Interview with Apollyon of Aura Noir 2012

By Bradley Smith

Your new album Out To Die is getting ready to burn the streets.  How can you compare it to your previous efforts?  To me it sounds like a fuller album, perhaps due to the full participation from all members.  And how does it feel to have Aggressor back fully in the fold since his 2005 accident? 

I still haven’t listened to the whole album.  Waiting for the vinyl to appear.  However I went and picked up the cd’s the other day and checked out a couple of songs in my car.  I think it sounds pretty fucking ok. I mean, with your own products you tend to look for negative stuff but I’ll shut up about it.

It’s always great to play music with Aggressor.

You and Aggressor have different styles to writing songs.  How does your approach compare to his?  And in the end what sort of personality do you each put on the song?  I think I read somewhere that you think his songs are more “intelligent.”  So in the end how do you feel that your song affect the listener compared to his songs?

True, I’m less intelligent..haha.  I don’t know, I think the best way to describe what I mean is to compare Exodus’ riffs with Voivod’s.  It’s a different style of playing and the exodus way is more traditional when it comes to metal..I often think that his songs last longer than mine but with a little work I guess it’s possible to make quality metal with both approaches.

I think my songs might be affecting the primitive side of the listener more, like the urge to push people over when you listen to it loudly while walking through a busy train station.  Aggressor’s stuff has the same effect, but typically I don’t understand how awesome it is until I’ve listened to it a couple of times..and it never stops growing on me.  Never.

On a similar note, You and Aggressor use differing approaches to writing lyrics.  You write them after the song is finished and he writes them before the song is written.  Which method do you think is better and why?  Does your method leave you open to the flow of the music while his leaves him unconstrained by the confines of song structure?

There are three ways of doing it and we’ve done all of them but we never sat down and analyzed what works best.  In a way, to write music and lyrics separately, and try out which song fits what lyrics better is the coolest, though it can be tricky to make them fit the music as they originally appeared.  For instance I tried Fenriz’ “Withheld”-lyrics on 3 different songs before I decided which one gave the best result.

Letting the music inspire you to write lyrics is maybe more like adding another instrument to the song. You just have to make sure not to make it sound too perfect and planned or it will end up sounding like pop music.

On the track “fighting for hell” on “Black thrash attack ”I had the lyrics in front of me(or in my head) while making the song.

Bottom line is that, in my experience all ways work but you always have to compromise in one way or another, altering parts of the lyrics or parts of the song.  The trick is to do it at an early stage, to give it time to set.  Then you will eventually find out whether it works for that song or not.

Aura Noir was chosen, along with Devil and Nekromantheon, to perform at the final gig at Elm Street.  How did it feel to be selected to close down such a landmark of the Oslo scene and what did Elm Street mean to you?  How was the performance?

It was actually Stian from Devil’s birthday and he had made a deal with the owner to have that as the last metal night on elm street.  The last gig was a couple of days later on new years eve, where the boogie rock legends “Back street girls” performed their entire “party on elm street”-album(from where the club had gotten their name+logo).

Anyway it was a cool thing to do.  I’ve worked there myself for 7 years up until 2006 and we played our first shows there with Aura Noir.  Loads of the old crowd were present.  Wasn’t anything serious though.  We were more intoxicated than usual and it was just me aggressor and tank playing 5-6 songs(first “show” without blasphemer)It was more of a night to be social and nostalgic, rather than trying to be serious musicians.  Hence the low ticket price.

Another important gig that Aura Noir performed at was Live Evil 2.  What does it mean to headline a concert of Fenriz recommended bands and what was this experience like?  Any special memories from this festival?

Live evil is a great event.  We’ve always shared taste in music of all genres so obviously all bands on the bill are interesting to me in one way or another.  Great atmosphere too.  I will definitely return there.

We hadn’t had the opportunity to rehearse at all prior to the festival, apart from a couple of songs on the soundcheck, so I guess we were slightly nervous.  Went fine though.

Two tracks from Out To Die were leaked early and posted on youtube without your authorization.  How did this happen and how does that make you feel?  Do you consider this a betrayal of your artistic endeavor?

Our last days in studio were extremely hectic because of a deadline the record company had set for us.  Also our budget isn’t huge so we were just pissed off about not being able to spend one week extra on something we had been spending 3 years making.  The first master sounded horribly “nice” in our ears with 2 days left before we had to deliver the finished product.  I sent it back to the mastering studio with the order to “destroy” it..make it sound like “deep tracts of hell”, where all frequencies are tweaking and everything sounds distorted.  So he did, and it sounded much better but some of the low frequencies were ridiculously loud making it almost impossible to listen to.  Then a final master that sounded somewhere in between was made, without us being present, and sent away for printing.  This last version I didn’t even have the chance to listen to because I had business in London..and then ..less than a week later a friend of mine tells me the album is online......of course I was furious.  I was already up to my neck with everything that had to do with mixing, mastering and silly deadlines, and then I heard that what had happened was that our label had sent the link for downloading the final master to some “key” magazines...3 months before the release!

There was just so much disrespect involved that I have no words.

