The article was kindly translated by Erik Gustafsön:

Now Christmas is back

Plague or the highlight of the year. Young people's opinions about Christmas vary. Catiz Huldt, 19, loves getting gifts. Her friend Ace Forsberg, 17, hardly celebrates Christmas at all.

Today's youth love Christmas and traditions.

In any case, judging by the answers DN got when we asked shopping young people in town about their thoughts about Christmas; regardless of lifestyle, the vast majority thought the Christmas tradition was both fun and important.

And the few who disagreed would still more or less line up for the celebration for the sake of others. The '60s alternative Christmas ideas were generally met with giggles.

▪︎ Full name:

Quorthon Seth is all you're getting. It's a spiritual name, although not in the Christian sense of course! It came from a list of evil demons. The three names used by members of the band (the others are bassist Kothaar and drummer Vvornth) were selected from that list.

▪︎ Date of birth:

I'm an Aquarius, and I was born in the mid-sixties.

▪︎ Place of birth:

I crawled out from under a rock in a place that's south of Stockholm in Sweden.

▪︎ Current home:

I have a small apartment in the west of Stockholm; it takes about half an hour on the subway to the middle of town.

▪︎ Three adjectives to describe yourself:

Easy going, intellectual, and at the moment very hungry.

▪︎ Instruments played:

God, I've played the drums since I was about eight, and I've been playing guitar and bass since the age of 14. I've also been trying to play the flute -- and not succeeding very well -- the same with the cello and violin. And keyboards. I'm happiest though with the guitar; weight wise, the bass is too heavy and I don't have that much muscles, whilst the drums make too much noise.

▪︎ Who did you impersonate infront of the mirror?

I stood there with a tennis racket wearing my mom's platform shoes. I'd made a space costume out of cardboard and black dance tights. I painted my face, and along with a couple of classmates from school I used to set up these big cardboard boxes painted as Marshall stacks. We also had a drum kit -- our only real instrument -- plus a couple of projectors. We'd put colored film over the lenses and then turn them on and off. I guess I'd have to say it was Ace Frehley whom I impersonated, because it was the guitar I picked up in the first place. Yeah, Mr. Spaceman, I suppose.

▪︎ First Vinyl appearance:

I did something when I was six months old: it was one of those boxes where you insert a coin and talk into the microphone. I still have it at home, but it doesn't sound like me at all! The first serious thing I recorded was a track included on the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation LP put out in 1984.

▪︎ Previous bands:

Oh yeah, I started my first band when I was seven years old; they were called Yellow. We wrote the songs just five minutes before we recorded them on a tape recorder; we used empty biscuit tins as the drums!

▪︎ Worst thing about you:

Easy. If I decide to do something, it has to be done my way. Also, if another person comes up with an idea that's better than mine, it'll take me three weeks before I confess that it's better than the one I had.

▪︎ Greatest thing you've ever done musically:

I was very proud of the way A Fine Day To Die (a track from the new Bathory LP Blood Fire Death, released through Under One Flag) turned out. At the time I wrote the song we'd intended to make 'BFD' a double album, and it was supposed to appear somewhere at the beginning of the fourth side. But then we decided to make it a single LP and we put it at the beginning of side one, because it embodies everything that Bathory stands for right now.

▪︎ Favourite musician (who plays your instrument):

Joe Perry (Aerosmith) or Steve Jones (ex-Sex Pistols/Chequered Past), if we're talking about guitarists. If I have to pick a drummer it'd be 'Philthy' (Taylor, Motörhead) who laid the whole groundwork for Heavy Metal as we know it today. Bassist? Lemmy (Motörhead), of course, but it's not really my instrument.

▪︎ Greatest piece of music you've ever heard:

Tristan Und Isolde, an eight hour opera by Richard Wagner.

▪︎ Hobbies/interests:

Drawing, writing, watching films, history, ancient culture, assembling plastic models and playing guitar whenever I feel like it.

▪︎ Biggest phobia:

None. I'm not afraid of heights, the dark, squares or anything like that.

▪︎ Strange things you do in the privacy of your own home:

I collect strange things: I collect all the empty cigarette packets I've ever had. I press them into mounds and pile them against the wall. There's mountains of them! I also collect Coke bottles from all over the world. Whenever I'm away I bring one back, so I've got about 100 now. I'll never get rid of them.

▪︎ Most peculiar request from a fan:

It was at L'Amour East, a rock club in New York; I was invited to see a bill that consisted of Possessed, At War and Slayer and lots of fans recognized me. We'd brought some posters and everybody ripped them out of our hands, except this one guy who was too late. Instead, he asked for the butt of a cigarette that I was smoking. That's the weirdest thing.

▪︎ If you were a woman, who would you be?

What a stupid question! Certainly not your prime minister, Margaret Thatcher... My favourite when I was a kid was Catwoman, the one who co-starred in the 'Batman' TV show back in the sixties (played by Julie Newmar). Like me, she was obsessed with disguise and she roamed in the night...

▪︎ Whose bath water would you most like to drink?

A newborn baby's, one that has just been bathed for the first time, that'd be okay. No sexual diseases, no make-up, no sweat or anything.

▪︎ One thing about you that would surprise a RAW reader:

That I listen to Classical music; and that I'm a vegetarian so I wouldn't be able to slaughter lambs on stage (as has been hinted in the past). The latter story all started several years back, and it was a joke! I never meant it seriously; it's been exaggerated so much down the line that people now take it as being true!

