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"The Stoic Warrior"
Interviews with Varg Vikernes of Burzum.
Originally published in Imperiumi.net, April 2010 and March 2011, respectively.
In the couple fresh interviews I’ve seen lately, people seem to concentrate on the theme of change quite a bit. Then again you seem to downplay change to some degree, saying for example that you think you will change far more the moment you get out of prison than you did change while you were in prison. If you’re not that big on change, how important is some sort of change – if not progression – for Burzum’s music, then? What especially did you want to have different with Belus compared to your earlier albums?
- With Belus I just wanted to make an album I would be able to listen to for years. I did not care if it was different in style from the others or not. For me such concerns are a thing of the past. Change is rarely for the better, and you know; “if it works don't fix it”. Progression is of course a different thing, and naturally some sort of progression is important. Unfortunately...
If anything, there’s bound to be some physiological changes in a human in over 15 years. One thing that has clearly changed, at least a bit, is your voice. I know everyone can alter the voice at will, so the change in the vocal style is not necessarily caused by physiological changes in your body/throat, but were you surprised at how much your singing had changed during all the years?
- The voice has not changed, but the technique I used when recording the vocals for Belus (and for Filosofem) was different from the others. I changed the use of vocals intentionally, because I never liked the old vocals. That's why I did something different on Filosofem as well.
I don’t know enough about your conditions in prison to compare you to a political prisoner, but even though prison as an institution didn’t cut you entirely from the outside world (I mean, people were in contact with you by letters, you wrote a handful of books and you eventually even got some of your essays and articles published through Burzum.org. But did it feel liberating to open your voice – to be able to communicate directly – again after a long period of “being muted”?
- No, and I talk to the music press only because this is part of the agreement with my record label and our distributors. Burzum.org is enough for me. I don't need anything else personally.
Metal bands usually have a tendency to do their most aggressive works during their younger years. The early Burzum albums weren’t about in-your-face aggression, nor is the new one, but in my opinion the early albums were more yearning and almost nostalgic, whereas I think there’s a new-found hate and bitterness in Belus. Do you think such feelings served as fuel for you when you were preparing Belus?
- Not at all. Belus is a musical and lyrical interpretation of an ancient myth, and there is no hatred or bitterness there at all. Contempt, perhaps, and arrogance, but no hatred and no bitterness. I am more aggressive now than I was before though. My “fuse” is shorter than ever.
There’s obviously some old riffs on Belus – like in the songs Belus' Død and Sverddans – but besides those, how much of the album was born in your head while you were still in prison? Or is it mostly composed after you got out? When did you first start to think that you’d do another Burzum album and when did you realise it was going to be a metal album with guitars and so on?
- All my music has been created using a guitar, and all music has been created with metal in mind. The only exception here is parts of Hliðskjálf. You can actually find the details on when the individual songs were created on burzum.org, if you check out the information about the Belus album.
You’ve said that you learned a lot while you were in prison, in particular about mythology. How much do you think that new knowledge reflects in the outcome that is Belus, both musically and lyrically? Do you think the music is now stronger because of that learnedness?
- My music is stronger because I no longer rush things, because I cherry-pick when deciding what material to use and because I am more carefree in relation to what others may think or expect from me. In short; I don't care what others think or expect. Also, I just make music I like, rather than try my best to be original, like I did before.
- Belus is a fruit of what I know, musically as well as lyrically.
In your opinion, what can the myths teach the modern human? Are myths about passing on knowledge from generation to generation, are they about moral guidelines or what?
- The myths are keys to the “secrets” (lore) of the past, but whether they are only that or more is up to each individual reader of these myths. It can be something to me that it is not to you, and vice versa. The lyrics on Belus are what you put into it yourself. The meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
The god Baldur from Norse mythology is associated with light, beauty and happiness. Looking back, do you feel that Burzum even on its early albums has always been about “positive” things? I mean, is Burzum for you personally more about glorification than about hate?
- Burzum has always been about despair, I think. Philosophical despair, if you like. It's an artistic expression of the despair I felt and still feel, and the despair felt by others who leave the cave – if I may refer to the allegory of the cave by Plato – and then is forced to return and live inside with the ignorant masses. The despair is in a sense a good thing, a positive thing, but only if you learn how to live with it. If you don't....
