family member and he called me right after it.

Haha, that's where the next circle loops. There is now an ABBA reunion...

I know it's like a hologram thing, right? Or something, though. Are they physically going on tour or is it just like that?

I think they will give real concerts after all, in any case a new album is probably in the making. Which female member of ABBA was it, one is called Agnetha, and one of the male members Benni, that's all I can think of.

Was it Frieda or something?

But doesn't the band name consist of the first letters of the band members' first names (I have checked after the interview, the band consists of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid-note from the author).

Yes, I know what you mean. I don't know who it was exactly back then.

What music do you listen to in your free time?

I don't have any free time. When I have free time, I am posting stuff on social media and just like doing something that's related to Mortiis anyway. So I never really relaxe that much. But, you know, it's a bit weird with me in music, I mean, sometimes I can go several weeks and not put anything on that. That would be the time when I'm really preoccupied in my mind with with my own music, and I'm just not putting anything else. On the past few days, I've been playing some records and today, actually, I did play an old German band called Eloy. I was always a fan of Eloy. I think, they are a bit less commercial than Pink Floyd. They're not like Tangerine Dream and stuff like that because it's a lot more organic, you know, it got a lot more sort of guitars and vocals and things like that, but at the same time it spaced out. Ever since the '90s, I like listening to Eloy, and so today I just listen to the one called "Inside". I think it's from 1973, one of the earliest ones. That was a great one. I spent some time listening to that today and yesterday I think I played some Bauhaus.

Okay, "Bela Lugosi's dead"?

Yeah, it was "Press the eject and give me the tape", the live album. I was listening to that a little bit as well. That are the last two records I can remember.

Are you actually the type of musician who listens to your own work a lot?

I never listen to my own work for pleasure. I mean, I listen to it, and if I'm working on it, obviously sometimes I'll put something on, I haven't heard in a while just to see how it sounds. But no, I don't really have any good reasons to listen to my own stuff. When I'm done with something, it's over. Then I just think about what lies ahead as opposed to what I did eight years ago. It's not that interesting, you know.

But maybe some things are listened to for notalgic reasons?

No, I would rather put on Deep Purple or something for nostalgic reasons.

Let's move on to your current studio album "Spirit of rebellion" which is a re-interpreted expansion and continuation of the 1994 album “Ånden som Gjorde Opprør”. Why have you returned to your roots in this way?

I mean, the reason is, I'm not going to call it complicated, but it's a sort of a combination of a couple of things that happened. Right before I started working on that, the band Mortiis that had been performing the sort of industrial rock crossover type of music went on an extended break, for many reasons. And leading up to that, I had been considering bringing back the mask and that image into the band again. So that was something that was on my mind. And at the same time, Vlad, the guy that organized the Cold Meat Industry 30th Anniversary Festival in Stockholm in late 2017 had been kind asking me again and again to perform as era 1-Mortiis for that festival. And I had been pretty much rejecting that for a while because I didn't really feel ready to do it. But once the band took that break, I was uncertain about, you know, what am I going to do now? What comes next for me? Well, Mortiis is no longer a band, and then Vlad again emailed me "Hey, man, come on, dude, do the show", so I was like, "Okay, well, fuck it, I'll do the show!" I'm already pretty open to going back to using the mask and that whole old image. So I just decided to re-record the album and perform that, and I thought that'll be fucking cool. And as I was working on that, I just got all these new ideas, all these new musical ideas that I was sort of injecting into the old stuff and so everything got updated and renewed and extended. And, you know, as I was working on it, I just realized this is almost like a new record now. There's so much new happening here and all that rhythmical stuff, and it's the whole production and all the sounds. I just got to take it to a complete other level. So you know, that's the short version of how that record was created.

Which version do you prefer today?