I know that the album is online now because all the cd’s have been shipped away to the stores, and that doesn’t really bother me.  What bothers me is that, at the end of the day it’s our work and our cv’s and reputation that’s on the line and it’s extremely frustrating to be surrounded by people who care only about the business part, and “key” journalists who are as trustable and loyal as anyone who writes for “the sun”.  Why the fuck should they receive my album 3 months before everyone else?

Beats me, but I guess this is how true the people who run this business are.

Aura Noir is titled “the ugliest band in the world.”  How does Aura Noir qualify as the ugliest band in the world?  I mean what makes a band ugly?  Is it being physically unattractive or having repulsive music?  And what other bands do you consider really ugly? 

It’s a combination of the way we appear and the way we perform our music plus the way we want to sound.  Venom are pretty ugly.  Early Sodom too.  Deathhammer from Norway.  Darkness descends by Dark Angel has tons of ugly non-hummable monotonous riffs on it.

Last year you finally did a US tour.  How was the tour and what was your impression of the country?  Did you get to see anything interesting during your journey?

Yeah, finally.  We’ve all been touring there before though, on different levels, so I guess we were prepared of what to expect for better or worse.  I thought it went great.  Loads of dedicated people, and with few exceptions we got to play surprisingly cool venues.  We have a love/hate relationship to the states. It’s fucking annoying with all the preparations and endless lines in embassies to get your work visas in beforehand and immigration at the airport.  Costs a lot of money and patience. And you have to do this every fucking year, you know.  But the crowd is very pleasing and make us feel home in a way.  Just hope we can come back and play more cities.

I always like to go around and experience stuff wherever I play, be it hanging out with locals drinking in a park or checking out typical tourist sights.  Hotel rooms and tour buses look the same everywhere and are not very inspiring.

With every member of the band being involved in other musical projects do you ever feel like you near a sense of burnout?  What rituals or exercises do you do to prevent that sort of mental breakdown?

Not really but I see what you mean.  The trick is to not overdo things and always be hungry for more music and interested.  It’s easy to hear that bands tend to lose their hunger after the first three or so albums, and get more into the business side of things and loose contact with the underground.  We’re trying to avoid that from happening by being ourselves and never growing up.  We’re also as broke and miserable as a typical teenager, which probably helps..

I know that Anders Breivik, the man behind the Oslo bombing and subsequent massacre on the Island of Utoya was recently indicted on Terror charges and will undergo psychiatric evaluation.  Is Norway still obsessed with daily developments in this case and what are your thoughts on his actions?  Do you remember what you were doing the day of the attack and did you follow the events as they unfolded or did you not care? 

Yes, they are obviously obsessed with it still, and it’s ridiculous in a way how much money they are spending to keep this guy safe from the rest of the country and fellow prisoners.  They are setting up new buildings because of him.  The easiest would of course have been to put him in a cell with the others and he would probably have been dead by now.  The biggest punishment they’ve given him so far is probably on a psychic level, because he’s been spending most of the time in total isolation+the fact that they’re not letting him fulfill his manifest by spreading his propaganda in the courtroom or to the media.

I was never very impressed by neo Nazis, or fascist in general.  He's also a world of warcraft addicted Christian on steroids which is equally pathetic.

I'm fascinated like everyone else is,but not impressed at all and disgusted by the look of him.

I have spent the last 6 years in a house in a remote mountain valley some 5 hours north of Oslo. His hideout, where he made all his preparations was a couple of hours further south.  I was literally passing that house on my way home from Oslo as the news broke.  My first thought was funnily enough Burzum.  He was even very quick to release a statement, as was the case after he’d killed Euronymous.  And this Anders Breivik dude seemed disturbed and stupid enough to be manipulated by someone as persuasive as Christian Vikernes.  So he is described anyway, I’m sure he doesn’t mind.

I’m still kind of disappointed he had nothing to do with it.  I would think it was right up his national socialist alley to perform a stunt like that.  Alot of Breivik’s views are pretty fucked up though and probably differ from Christian’s....like the fact that he’s Christian..but that could just as well have been a well planned scheme innit!

But I guess he was really just hearing voices in his and that I’ve mistaken the other gentleman, assuming he was still on a violent rampage to conquer the world.

Another thing, I couldn’t help but overhearing two women next to me on an airplane who were talking loudly about their gay friend who was in shock cause he’d had sex with Breivik a month before the actions took place.  I wasn’t surprised at all when I heard.  Just disappointed.  Why is it always the gay community?  Can it never be a sane, healthy überhetero Clint Eastwood kind of guy with no excuse or sorry background?

The media aren’t even writing about his sexuality, even if I got it confirmed that they’re fully aware of it.  See no reason why they shouldn’t though..

Either way the case just gets less interesting and the guy is seriously pathetic.  No charm at all.  Everything is just wrong with him.

So what are your upcoming plans for Aura Noir?  How did your record release concert go and how did you set that up?  What other ideas are you following to promote Out To Die?  Any other work you are doing with your other projects?

We haven’t really done any release shows yet.  We’re gonna play a couple of club shows here and there in Europe, a mini uk-ireland tour+some festivals.  Then hopefully the states after summer..other parts of the world would be great too, but no plans yet.

Thanks again for the interview, with your final words can you tell us what unseen things are remembered?  Stay ugly and thrash hard!

Only Aggressor knows!  Likewise!