One of the very best from the Norwegian Black Metal underground, the mighty Kampfar has returned, ready to take the world by storm. Kvass is their first CD release since 1999, coming at you courtesy of Napalm Records. We recently spoke with front man Dolk to learn more about this vastly underrated band.
Why was there such a long wait between albums, and did you have any musical projects going on in the meantime?
This is really something, because this is the main question all the magazines are asking about, of course. And I always use the same answer to all of them. Me and Thomas had a really difficult time concerning personal issues. We had to solve them, so we had to take a natural break in music – and that took us about three years to get back into business again. With that said, I can say that Kampfar has never been put on ice. It has never been an idea for us to quit Kampfar – that has never been in our heads, but we just had to take a break because of personal issues, which we had to deal with. Now they are solved and now we are back together – and I would like to focus on that, really, because that is the most important thing for me. I, of course, had a little session job in a band called Gruesome here in Norway, which I only did because I knew those guys very well. It’s kind of an old school death metal band. But that was not serious. Kampfar is my only band really, which I live for, for about 13 years now.
And it won’t be another six years before the next album, I hope…
I hope so too! Because we are back on track now, and we just finished our European tour, which lasted for one month now. Everything looks so much brighter now concerning Kampfar.
What made you decide to call your album Kvass – isn’t that like a beer?
No, it’s a Norwegian word – translated it will mean, “sharp.” This was just what it was. I will leave this to the listeners to decide what they will get out of it. Kvass or Sharp is a word you could put to a lot of things. You can put it to the music, you could put it to the coldness, you could put it into the weather or whatever you want – and that’s exactly the meaning to the title on this album. I think this album is really sharp concerning a lot of things – when it comes to lyrics, music, coldness, whatever.
Where did you get the ideas for some of the lyrics this time around?
When you’re concerning our last album, which we did in ‘99, you could almost have a big red line going through the whole album when it comes to both music and lyrics – it was dealing with a specific time in the Nordic history. Everything was really specific concerning that album. Concerning this album – each song has it’s own story and each song deals with the stuff that I have written for all of these years for Kampfar – that means stuff having to do with ancient history here in Nordland and about superstitions in mankind – what people believed in and what people believe in still when it comes to superstitions. When that is said, I don’t write fairy tales, of course. This is much more the truth, and the “real” in mankind is so much more true to me than fairy tales really.
What made you decide to record the Ravenheart song in English?
That was just to tell the foreign listeners a little bit about what Kampfar is dealing with. This song is in short sentences about following your own heart. This is supposed to be a song about that, and we really wanted to express it in English just to get wider opinions about that song.
Do you plan in putting up translations for any of the other songs?
No, we have never done that and I think we will stick to that in the future also. We are of course a Norwegian band – I am a Norwegian guy – I do my best in Norwegian of course. And I think that this kind of music – at least as we make – is best in Norwegian also. The other two albums before this were really hard to translate also, because it was a title in Norwegian, which we don’t even speak here anymore. It’s not Old Norwegian, but it’s really weird words, which the Norwegians don’t use anymore. It’s kind of like that with this album also, but it’s more common Norwegian now.
How do you think musically that this new release compares to the previous ones?
To me, this whole album has been a really hard struggle all these years. But to me, this is the best thing we’ve ever done. This can sound like, “Yeah, I’m just saying that because it’s the new album” – but I really mean it. I think this album has the sharpness in the production, and I think that these songs are much more Kampfar Anno 2006 – but when that is said, I think it’s also been a main importance for us to stick to our roots – to stick with what Kampfar is, and not just develop musically just because we are better musicians.
Has Kampfar ever played here in the States?
No, never! We have never played in the States. We’ve had many offers to play in the States, but we have one really huge problem there. Our guitar player is not flying planes. That is a struggle which I know that he works a lot with now – because we get more and more offers to play in the States, and we’d really like to go there. But right now, I can’t tell you anything. Maybe we should get him a boat or something and send him two weeks up front.
How did your current tour go and who did you go out on the road with?
We were on a headliner tour now in Europe, but we had three bands with us. We had Nydvind from France, which were together with us for almost the whole tour. I really enjoy their music and I really like what they’re doing. We had also one guest appearance for three or four shows by Berserk from Spain and we had Heidevolk, which is kind of a folk/metal thing from the Netherlands with us. When that is said, we also played a lot of shows in festivals together with bands like Nile and Entombed. We did one gig with Cannibal Corpse. It’s kind of strange for us to play live with death metal bands, but I think it’s really a nice thing, because when we are performing our kind of music, we get the chance to perform our music to people we normally don’t get to play for. So for me, that is a nice thing. I think we are getting a lot of new people interested in Kampfar on this tour – so that is, for me, the most important thing. We had offers to go on tour with bigger bands, but we chose to do our own headliner tour now because we had been away for seven years – so I think it’s about time.
Were you nervous at all starting out on a headlining tour after all of this time?
No, not really. That’s the strange thing – I think I had too much work in my head to be starting to get nervous. The Kvass album was suppose to be out before the tour, but because it was really so much work with that album, I really didn’t get the time to even think about the tour before I was on tour. So I was not nervous at all – that’s a strange thing, but I wasn’t.
What do you think about Black Metal bands like Dimmu Borgir from your country, who have gone on to massive success?
For me, I would not compare myself with Dimmu Borgir and such bands, because I think we are doing two complete different things. When that is said, I think that Dimmu Borgir is doing their stuff really professional and really, really good and I like what they’re doing. Personally, I don’t like their music, but that’s just me personally. For me, Kampfar is a complete different thing and that’s okay – I can live with that, because I’m not into this to become a big rock star.
What do think of the current state of the world Black Metal scene today?
The Black Metal scene today – I’ve talked to many people about that. When you think about the Black Metal scene in the early days – like in ‘91 or ‘92 –in ‘90 when I started with my old band Mock, things were really different and things were really hard. There were a lot of people around that were suppose to be like this, and they thought about this, and their attitude was to be like this – so they all were the same really. It was a nice period in my life – it was really so much more true to me – but now when I look back on it, I think that maybe that period was even more false than it is now. Now I met a lot of people into Black Metal, and they have been that for like ten years – and you met them now and they’re still here. They have changed their attitudes towards many things of course, but for me, that’s much more true. I think that the Black Metal scene now is even better concerning people. Of course the attitude and feelings and aura that was around in 91/92 will never come back. Of course that’s a bad thing, but it’s also a good thing I think.
Is there any chance of Kampfar releasing a live DVD in the future?
Yes, we have filmed a lot this year. We started to play live just 1 ½ years ago. That’s quite strange, but 2-3 years ago we became a full band. It had only been me and Thomas up to that so far, but three years ago we became a full band and just 1 ½ years ago we did the first Kampfar live show here in Norway. So things are going really, really fast now. We have filmed a lot during all of these shows. We don’t know what we are going to use or if we are going to use anything of it. We will see. The plans are to release a DVD in the future with some professional and not-so-professional stuff. That’s not decided yet, but we have like 40 hours already filmed of it. So we will see. I think we will do a DVD in the future, but I will definitely not release a DVD just to earn money. I think the DVD has to be interesting.
Do you have any messages for longtime Kampfar fans or maybe people checking the band out for the first time?
We are definitely back now, and we definitely are not going to rest like we did earlier. We’re not going to take seven years until the next album is out. We have so many plans for the future and have so many offers to do things. The band is really living again! We will definitely not quit now – that I can state for sure!