It has been the case since the early 90’s that Burzum’s music, as regards the more mainstream attention at least, has been overshadowed by all the controversy that has been going on around you. I admit that even this interview is evidence of the fact that many people are even more interested in you as a person and in your views on different things (politics, for example) than they are in Burzum’s music per se. Do you find this disturbing or strange in any way? Do you think that people should pay more attention to the music? I mean, if you wanted to be quoted on your views on politics more than for your music, you’d probably be a politician and not a musician, am I right?
- It doesn't really matter what they think – and it doesn't really matter what I think about this either. The ignorant masses have a need for entertainment, for circus and circus clowns, as well as for bread, of course and so to speak, and they turn everything into a circus and everyone into circus clowns – and they matter no whit. They live in a different cave, so to speak. I don't care what they do, say, think or feel.
Now that you’re out of prison, you have a number of different channels and ways to make your opinions known. In my opinion art and ideology can’t be distinguished from one another and therefore art is alwasy political, but do you personally see Burzum as a channel for anything else but your music and lyrics?
- It can be seen as positive propaganda. If anything I would like it to teach you all something about your own culture. Our own European culture.
Have you been surprised by the fact that magazines all the way from the more traditional metal magazines such as Kerrang (who already covered Burzum in the early 90’s) to more “highbrow” experimental music magazines such as Wire Magazine are interested in the new Burzum album? Do you think there’s a paradox in you “needing” the vehicle of the press for promotion, the vehicle that you, essentially, don’t trust?
- Well, if they have an interest in Belus it's good for distribution, but we don't need them. They can promote the album whether I trust them or not, and most of them make mistakes and do it badly, but there is not much I can do about this. That's just life, and I don't care too much either. If I want to I can correct their mistakes on burzum.org – the only reliably source of information when it comes to Burzum. If it's not on burzum.org it's not true. As simple as that.
I can only guess the amount of interviews you’re doing for Belus, even with the so-called general interview that has been sent to the press... Which questions or themes seem to interest people the most these days and which questions are you tired of answering/being asked?
- The most common and indeed boring questions would be those about how I make music, when I made the music for Belus and why I make music “again” – as if I ever stopped making music.
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For anyone who remembers that the early Burzum albums were recorded in a period of merely two years, it shouldn't come as a surprise that you've already come up with a follow-up for last year's Belus. There were three tracks discarded from Belus, so did those end up on Fallen? Or did Fallen start from a clean table?
- Well, I never discarded three tracks from Belus, by the way. I just planned on making three more tracks, but never finished them, and the lyrics for these three planned tracks were incorporated into the other tracks instead.
- Fallen is made between November 2009 and December 2010, and a few riffs intended for Belus (recorded in January 2010) ended up on Fallen instead, but it started more or less from a clean table.
The general opinion of Fallen – even before it's been officially released – seems to be that, more than anything, it's a continuation for Belus: a Belus II. I think Jeg Faller and Valen are songs that make the biggest difference, and I consider those two as the best tracks on Fallen. When you started writing material for Fallen, was there anything you consciously wanted to make differently compared to Belus?
- Yeah, I wanted it to be less influenced by Hvis Lyset tar oss and Filosofem than Belus was, and more by the début album and Det som engang var, and I intentionally made it more varied, less monotonous and more thorough and wholehearted than Belus was.
The timeline of the album is somewhat irrelevant, though, as true art is seldom affected by the passing of a year or two. At times, Fallen touches on the concept of timelessness (in Jeg Faller, for example). Is there anything you actually consider timeless, or to have timeless beauty, in this world?
- Many ideas are timeless, many objects are beautiful irregardless of their age, and if you are able to you can yourself live outside of time, when you realise that there is no past and no future, but only a present – and the past and the future exists only in the present. The track Jeg faller (I am falling) is actually about this; I am falling out of time, into something else.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, whose painting you've used for the cover of Fallen, is an interesting artist to say the least. A traditionalist extraordinaire, at the end of his life he described his love of his art: “Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come…if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable.” Do you feel similar joy when you work with your music and art? Would you even say that you'd be miserable without your art?
- Well, I am rather Stoic, so I don't fall into despair the moment I am not entertained, but at the same time I do enjoy making music – and working out, jogging, vacuuming my car, watching a good DVD (although they are almost all worthless...), taking a walk in the forest, and so forth. Both small and large events in life are valuable some way or the other.
