LIBRARY
Interview with Varg Vikernes
Queens of Steel (14.04.2012), by Rafael Pérez
Hello Varg, first of all congratulations on the great work behind "Umskiptar". Is this new album a huge metamorphosis for BURZUM? On my humble opinion the tempo has been slowed down, which has made the whole atmosphere be more intense, is this a new path future BURZUM compositions will head to?
Hello Rafael. Yes, you are right, the tempo has slowed down since "Fallen", and the focus is (even) more on atmosphere and the concept of the album. It is very hard to predict how the next album will be like – I haven't even started working on it yet – but my guess is that it will follow in the same path as "Umskiptar". It might possibly be even closer to traditional music and myth than "Umskiptar" is.
On this new effort you have focused more on vocals, as you state on the press note; has this been something you consciously wanted to do or did it just come out like this during the song writing? By the way, how long did its creation take you? And where have you recorded it?
The album was recorded during just over one week last year in Grieghallen, like the others, and I can only guess when it comes to how long it took to make the album. There is no definite start.
When I decided to use the Völuspá poem as lyrics for this album I knew the focus would shift a bit to vocals, because of the length of the poem (made up of 66 stanzas), so I guess we can say it was a conscious choice. What surprised even me a bit when I recorded the vocals was that the language of the poem itself – written not in Norwegian, but in Old Norwegian (alias Norse) – lifted the entire production. My voice changed (metamorphosed...) and became better, so to speak; deeper and more powerful. It did, I think, because Old Norwegian is so much more beautiful, powerful and poetic than modern Norwegian is.
"Umskiptar" is based on an ancient Norwegian poem named "Völuspá" which, summing it up, tells the story of a clairvoyant who presages to Odin the world's creation. Could you please tell us a bit the link between the poem and the album and its lyrics?
What you describe is the exoteric meaning of the poem, as it has been understood by most scholars the last few hundred years, but I have studied the poem for quite some time and have found a meaning much more logical and much more European, i.e. with a circular logic rather than the linear "from creation story to Armageddon"-thinking found in the Asian Judeo-Christian religions. The title of the poem, Völuspá, translates as "the prophecy of the sorceress", and the poem really describes the metamorphoses of nature, as it takes place every year, from Winter to spring, from Spring to Summer, from Summer to Autumn and from Autumn to Winter again. The Ragnarok is only a purification of the world, when the deities and all other powers in nature are purified, to enable the Summer to return after Winter. This is however the esoteric meaning for the poem, intended only for those who travelled into the burial mounds (on Halloween) to learn the keywords (i.e. the true meaning of the poems) by a woman dressed up as Lady Death, waiting for them inside. She is the sorceress, who can make prophecies about the future, and enable others to do so as well, because she knows the secrets of nature. She knows that after Autumn comes Winter, then Spring, the Summer and then Autumn again. She knows what will happen to the deities, that Baldur (the personification of Summer) will be killed, only to return after Winter when Spring returns. Those who talked to her in "the realm of the dead" learnt these "passwords" and were then allowed to challenge the King in a yearly competition, where the winner was elected King for a year (until the next such competition).
This is an oversimplification of the poem and its meaning, but if you want to know more I suggest you read the book ("Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia") I wrote largely about this. You can read more about the book on burzum.org.
The "Umskiptar" album is basically only a musical interpretation of this poem. You can find an English translation of the Old Norwegian lyrics in "Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia", but you can also just google "Völuspá" and find them online, as the poem has been translated into many different languages already. Most of the translations differ a bit, but I trust you will find the general meaning in all of them.
On your latest albums you have left a bit aside the use of keyboards and synths; do you think they don't fit anymore on this new period? Do you believe on the future you will use them again or is there any chance of creating any project featuring them?
For some reason I have felt a strong desire to only use analogue instruments ever since I started to make music again. This might change, of course, but I still feel that only analogue and perhaps even only acoustic instruments will be able to capture the atmosphere I wish to create.
On your new promotional pictures you appear dressed like a hunter and like a warrior as well. We don't have a physical copy of the album so; could you tell us the reason behind these photos? Which ones will be finally included on the album?
There are and will probably never be any photos of me on any Burzum album, save the first one where I appeared wearing a black cloak and corpse paint (to gain access to "the realm of the dead" you need to look like you are dead yourself...).
The reason behind the promo photos? Ah, well, the first series (WargaR) are pictures of a European warrior fighting or preparing to fight the enemies of Europe; He is wearing blue (the Pagan colour), so we can assume the main enemy is Judeo-Christianity (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Now, the concept of the album is "metamorphoses", so the other series (Hunter) show the same European man still fighting the enemy of Europe. He is the same, only metamorphosed, because he fights the same enemy only in modern times. The European fighting spirit can be subdued, even killed, but it will always return when new Europeans are born (or if you like re-born), ready to pick up the sword and fight for Europe. Europe never surrenders.
Even Spain was occupied by Muslims for many hundred years, but the European man didn't give up, and finally took it all back. Now we only have to get rid of that Jewish regurgitation called "Christianity", and we will be European (= Pagan) again.
