I know some people believe the change of style for BATHORY, in terms of the music and lyrics around 1988-1990, happened because we must have got turned on from Manowar. That's another total misconception. I have never owned a Manowar record. And I don't give a fuck if people believe that either. Not that it matters though.

I have of course heard Slayer (an act, which by the way does have all my respect for being original and for sticking to their roots in much of what they do). And I have heard a handful of tracks by Venom.

In 1986-1988, BATHORY had a drummer who was heavily influenced by Manowar. He didn't enjoy any other type of metal, but he was somehow sold on Manowar. It wasn't like we decided to copy what they were doing. However, the typical heavy Manowar beat seemed to perfectly suit my new ideas for lyrics at the time. The way it came about was this; in an effort to get away from the whole "are they true satanists or not"-discussions that went on in the media at the time (sort of drawing the attention away from what was truly important, the music), I felt I wanted to replace the whole demonic & satanic bag with something that was pure from christian and satanic bullshit.

The pre-christian Scandinavian Viking and vendel era seemed perfect for lyrics and arrangements. Had BATHORY been a japanese act, we might as well have picked up the Samurai culture. Had we been an Italian act, it could easily have been the Roman empire era. Now, we happened to be a Swedish act and the Viking and Vendel era seemed exciting in terms of writing music and lyrics. The heavy Manowar beat that this one-time BATHORY drummer came up with one day in the rehearsal place, is a Manowar contribution. But I wonder if that's enough to be called a source of inspiration or influence.

My personal reason for forming BATHORY was I wanted to create a mix of the atmosphere of early Black Sabbath, the energy of early Motörhead and the pace of early GBH. We were just three shit kids coming out of school at the time, with absolutely no knowledge at all about any other acts. Remember, Metallica released their first album around the time we entered the studio for the first time. Slayer too released their first album at the same time. We were totally in the dark about any underground movement in Europe. It wasn't until way after we had already released our first album that we learned about tons of others acts in Europe and elsewhere playing basically the same type of primitive and dark extreme metal that we were making.

Around the time I formed BATHORY, I was listening a lot to an album by early GBH I believe was called "City baby in attack of the rats". We based half of BATHORY's initial sound and style on that GBH album. I may have listened to some Discharge, but I don't remember any of their songs or any of their titles anymore. The "Ace of Spades" and "Iron Fist" Motörhead albums also meant very much when we formed BATHORY. So did the first handful of Black Sabbath albums.

I don't know if having a melody line in a song would place BATHORY "above" other bands, but sure it does add something special to a song. Extreme noise and brutalities are always fun to do. But if you're trying to tell the audience a story, which we do a lot in BATHORY, I think a melody line will add atmosphere and personality to the story.

I don't see myself as a guitar player. I just use the guitar for writing songs. I may use the bass or a piano when writing other times.

I always write the music first. The lyrics will be added at a very late stage. The mood of the music will determine what the lyrics are to be about. Very seldom will I change anything in a song just because the lyrics might have turned a certain way. In the end it all works out somehow. It puzzles me as much as anybody else.

Around 1986, I realised we were actually just writing albums full of religious hocus-pocus, satanic rubbish and demonic crap. I was not a Satanist and knew absolutely nothing about occultism or demonic affairs, so I asked myself why should I really be writing about that shit. I mean, we actually got to make albums, so why not try something different. That's when the idea to bring the whole pre-christian Swedish Viking era into BATHORY came about. Not that I knew any more about that period in time, but it was at least a fresh source to draw stories from.

When people ask me today, if I am ever ashamed of the early albums and the lyrics they contained, my answer is "no". We're not ashamed of anything, we all go through stages in life when one thing may be cool for a period of time, and then something else comes along that inspires you in a different way.

Originally, we picked the whole demonic bag up because we didn't feel we could write the same sort of lyrics that the big boys would write. We didn't know shit about riding down the highway on a Harley, drinking whisky out of the bottle while fondling all these loose women. We knew nothing about that life, so we picked up influences from the horror comics we had been reading while growing up, magazines like Vampirella and Shock, as well as all the horror movies we had watched as kids. It was all very innocent. I wouldn't have known the devil even if he jumped up to bite my ass.

The funny thing is, a lot of people insist that BATHORY's so called Viking period had a greater impact on today's Black Metal scene, than pure Black Metal of the early 80's. The good thing about evolution is that what's called Black Metal today, may not remind too much of what Black Metal was 20 years ago. Black Metal, Death Metal and all types of extreme metal, will develop further. The ones who get the most out of a diverse scene and constant evolution, is the audience.

