The Grand Finale and new Horizons – An Interview with ELVENKING

Zur deutschen Version geht es hier. 

As promised, you’ll now get to read one of my favorite interviews ever! Guitarist and songwriter Aydan took time out of the busy Paganfest schedule to give insights upcoming album Readers of the Runes – Luna as well as talk about influences and plans for 2025 (and maybe beyond?). If you ever wondered why ELVENKING sound the way they do, you’ll find the answers here!

Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for the awesome photo action!

Shieldmaiden’s Voice: If ELVENKING had an advertising slogan, what would it be?

Aydan: Oh, ok, we start with a difficult question! Our goal is to make music that is part of everyone’s life and is a means to escape the reality of everyday’s routine. That is why we work a lot around a fantasy world, so I believe a good slogan would be around this concept. One of our slogans is „May the wind blow fair at your back“ which is something that can represent wind as something that can carry you aways from everything else. And that is what our music is about!

SV: Speaking of music: I think your sound is quite melodic with noticeable influences from different genres such as Black Metal (especially from the 90s), Folk Metal, Pagan Metal and everything around that. How do you sort out all these influences so that it doesn’t become too much?

Aydan: First of all, I’m very glad that you can recognize all these influences, not everyone is usually able to do that. We were formed in 1997 and having all these influences makes us a bit peculiar. There are some traces from 90s Power Metal, but there is a lot from the extreme scene, like the Gothenborg scene and Black Metal. What we have tried to do from the very beginning was to try to make it sound organic instead of just patching the influences together. It was our aim to sound unique. I’m not using the word „original“ because I don’t think that true originality really exists in music. If you listen to a song, you should be able to tell that it’s an ELVENKING song. Obviously, everything has also been constructed under the header of our Folk influences. That is something we really want to do. We come from Italy and most times, people think about Italy and think about beaches and the sun, but we are from the north, from the mountains, where there is a lot of Folklore, lots of stories. Our grandparents used to tell us a lot of stories from the mountains and I believe all these folkloristic stories have a dark aspect to them. Usually, there are very evil characters and they often end in a bad way. Our idea was to create this melting pot of dark, folkloristic tales mixed with all these influences.  

SV: Have you maybe had one of those myths or tales that you incorporated into your upcoming album Reader of the Runes – Luna?

Aydan: As you know, the Reader of the Runes saga is a trilogy featuring a story that we invented. Having this kind of folkloristic story told over multiple parts is something that we wanted to do for years. We wanted to have a strong story first and actually have a concept that we believed in. Once me and Damna had the story, it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to fit it into one album. We decided to split it into three parts, like in books or movies. The Reader of the Runes story, whose final part will be revealed soon, takes heavy influences from the folkloristic aspects we talked about, but we haven’t incorporated a specific myth into it.

SV: When we look at the other parts of the saga, Divination is more lighthearted whereas Rapture is darker and more sinister. Where will Luna fit into this trilogy?

Aydan: You’re absolutely correct and the albums are so different because they follow this story. It’s not like a normal album where you can fit in all the different songs you might have written, but instead you have to follow the story. In chapter two, Rapture, there was all the violence, where the death of the characters happened which made it darker and more obscure. The final chapter, Luna, is more lighthearted, more melodic and still very, very epic because it’s the conclusion of the story. 

SV: So it’s truly the grand finale?

Aydan: Exactly!

SV: Looking at your discography as a whole, what distinguishes Luna from the albums you did before?

Aydan: I wouldn’t really say that it’s distinguished, because during our years as a band we have had periods where we went a bit off the tracks. Albums like The Scythe or Red Silent Tides where we kind of lost our musical identity trying to do different stuff. The Scythe was very heavy and Red Silent Tides was nearly Hard Rock. From The Pagan Manifesto onwards, we decided to stay faithful to our sound, our concept and our idea of the band. We won’t move from this track anymore, but Luna will be a very fast album with a lot of double bass while being very melodic at the same time. 