I mean, I like I would totally prefer "The spirit of rebellion"- version because it sounds the way if I had been able to make that record back in 1994, I would have been extremely excited. But, you know, back in '94, I didn't have the experience or the equipment or certain musical skills. Not that I have a lot of musical skills now, but I certainly have more now that I had back then. So, you know, I mean, the "Spirit of Rebellion" album, the way how it sounds was essentially the kind of music I wanted to make back when I started. But back then, everything was limited. I only had access to a few a couple of keyboards and no experience with studio gear and I didn't know anything. So it's hard to to achieve everything when you don't know how to do it.

Here in Germany, some reviews of this album were not good. Is that something that bothers you a lot then? Do you distinguish between constructive and negative criticism? When someone says what's the point of this album, why is he releasing it, do you take it personally?

So this one guy says, I don't like it, you shouldn't put this out because one guy feels that he doesn't like it. That's insane, that's pretty stupid.

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"I'm still here, people can't fucking kill me. There's no fucking way, I'll survive all of those guys."

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I simply asked if you take that to heart or do you have more of that "fuck off" attitude then.

I mean, you know, no one enjoys hearing that your work sucks, but if you look at my career and the way I have been treated by media for 25, almost 30 years, it's basically been bullying since day one, you know, and I'm still here, people can't fucking kill me. There's no fucking way, I'll survive all of those guys. So it's a free world, I mean, if they don't like it, okay, no problem. I don't give a fuck. I mean, I'm already working on the next album.

If you're referring to the treatment by the media, I've always found the bands that got really good to very good ratings the best, or really bad ones. Those were often bands that polarized. Ildjarn, for example, who we already talked about, were so often torn apart and ridiculed by the press, but they were a big influence on parts of the scene and even have cult status for some, something that not many bands can claim. There is even an Ildjarn tribute release with bands like Nachtmystium and Xasthur. To put it in a nutshell, nothing is worse for an artist to get a mediocre rating, something along the lines of "quite nicely done, but nothing more". Soon nobody will remember these artists and musicians...

So yes, that's the thing. And to start with the first part of the question, I mean, like you said, I would much rather get like a zero or a one point review, which I've gotten quite a few times as opposed to five out of ten, you know? I remember when "The Stargate" came out and they gave it to Barney from Napalm Death to review in Kerrang!, and he fucking butchered the whole album. He thought it was like the worst fucking thing he'd ever seen or heard. It kind of sucked a little bit because it came from a band that I respected. I mean, I grew up as a kid with Napalm Death, it hurt a little bit to have their singer ripped me apart like that. But you get over it, man, you know? And so I would rather have that that something like "Well, I can listen to it." You know, this is elevator music. I mean, that would be the worst, you know? Well, it would mean that the music is basically pointless, it has no meaning, it's like lukewarm water. That's the worst. But I try not to get too caught up in these reviews.Of course it's always nice to get good reviews, because obviously you put out an album, it means you're happy with it yourself. I mean, you think the music is good and you're very proud of it. And then somebody comes along and goes like, "No, it sucks. You shouldn't put this out." So that kind of makes you go like "Fuck you, too." I mean, so I shouldn't put my album out because you don't like it? I mean, what kind of an egomaniac are you? And by the way, fucking do a better job yourself, your dumb ass journalist. You know, you're sitting there writing for a fucking magazine. You're not even making music. Yeah, it's easy just fucking talking about it. But you know the the cool thing about this is, looking at all these reviews throughout the years for other magazines concerning other bands. I remember when I was a kid and the Norwegian newspapers were writing about Slayer and Venom and Metallica, and they shat all over those bands. They were pissing all over them. I remember one guy who I think was reviewing "Reign in Blood", which is now considered like the ultimate metal classic of all time, especially in thrash metal, maybe next to "Master of puppets". He said something like if "If Slayer becomes a successful band, I'll eat my hat". And I'm like, I hope he his is fucking hat, man. You see how wrong these people had been. They didn't fucking understand it. A lot of times records are given to people that don't understand the music, a lot of times the records are given to the wrong guy. You know, you don't give a Mortiis album to a guy wearing an Accept-shirt, you know what I mean? He's not going to like it. Yeah, of course he's not going to like it. Give it to the guy with the Chemical Brothers-shirt. He might like it. 