Blood On Ice is a legend among those who have followed us throughout the years. Never permitted to forget about its existence, constantly reminded of it as I was by all the tens of thousands of letters from our fans that I've received throughout the years ever since I breathed about it in the press some years ago, Blood On Ice seemed a very difficult piece of gravel to get out of my shoe.

It seemed to all these thousands of fans and fanzines a frustrating fact that we could let a complete epic-type of a theme-album collect dust on a shelf. The truth is that it was, of course, far from that complete, ready to be released epic creation of a theme album it was made out to be.

Blood On Ice was an hour long of material recorded during the same circumstances that four of our albums were recorded... that is on equipment hailing from the late '60s, early '70s and using a 14-track demo style mixing table of homemade fashion (in reality 12 tracks due to the fact that the table itself didn't have any effects of its own -- hence two tracks were used for echoes... mind you, sometimes tracks on that old tape machine we used just wouldn't work from one day to another. This private demo studio was seldom, if ever, used for anything serious other than Bathory and occasionally up until '87 (but all the time after that) it was actually working as a garage (which in fact is just what it was to begin with) and not only would used car parts be stored there, but the damn place would function as a repair shop in between the recording of Blood Fire Death and Hammerheart (and as such all the time when the latter was recorded)...

Oh, those were the days...

The size of the room where we would "pile" our amplifiers up against the wall (if we're talking the first album, that's plugging in my shitty little 20W Yamaha amp, mind you) and where we would rig up our drums, was not large enough to allow us to record, say, the guitar and the drums or the bass and the drums at the same time (hence the use of a clique track on most of our albums). More than once a very primitive, not even a second generation drum machine had to be used to replace the snare drum due to the poor sound quality. When we did the first album we didn't even have a complete drum kit but worked with a snare drum, a ride cymbal and a bass drum only.

Working with such a comparatively limited number of tracks meant that an instrument and a sound effect such as thunder, wind or a church bell or whatever could occupy one single track. This became routine when our music developed and became more and more arranged, incorporating stuff like harmony backing vocals and acoustic guitar that started a song off only to some moments later feature a doomsday type of drum in the chorus or whatever, maybe paired with a clap of thunder or some other type of sound effect. Then a guitar solo would usually follow before that acoustic guitar would end the song. Of course very primitive and sometimes extremely frustrating as each instrument or sound effect would have to have it's own particular sound (and volume level) meaning that the Eq's and effects as well as level would have to be switched (by hand in those days) while the whole thing was run down onto the quarter inch master tape (and this is just talking one single track on one song - there could be five or six tracks on a song that had to be taken care of in the same way - simultaneously!). Screw up, and you would have to do it all over again. Many times we just left things as they were because we couldn't care less about fuck-ups at that stage of the recording process. These small "errors" are there every time that I listen to a Bathory track and not only will the "studio-artist" in me concentrate on picking them out and get upset about them, but the metal-fan within is never allowed to simply sit down and enjoy the stuff like so many others.

Many times the recording room would be occupied by more or less usable parts of old porsche-cars to such an extent that we had to record those lead vocals, backing vocals or an acoustic guitar in every possible confined area such as a bathroom, the cleaning cabinet or, if possible, any small unoccupied area in the actual recording room that was just large enough to stand when doing your vocals or where you could place a chair for sitting down with your acoustic guitar.

I remember vividly one moment in June of '89 when we came down the Heavenshore Studio to record the material for what was to be the album Hammerheart. The whole place had not only been stripped of everything that functioned as sound isolation, but the whole place was filled with a three foot thick layer of coarse gravel (to be flattered and covered with a layer of asphalt any day now we were promised). When we recorded the drums, the kit would have to be placed any way possible on top of that undulating landscape of coarse gravel which only just reminded me of the Sahara desert. And as if that wasn't enough, there were no lights in the studio. We had to use a small table lamp to be able to see anything at all. Don't ask me how we did it, but somehow we did just that.

To this day I wonder if these circumstances haven't contributed just a bit to our "sound" in those days. Just imagine all those car doors, hub caps and assorted odd pieces rattling along. I recall when recording Hammerheart, working around these ordeals in a rather casual way. When I was sitting down doing the acoustic intro for Valhalla, how the neighbours' motorized lawnmower would find its way onto the two-inch tape, sort of taking the Viking or barbarian atmosphere away just a bit. The recording room itself had been soundproof before the whole place was literally torn apart to be transferred into a repair shop, so I was now sitting in this cleaning cabinet while the asphalt was setting in, and the cabinet with its paper thin walls was surely anything but soundproof. If this makes you drop your chin from pure amazement, wait until you hear about the lead vocals done in the bathroom.

Few bands, if any, would accept to record under these circumstances. I'm sure, and even our patience could be pushed to the limit occasionally. But still today, when even the most ill-sounding black or death type of bands have access to the very most modern recording techniques, using today's DATs and computer mixing possibilities, I'm not sure whether I really would have wanted to miss out on those days. It is with a great big fat smile that I look back on those days when I could stand knee-deep in either hub caps, packages of washing powder or even laundry while doing my lead vocals or an acoustic guitar intro, usually with my arms and legs wrapped around broomsticks, pipes or hoses, while worrying about whether the neighbour's lawnmower, a bypassing car, an airliner or just a dripping toilet would find its way onto the tape too much. This certified but charming hell is forever after immortalized as the Heavenshore Studio, the very place where Bathory, Under the Sign..., Blood Fire Death and Hammerheart were recorded... and the original material which lay as the base for Blood On Ice as well. Especially charming is that not only is Heavenshore Studio a legendary place among our fans and known to most folks with at least one foot within extreme metal, but the studio as such just doesn't exist anymore other than in the form of a private garage in a residential area in a southern suburb to Stockholm.