How do you think the time you stayed in prison has influenced your latest records? Was a metamorphosis on Varg Vikernes's life and a new period for BURZUM?
Ah, not really. Time changed me, but time is present everywhere, so prison itself didn't change me. I might have been like young and soft tree once, being able to bend if the wind grows too strong, but by the time I was imprisoned I had already become like an old tree; hard and strong. If exposed to too much wind I will not bend, but break and fall instead, and that has yet to happen...
What's your point on the current international crisis and the way the capitalist system suffocates people trapped on it? Do you think it could exist a change that will change the system?
It's the same old story... we have seen this before, in Europe, many, many times, and it always ends up with the same result.
The problem is that Christianity allows the Jews to work freely, and what they do this time is to – in form of Jewish owned banks – print money from nothing and then loan it to others for interest. The obvious result from this is that we are eventually all in debt to them. Every nation owes them money, and just about all individual human beings too. The Jewish Rothchilds family alone owns more than 50% of all wealth in Europe already (!), and like always the Jews just don't know when to stop. They are too greedy for their own good. So they keep stealing our money, they keep ruining our nations for personal profit, and they will keep doing this until there is nothing left to steal – because they have stolen it already.
Now, we – the Europeans – are good, kind and gentle human beings, so we might not revolt against this now, but when we cannot even feed our children we will! What follows then is another pogrom and the "poor" Jews will be persecuted again, and most of their stolen goods will be taken from them, and they will have to run away again (with all the gold they can carry), only to start the process of all over again. This is of course the reason why we call them "the eternal Jew", because they always return with their poison. Because of Christianity we let them.
What are the current bands you could stand out? Could you name us some of your favourite albums?
Oh, I might not be very original or up-to-date, so I still think The Cure's "Disintegration" and Dead Can Dance's "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun" stand out as masterpieces of music.
Do you have right now some new project as new compositions, books...? If so, could you anticipate us something about it?
Right now I work on a role-playing game (i.e. a book), but I think it is always best to keep what I do a secret until it is ready for release. I wish we did that with "Umskiptar" as well...
Well, this is the end of the interview. Thank you for answering to our questions and, once more, congratulations on this new record. This is your space to say and promote anything you want. Hails!
Thank you very much for your interest. I hope you will be able to enjoy "Umskiptar" and that the metamorphosis in Spain and (perhaps even more so Greece) are going through, and which all the rest of Europe will be forced to go through sooner or later too, because "our" rotten politicians have been bought by Jewish bankers, will not last for too long. Vote only for anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist so-called right wing extremist parties, and know that Europe will prevail in the end. We always do, because we are better than our enemies. Hail Europe!
Hello Rafael. Yes, you are right, the tempo has slowed down since "Fallen", and the focus is (even) more on atmosphere and the concept of the album. It is very hard to predict how the next album will be like – I haven't even started working on it yet – but my guess is that it will follow in the same path as "Umskiptar". It might possibly be even closer to traditional music and myth than "Umskiptar" is.
On this new effort you have focused more on vocals, as you state on the press note; has this been something you consciously wanted to do or did it just come out like this during the song writing? By the way, how long did its creation take you? And where have you recorded it?
The album was recorded during just over one week last year in Grieghallen, like the others, and I can only guess when it comes to how long it took to make the album. There is no definite start.
When I decided to use the Völuspá poem as lyrics for this album I knew the focus would shift a bit to vocals, because of the length of the poem (made up of 66 stanzas), so I guess we can say it was a conscious choice. What surprised even me a bit when I recorded the vocals was that the language of the poem itself – written not in Norwegian, but in Old Norwegian (alias Norse) – lifted the entire production. My voice changed (metamorphosed...) and became better, so to speak; deeper and more powerful. It did, I think, because Old Norwegian is so much more beautiful, powerful and poetic than modern Norwegian is.
"Umskiptar" is based on an ancient Norwegian poem named "Völuspá" which, summing it up, tells the story of a clairvoyant who presages to Odin the world's creation. Could you please tell us a bit the link between the poem and the album and its lyrics?
What you describe is the exoteric meaning of the poem, as it has been understood by most scholars the last few hundred years, but I have studied the poem for quite some time and have found a meaning much more logical and much more European, i.e. with a circular logic rather than the linear "from creation story to Armageddon"-thinking found in the Asian Judeo-Christian religions. The title of the poem, Völuspá, translates as "the prophecy of the sorceress", and the poem really describes the metamorphoses of nature, as it takes place every year, from Winter to spring, from Spring to Summer, from Summer to Autumn and from Autumn to Winter again. The Ragnarok is only a purification of the world, when the deities and all other powers in nature are purified, to enable the Summer to return after Winter. This is however the esoteric meaning for the poem, intended only for those who travelled into the burial mounds (on Halloween) to learn the keywords (i.e. the true meaning of the poems) by a woman dressed up as Lady Death, waiting for them inside. She is the sorceress, who can make prophecies about the future, and enable others to do so as well, because she knows the secrets of nature. She knows that after Autumn comes Winter, then Spring, the Summer and then Autumn again. She knows what will happen to the deities, that Baldur (the personification of Summer) will be killed, only to return after Winter when Spring returns. Those who talked to her in "the realm of the dead" learnt these "passwords" and were then allowed to challenge the King in a yearly competition, where the winner was elected King for a year (until the next such competition).