A question about the cover of "The Stargate" release. Would you do it that way again today?

No, no. That cover has been ridiculed a lot, and I can understand it in a way. It's a classic example of an idea that looks great in your head. And then I explained it to the artwork guy, that was sitting there with Photoshop and all that stuff. I said I wanted it to look like I'm sort of floating in space, you know? I thought it was a great fucking idea at that time. I liked it when it came out, and I still like it because I was so used to it. But when you make an artwork like that, you put yourself out there as a meme victim, you know, but it does happen, there's just something about it that I understand that people find it slightly hilarious, you know? So knowing what I know now, I would not go that way if I was going to make that cover again. 

With Immortal there were also some band photos that caused irritation, to say it that way.

Yes, the ones with the white background? I think I've seen them, I think I know which ones you mean. Is it from the "Battles in the North" album or something like that?

No, it I think it's another album (it's actually the photos in the booklet of the "At the heart of winter" album-note from the author), there's the drummer, wearing some kind of oversized belt around his belly. I think Immortal said that they took these photos just for fun, and then they accidentally got to the record company and were used for the design of the booklet.

I mean, what I always do when when we create artwork for anything and collaborations with a label or  something like that, I always tell them in advance, you have to send this to me for final approval. Nothing goes to print without me having the last say, and if I don't say it's good, it doesn't go to print. I guess they didn't do that. I think I've seen these photos and they've been turned into like a million memes over the years and little gifts and little moving south park pictures. And you know, it gets taking the piss out of a lot. I'm presuming that the guys from Immortal, I mean, they're probably thick skinned, you know, they've been around for a long time. They don't care about this, I'm sure, you know. Yeah, maybe in private, they're a little bit sick of it. I could understand that. But what are you going to do? I mean, it's a mistake. And then people get childish and they have to take the piss out of it. If people don't have lives and they want to make fun of people's photos, then you know, there's nothing you can do to stop them. It just means they have nothing better to do.

And coming to the to the near future, I think after the spirit of rebellion there was there followed the release of this live stuff. Yeah, that's my I don't own this, I only have seen it on on this course. And um, what what what will be the next studio release from you? Do you have an idea and in which direction do you think it maybe will will go?

I'm working parallel now on two projects. I mean, one of them is  another sort of me taking some old stuff and redoing it and putting it in the format that it deserves. I can't say too much about it, but I think it's going to be a mix of stuff from the smithereen days and some other things that for various reasons I have chosen to bring out and I'm reworking it and putting it out at some point. Hopefully, I think this will be next year and then there's a another project, which is a project with Stephan Groth from Apoptygma Berzerk, which I'm pretty sure you Germans know that, because he's quite famous in Germany.

Yes, I like his music, I remember the Apoptygma Berzerk album "7", that's great. And after that there was another one, I liked that too, it had "Kathy's Song" on it.

Oh, you mean "Welcome to Earth".

"Welcome to earth", yes.

He's a great guy, we live on the same street as a matter of fact. I've known him for a long, long time, and we're doing a project together where I made a lot of music for it. We've been recording vocals  and Sarah Jezebel Deva is actually a guest singer on a couple of those songs, but we have some other guest vocalists as well. So that music is very fucking good, it's very catchy, even though it's almost a little bit like "The smell of rain", you know, with a catchy pop sensibility. So that's a little bit of a return to those times now. So we have those two projects going on at the same time and right now it's impossible to tell which one will be done first. I'll just kind of working on both. We'll just see which one gets done first, you know? I have a whole bunch of stuff laying around for for the future. Beyond that, I have several plans that might feel like a further development of "The spirit of rebellion", but that's for the future.

Here in Germany they became very big, Apoptygma Berzerk had a mega hit at some point, which was also always on the radio. And that was too shallow for me, so I lost interest in the band. It's not that I'm an underground guy who doesn't like everything that becomes big and famous, but that was too cheesy for me. Can you understand that?

I think I do, yes.