As far as BATHORY's contribution is concerned, back in 1986-1991 we used acoustic guitars, harmony backing vocals, intros and outros as well as sound effects to create that specific BATHORY atmosphere. Many bands have been copying that so thoroughly in the past 10-15 years, I believe this special atmosphere itself could perhaps be our greatest contribution.

Everything on the first solo album was accidental. I had absolutely no ambitions or plans. What happened was, I said I wanted to take a year off from music. Then the record company told me that I perhaps should think about a solo record, just to keep myself active. Now, that's a very interesting situation. Not too many guys get to make a solo record. Myself, I had no idea what it would sound like. The offer to make a solo album was a challenge too exciting to ignore. So I wrote some pure guitar based crunchy metal rock material and went down a small studio for a week and a half. I brought with me a guitar, a bass and a drum machine with only one intention and that was to make a record that wasn't going to be anything like BATHORY. Not that I didn't like working with BATHORY, I just thought it was a good opportunity to "kill" the very erroneous image of "Quorthon" which had developed in fanzines and within the metal scene in general. People thought I was a neo-nazi satanic Viking who drank blood and ate infants, who lived in a bats cave in the north of Sweden and tons of other stupid things. I figured, if I produced a solo album that was miles from BATHORY, incorporating a little rock, blues and even punk, perhaps the most fanatic nut cases would be scared off.

The second solo album came about because people wrote me and said they were now very interested to see what I would come up with on a second solo record. So I wrote a lot of material, mixing The Beatles, Sex Pistols and Mountain plus punk. I have no plans for a third solo record, but having said that, I might just as well record a third solo album in future if I feel like it.

As far as the future of extreme metal is concerned, I do not worry at all. I know there will be tons of great bands in the future as well. The scene will be forever. There will be new names, new styles and new topics. The dark, evil and demonic will always be a part of the scene. The mythological themes will be there as well. I agree it would be interesting to see what else will happen as far as topics are concerned.

Let's face it, some extreme metal productions will never reach sales figures around 10 000-20 000 copies. A lot of acts will be happy to sell 5 000 or even 3 000 copies. With such a small quantity of CD's sold, few record companies, even pure metal companies will even touch certain bands. The underground will be able to distribute albums made during less expensive circumstances, albums that still will have a lot to offer in terms of interesting arrangements etc. So in that respect, I think that the underground is doing a pretty tremendous job.

But the underground is also exploited by pirates, assholes, haemorrhoids and parasites. There are more illegal BATHORY CD's circulating in the underground than genuine official BATHORY albums released. There's fake "BATHORY live albums" out there, I have heard of "Quorthon rehearsal" cassettes and "lost recordings" on CD, and this absurd list just goes on and on. I will occasionally email these mailorder companies and underground metal shops, and tell them that they are distributing BATHORY fakes and illegal crap. Also, I will tell them that not only are they violating international laws of copyright and publishing rights, they allow the bootlegging pirates and haemorrhoids to use their network for criminal purposes. That's not underground, that's theft and breach of trademark laws etc.

I have heard of some really awful quality bootleg BATHORY CD's and feel sorry for the fans that buy them for 15-25 dollars. All they get is crap quality copies of tracks released on our Jubileum volumes. The fans could easily just get the genuine thing from us directly. I came from the underground and I hurt like hell when I hear how young fans are being exploited this way. Any underground shop or mailorder dealer who will help in distributing bootleg crap is killing the underground.

I can't see what a "return to metal" should point to. If there's no BATHORY album out for a period of 5 years (as was the case between "Blood on Ice" and "Destroyer of Worlds"), some will call that a comeback. That's absurd. Just because you're not in people's face all the time, it's not a come back to have a new album out even if it's more than a year between it and the last release.

People are so stuck with labelling acts and individuals, calling things and circumstances by so many names and whats more just to make life easier for themselves to live, it makes me sick.

I think people see and hear more things then I really meant to put on them albums. The "Blood Fire Death", "Hammerheart" and "Twilight" albums has been linked together as the "viking-albums", the same way the first three albums "Bathory", The Return" and "Under the Sign" has been tied into a trio. I gave up years ago trying to talk people out of all that crap. It's just atmospheric metal, I don't really bother much about the depth or context etc.

I really don't remember why I picked some stuff up from Nietzche 10 years ago, I wasn't reading much by him. It may have been through Wagner. I think cults, theories and views of all sorts will exist in much the same way for as long as there are people around.

Hail the hordes !

Quorthon