This is an oversimplification of the poem and its meaning, but if you want to know more I suggest you read the book ("Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia") I wrote largely about this. You can read more about the book on burzum.org.
The "Umskiptar" album is basically only a musical interpretation of this poem. You can find an English translation of the Old Norwegian lyrics in "Sorcery and Religion in Ancient Scandinavia", but you can also just google "Völuspá" and find them online, as the poem has been translated into many different languages already. Most of the translations differ a bit, but I trust you will find the general meaning in all of them.
On your latest albums you have left a bit aside the use of keyboards and synths; do you think they don't fit anymore on this new period? Do you believe on the future you will use them again or is there any chance of creating any project featuring them?
For some reason I have felt a strong desire to only use analogue instruments ever since I started to make music again. This might change, of course, but I still feel that only analogue and perhaps even only acoustic instruments will be able to capture the atmosphere I wish to create.
On your new promotional pictures you appear dressed like a hunter and like a warrior as well. We don't have a physical copy of the album so; could you tell us the reason behind these photos? Which ones will be finally included on the album?
There are and will probably never be any photos of me on any Burzum album, save the first one where I appeared wearing a black cloak and corpse paint (to gain access to "the realm of the dead" you need to look like you are dead yourself...).
The reason behind the promo photos? Ah, well, the first series (WargaR) are pictures of a European warrior fighting or preparing to fight the enemies of Europe; He is wearing blue (the Pagan colour), so we can assume the main enemy is Judeo-Christianity (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Now, the concept of the album is "metamorphoses", so the other series (Hunter) show the same European man still fighting the enemy of Europe. He is the same, only metamorphosed, because he fights the same enemy only in modern times. The European fighting spirit can be subdued, even killed, but it will always return when new Europeans are born (or if you like re-born), ready to pick up the sword and fight for Europe. Europe never surrenders.
Even Spain was occupied by Muslims for many hundred years, but the European man didn't give up, and finally took it all back. Now we only have to get rid of that Jewish regurgitation called "Christianity", and we will be European (= Pagan) again.
How do you think the time you stayed in prison has influenced your latest records? Was a metamorphosis on Varg Vikernes's life and a new period for BURZUM?
Ah, not really. Time changed me, but time is present everywhere, so prison itself didn't change me. I might have been like young and soft tree once, being able to bend if the wind grows too strong, but by the time I was imprisoned I had already become like an old tree; hard and strong. If exposed to too much wind I will not bend, but break and fall instead, and that has yet to happen...
What's your point on the current international crisis and the way the capitalist system suffocates people trapped on it? Do you think it could exist a change that will change the system?
It's the same old story... we have seen this before, in Europe, many, many times, and it always ends up with the same result.
The problem is that Christianity allows the Jews to work freely, and what they do this time is to – in form of Jewish owned banks – print money from nothing and then loan it to others for interest. The obvious result from this is that we are eventually all in debt to them. Every nation owes them money, and just about all individual human beings too. The Jewish Rothchilds family alone owns more than 50% of all wealth in Europe already (!), and like always the Jews just don't know when to stop. They are too greedy for their own good. So they keep stealing our money, they keep ruining our nations for personal profit, and they will keep doing this until there is nothing left to steal – because they have stolen it already.
Now, we – the Europeans – are good, kind and gentle human beings, so we might not revolt against this now, but when we cannot even feed our children we will! What follows then is another pogrom and the "poor" Jews will be persecuted again, and most of their stolen goods will be taken from them, and they will have to run away again (with all the gold they can carry), only to start the process of all over again. This is of course the reason why we call them "the eternal Jew", because they always return with their poison. Because of Christianity we let them.
What are the current bands you could stand out? Could you name us some of your favourite albums?
Oh, I might not be very original or up-to-date, so I still think The Cure's "Disintegration" and Dead Can Dance's "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun" stand out as masterpieces of music.
Do you have right now some new project as new compositions, books...? If so, could you anticipate us something about it?
Right now I work on a role-playing game (i.e. a book), but I think it is always best to keep what I do a secret until it is ready for release. I wish we did that with "Umskiptar" as well...
Well, this is the end of the interview. Thank you for answering to our questions and, once more, congratulations on this new record. This is your space to say and promote anything you want. Hails!
Thank you very much for your interest. I hope you will be able to enjoy "Umskiptar" and that the metamorphosis in Spain and (perhaps even more so Greece) are going through, and which all the rest of Europe will be forced to go through sooner or later too, because "our" rotten politicians have been bought by Jewish bankers, will not last for too long. Vote only for anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist so-called right wing extremist parties, and know that Europe will prevail in the end. We always do, because we are better than our enemies. Hail Europe!
Author: Rafael Pérez (© 2012 Queens of Steel Spain)
In other languages: Español