GLITTERTIND (TORBJØRN)

HI TORBJØRN! HOW ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU? Hi there Karsten! I am fine looking forward to celebrate Yule with my family in my hometown Lillesand. The sun is turning and I look forward to this yearly celebration with salty sheep-ribs, mead and just having a good time with my own folks!! 🙂 „EVIGE ASATRO“ IS OUT AND QUITE INTERESTING. ARE YOU CONTENT WITH EVERYTHING? HOW ARE YOUR FEELINGS NOW AFTER WORK IS DONE? Cool that you find it interesting! I am content with everything and I can stand 100% behind this release. The recordings were done when I was 16 and 17 years old and this is the best I could do at that time. I would of course do some things another way today, but that’s of course natural since I have developed as musician. AS YOU ARE A QUITE NEW PROJECT IN THE “METAL” SCENE COULD YOU PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO OUR READERS?! WHAT DOES THE BAND NAME GLITTERTIND MEAN? I was born in 1985 and I live in a small town in the south of Norway. I started Glittertind when I was 16 years old so the project has existed for about three years now. But it was first in 2004 that I got a record contract with Karmageddon Media. Glittertind is the name of one of the mountains in the mountainrange “Jotunheimen” (The home of the Trolls) and for Norwegians this name immediately gives associations to vast nature, trollish environment and folklore. For Americans I guess it just sounds gay with “Glitter” and stuff, but fuck them, it’s not them I make the music for…hehehe YOU HAVE OBVIOUSLY BEEN INFLUENCED BY NORDIC CULTURE AND HISTORY. AS YOU ARE QUITE YOUNG (IF I MAY SAY THAT) SINCE WHEN AND WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH THESE THEMES? I guess that it’s just latent from when I was born. Hehe… I have always felt proud of my heritage and culture and this is something I want others also to be so that’s what I try to tell through my lyrics and my music. Everyone should be proud of what they are and hail their forefathers. To forget your forefathers is like being a river without a source, a three without roots. We cannot grow without roots! YOU ALREADY RELEASED 3 DEMOS, COULD YOU PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN YOUR RELEASES? I created the first demo in the autumn of 2001 and got it distributed limited to 1000ex through a Swedish underground label called Ultima Thule Records. Nothing happened after that, but I continued to develop and write music and a second demo got released the same way in 2003. This time several zines wrote that this was very promising and I gained much more interest around my project. But still I got no contract. So I teamed up with Trollhorn from Finntroll and made a third demo. This was just burnt in 5 copies and sent to a few recordcompanis. One of these was Karmageddon Media. They gave me a recordcontract and wanted to release my debutalbum with distribution around Europe and promotion in relevant media. This album is 10 songs from my second demo and 2 songs from my first demo & a new recording. The work done with Trollhorn will you hear on my next EP which will be out in April 2005! AND HOW DID YOUR COLLABORATION WITH KARMAGEDDON START? ARE YOU CONTENT WITH THEIR PROMOTIONAL WORK? We started to email and agreed on a contract. They are great guys and I have had NO problems with them. They have not had any problems with me either I guess..hehe… I think it’s cool that a label has guts to release something total opposite to commercial culture these days. They could have signed a nu-metal or goth act instead of me, but they didn’t because they like the concept. Hail to them! THE ARTWORK OF YOUR ALBUM IS VERY STRONG. WHO HAD THE IDEA AND WHO CREATED IT? TO WHICH MYTH DOES IT REFER? Thanks! I contacted Skrymer (Finntroll) because I know that he is an expert in catching the mood of Northern environment. I have seen his work with Finntroll and other bands, so I really knew that he was the guy for the job. I sent him my material and what I had in mind for the front-cover. It had to fit the term “Evige Asatro” (The album title “Evige Asatro” means “Eternal belief in Æsirs”. Æsirs are Thor and Odin and all the other gods of Åsgard). If you look on the elements on the cover, they are all there. All from Nordic nature, to Odin, dragon-ship, two ravens in the sky, the stars and the fullmoon, storming seas, a viking, Norse art-pattern etc. I am very satisfied and he will also do coverartwork for the upcoming EP! WHICH LYRICAL CONCEPT STANDS BEHIND “EVIGE ASATRO”? (WHAT DOES THE TERM MEAN ANYWAY?) See explanation above! The title is taken from a part of the play about the Norwegian king Olav Tryggvason (He died around year 1000) written by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg composed the music to the play. These great names are from the middle of the 19th century when the Norwegian cultural elite was deeply inspired by the German romanticism and Herder’s word that every nation got its own folk-soul. With this title I want to honour those men who let them be inspired by our culture to do art, music, books, poems and plays. I also want to carry on this legacy today in this world of globalization. I think it is very important to know your own culture in these times, be proud of it and tell your children about it. Europe is changing very fast and if these changes are continuing in the same speed as now then perhaps there is almost nothing left of European culture in about 100 years. COULD YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION PROCESS IN JOTUNHEIM? HOW DO YOU CREATE SONGS ALL ON YOUR OWN? DO YOU HAVE SESSION MUSICIANS? I have done everything myself so far! On my next EP will Trollhorn (Finntroll, Moonsorrow) do the synth. He is a great guy with great attitude. The production process is that I write a song, then I roughly record it so I remember it. Then the song can be left and I don’t do anything with it. After several months I listen to it again and if I still like what I hear I do something more and finish it. AND WHICH SHORT TERM WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC TO AN UNKNOWING PERSON? FOLK PUNK METAL MAYBE? Hehe…it’s hard to label it and explain what it’s all about, but I have nothing against it if people are calling it Folk-punk Metal. THERE ARE ALSO SOME TRADITIONAL TUNES. HOW DID YOU SELECT THEM? DO YOU LIKE SITTING IN THE WOODS AROUND A CAMPFIRE