DIMMU BORGIR

The ‘new’ Dimmu sounds like Cradle of Filth though I guess that can’t be helped having Nick Barker (ex Cradle drummer) in the band.
Silenoz: True, our sound has evolved and become more modern but we still have a lot of true black metal and Scandinavian roots in the music. Its difficult because on the one hand we don’t want to stagnate and keep doing the same things over and over again but we still want to keep our identity because its central to the band

Shagrath: we want to become more accessible but the reason for using Nick (Barker) was because we wanted an excellent sound and to do this you need quality musicians. But if you want to get to fine details well, to me Cradle have more gothic roots whereas ours are more black metal and thats a huge difference. As for our image...well, while the promo fotos may make us look like Cradle, onstage we look just the way you remember us from the early days....ok, so its not quite the ‘panda’ look ha ha!

Silenoz: I guess we just want to be more sophisticated and mature in the way that we play and look. 

Well yeah, I see you’ve moved from keyboards to an orchestra – that’s quite a jump!
Shagrath: Well apart from improving from the last album, we wanted to use a proper orchestra and we had this in our minds when we wrote this album. We’ve always had a symphonic style and so its a logical step to go from keyboards to a full blown orchestra.

Silenoz: The orchestra is just a more fuller and live sound than the keyboards, to capture the real spirit of proper strings...

But its not a Metallica thing right?
Shagrath: Oh, definitely not! When you listen to the Metallica thing - and thats the right word ha ha - it sounds like 2 different songs played at the same time and totally shit. They could have done it right but they totally fucked it up.

In terms of black metal history where do you feature?
Shagrath: First of all, what most people may not know is that in the early 90’s there was about 8 people in the so called black metal ‘scene’ in Norway and no ‘movement’ as such. Then it grew and this was before all the church burnings started. Of course after all the press sensationalism everyone then jumped onto the bandwagon. But don’t expect to go to Norway and see black metal people everywhere - its not like Mecca or something ha ha!

Silenoz: Before Dimmu Borgir we all played in different bands. I was already in a death metal band from the time I was 14. I guess I felt I had a talent as a musician that went beyond a hobby band and for me metal is a religion so it made sense to become a professional musician.

Dimmu’s had quite a few members in the band so is it a problem to find professional musicians?
Silenoz: Well, it just seems to be our curse to have continuously changing personnel. People come in and at the start they seem really eager but then they change for whatever reason and that creates a bad atmosphere which isn’t good for a band

Shagrath: We need people who are 110% committed cos sometimes things have to be done at short notice so its more than just a job but a lifestyle so if you don’t enjoy it then you shouldn’t be in it - thats the rule.

Silenoz: Its ok to have fame but your music shouldn’t succeed because of it but because of the music itself.

Shagrath: Actually, last year we didn’t tour so we had to take part time jobs to pay the bills and thats not easy because Norway is such an expensive country as you know so its hard to keep a professional band going.

Silenoz: You can still have a band but sacrifices have to made. There’s a lot of people who think we are rich cos we might sell a lot of records but we’re not on a major label so we don’t have a same contracts as the Spice Girls - not that I’d want to be the Spice Girls ha ha!