And so I lost track of Apoptygma Berzerk, I don't even know what they've done since then. I think that was about five to eight years ago (actually I meant the single "Shine on" from the 2005 album "You and me against the world"-how time flies-note from the author).

What I think you might be interested in is Stephan put out, which I think is more or less a solo record. It's still called "uplifting by Berserk", but it came out a couple of years ago and it's called "Exit popularity contest". And it's a cool record because it's more like synthesizers and modular synthesizers and more experimental and artistic. Stephan and me really share a common love for old German electronic music. He's probably more of a Kraftwerk guy, and I'm like a Tangerine Dream-guy. But we both love both of those, you know, so that combines and mixes together very well. And you know, that's why we started to do this project together, because we really meet musically in that specific sound, the old sort of Berlin school style of things that's we're rather inspired by that on this project. That and like sort of late '70s, early '80s Vangelis, the Greek composer and electronic artist and some John Carpenter stuff from the same time, like really late '70s, early '80s electronic music, you know? So it's going to be cool. I think people are going to like it.

Do you like Atari Teenage Riot?

I listened to that a little while, that's a long time ago, though, and you know, that's sort of like protest electronica.

I once read that the guy from Atari Teenage Riot, Alec Empire, was once taken into custody for a few hours for resisting the authorities during a demonstration in Berlin.

I mean, it's not totally my style of music, but I do like it. It's chaotic and angry, so it's got that punk element that I can relate to. And I was going to say that it reminded me of someone else, but I forgot it now. Yeah, it's like the electronic version of Rage Against the Machine. 

Atari Teenage Riot used to be really big, I think I remember that they toured with Rage against the machine in the USA back then.

Oh, really? Yeah, I think that makes sense.

Maybe interesting for you, there was a project called Curse of the golden vampire, there was also someone from Atari Teenage Riot involved, that was also pretty heavy, I mean also pretty noisy electro stuff.

Never heard about it. But I'll keep that in mind. I'll check it out.

Coming to the end of the interview, I wanted to ask. I've read that you have besides your music, you have a regular job.

Yes, I got a job.

If you could turn back the wheel of time and there was no internet, no streaming platforms and people had to buy CDs or records again to listen to music, would you be able to make a good living from music?

Oh, I mean, if people had the only way to listen to music today would be by buying physical format, judging by the streaming numbers on Spotify and Apple Music and all those places, if that would translate into physical sales and I would being paid fairly by a record label or if I was putting records out myself, I could totally see that I could make a living of it, you know? And I'm basing that on the fact that even though I can't make a good living out of Mortiis now, which is why I have a regular job, my income from Mortiis is a very nice side income. You know, it isn't quite enough to maintain having a house and two kids and two cars and all that stuff, and we just bought an apartment in Sweden, so I have a lot of bills to pay, you know? But I mean if all of the streaming stuff went away and people would jump right over to just buying physical and everything would just be about physical. Then, yeah, I mean, I think it would be a big difference for a lot of bands. And then all of a sudden, you know, a lot of us could can make a living off of this and we could work on music, you know, full time every day. We would put out records more often. We would tour more. Probably we wouldn't have to worry about that fucking day job and getting time off so we can go on tour and all that stuff, you know, I think it would really be like a huge sort of vitamin injection into the music world, you know? But unfortunately, that's a big daydream.

If we talk about Spotify, these are such tiny sums,  in an interview with a band, I think it was Portishead, they said that millions for many millions of streams just received a four-digit sum.

I wouldn't be surprised. I don't have the numbers in front of me, 400000 streams. I mean, I don't know what it might be more than 50 Euros, but it's still going to be 400000 streams. That's a lot of times your music was played. And even if it's 200 euros, it's still fucking nothing. So it's true. I mean, you know, you look at the the money you get for one stream, it's like 0.00 until there's comes something like a number. I know you really need a lot of streams to generate cash. I mean, I'm sort of semi-happy with the way my Spotify is going, It seems like it's quite stable. It always go down a bit in the summer because I guess that people are busy with with vacations and holidays. And, you know, maybe there aren't so many festivals this year, but it always goes down a bit in the summer and then it goes up again in the fall. So I'm noticing the curves. I'm not a big businessman, but I have these apps where I can analyze that.