Recorded not only during these circumstances but also in a sort of half-hearted way, I was amazed when listening to the tapes again all these years later, that the material even held together. Half-hearted in the sense that we were not too damn sure about the great stuff in going onto a Viking styled concept album after having produced such wonderful mother-of-all-evil slab of satanic shit like our second album The Return (from January 1985... and mind you, once labelled as the most evil album ever released... incredible what liberal amounts of Swedish vodka and some distorted guitars really can accomplish). Going from stuff like the demons of hell etc. to an all-and-all out Viking styled concept album based on a self-written saga containing swords and muscles and snow soaked in blood (and who knows what else...), in other words, stuff quite a bit far away from good ol' Antichrist and his grandma, was quite a big step to take.

I'm astonished when thinking back, realizing not only was the material that formed the base of this album laid onto tape in pieces where one song would feature a single rough guitar and a drum beat and another would have been worked on a little more, including a bass and even vocals. But all the more astonishing is that virtually all of the base material for Blood On Ice was recorded not only between two albums (Blood Fire Death and Hammerheart), but also some of this material was worked on even during the recording of the Hammerheart album. The original Blood On Ice material was worked on in the studio over a period of one and a half years.

The confusion and the element of distraction of working on the "real" albums at the same time as we were trying to find out whether Bathory and a theme album really was such a good combination really should have made the original Blood On Ice material sound like a mishmash, but when listening to the stuff all over again after all these years, I was taken by surprise how good some of the stuff actually was, making me all the more convinced that maybe I should spend some time giving this material a touch up and a patch job.

So what was the "soul" of Blood On Ice? It actually started with the decline of enthusiasm for yet another full length album packed with screams of satan etc... and all this due to the fact that I came to the personal conclusion that this whole satanic bit was a fake: A hoax created by another hoax... the Christian church, the very institution and way of life that we wanted to give a nice big fat ball breaker of a kick, by picking up the satanic and occult topics in our lyrics in the first place. It's not easy coming out of school and starting a band at the age of seventeen and lacking the sort of experiences that great metal lyrics seemed to be made of, such as striding a Harley going down the highway doing 120 and fondling a babe's tits while drinking from a bottle of whiskey, like all the big bands seemed to do. And what the hell... you gotta write songs about something right?

And so there was this thing created by the church (or Christianity, if you like) to herd the terrified world into its arms (and cathedrals). A thing like the satanic or occult dish is bound to work well as a bad motherfucker of a main ingredient for your lyrics. Usually old gods and religions were turned into bad ones, and the Christian image of a bad anti-god was swiftly accepted by the uneducated mobs of the eleventh century Europe (it's really amazing what we are prepared to accept and do when facing the sword held in one hand and the crucifix in the other, as well as facing the danger of missing out on the eternal life trip up there... but then there is always the forgive-you-all type of hype, so I guess a little bit of sin can't be too bad after all). Nevermind. This personal conclusion of mine had me set my mind on finding other stuff to use when writing material for future Bathory albums.

Since I am an avid fan of history, the natural step would be to find something in history that could replace a thing like the dark (not necessarily always the evil) side of life (and death). And what could be more simple and natural than to pick up on the Viking era? Great era and great material for metal lyrics. Being Swedish and all, having a personal relation to, and linked by blood to, that era at the same time as it was a, if not a well known, so at least an internationally famous moment in history. I sensed that here I just might have something. Especially well suited was it since it was an era that reached its peak just before the Christian circus came around northern Europe and Sweden in the tenth century, establishing itself as the dictatorial way of life and death.

And so that satan and hell type of soup was changed for proud and strong nordsmen, shiny blades of broadswords, dragon ships and party til-you-puke type of living up there in the great halls... an image of my ancestors and that era not too far away from the romanticized and, to a great extent, utterly wrong image most people have of that period in time through countless Hollywood productions etc...

Where I grew up there were two comic magazines one read every week. One being a horror type of magazine called Chock (in the same vein as say, Tales from the Crypt). The other one was Savage Sword of Conan or Conan the Barbarian. Having grown up reading Chock, I was already nourished with a great well of inspiration when stuff for the first triple set of albums were written (no serious reading of the so-called black bible here, oh no... not even the blue, yellow or even the pink one either, mind you). Now the world of swords and swelling muscles of Conan worked pretty well as an inspiration source when I was writing what was to be the material that ended up on Blood Fire Death and to a certain extent, maybe even Hammerheart, the latter being actually a compromise, having rejected the idea of a concept album as being something too far fetched, an album that instead would deal only in general with the Viking era but enough to at least satisfy ourselves, was regarded as a good solution and a bit of a compromise and so Hammerheart was born.

I was also a long time fan of the life and works of Richard Wagner, addicted to his operas and aware of what he read when finding inspiration for them. I turned to the same books and legends. As it turned out, I was borrowing liberally from both Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. Ingredients like Mjölner -- the hammer of Thor, Sleipner -- the eight legged stallion of Odin, as well as Hugin and Munin -- his ravens, all became important subjects of inspiration when I started to write the Saga of Blood On Ice. From the works of Wagner I more or less stole the legend of Siegfried and the aging and dying gods of the Götterdämmerung, as well as the sword Notung.

