HYPERBOREAN - ENTREVISTA

1. Hyperborean born in 2000, after a couple of demos, several lineup changes, a cessation of activity and start again, you publish in 2011 "The Spirit of Warfare". How did the idea of ​​creating Hyperborean? How has the sound of the band over the years and how it has influenced changes in sound training? Sometime you software developers to dissolve the group?

I had done vocals in some bands previously and I had just moved to a new city to study. I had some contacts there and we decided to form a new band as I didn’t want to stop playing music at the time and it grew from there. It was kind of an interesting process because we never really discussed or decided what kind of genre of music we would play and we had very different musical backgrounds and influences and you can really hear that in our early demo recordings. Over the years the music has changed in many ways, it has progressively become harsher and more technical. We used to use lots of clean vocals and keyboards and over the years we have used less and less of them. Well the band has gone through many changes. I don’t really think there was a point where we (Andreas and I) wanted to end the band completely. It has been on hold for various periods but never dissolved.

2. How was the writing process for this "The Spirit of Warfare"? What is your way to work in the recording studio?

Hectic is probably the best word to describe the recording of The Spirit of Warfare. We did everything in the studio in just over one week, which really was pushing it. We should probably have taken a little more time to do it in in hindsight. Andreas had to record all the guitars and some of the bass in just a few short days. Now we have just finished recording a new album called Mythos of the Great Pestilence. We learned from the recording process of TSOW and did not do it the same way. This time we split up the recording so that Andreas could really take all the time he needed to record the guitars and bass and then I went to the Endarker studio, recorded the vocals, and then everything came together there. This method worked very well and we will probably keep working in this manner.

3. Your lyrics revolve around historical battles, what you find inspiration to write? What you want to convey to them?

Well the lyrics to The Spirit of Warfare dealt with battles and war but there will be very little of that sort of lyrics on the new album. That however does not mean that the lyrics from the last albums are disconnected from the ones on the new one. They are not. The driving theme, beneath the surface if you will, of TSOW was always the nature of humanity or the essence of mankind. And this theme continues to run through our new album in both explicit and implicit ways. I draw allot of inspiration from great thinkers such as Polybius, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. And of course also historical events that have had a profound influence on humanity. On The Spirit of Warfare it was  the first world war and on our upcoming album it is the Black Death, the plague that ravished Europe in the 14th Century.  But the main inspirations would be human nature and the loss of virtue. There is a narrative that I want to convey through our lyrics, but it will take more albums to complete it and I don’t want to spoil it ahead of time, so until then enjoy them and take as much, or as little, as you will from them.

4. What equipment do you guys use in the study and which at concerts?

Well we don’t play live right now but the equipment Andreas uses is ibanez and ovation guitars, seymour duncan picups, ernie ball strings and jim dunlop picks. And I just use whatever mic the studio gives me. On our latest recording it was a Neumann tlm 103.

5. What inspired you initially create Hyperborean? Are they still valid today those reasons? What bands are your sources of inspiration?

That was such a long time ago, it’s hard to remember. I can’t speak for the others but personally I just wanted to play music at the time, there was nothing profound, no great thought that went into the creation of the band. We have a much clearer vision of what we want to do today and that includes a purpose to the message. As for inspirations, that is hard, I try to not consciously take too much ideas from other bands, although I´m sure I do to some extent anyway. But some Metal bands I currently enjoy listening to allot would be newer Marduk, Watain, Deathspell Omega and Ghost.

6. Who is designing the cover of "The Spirit of Warfare" what is your relationship to the content of the album?

Well the idea was that the rider was supposed to represent war, the first horseman of the apocalypse, but the interpretation of it was up to the artist and let’s just say it left us wanting… To be honest it turned out really bad, we are certainly not happy with it, but what is done is done, no use on dwelling on it other than to say we will not use that artist again.  

7. I think that since 2003 you do not offer concerts, is situation will change in the future? What is the reason behind this decision?

I don’t know, never say never, if the right opportunities emerged we would consider getting a full line up together. The reasons we aren´t a full band now is basically that it is really fucking hard to keep a band together, there is allot of hard work that goes into it and it’s just a drag to deal with. The band works really well, as it is now, with me and Andreas. We have similar visions for the music and we get things done, we have a good system.

8. "The Spirit of Warfare", was published in 2011, I assume that you will be working on new material, if so; we can advance something about the new job?

As I have mentioned we have a new album recorded, I don’t know when it will be released yet, probably in the fall but we will post a couple of teaser tracks before then so keep a look out for them on our facebook page, (https://www.facebook.com/HyperboreanSwe) they will be posted in the near future . The album is called Mythos of the Great Pestilence and we are really happy with how it turned out. Compared to The Spirit of Warfare It really is better in every way. Better and more technical songs and better performances on all the instruments and vocally as well, and a much improved overall sound. We recorded it at Endarker studio with Magnus “Devo” Andersson of Marduk who engineered, mixed and mastered it. That was a really good experience; he really went out of his way to make sure it turned out good. So to any band who has the opportunity to work with him I can highly recommend you do so.

9. Thank you very much for your time, if you want to add something for people who like Hyperborean, this is the place, thanks. I hope the questions are to your liking.

Thank you for the interview and some good questions. All I can say is keep a look out for our upcoming album, it really is the best thing we have recorded. Thanks to our fans for supporting us.

Magnus/Hyperborean

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