But maybe it's the nature of your music that it's listened to more in the winter than in the summer....

Okay, that could be. But I think in general, people listen less to music in the summer, I guess they're out there drinking and for things like that. And then I have a suspicion that a lot of people listen to music at work, so during weekdays, it seems to be more active and then the weekends come around, people just kind of do other things. I noticed the same thing on social media, too. If you post something on a saturday, it doesn't get the same response as it does if you post it on a monday. 

I could ask anything I wanted. I learned a lot about your person and music.

My pleasure.

Do you want to say some last words?

Oh, I'd never really have any last words, I have had so many words already. But you know, thank you for the interest and the opportunity to promote myself. That's always nice and obviously, you know, hopefully this Mayhem / Mortiis tour is not going to get cancelled or postponed again. Over here in Norway now, it seems like the pandemic is kind of calming down. It's not gone, but we reopened anyway, so because most of us have gotten the vaccine and I really hope that trend continues for the rest of Europe and the rest of the world, obviously. But if we're going to talk about the Mayhem tour, then my hopes are especially concerning Europe, probably that's a bit selfish to say. I mean, just if we're going to talk about the tour, I really hope that Europe opens up, I think we're going in the right direction. Hopefully, unless there's another fucking delta virus or some crazy mutant that shows up so we can finally get out there and do this fucking tour and get back to normal.

To take up this point again,  how about the Corona pandemic in Norway? Here in Germany this is already an issue that contributes to the division of society. There is already a small, but relatively loud and partly also radical scene, which partly claims that Corona does not exist, often this is also mixed with conspiracy theories.

I'm not really seeing it a lot in Norway. Norway is a small country, not a lot of people live here. So I mean, there are people out there, they're the anti-vaxxers, as we call them, you know, they refuse to take the vaccine. I mean, there are some good arguments, for not taking the vaccine, if someone says "I simply don't trust it, I don't want to get sick from it" then I'm not going to argue with him about it. I think it's an argument you have to respect. My argument is that I just want to be fucking done with this. I'll take the vaccine. I'll be a part of this statistic that will eventually get the government to reopen and make a lot of things possible again. So that was my argument for taking the vaccine. I know that vaccine has been developed very fast. You know, normally I think it takes about 10 years to develop a good vaccine and this one came out within some months, so I can see why people get skeptical at the same time, but I just want to fucking help out, and I don't want to be the guy that makes things more difficult, you know? So I wear the mask and put the fucking disinfectant on my hands every time I enter a store and and I did it just to be part of the team that gets rid of this fucking thing. But I'm not one of those guys that want to argue with people about it. If you have a reason not to vaccinate yourself, then that's okay, fine. If we need these vaccination passes, these passports that showed that you've been vaccinated to travel between countries, the only people that can travel between countries are the people that got the vaccine. So if you've chosen not to get it, you're limiting yourself. And you could say that that's a dictatorial move from governments. And maybe I agree with that, but that doesn't help that you're not going to be able to travel. You know, but just to return to your questions, I don't see big fights over here between people that got the vaccine and the people that didn't get the vaccine, like you see it in the United States. You know, it's like civil war level shit. You know, it's too bad that you guys get to deal with that in Germany. That kind of sucks that you have that problem. But again, I just hope things calm down. So, you know, culture can get back on its feet and start, you know, traveling and performing again. 

That's a good closing word. For me it's always nice to talk to musicians or bands that I started listening to when I was a teenager. And nowadays it's so easy, in the past when there was no internet really, just the first contact would have been difficult. 

Yes, that's the good thing about technology, you know, communication now is so easy. Back then, like you said, it was letters and you got on the phone sometimes and I had a fax machine and I remember that was the email of the '90s, you know? But that's how it was back then with communication, you also met people in person more often.