At this stage, even as the saga was coming together, I had not yet thought about putting music to it or cutting it down into rhythm and rhyme. Blood On Ice was still just a story I had written for my own pleasure. Realizing, of course, the potential in the story for a great epic-type of a metal album, the transformation from a private saga to what you now hold in your hands was not too far away once the idea had crossed my mind.

So why was the whole thing aborted to begin with and that at a stage when we had even bothered to start to record the basic tracks, some even featuring vocals? Well we probably weren't too sure whether this really was such a good idea to begin with. It had only been two years since The Return... when I started to write Blood On Ice in saga format, and the fanzines were still referring to us as that "... satanic band from Sweden...". Even as I was putting down guitars for some of these tracks back in '89 I would still receive fan mail from all over the world asking me if those rumours about me eating infant babies, drinking angels' blood and living in a satanic (!) bat's cave in the north of Sweden really were true. And man... I'm telling ya... judging from how they came across in their letters, not to mention all those inverted crosses and magical symbols they had drawn all over the pages in presumably their own blood... they were really knee-deep into that shit... I ain't kidding.

Even though we had done things since The Return... stuff like Enter the Eternal Fire or Call from the Grave and would do things like A Fine Day to Die, Odin's Ride over Nordland and Blood Fire Death, stuff that guaranteed no one could ignore the fact that new frontiers were being explored both musically and lyrically, an all-and-all out theme album might just prove too far, too deep, too big a step to take, and maybe too hard to handle for someone out there who might just be able to afford only one or two albums a month. Those dollars, pounds, marks or kronor might just as well be spent on a safe bet rather than on a theme album by an already narrow band like Bathory. And remember, we are talking '88-'89 here, times when bands like Bathory not necessarily would be released on the then new CD format. Blood On Ice on vinyl would have meant a double album. As if the whole project wasn't swaying already... here was another grain of salt in its wounds to prevent it from becoming reality it seemed.

With all this in mind, no wonder the thought of spending all this time and all this money all these years later in a modern expensive studio putting all those pieces together into a releasable and representable CD never crossed my mind when people asked me about it. Until the day came when I dug that cassette up and was taken by surprise...

If I hadn't been constantly reminded of Blood On Ice when I read fan mail or was doing interviews with fanzines and magazines, either personally or over the phone, I am sure that in the future I would probably only think of Blood On Ice as a birthday present you never unwrapped or a girl you never nailed. That is, something that just didn't happen. But the underground movement should never be underestimated as a contact net. From the time I had breathed about Blood On Ice sometime in '89 very little time passed before piles of fan mail regarding Blood On Ice would start to drop in. Especially intensive was the campaign to have me release Blood On Ice when I was travelling around Europe for a month promo-trip and long conversations with all sorts of people not only made me think about Blood On Ice with a different attitude, but everybody seemed to know about its existence anyway, as well as urging me on to release it. There were moments however, when fans would gather around me and with almost tears in their eyes, tell me about how much Bathory had meant to them, as well as filling me in on that revival thing and what Bathory has meant to a whole generation of fans and bands in terms of inspiration etc... I think it's safe to say that I started to rethink and refuel.

After Twilight of the Gods and celebrating ten years on record by releasing two Jubileum CDs instead of a more expensive and cumbersome double-monster, I had found myself out of ideas and was totally uninterested in loud guitars and that loose aspect of "Rock N' Roll". To make things a bit worse (!), after '86 and thereafter, the only thing spinning at my place was classical music in general and Wagner and The Beatles in particular.

The solo effort, Album, worked as a sort of therapy. I found the way back to enjoy playing again. Imagine someone asking you to go into this studio on your own and spend two weeks in there doing whatever the hell you feel like. If you have been tied down something like Bathory for ten years, every single note and word you've done in the studio having to fit under a certain umbrella, you're gonna ask yourself, 'Just who the hell am I?' Especially when a solo release is also supposed to be a personal effort, you're bloody well entitled to know, right?! Love it or hate it, but that step aside, that breath of fresh air brought me back to rock 'n roll no matter what you may think of it and no matter how little or how much "rock 'n roll" you can track down in stuff like War or Dies Irae.

Urged on as I had been by those fans talking about the "good ol' noisy days", within two weeks after I had returned to Stockholm from that promotion trip, virtually all the music for what was to be Requiem had already been written. When Requiem had been recorded and mixed, I was still running on top gear. That was when the stuff for Octagon was written. The two of them being recorded within six months of each other, as well as being released six months after one another, roughly. This had brought me back on track again. Having let off some steam, I figured now was the time to earmark the coming handful of months for Blood On Ice.

That's when I decided to track down a cassette I knew I was keeping in a plastic bag in a closet. Upon finding it and listening to it for the first time in many years, I was, as stated earlier, amazed it didn't sound too bad. I realized it would take some work to breathe some life into it, but I decided to arrange a session in a studio to listen to the old two-inch tapes that I knew I had stored somewhere down my basement.

Ready to take notes, all levers up so to speak, I was at first very confused. The stuff seemed to be all over the place. Everything had been recorded on that old 14-track tape machine at Heavenshore. While listening to the tapes on a modern 24-track tape-machine, a guitar would "leak" or spread out over three tracks and nothing seemed to be where it should be. I realized then that this would take all summer to straighten out.

What we had to do was separate each and every instrument and to decide whether we should keep a particular piece or not. Then we had to transfer it all, instrument by instrument, down onto another tape using a second tape-machine. Now, we had all the songs neat and clean down onto two 2-inch 24-track tapes.