What drives you as an artist first and foremost? Has that source of inspiration changed significantly through the years, or perhaps even from a couple of years back?
- What drives me? Probably the lack of something better to do. If I could I would rather do something else, somewhere else, in a different age. We all dream of some Golden Age, don't we? And we locate this Golden Age somewhere in the past, as inspiration, and in the future, to keep us going.
When did you actually discover this painting by Bouguereau? What did initially strike you about it as something that made you consider it as a cover for the Burzum album?
- It – Élégie – fits perfect to the theme of the album. It's that simple. When I discovered the painting? That I cannot recall. Years ago.
The world of Bouguereau's almost photo-realistic paintings is obviously idealized. His style is still very much in the traditionalist school, although hints of romanticism can perhaps be detected in his portrayal of the female body, for example. I find music an art form where realism is seldom attained or even pursued. How realistic, romanticist or traditionalist – probably not impressionist, though – can music be, in your opinion, and which of these do you pursue with Burzum?
- Like before I do my best not to fit into any particular category, and I do believe that Burzum is and should be paradoxical in the sense that it fits into many and at the same time no categories. I pursue individualism and attempt to walk where there are no pats or even footsteps in front of me. Into the wilderness.
- Music in general; I don't know what it can be. I don't know what it should be. I don't even know if it should be... With all that said, I will do as could be expected from a living paradox, and claim that Burzum would fit best into the romantic category. And the traditionalist category. And the realistic category.
For me, Fallen is an album that talks about the fall of man, at least in some respects. It feels like an elegy, a lament for a dying breed of men. Melancholy has always been in the backbone of Burzum, but do you feel there have been any recent developments that inspire an elegy of this sort? Or is the inspiration for an album like Fallen more timeless, so to speak?
- It is timeless, for sure, but more personal than your description. Man as a species is of little interest to me; I am too egocentric and Stoic to care about such ideas. Fallen should be seen as a mirror, enabling the listener to see an image of themselves.
Do you feel mankind's present state is a state of free fall – something that can't be stopped no matter what?
- Not mankind, but a majority of men is in a state of free fall. I am not. Many I know are not. What we see, I think, is that most men allow themselves to be turned into slaves and sub-humans, while at the same time a minority is not falling into this trap. It does not matter to our species's survival or even wel-being though. I am pro-slavery anyhow, so I don't care if good men chose slavery, ignorance and stupidity for themselves. Each man gets what he deserves. Slaves and slave labour is what made philosophy possible in Ancient Greek, for instance, and what made it possible for the nobility to build all those magnificent castles and palaces in Europe, so... Castles and palaces might not be necessary, but I don't think we would be much without classical philosophy.
- Ah well; it truly is a silly thing to believe that all men can be free and enlightened.
In Enhver til Sitt the lyrics ask ”Hvorfor må jeg kjenne den gamle smerten igjen.” Often one sees readers forget the idea of the author's death (by Roland Barthes), and consider the author as the ”I” in the lyrics. However, since your release from prison, you've had to face some of the old pains and ghost of the past, especially because you decided to continue Burzum. I've heard that you're considering battling the old pains again by re-recording compilation albums of the first four Burzum albums. Not that I think you should have to justify anything you decide to do with your music, but can you explain what can possibly be accomplished by re-recording the songs from early 90's? What can be done better that will, in essentials, make the songs better for you? In other words, what's the motivation behind this decision?
- Well, I certainly have no pain or worries in relation to my past. The lyric you refer to is in any case metaphysical, if I may use such a fancy word, and should not be seen as autobiographical.
- First of all I re-recorded the (from my point of view) best tracks from the début album and Det som engang var because I was never satisfied with the original recordings; they never did justice to the music! Further, I did it to make the music more available to a new audience. We – my distributors and myself – knew perfectly well that we would face a wailing choir made up of Burzum fans unwilling or unable to appreciate new inputs (as was the case with the new ”logos”, the cover artwork for Fallen et cetera), complaining about the decision to re-record these tracks, but we don't care. If you don't like it, or rather; if you don't want to like it, that's fine. If you don't like it then don't listen to it. It's that simple.
- Oh, and I will even change and experiment with the tracks on the second compilation planned, the one that is to include the best tracks from Hvis Lyset tar oss and Filosofem. There is nothing sacred about these albums you know, nothing we should not or cannot touch. Leave the idolatry to sub-human slaves.
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