There was a time when Dark Funeral seemed to appear in the most peculiar media places here in Sweden. If it wasn't on TV they were in the daily press, and much of this had nothing to do with the music. It is after all the music that Dark Funeral should be celebrated. New "Diabolis Interium" show a Dark Funeral that hasn't strayed from the path of infernal grinding black metal. It's still as devastating heavy as it was on "Vobiscum Satanas". Maybe even more so this time thanks to a remarkable production courtesy of Abyss. This time the band and Peter Tägtgren really have managed to get the most out of every tiny bit in the sound. This magic trick has meant that the sound this time isn't as compact as it has been before. Thus making it easier to listen to the album. Not having said that Dark Funeral has become easy listening. Lord Ahriman answered my questions. 

Dark Funeral has gone through quite a lot of members. How does this affect the continuity of the band? 
-It doesn't affect us that much. When you switch members it's a pain in the ass but I guess we're pretty determined and won't give up that easy. It means a lot for us to do music. It can be a positive thing when you have fresh blood coming in. It's both positive and negative but it's nothing that'll slow us down.

But with so many line up changes you'd think it would be hard to find the right people with the right attitude? 
- It hasn't been the easiest to find members when we've needed them. The last time we switched drummers we decided to look all over the world. We heard from a lot of people, especially from Americans. In the end we decided that it felt better to get one on home turf. 

The new album "Diabolis Interium" has again been recorded in Abyss. This time you spent 5 weeks in the studio. Compared to Def Leppard or Metallica that's not a long time but for a black metal band it's pretty much time to spend in a studio.
- As long as that we've never spent before. But you have to keep in mind that the first week we worked on the songs, arranging them and stuff like that. We put down the basics when we arrived but the first week was spent on testing different ideas and sounds so that we'd end up with the right one. We took it slow and didn't stress. We normally do 3 weeks. To manage with everything in 3 weeks you have to have everything like that finished so that when you come you can start recording immediately. This time we took it really slow and didn't stress at all. That was really nice. We let everything grow ripe before we decided on anything. 

So there was space for changes in arrangements and re-arrange if it wasn't good to begin with?
- We decided before when entered the studio with Peter to leave everything open and work on the finishing touches once we'd entered the studio. That was decided way before we left for the studio. We work on having some sort of basic for the songs and most of the material was finished before we came to the studio but once there we worked on the final arrangements. I wrote a couple of new things in the studio too. It was the right way to work for us. When we record by ourselves we have this tiny, cheap cassette recorded from K-Mart with bad sound. That's what it been like before. Now we could run through all our ideas with good sound and really analyse and fine-tune the details. 

It must have been nice knowing that you can change things if they don't work and not just having to record everything with no time for corrections? 
- That's the way it's been before. If there have been something you haven't liked you have not been able to fix it because there hasn't been time for it. This time it was nice to be able to take it step by step and use the time it took. It did end up stressed for time in the end but that was mostly because we believed Peter when he said that we had all the time in the world and we'd still finish in time. 
- It's nice working with Peter. We've worked with him many times and we're also friends. We know what to expect from him and he knows what to expect from us. I guess that we're equally sick in the head the whole bunch, which makes us, fit so well together. It's comfortable working together. He knows how we want to work and vice versa. If we'd used a different studio, like this project I've been working with, it would have felt really hard. You don't know what to expect of the studio. I like working with people I know what to expect from. 

The covers to your previous records, "Teach Children To Worship Satan" excluded, have all been in blue. This new one is in red. Was there any greater idea behind this?
- Already with "Vobiscum Satanas" we felt that we maybe should do something in red but it never happened. Instead we went with the usual blue tones. For this new album we felt that we wanted to change as much as possible without leaving our roots. To try and present a strong and really Dark Funeral, not just musically but also in the photos and the graphics. I feel it was the right decision to leave the blue/black behind. 

Has the cover been made from your instructions or has the artist been given total?
- It's been made from our ideas. We told him what the album is all about and how we'd imagined it. The front is based on the album title. We gave him some basic ideas of how we'd imagined it. He came up with some different visions but it's the end result that counts and I feel that cover really fits he title. 

Dark Funeral is one of the biggest black metal bands in the world. How far do you think it's possible to take black metal?
- If you look at the band that sell the most, like f x Cradle Of Filth or Dimmu Borgir , they sell between 100 - 150 000 copies. I guess you can sell over 200 000. It all comes down to how much marketing the label is willing to do for black metal. But you can today see that the labels put more and more effort on their black metal-releases. If it's good or bad is a whole different question. Everything that supports the black metal-scene is good if you ask me. 

With Cradle Of Filth signing for Sony - a colossal of a label - it's doubtful that they'll get back what they've invested in the band. 
- The dangerous that can happen when giants labels like this is take an interest in band  like us is that they'll want to control too much. We wouldn't meet with a label like that. They'll just demand this or that, they want the last word in how the lyrics should be written, how the music should be played. They don't think too much about the artistic freedom, the artists. All they want to is to make money. That can be really dangerous. 
- I guess Cradle already have had to tone down their image a bit. They've probably had to tone down some of the more extreme, things that they wanted to do but no longer can. I'm convinced that Sony will control a whole lot. That's nothing I'd agreed to do. It's going to be interesting to see what comes out of it. I'm looking forward to seeing the result whether it's positive or negative. It's an interesting experiment Dark Funeral would never ever discuss with a label like Sony. The only thing you could say to them "Our way or the highway". I doubt that Sony would've agreed to it. 

When you formed Dark Funeral, were there a goal for what the band would sound like?
- It wasn't exactly a goal. What we wanted was to play black metal and it just turned out the way it did. Once we had a foundation we evolved from there. We had a thought of taking each new album to a more extreme level. We've never thought about going softer, more melodic. One pillar that we've always have had is to go towards the more extreme with each new album. In the beginning we didn't even think we'd make it to an album.

What bands was there to look to for inspiration when Dark Funeral formed?
- Before Dark Funeral I had a band called Satan's Disciples. There were some similarities, ideas between the bands. I started something that I wanted to continue. There was Norwegian bands like Burzum and Emperor. Immortal, or were they around at that time? They had a band called Amputation but that was maybe more grindcore. Who else? Venom, maybe not so much the music but more what they stood for. I've always been listening to death metal, satanic death metal, so some influences come from that. Then we have classical music. That's something that has always been something that's been close Dark Funeral, especially lately. It has to be this satanic symphony. That's how I've looked at Dark Funeral, in a metal version. I feel that he songs I've written so far have measured up to the standard I've set in my mind

You've toured on both sides of the Atlantic. What's the biggest difference between Europe and North America?
- We get better treated in Europe than in USA. Over there it's money that rules and the bookers have no respect for the. It doesn't matter how many albums you sell, you should be glad that they let you play. We've had to make some decisions were we haven't that kind of attitude. We are not the ones who keep shut when we feel something is. It's not a diva attitude, fair should be fair. The last tour went all right. 

In USA it seem that those who have a more extreme outlook gets more exposure in the media. Is this something you've noticed happening to Dark Funeral?
- It hasn't been like that really, not that I've seen. There's been an interest in the music. For the Americans black metal as music is relatively new and they are interested in what's happening in Scandinavia. Scandinavia has always had a big metal scene and the Americans really look up to the Scandinavian metal scene. We did an interview with somebody who works Larry Flynt (Hustlers - AE) but I don't know if that was a scoop. We did receive free porn magazines for every good answer we gave. It ended with a stack of magazines. Other than that they're interested in the music.