Most songs featured only a rough guitar together with a basic drum beat and occasionally a bass played using chords and that through a guitar amp if I remember correctly. Only three quarters of the songs had a vocal track and none featured backing vocals or a lead guitar. I realized I had to start to rehearse those old guitar riffs again to be able to lay down a second rhythm guitar right next to the old one.

Secondly a bass, and this time lined and played using single notes, was added. The drums was a story of its own. We had to separate each part of the drum kit and then give each and every part a totally new sound using a disc from a sound bank as well as correcting a few blows here and there by a millisecond. Some drum rolls were added live and a smack on the snare drum or floor drums would be enhanced here and there. Most of the hi-hat and ride were re-recorded using a computer. To tighten the material further, some songs were speeded up about fifteen percent to add a flash of modern sound and crunch to them.

Next in line were lead vocals, something a handful of the songs actually just didn't have. I had great trouble finding my old lyrics. A few corrections here and there in the story, and all I had to do when doing lead vocals for those songs as well as the backing vocals, was to place myself being back at Heavenshore in '88 or '89 when the original material was recorded. It was actually difficult to change my voice so that I was sounding late 80s rather than mid '90s, this was, of course, necessary since I didn't want to ruin the general mood of the material by all of a sudden sounding seven years older.

Now the only thing missing (except for a lead guitar, something I usually always put down during a tea break) were backing vocals. Now this was a field we had pioneered years before on Blood On Ice. Sound effects followed next. Since this was a theme album, we worked with the effects as if it had been a motion picture and not an album. I wanted the listener to feel the frozen wind tearing his face. The topic of the lyrics, the story itself had to come to life.

After having worked on the project for a month and a half during the summer of '95, from listening through the original material to chosing what shit to keep and what shit to scrap, from transferring the usable bits down onto a second 2-inch, 24-track tape to picking the new sounds for each part of the drum kit, from recording an additional rhythm guitar and bass right next to the original ones to laying down lead vocals on the songs that didn't have any, and from working hard with the sound effects and backing vocals to making sure we weren't ruining too much of the original atmosphere, we would now let the whole thing set in for a while. It would be mid February '96 before we were able to resemble, to finally cement it all together in the mix.

Once all of the material had finally been digitally mixed down onto DATs, we all had a feeling of great satisfaction. The fact that Blood On Ice had finally come to life as an end product was a rather strange feeling.

Now that Blood On Ice is finally here, our hopes are that you will take this souvenir to your hearts. Because that is exactly what this release is all about, a souvenir to all our fans who have followed us throughout the years and who have written to us begging for this album to be put into releasable format. Although it could very well sound embarrassingly outdated to some aware of trends, this album nevertheless deserved to be released. This effort embodies everything that our mid 80s phase stood for, the so-called "Viking" albums. This album was written and recorded in '88 and '89, completed in '95 and mixed and mastered in '96. All in all it captures pretty well what Bathory has been doing in between recording the vinyls and compact discs you already have in your collection.

This saga is for you all...

Quorthon, Stockholm, 1996

Interview with Quorthon (BATHORY) by Sandra Maria and Sergio Paulo:

The Swedish band Bathory recently released their fifth album, Hammerheart, on Noise International. Quorthon, the leader and mastermind behind this remarkable band, visited several countries to promote Bathory's new album, and Portugal was no exception. We had the opportunity to chat with the very friendly Quorthon, who proved himself a great guy throughout the interview.

• Tell us about the recording of Hammerheart.

This album was recorded last summer, between June and July. It was a big investment, but we were able to work on our own schedule. In other studios, we'd work 5-6 hours. This album, we could record day and night. There are seven songs on the record, and the recording time is about an hour. Three of the songs are 10 minutes long. It's a sea of ​​music.

• This album is different from the previous ones. Why?

It's different from the previous albums in that the music is much slower. We decided to trade speed for power. This is where we've moved forward compared to previous albums, because fans have been writing to us asking for heavier material. The fans are very important to me; I went to the Alvalade shopping mall and spent two hours talking to fans. Other musicians in my shoes might have signed albums, given autographs, and left.

• Did the new album live up to your expectations?

I hope so. Not everyone who buys my album writes, but 25-40% of fans do. If they tell me what they think we should do, and we fulfill their request, then the listeners are happy. Of course, the critics' opinions are also important. If the critics' reviews are good, people will buy the album. If the reviews are bad, they'll say the album isn't up-tempo, and the fan might be disappointed and spend their money on something like Slayer.

• How is the promotion of the record going?

The promotion will last two weeks, and new experiences translate into trips to ten countries and countless interviews, photo shoots, television, radio, and nightclub appearances where we discuss the new album, current events, and what's to come. Some might think I have too much work, but I'm really enjoying it. We've filmed a music video, and when we return to Sweden, we'll film two more.

• No concerts planned in Portugal?

When we come to Europe for concerts, we certainly won't forget Portugal, otherwise our promotional trip wouldn't make sense. Why shouldn't we come? Portugal is as important as any other country, and besides, it has a great climate and local fans.

• What was it like recording the album alone?

