WATAIN Frontman: 'A Black Metal Concert Should Be All About Chaos, Panic, Blood, Fire'

September 27, 2007

The new issue of Metal Hell (#20) includes an interview with bassist/vocalist Erik Danielsson from WATAIN. A couple of excerpts follow:

On the response to the band's recent live shows:

"The response has been extremely good. People seem very grateful for the fact that a band finally puts some fucking effort into what they are doing. Metal crowds want big things to happen on stage, not just some fucking wimps in spikes playing fast and tight. A black metal concert should be all about chaos, panic, blood, fire, violence, magic and ceremonial mass hysteria! And this is exactly what we bring."

On the general musical goals of WATAIN:

"Our musical goals do not have as much to do with sound as it has to do with reaching a certain state of energy and power. I think our 'goal,' no matter how substantially undefined it might be, lies beyond what anyone has ever before been able to do with music. Someone whose art I respect a lot once said that the black and death metal scene has the potential to alter worlds, it just demands a sort of insight and willpower that most people lack. This is a very inspiring thought, and I believe, and have been proven, that he is right. People have seen nothing yet. This sinister form of music has been present for over 20 years on this earth. It is time that someone takes use of its age and the power, which it has been charged with during this time."

On his expectations for the future of the black metal genre:

"I have quite high hopes for the future of black metal. Not as a subculture — that part has already been lost to plastic dolls and materialist ideals. I piss on black metal the way people conceive it these days. No, I have high hopes for black metal as an esoteric expression of sinister forces, something that will always linger in the swamps beneath the surface of the known world, dead but dreaming, with an ever-growing hunger…"

On the band's next studio opus:

"It is too early to speak about. I just know that it will be far more dark, disturbing, powerful and heavier than anything else before."

Read the entire interview at this location.

Watch fan-filmed video footage of WATAIN performing a cover of DISSECTION's "The Somberlain" on May 16, 2007 at Jaxx in West Springfield, Virginia:

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