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There is more Rockharz content to be found in the reports on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 of the Festival!
Most of the time when I’m interviewing bands (or their members), I get the impression that they are oftentimes a bit shy (or maybe too modest?) to fully stand behind their product. Because of that, it was really refreshing to talk to Frode Glesnes and Gerhard Storesund of EINHERJER. Never before have I experienced some people being so awesomely convinced by their own music! Read below how their live album Norse and Dangerous came to be and what would change for them if they had a billion dollars!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for the amazing pictures!
Shieldmaiden’s Voice: What distinguishes you from other bands of your genre?
Frode Glesnes: Everything!
Gerhard Storesund: You have to define what our genre is first. We are inspired by BATHORY, old MANOWAR or old Heavy Metal and not by Folk Metal or something like that.
Frode: There is also this huge Viking thing these days and we fit in there too. The thing is though that we are not inspired by Viking music, except for maybe – the obvious – old MANOWAR o BATHORY, but everything else is outside of that box. Apart from Progressive Rock, like RUSH, classic Heavy Metal is our main inspiration. There are also some SKYCLAD in there, in the 90s at least. So there is some Folk inspiration, but we’re not in the Folk Metal category.
SV: So what you’re saying is that you don’t necessarily see yourself within any genre boundary, but more inbetween?
Gerhard: I’d say we more like a Heavy Metal band with small Folk influences, but we’re not a Folk band in the least. We’re like 95% battle and 5% everything else.
Frode: Back in the day, when Viking Metal used to be bands like BATHORY or ENSLAVED, we promoted ourselves as Viking Metal, but Viking Metal these days is total rubbish.
Gerhard: It has been diluted in a way!
Frode: It sound nothing like it used to and when people hear the term Viking Metal they are kinda put off by it because they think they don’t like it. In reality they do like it, but they hate the new stuff that has come out. The proper stuff is the Oldschool stuff that is spread between Heavy Metal and Black Metal and similar environments and it comes with a proper attitude. It might sound silly, but that’s how it is.
SV: I’m a bit glad you already went back in time for your explanation! It makes my next question a bit easier: You released your debut album Dragons of the North in 1996. What has changed the most about you as a band since then?
Gerhard: Definitely technology!
Frode: Yes! Musically, we changed surprisingly little, because we re-did that album in 2016 as some kind of 20 year anniversary and it was bit weird for us to revisit that. It still felt kind of fresh and original and I think it was good for us to do that.
Gerhard: It was! It was almost as much work as releasing a new album. We tried to include a part of everything, but you can never make it as good as the original, because you don’t have the same feelings about it as you did then. People feel a lot of nostalgia about it and you can never fight that. Still, after we released the newer version, we got a lot of great feedback on it, so I feel like we did that in a respectable way.
Frode: We did it as a tribute to the album, a celebration of the original. An admiration of sorts. The original is still out there and we won’t ever take it away. If you don’t like the new one, the old one is still there and if you like the new one, then that’s great! We did that more for ourselves than anything else really.
SV: Last year, you also released a live album. Why did you decide to do that?
Gerhard: We did that because there was nothing else to do at that time!
Frode: While that is right, there was also another reason: I’m the stage manager at the venue where we recorded that album and I have total control there. We had two gigs there and we did everything on our own equipment. We just needed to press a button and it was recorded basically. Our first idea was to just record whatever would happen. It was also our first gig ever with Tom Enge, our new guitar player. It was month before I went over the recordings and when I did, I realized that it sounded really good! When I went on to listen to the second night, it was even better!!
Gerhard: And the crazy thing is that it was only supposed to be one gig, but at the last minute the Covid precautions were tightened and instead of 200 people, you were only allowed to have 100. So we decided to play two gigs with 100 people each.
Frode: Doing a live album in front of 100 people is just ridiculous, but those were all people we knew. A lot of our friends were coming in for that. Months after the fact, when I listened to it again, I thought that we should do something with it. If there were some mistakes on one night, we could just use the flawless version of the other night. Those two nights together made a pretty good live album, even though we only played for 100 people. And I cut out everything I say between the songs, because we only played for friends and I was talking too much to them. We never did a live album before and having it in our hometown during a pandemic was very special, but nobody want to hear me talk in Norwegian all the time. And „Show me your hands“ is not as cool when there’s only 100 people there…
SV: From one live show to another: You replaced DRACONIAN on short-notice, how was the show for you with that in mind?
Frode: I think it was absolutely amazing! We were on top of things, the audience was great. We played this festival once before in 2014 and it was great then so we always wanted to come back. I was talking to Dirk Lehberger about possibly coming back next year. When the DRACONIAN thing happened, we checked everything to make sure we could maybe make it this year and luckily we were able to replace them.
SV: What is the best thing about seeing you guys live?
Frode: It’s us! [we laugh] The best thing is that we do carry a proper Rock show and it’s no nonsense! We have proper songs, a proper band, proper sound, basically we have everything!
Gerhard: Our music is not too accessible, it’s not easy listening. We have progressive stuff going on and it’s not very straight-forward.
SV: So you gotta appreciate the artistry?
Gerhard: Yes! I mean, it’s not DREAM THEATER, we’re pretty far away from that, but it’s not that straight either. You get what you want from us, but it’s still unpredictable.
SV: If you could wish for one thing in your band’s future, what would it be?
Gerhard: One billion dollars! [we all laugh] With that kind of money, we could quit whatever else we’re doing and just play music.
Frode: You know what? We’ve been doing this for almost thirty years and with that much money, I think we would still do the exact same thing.
Gerhard: We would do it the same way, but this time, we would drink more!
Frode: Since day one, we have not changed the recipe at all, we may have added a different flavor over time, but we haven’t changed it. I honestly believe that if we had millions upon millions of dollars, we’d still do exactly the same thing. That’s a sign of quality for me because money won’t change any aspect of our music. Nothing changes with us! The world may be fucked up, but we’re always on track and that’s it!
I can honestly say that I’ve never interviewed a band before that was so deeply comfortable with their own music and had the confidence to stand behind it as much as EINHERJER do for theirs! Make sure to check out their music! It’s really good!
While we are close to the end with the Rockharz interviews (two more to go…), I think it’s time for a change of scenery! Next stop: Moria!
Shieldmaiden's Voice 