Enslaved
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Enslaved is one of the most recognized and decorated (Enslaved won a Norwegian Grammy in 2004 and 2006) bands from Norway. Along with Satyricon, Emperor, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum and others, they were part of the first wave of Norwegian black metal. Enslaved has always been a different sort of entity, though. They labeled their early material “Viking metal” to communicate how different they were. The early material displayed elements of Norwegian black metal, but the group penned songs about Norse mythology, a very different topic than the gore and satanic themes of the popular death metal acts of the time.
Using progressive elements, later releases further separated the group from death metal and the typical Scandinavian black metal sound. A typical Enslaved album encompasses many musical genres such as death metal, classic metal, folk, black metal, classical music and progressive rock; however, every album is extreme. No two Enslaved albums are the same, yet the group has a sound that is distinctly Enslaved.
Enslaved is currently on the second leg of the North American tour for their eighth full-length release, Ruun. Before an amazing performance featuring a surprising encore (former Marduk bassist, Bwar, who recently relocated to Austin, Tex., joined the group on stage to play bass on “Allfather Odin”), Blistering spoke with front man and bassist, Grutle Kjellson.
Blistering.com: How has your tour been going?
Enslaved: Pretty good. It’s actually our longest U.S. tour. We are doing 29 shows all together. We were booked for 30, but the Detroit show was cancelled for some reason. We don’t know why. Some weird reason, probably. The club was shut down or something. We’ve had a good response on most of the shows. It has been a blast!
Blistering.com: How do you feel about the lineup?
Enslaved: They are all real nice bands, absolutely. We’ve been getting along really good, good bands and good people. It’s too bad The Agonist had to quit. They had an accident up in the Rockies. Their trailer turned around and all their instruments and amps got fucked. The singer’s grandparent died at the same time. Everything was kind of fucked up for them, so they just quit and went home to Montreal. That happened a couple weeks ago. The last show they played was on the 17th of November in St. Paul, Minnesota. We had two tour dates in Portland and Seattle that we played by ourselves. The other bands couldn’t get through the Rockies because they had two to three feet of snow. We went through the mountains before the snowstorm hit.
Blistering.com: Do you like touring with bands of a different style? The Agonist is sort of metalcore, and The Faceless and Arsis are technical death metal. Do you think having bands like this brings in different fans to your music?
Enslaved: Yeah, I think it does. We always travel with different sounding bands. We can play on whatever bill. It doesn’t bother us.
Blistering.com: Enslaved played made major festival appearances over the summer. Please tell our readers about these appearances.
Enslaved: We played some big festivals over the summer. We did Wacken; we did Hellfest, Brutal Assault and some shows in Norway. The most exciting one was in India. We played two shows in India. That was amazing! The most amazing part was there were so many metalheads over there. I had no idea what to expect. There were around eight to ten thousand people at the concerts. Indian metal heads were amazing. We played in New Delhi—the metal scene there is bigger than any American or European city. Of course, there are a lot of people in India, so that could be the reason.
Blistering.com: You have plans to play in Russia.
Enslaved: We are going to play some shows in Russia and Ukraine in February. We’ve never played in those countries before, so that is going to be very exciting. We have no idea what to expect. I guess it should turn out all right. We had questions about the equipment in India, but that actually turned out pretty good, so I hope the same happens in Russia.
Blistering.com: Your latest two albums Isa and Ruun found release through Candlelight in America. Has acquiring Candlelight’s backing helped you gain a larger audience in America?
Enslaved: I guess it has because it is the biggest American label we have been on, so far. Earlier, we had The End Records, Necropolis and Osmose America. We have been selling a lot more albums through Candlelight, so it has been good for us.
Blistering.com: Scandinavian bands started getting exposure in American in the mid 1990s, but it was not until just a couple years ago that bands from your area of the world started acquiring large-scale American tours. Why do you think it took so long for bands in your region to gain success in America?
Enslaved: When we first went over in ’95…
Blistering.com: Was that with Incantation?
Enslaved: Yeah, exactly. We were the first Norwegian extreme metal band that went over. I think that people were so into death metal at that time, and that continued probably until Dimmu Borgir played the Ozzfest. I think that was the turning point. That was when black metal became more popular. We had good shows over here, but it was like two or three shows instead of a whole tour. I guess black metal was much more underground in the ‘90s and the beginning of this century. That’s because America has always been a death metal country.
Blistering.com: Folk and Viking metal bands have surfaced all over the world. How do you feel about the current crop of these bands? Do you believe your music helped pioneer this scene?
Enslaved: Well, we don’t look upon ourselves as any Viking or folk scene. We just play extreme metal and don’t give a fuck…we never labeled our music Viking metal to be part of a genre or musical style. We used that term for a brief period of time in ’92 and ’93 just to state that we were something other than black metal. We didn’t have satanic lyrics. We had no intention of starting a genre or movement. I don’t think we have anything in common with bands that call themselves Viking or folk. We don’t give a fuck about labels, we just call our music extreme.
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