CR: Aeternus will be playing in “The Hole In The Sky Fest” in Bergen Norway; of what importance is this fest for a band like yours? (Other than the obvious promotion)
Ares: Well, shortly it is really cool to once again attend to that Festival. Promotionally good too of course, yes.
CR: You guys recently acquired S. Winter on the drums to replace Erik, is he going to be the new permanent member of Aeternus or just a session drummer? Why did you guys picked him?
Ares: He has replaced Erik yes. We picked him as he was one man that we thought could do it all the right way. We were right, his skills are totally what we wanted and we’re looking forward to work with him on new material as well.
CR: How much will the departure of Erik hurt the Aeternus sound?
Ares: We won’t be “hurt”. Obviously, Eriks drumming in Aeternus is gone, but Winters drumming will be surely a mark of the new Era we’re about to enter.
CR: The new album has received reviews rating from excellent to bad; do you think that because Aeternus has never been a “conventional” metal band your albums are a bit hard to understand? What would you like people that listens to “Hexaeon” have in mind before they listen to it; I mean what information would be helpful to know prior the first listen to the album?
Ares: I don’t know man. One puts on an album and sometimes one loves it and sometimes not. We all need at times to listen to an album a few times before liking it. With us it’s the same. Not everyone can like what we do, those who do…do! That’s that. I hardly believe in thinking about stuff to make an album appear better in ones ears.
CR: Why just 33 minutes of playing time in Hexaeon?
Ares: It just turned out that way. After composing the 9 songs for that album, we had no idea of the length of them all. When this was clear, we saw no real reason to start making more just to have a longer album. What we had was sufficient so we worked on the 9 and stuck to the musical concept we had and so forth.
CR: Hexaeon sounds more into death metal than any of your previous albums (to me at least); it’s true that you guys were developing that unique blend of genres quite some time ago, but do you see Aeternus ever becoming a straight up death metal band?
Ares: I don’t feel “HeXaeon” is more Death Metal than “…Monument” for example. In my opinion, we made good changes and good steps AWAY from the Death metal aspects that we had on “…Monument”. “HeXaeon” has a good new feel, old feels, Death and Thrash feels.
CR: Aeternus is a fairly respect band in the black metal scene (at least that’s my impression from reading many reviews about your albums) but you guys have never had a “big exposure” in the media, do you think that is because of the sort of low profile the band tends to keep, or maybe just not the right promotion from your record label? (Of course I could be wrong about the exposure in the media, is just that I haven’t read an interview from Aeternus in quite some time)
Ares: Who knows?! Well, one thing about silence from us that we WERE silent for a long time as we left NAP after doing “…Monument” with them. Then some more time went on finding a new Label and then it was the production of “HeXaeon” that took some time. =P
CR: Some people describe the music of Aeternus as dark metal; do you agree? To me dark metal is a very hard to explain genre inside metal music, maybe you could help me out and defined what is dark metal, how could we without actually listening to it define dark metal?
Ares: Dark Metal is hard for me to define as well…it’s more on an emotional level for me. People can call Aeternus whatever they want, but to me the darkness is more suited than any other word for our music. It brings justice to our atmospheres and emotions that we have in our music.
CR: When writing songs for Aeternus how much input do you received from your “co-workers” other members of the band?
Ares: None!
CR: Could a DVD be a part of future plans?
Ares: That would of course be awesome. Future will tell. As for now, we have no specific plans regarding that.
CR: Why haven’t Aeternus been more active in live shows, at least this year?
Ares: Cuz we changed Label and so forth. ;o)
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"I don’t feel “HeXaeon” is more Death Metal than “…Monument” for example. In my opinion, we made good changes and good steps AWAY from the Death metal aspects" |
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CR: What’s your favorite song from “Hexaeon” and why?
Ares: “What I Crave”. Why? It kicks ass!
CR: Is it true that in Norway there aren’t many metal bands with a new and fresh line up, that there are many bands but they all have a member from another already existing band?
Ares: A lot of bands use other musicians from other (known or not) bands yes…why? Well, for example as a session member-needed situation you would KNOW what you get if you got Frost to drum for you on yer album right?! Instead of finding some dude you know nothing about!
CR: How important was or is the whole history of the “Inner circle” in Norway?
Ares: It has no importance to me.
CR: What do you think of the new wave of metalcore bands popping out everywhere in the metal world?
Ares: I have no opinions! I focus on Aeternus. Only! (More or less)!
CR: What do you think of mp3 file sharing? Do you see a future with out this sort of thing?
Ares: The future won’t be without it I think…
CR: What other music genres do you listen to other than metal?
Ares: Folk music, Rock, Heavy Metal, Classical Music, Music from different films where one has composers such as Hans Zimmer and James Horner.
CR: When did you decide metal was going to be a big part of your life?
Ares: When I was around 14-15 years old, something like that. It all got enhanced when I saw how EXREMLY raw Metallica was to me. They made me wanna play the guitar and shit.
CR: Well, thank you very much for this opportunity, if you anything else to say, please do…
Ares: Keep supporting Metal and thank you for your support through this interview. Cheers!