There's probably no other band today that has so many rumors circulating it. There are a lot of rumors surrounding Bathory. There was especially much gossip during the first three years, when there were no lineup photos or musicians' names. The people who played on the first two albums weren't in the band, and we thought it would be inappropriate for their names to appear on the album or in photos. It would only confuse the fans. Even in between albums, the band's lineup was constantly changing, with musicians coming and going. The rumors kept growing and spreading, and these rumors are ruining my relationship with the fans. It's practically impossible to record an album alone. The chatter about me doing it all alone started when I said I could play the drums; I could play even before Bathory was formed; I can play th**e guitar, bass, and sing; I could do everything myself, but the band needed two more people. That doesn't mean the band didn't exist. The names are simply not made public (I have been asked about this rumor for many years, and I should explain it).

• There are several good death metal bands in Sweden right now. Despite this, only a few record albums are released and most of them quickly disband. Why?

I don't know of any good death metal bands in Sweden. In Sweden, bands rarely socialize with each other because there's a lot of competition between them.

• Bathory influenced many grindcore bands. What do you think of Napalm Death?

I think it's natural because we were one of the first bands in this genre, along with Hellhammer, Metallica, Slayer, and Venom. We were among the first five important bands; of course, there were more bands, but with less influence. New bands grew up listening to us. Kreator came out in 1984, and so did Sodom. Young bands listened to us and formed certain guidelines in their music. We had nothing to cling to; we had to look for inspiration everywhere: in bands like Motorhead, Black Sabbath, and in our own ideas. We wanted to develop faster, but we were told that you can't play like that. Now it's normal because others grew up on Bathory's music, but it's important to have your own style. For example, Voivod are completely unique; you can't copy Voivod; if you copy them, it will be immediately noticed. I think we have our own style that will be recognizable and that cannot be copied without being copied ourselves.

• What's going on in the death metal scene right now?

The global scene is evolving. Just two years ago, I thought death metal had run its course because it had practically disappeared, and yet the music lasted so long. When the New Wave of British Heavy Metal emerged, metal was evolving in many directions. In 1988, I sincerely believed death metal would lose its relevance, but every band is finding its own style, which means tastes are becoming more diverse and fans have more choice. Competition is getting healthier, metal is getting better, and the quality of bands is increasing. Magazines are becoming more numerous, and their writing is more interesting. Things will only get better from here, because every band is finding its own style and not just copying each other.

• A message for the readers of our magazine.

I want to advise you to remain Portuguese. Don't absorb foreign influences from other cultures. The time will come when Portuguese bands will be able to sign with their native Portuguese labels, and they'll have the opportunity to record demos and albums. The best bands are formed by fans. Fans will create bands that will shape their own metal market, which means metal will become more universal. And not just in places like California, Miami, London, Berlin, and Stockholm; metal will be everywhere. In cities like Rome, in countries like Greece and Africa. And then we'll be able to talk about new forms of original black metal.

[Article translated by Dimitri Dumas]

Photo credits to Micke "Mimo" Moberg.

True Black Essence is a Bathory bootleg that was released in 1999 and has been circulating in the underground since then. This bootleg somehow found its way into my hands today (it's a long story), and after regrettably spending some time with it, I can safely say it's an absolute train-wreck.

As usual, it contains fake material and is of terrible quality. The intro for instance, which is supposed to be an 'unreleased Bathory intro' is in fact a track lifted from Conan the Barbarian and has nothing to do with Bathory.

Tracks 2-4 are lifted from Bathory's debut album but they made the quality much worse to make them sound like tracks lifted from demos.

Tracks 5-6 are lifted from the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation album and are listed as "edit versions" rather than demos.

Tracks 7-12 are the previously unreleased tracks from Jubileum III.

Track 13 is supposedly Bathory playing live at a Swedish record store opening, but it sounds nothing like Bathory. It seems to be a low-quality rehearsal or a live cover by another band. Yes, according to Quorthon, there were some very early Swedish live shows, but those would have been well before the Under the Sign of the Black Mark era, and again, nothing here even sounds like Quorthon or Bathory in the first place.

Track 14 is the audio from an MTV video interview with Quorthon done in June 1992 between the release of Twilight of the Gods and the first Jubileum disc. He speaks about the transition from Satanic to Viking imagery, plans for Bathory after Twilight of the Gods, and the forthcoming Jubileum discs. The interview is interspersed with snippets of One Rode to Asa Bay and is mistakenly listed as being from '87 inside the booklet (the bootlegger probably made a mistake and mixed it up with the "live" track). The interview is available on YouTube (although even on YT, the date is mistakenly stated as being 1990, but that's another story).

This is a rather poor bootleg in all respects, and the majority of bootlegs are not any better.

I'd be curious to know if anyone here has come across this bootleg or any similarly bizarre Bathory releases. I'd love to hear your experiences.

"I am not a Viking-Satanist thug nor am I a bloodsucking vampire. I have never eaten a small child, although I admit I was once very close to becoming a teenage alcoholic."

Off topic, but I often see him referred to as "Quorthon Seth" by interviewers. Where did the "Seth" come from? What does it mean?

Prior to settling on their permanent name, the band went through several different ones starting with SATAN, then changing it to NATAS, NOSPHERATU, MEPHISTO, and Elizabeth Bathory which was finally reduced to Bathory on April 10, 1983 according to Frederick Melander's personal diary.

However, the story of how they first came upon the name Bathory has varied among the members of the first line-up and among Quorthon's own recollections. Below are a few examples of what he gave throughout the years:

"I went to London with a friend about a year prior to forming the band. In the London dungeon - sort of the wax cabinet of horror - there was this one display built to resemble a medieval chamber. In the middle of the room, reclined in a bathtub filled with blood, we spotted this naked female figure. Above the tub, some three or four equally naked female figures were hanging upside down suspended in chains, throats cut and blood flowing... After looking the blood countess up, some more serious reading into the subject followed. Her life story being as close to a BATHORY lyric as can be, the name was of course perfect for the band."