SV: What is something fans can look forward to the most with Luna?

Aydan: The final song of the album, which is called Reader of the Runes – Book II, is the grand finale of the story and it’s eleven minutes long! It will be a long, final track of the album and I’d say that’s pretty exciting, at least for those that follow ELVENKING. On another track we have guest vocals by the singer of FINNTROLL and it’s called Stormcarrier and that could be another highlight for those that like our music. 

SV: Speaking of fans: We’re meeting at Paganfest which is another special experience. What has this festival tour run been like for you?

Aydan: It’s a bit strange because it’s more like a festival with five bands per evening, which is a lot, and we’re opening which is not a common thing for us. Nevertheless, it’s very exciting because we like to be included in the Pagan scene. Even if our music is pretty different from bands like ENSIFERUM, we still feel like we’re a part of that exact scene. So it’s really great to be here!

SV: Paganfest hasn’t been around for a number of years and this is it’s grand return. What does it feel like to be part of this epic revival?

Aydan: I think it hasn’t been around for eight or nine years, I think, and the organizer’s idea was to bring it back at the maximum level with the best bands around, so it’s really an honor to be a part of this package!

SV: I was so excited when I saw the announcement! Like „Omg, yes, we finally get to go!“ [we laugh]

Aydan: As I understood it, the scene was going down a bit over the years and Paganfest was stopped because of that and now the idea was to bring it back with only the best the scene has to offer. We’re doing a lot of great shows, almost all of them are sold out and overall, it’s just a great feeling. 

SV: It’s also a very long tour with an insane amount of shows. How glad will you be to be back home once it has ended?

Aydan: That’s the thing I need most at the moment [he laughs]. When you arrive at the 21st day, you know you’re getting closer to the end, but you’re not quite there yet and that is the toughest part. You’re almost done, but not close enough to go home just yet.

SV: Besides the release of Luna in April, what have you planned or are excited for in 2025?

Aydan: This tour is the main thing for 2025 because we are not a band that can tour a lot, meaning like two or three times a year. After this though, we will for sure concentrate on bringing Luna to the stage. We have played Throes of Atonement and Luna, our newest singles on this tour, but we will bring the whole album as soon as its released. We will be going to Japan and there will be a lot of things in 2026!

SV: So the European fans have to be patient and wait for 2026?

Aydan: Possibly! I’m not that sure about that, but possibly!

SV: Looking beyond that, what is something you wish for for ELVENKING in the next five to ten years?

Aydan: Even though we are a band that has been around for more than 20 years, the best things didn’t happen until the last four or five years. Things have been growing a lot for us in this period. It is a bit strange, but we’re looking at making a „normal“ album after this long process and returning to writing music with freedom, without being linked to stories and characters. Not having that frees you, especially when the characters and stories you’re working with stem back from 2018. We’re finally free of this! [he laughs] The point is that we like to write new music and the artistic part of the band is very important. We’re not out here playing because we need money, we want to make art, new songs, new albums, even if nowadays it doesn’t make much sense because you don’t see that many albums anymore. That is a part of life and we prefer to create new art.

SV: What is a piece of personal advice you want to share with the fans and maybe with the world?

Aydan: Be kind to one another! I believe that music has been a big part of, at least, my life and maybe even the life of everyone. When I was a kid it was the most important thing because of the healing aspect of it. When I was feeling low or angry or stressed about life, music has been the best shelter for my thoughts. Losing this thing nowadays, as we’re kind of doing, is really a pity. I’d love it if fans of music were still able to enjoy it as we used to do it back in the 90s: buying the albums, listening to it all the way through and immerse themselves in different worlds for an hour. It has the power to take you away from your everyday problems and give you a healing shelter. I’d appreciate it, if music could live on like that.

And remember kids: We support our favorite bands! If you haven’t preordered Reader of the Runes – Luna yet, you definitely should! ELVENKING even have a very nice new online shop that you can find here.

We’ll continue here in the next days with everything that went down at Black Metal Howling, so stay tuned!