SINGING OLD TUNES? I am not the guy which sits around campfires with a guitar. When I am in the woods I like the silence. Concerning the different traditional tunes: “Sønner av Norge” which means Sons of Norway was our first national anthem, but most Norwegians these days don’t even know this song. And with its brilliant melody and lyrics I wanted to give it a new birth! “Nordmannen” (Eng: The Norseman) is also covered by the Norwegian folkmetal group “Storm” in 1994, but I wanted to do my own version. It can be considered as a tribute to Ivar Aasen and his work. He was the one that founded our second written language in Norway called Nynorsk. We have two languages one for the ones in the cities and urban areas which is called Bokmål and one for the ones living in rural areas based on dialects which is called Nynorsk. “Om kvelden”(In the evening) is another cover which have a wonderful Norwegian folktune and mystic lyrics. I really like this song and want to bring it on to new generations. “Norges Skaal” is a cover which is a kind of “bonus” on this record since that is the only song recorded this year. It is a patriotic drinking song from 1771 which was very controversial at that time because the Danes were the Head of the union between Norway and Denmark and they didn’t like that the Norwegians were proud of their land and culture. Therefore they forbid this song until we got our constitution in 1814! I have also done a version of the German song “Ein Jäger aus Kurpfalz” which has got the Norwegian name “Se Norges blomsterdal”! First of all I did this because of that the lyrics in Norwegian are brilliant, and the music is of course awesome! But you can also consider it as a tribute to the cultural elite (i.e. Novalis, Schellig, Herder and the Grimm brothers) of Germany at the end of 1700 which had a deep and important impact on the Norwegian cultural-elite at that time. Thanks to the ideas from the German romantic époque, the „upper-class“ (They were the one who had the education to write down things) started to look into Norwegian culture at the countryside (in the cities the culture was Danish because of 400 years in „union“ with them) and it was not anymore considered „dirty“, „cheap“ and for the „lower-classes“. They started to look upon the Norwegian folk culture as a treasure and they got a positive relationship between man and nature. They also started to write down folksongs, folktales etc. because people were now moving into the cities because of the dawning industrialism. The old knowledge had been given orally from father to son, mother to daughter, but in the cities families got divided, they worked a lot and people got drunk all the time to escape from the dreadful conditions.(There were no unions)…I have a lot to thank Herder and the other Germans in Lübeck for. They woke up our cultural elite at that time and made them save great pieces of our culture (and of course woke up other Europeans to save their culture in other parts of Europe)! Which I indeed, and many others, are happy for today! DO YOU HAVE CONTACT TO THE METAL SCENE (VIKING, BLACK METAL). DID YOU HAVE ANY FEELINGS ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE WINDIR SHOUTER? I have listened to “Viking, black metal” since I was 15 years old and I have been a fan of Windir since I bought “Arntor”. It’s a masterpiece! The death of Valfar was very tragic and I attended to his memorial concert in Oslo this autumn. It was a great evening which I will never forget! DO YOU FEEL THAT IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY GLOBALIZATION DESTROY THE OLD IDENTITY AND CULTURE? Urbanism and EU destroys the Norwegian countryside. Farmers, fishermen and so on can not compete with i.e. Polish and soon Turkish farmers when it comes to prices and quantum. Many people have to move into the cities to find jobs. In the cities the Norwegian culture barely exists and it’s almost just commercial created cultures that people identify themselves with. What’s left of our culture is still on the countryside and when there is no way you can make a living there, then I would say of course globalization destroy our identity and culture. I guess this is the trend in every country in Europe. But this is also a part of the strategy from the mighty capitalists. If everyone are similar and want the same materialistic things, then they earn more money because of a bigger market. I want diversity and that people are proud of their heritage and roots. If I want to travel to Germany, I want to meet beer drinking Germans, not some wannabe hip-hop gangstah smoking weed, if you know what I mean…hehe YOU OBVIOUSLY LIKE FANTASY MOVIES. COULD YOU TELL ME YOUR FAVOURITE TITLES? Lord of the Rings is great (Surprise, surprise! Hehe)… I’m looking forward to see the extended version of third film.. Can’t think of any other fantasy titles at the moment. AND WHICH OTHER ARTISTS DO YOU LIKE, MAYBE NEOFOLK, TOO OR NEBELHEXE (ANDREA HAUGEN)? I like early Vintersorg, Otyg, Finntroll, Moonsorrow, Bukkene Bruse, Annbjørg Lien, Garmarna, Hedningarna, Windir, Ulver, Ensiferum, Einherjer, Gåte and many more…! WHAT ARE YOUR OTHER INTERESTS BESIDES MUSIC? I MEAN YOU’RE A YOUNG GUY, WHAT ABOUT GIRLS AND DISCO? 🙂 Hehe, every weekend I drink Jägermeister and try to hook up with some girls of course…hehe.. Unfortunatly they hang at discos and I don’t like discos because I don’t like dancing myself..But after a heavy amount of alcohol I survive in such environment… hehe.. HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED LIVE AND IF YES IN WHICH LINE UP? Nope, no gigs yet! WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS IN THE FUTURE? ALREADY NEW SONGS IN THE MAKING? NEW STYLE, NEW MUSICIANS, NEW SOUNDS? The new EP which will be released in April 2005 will be very cool! It’s dedicated to Norwegian freedom fighters throughout the ages and it will celebrate Norway’s 100 years of independence. It will also hopefully inspire people fighting against EU and their “4 freedoms” which basically doesn’t mean freedom but loosing independence. Trollhorn will participate on this record with synth and Skrymer will also do the artwork this time! The EP will have 8 tracks and last for about 20 minutes. Watch out!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR TIME AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR EFFORT. Thank you for your interest in Glittertind! Keep it true!!!!