- In Memory of Quorthon booklet (2006)

"I read a book called Natural & Supernatural. There was a chapter in it about vampirism and Elizabeth Bathory who was the female version. I thought Dracula was so tedious, everybody knew about him then and he was too Hollywoodized. And if people really wanted to find out the story behind the name there was a great explanation and for people who had no idea about it it was a great neutral name."

- Heathendoom magazine #1 (Feb, 1996)

"When I was 13-14 years old I read books on magic. In them Elizabeth Bathory, among others, was mentioned... The name Bathory got stuck somewhere in the back of my head and I didn't think about it for a couple of years. A few years later I went to London with my girlfriend and we visited a chamber of horrors. There we saw Elizabeth Bathory in a bath tub. This was at the time we had formed the band and we needed a name for it."

- Victim magazine #3 (aug, 1996)

Jonas Åkerlund, Bathory's drummer on the other hand, recalls a completely different story:

"We had our eyes on Venom and all that, so after that first rehearsal it was obvious we were going to form a band together... we thought Bathory was a really good name. I was always worried because we took the name from Countess Bathory, from Venom's first album. We took it. It was one of their song titles. It's where we got it from."

- Så Jävla Metal (2011)

Judging from the way Quorthon's own story changed repeatedly throughout the years, I'd wager Åkerlund's explanation is the true version.

For parts 1 & 2:

The Bathory Myth Files #1: The Goat's Head

The Bathory Myth Files #2: Heavenshore

How did you become a fan of The Vampire Chronicles?

Was it the books first, the 1994 film, the AMC series, or just a random recommendation? Which book hooked you, and what made you keep reading?

I discovered the books after watching the 1994 film almost five years ago. It intrigued me enough to pick up Interview with the Vampire, and I was hooked ever since. Anne pulled me into her world almost immediately and I just wanted to spend more time in it.

What about you? I'd love to hear everyone's story.

Something that caught my eye:

"Well, I've been thinking about it because everybody keeps pushing me to release Blood on Ice. Well, all those songs were written so long ago and if they were released nowadays people would say it just sounds like MANOWAR anyways."

Quorthon basically admitting to being influenced by MANOWAR is not something you see every day.

Also, it's amusing how the interviewer kept referring to him as "Quarthon".

Ann Boleyn is the founder of New Renaissance Records, a record label Bathory worked with at the time, and is the one responsible for releasing their albums in the USA under a license from Music For Nations.

In 2015, Sweden Rock Magazine conducted an interview with her for issue #1, which contained a very long section on Bathory. Here is what she had to tell Erik Thompson about her time working with Bathory and the memories she has of Quorthon and Börje "Boss" Forsberg:

• How did you first discover Bathory?

Via my friends at Music For Nations. They were interested in releasing Bathory in the US, but every single record company they asked refused. So I listened to Under the Sign of the Black Mark. It was great, so we decided to go ahead and release the record.

• Did Quorthon use the nickname "Quorthon" or "Ace" ?

He used both. They had a number of luggage receipts and the like that were marked as "Ace". I thought, "Wow - Boss must really be a Kiss fan". We at the record company always referred to him as Quorthon so as not to embarrass him.

• What was your impression of Quorthon as a person?

My first memory of him is from when we first met and the realization of how young he was. I was very surprised because that was not the impression he had given. We had a couple of photo sessions with him and called in a make-up artist as we always do when taking professional photos. The make-up artist was very impressed by Quorthon and thought he should have become a male model. He was a very, very handsome young man, very different from what one would expect from a death metal guy.

• At that time, there was speculation in Sweden that Quorthon and Boss were father and son. Was that a topic that ever came up during your time together?

The subject was never brought up, but it was clear that they were related. We never said anything about it out of respect for both of them, but it was obvious that they were somewhat related to each other.

• Was the album a success in terms of sales?

In the beginning, sales were very slow. It was the same thing we had experienced with Sepultura; it took a lot of personal commitment and publicity to create interest in Bathory's recordings. As far as I remember, it did sell, albeit not in huge numbers. There was definitely an interest in Bathory that grew over time, but it did not happen immediately.

• Did the album get good or bad reviews?

In 1987, when Under the Sign came out, there was strong backlash against anything that could be called death metal or thrash metal in terms of production quality. I remember that a number of reviews complained that the production was not good enough, something I 100% disagreed with.

• How and why did your collaboration with Bathory end?

It happened during the late Summer of 1988. The American music industry underwent terrible changes. 1988 was the year when the music industry announced that it would reduce sales of what we referred to as "black vinyl". What happened was that the distributors told the record stores that there would no longer be any repurchases of black vinyl records. Until then, the stores could return unsold products to the distributor or record company at any time, and get the entire purchase price back. In 1988, the big American record labels, such as Tower Records and The Warehouse began to take their vinyl records off the shelves and send them back while they still could. It was devastating for many independent distributors and record companies, including New Renaissance.

• Do you have any other memories of Bathory to share?

