BATHORY's QUORTHON: No True Music Fan Would Ever Consider Illegally Downloading Music

The unofficial BATHORY page Twilight has posted a brand new interview with BATHORY mainman Quorthon in which he shares his views on illegal music downloading and discusses the band's future plans.

The following are some of the highlights from that conversation:

On illegal music downloading:

Quorthon: "One really shouldn't have to say too much about that at all, really. It's so obvious: if a great portion of the audience out there continues to download music, exchange MP3's or copy CD's using their PC's, we'll end up with a scene and an industry containing nothing other than Britney Spears. And the CD's will be around $50 each. It's a fact. If anybody calls himself or herself a fan, he or she wouldn't even consider downloading, exchange MP3's or copy CD's using their PC's.

"I know CD's aren't cheap these days, and I know there are so many CD's one might want to have, but it's not exactly very cheap to make an album either. At a rate of $25-40 per hour, studios aren't exactly inexpensive. Just the films for a CD will cost a company several hundred bucks. A BATHORY album can cost up to half a million Swedish Kronor (approximately $58,000) in recording and production costs before it even hit the streets.

"I am a big fan of THE BEATLES, but I wouldn't even consider buying even a very unique and rare BEATLES album if it's a bootleg simply because it would be a bootleg. And this despite the fact the BEATLES doesn't even exist anymore and they have made enough really from their music already. It has to do with professional pride."

On BATHORY's future plans:

Quorthon: "Of course after these past fourteen months that I have been working on the 'Nordland I' and 'Nordland II' material, and the recording and mixing of both volumes (plus the re-mastering of the re-release vinyl among other things),I am virtually drained in every way. I have said I am going to do just about nothing for a while, just recharge the batteries. But of course I have a couple of ideas for the future. When the next album will be out, or when we'll start to record anything, I don't know. And I cannot make any promises as far as its content in terms of style and sound is concerned.

On the recent vinyl re-release of BATHORYs' first six albums and possibility of future reissues:

Quorthon: "We have received at least a letter, a telephone call or an email every day for the past five years, asking for re-releases of BATHORY vinyl. The vinyl boom in recent years was also a very big deciding factor, as well as the fact we are celebrating 20 years this month.

"But to re-release an entire back catalogue is no small affair, particularly when you have to face the fact both films and matrix for each LP hasn't really survived in top quality during storage for all these years. We had to produce new films on every cover, every inner sleeve and every label. We also decided to re-master the material now that we had a very good reason. Both the covers, inner-sleeves, labels and music has received a touch-up and face-lift to last a hundred years. But all this took a lot of time to do and at a great cost.

"Right in between the release of 'Nordland I' and the finishing stage of 'Nordland II', there was a gap for a couple of weeks which we could spend taking care of the re-mastered re-releases. We have to run the celebration re-mastering and re-release phase in stages: first the albums released in 1984-1991. We can then turn our attention to the rest of the albums. We are going to re-master and re-release these during the year. Release dates etc not yet confirmed."

Read the whole interview here.