Of course. Quorthon and Boss came to Los Angeles and we arranged several photo sessions. One of them has become particularly famous. It shows Quorthon breathing fire, and photos from that session have been published in a number of magazines, including Kerrang!. It may have given Bathory more publicity than any other act. When we were going to conduct that session, we realized that it would be risky to do it in our warehouse at New Renaissance. It was just over seven feet [6 m] high and we were afraid it would be set on fire, so we went to our corporate manager Janie Hill's apartment in north Hollywood. We stepped out on the roof of the office building together with the photographer to arrange the photo session. Quorthon breathed fire and the amount of fire he produced was so colossal that the neighbors thought the whole building was on fire. After a while, we saw ten to twelve fire trucks driving to the building together with the police. Then we realized that they got there because of Quorthon and his fire. We literally rushed out of the building as fast as we could out of fear of being chased by the fire brigade and the police.

One of the studios frequently mentioned by Quorthon was studio Heavenshore, the studio where five Bathory albums were recorded and hence the stones for future Black Metal bands were laid. The building still stands to this day and is located in Huddinge, a southern suburb to Stockholm. As Quorthon said, it actually is a garage which is part of a large property previously owned by Peter Himmelstrand.

Himmelstrand was a highly acclaimed musician and the owner of high awards in the music industry. He and Börje were close, so he allowed Quorthon and his team to 'borrow' Heavenshore.

The studio became a part of Bathory's legacy, and the name Heavenshore is now familiar to any member of the hordes. Quorthon relayed the history behind the studio's name in Bathory's official website as follows:

"I had read a book on the world above and below at some point, and it featured a very vivid form of story telling. Reading it was almost like watching a movie or standing before one of those incredible medieval paintings. The way the words created images was very intriguing and inspiring.  

There was this part at the end of that book describing the battle between the forces of light and dark. The demons of darkness had first flown through the night sky to clash with the angels of light, then fought their way towards the sacred throne etc. Finally, the demons of Hell all succumb and fall beaten, scattered along the shore of Heaven.

The scene was very graphically described. Millions of black winged demons mutilated, limbs scattered all along the shore of Heaven, the bodies of slaughtered demons pouring black blood into the golden stream, oozing poison-green mist through open wounds as tortured spirits leave wretched bodies. Very graphic and intriguing. We figured, since this is the place where we do battle, this place ought to be dubbed The Shore of Heaven. This sounding a bit awkward, we quickly changed that to the more simple Heavenshore."

The story is compelling, but it's a figment of Quorthon's imagination. He didn't get the idea from vivid images of heavenly battles or epics; the name Heavenshore is simply the English version of Peter's last name - Himmelstrand (which means "Heavenly Shore"). That's it. That's the real story behind it.

In 2003, Quorthon gave a lengthy interview featured on Black Mark's official website in which he discussed the Nordland saga in detail. He explained the meaning behind each song and the inspiration for it. He also answered questions submitted by fans via email in a separate FAQ section.

Here's the link:

The Nordland Saga + FAQ Section

I really hope you enjoy reading through it as much as I did.

The goat head image needs no introduction. Every single member of the hordes knows how iconic the debut album's cover is. However, Quorthon created a narrative behind it that's completely false. He described its history in Bathory's official website as follows:

"Not wanting to feature the classic Baphomet illustration on the front as first intended, a single monstrous goat-like face was glued together from a collage of eyes, a nose and a mouth cut out from several horror comic magazines."

The fact of the matter is, however, that it was no horror comic collage at all, but the original creation of American illustrator Joseph Smith, who teaches art and design at the acclaimed Pratt Institute to this very day. The illustration in question was swiped from page 81 in Erica Jong's beloved coffee table book Witches, published in 1981.

Metal journalist Todd DePalma contacted Black Mark Records in 2008 in an effort to clear up this misunderstanding once and for all. The response he received after several inquiries is as follows:

"Hello, the Bathory site was made by Quorthon. He constructed the site, updated it, and wrote in it. He had full control over it and full responsibility for it. We are a label that's not permitted to alter any artist's site, regardless of whether they're alive or dead. You guys have to accept that the constructor of the site is dead and the site comes to be for all time as the artist Quorthon left it. As I said before, we're just a label. Quorthon of Bathory surely was the greatest artist we had but we did not own him and his artistic freedom was his own only. Please respect that. Feel free to update other sites or your own site if you think the credits you are missing are of such importance for today's heavy metal world.

All the best wishes,

Klaudia"

As far as I know, Smith never pursued the matter legally, so it was left at that, and the story has become yet another example of how Bathory's official narrative continues to blur the line between history and myth.

Interview with the Vampire is one of the most beautifully written Gothic horror novels of all time.
Anne truly had one hell of a talent and created a world that feels hauntingly alive. It’s as if every single word came from the depths of her soul, wrapping around you like a funeral shroud.

This is my third reread, and it never fails to blow me away every single time.

Before Quorthon passed away, there was an official Bathory website that I believe he was mostly running himself. He created a "history" section where he would write at length about how Bathory was created, the story behind each album, and different rumours he had heard throughout the years and wanted to debunk. Unfortunately, he was only able to document the history up until Under the Sign of the Black Mark before tragically passing away shortly afterwards.

The website was taken down a few years ago by a group of scammers and has been defunct since then, but you can still access it via Wayback Machine.

To those who are familiar with it or the official story he repeatedly tried to present in interviews throughout the years, what parts do you think were completely made up? Personally, I believe a lot of what he wrote on that website was a figment of his imagination because he understood that an interesting narrative sold. Also, he never kept his stories straight in interviews throughout the years and gave different versions of the same events which is why it's very hard to properly document Bathory's history up until this day.

I can think of so many examples that I could turn this into a series of posts, but I’d love to hear what the rest of the hordes have to say about this.