Interview with Frode Glesnes (Grimar) from Einherjer February 2021, by Fabian Filiks Kvlt Magazine

INTERVIEW WITH FRODE GLESNES (GRIMAR) FROM EINHERJER FEBRUARY 2021, BY FABIAN FILIKS KVLT MAGAZINE, WWW.KVLT.PL

Viking metal veterans Einherjer have returned with their eighth studio album entitled "North Star". I had the opportunity to talk to Frode "Grimar" Glesnes about this great record, his musical influences, and even tried to find the answer to what makes their music unique. Prepare yourself for a journey to a cold and distant land.

The main reason for this interview is, of course, your latest output entitled “North Star”. But I personally felt the urge to finally have a chat with you because of my small anniversary. It would be 20 years since I saw you in Kraków alongside Konkhra and King Diamond. Do you remember that show?

Yes, I remember that show! That was the last show on the tour. I think it was in Club 38?

Exactly. That was my first experience with Einherjer. Being a Kind Diamond freak and a teenager, I had to be there!

Yeah, I know the feeling [laughs]

But when I saw Einherjer on stage, I like: who are these guys? Your performance was exciting, vivid, livid, and powerful! It stuck with me. Recently, when I heard the single for "Stars" I thought: "damn, those guys are still out there, and they're rocking strong! All the memories came back to me, so I just had to talk to you.

It was the last show on tour. I’m in my studio now, and I’m looking at the poster hanging on my wall from that show! King Diamond's bandmates wrote messages on the poster, salutations, and I remember this all too well. Since it was the last day of the tour, they were doing the jokes and crazy stuff during the sets. It's typical for the last show on tour to mess around and just have fun.

The whole club was packed with people old and young. Everybody had a great time. You were promoting "Norwegian Native Art", as I recall. An excellent album.

Yes, yes...

I was hooked instantly and became a fan. The new record, "North Star", had a similar impact on me that "Norwegian Native Art" had.

I think that the "North Star" is a very different album from "Norwegian Native Art" in almost every sense, but I think it's really cool to hear that the new record resonates with you just like "Norwegian Native Art" did. It proves that we've done something that impresses and maybe inspires people. And that's cool!

I think that the new album will have an impact on the listeners. I've seen the initial reviews, and people are impressed with what you've done.

Yeah. Well, that’s very cool to hear. It makes us feel that we have done something good. I think we have a strong album now, good songs, very diverse, and I think it shows with both our singles, "Stars" and "The Blood and the Iron".

Both the songwriting and the execution is excellent. It relates to your last record, "Norrøne Spor".

Yes, I think it does. I started to write songs for "North Star" almost immediately after we finished "Norrøne Spor". So, I was in a similar state of mind when I was working on the latest record. For me, songwriting is a natural development. A progression. You've seen us 20 years ago, right? You were seventeen. Now we are in our mid-forties. We don't change as fast as we did back then, but now I feel like I've found my place and the right sound for Einherjer and our expression. That's how we are right now. I wouldn't expect us to change drastically if you know what I mean.

I understand that perfectly.

We are just kind of comfortable with the way we sound now.

And all that was done in your own Studio Borealis, right? Could you tell us something more about the recording process?

Sure. We used my studio. We have been doing this for quite some time. I think "Norwegian Native Art" was the last album we did in an "outside studio". At that time, I was so fed up with the whole traveling thing. When you're going abroad to record an album you only have like 3-5 weeks and it's just unnecessary pressure. So, I was kind of thinking: "I need to learn to do this myself". And so I did.

It shows on the latest album...

Apart from being a musician, my professional day job is being a sound engineer. Over time I have also built a proper studio in a building next to my house. It’s very convenient both for me and Einherjer. We use the studio for recordings, and we use this as a writing place. We started recording "North Star" in February 2020. Then the pandemic struck, and everything went sideways. I have kids at school. And now they were at home and for like eight weeks, and I was going crazy. I think it’s impossible to have the right energy as a musician after being with kids for the whole day. I just gave up. I couldn’t do that [laughs]. So that’s why we had to take it slow. And after a month or so when the kids were back at school I was back working on the record.

Was it a "hermit-like" experience for you?

You know, I normally track everything myself. The guitars and bass. All except lead guitars. I was working alone in the studio for a month. And I was tracking all the stuff and did the vocals and wrote the lyrics. In a way, I think it was probably "the loneliest album" I have ever recorded, but we still kind of managed a good vibe on it. When I needed something from the other guys, I would just send the materials over, and Ole, the lead guitarist, would send me back his ideas. It kind of brought new layers to the song, and I got excited, and I sent it back and so on. We kept the band alive that way. It’s not that we normally work this way but this time we had to do it like that. I think, all in all, it paid off. and the album sounds pretty well. Ole's leads are amazing. He did a great job.

There's a certain sadness in your music. A Norwegian trait that the music is "cold" and even "harsh". It's emotional but distanced. And has that certain amount of melancholy...

I think I know what you mean. But I would call it more like a longing...

I think you're right. That's a better word. So, is longing a part of the concept of the album? Because from what I understand the North Star should guide you. What's the message? Are you seeking guidance, are you longing for something bigger than ourselves? Have we lost our way?

For sure we lost our way [laughs]. Years ago. But honestly. I think that the whole title, the concept of the record is about the fact that we are always evolving, changing. As humans, as songwriters, and as a band. And the "North Star" struck me as a good overall title that reflects some sense of direction to help stay at a course. And on a personal level, it can relate to our inner compass. Your inner North Star guides us towards what we want in life in general. Is that what you were asking for?

Yes, that’s actually what I wanted to know. And I asked you that because there's a certain mindset within these songs, and I was wondering if you’ve said that this time around, it was like a solo effort but do you think you made it more personal that way?

Yeah, but even though I did record much of the stuff alone. It’s not a solo effort. I needed Ole's approval as much as he needed mine. And that goes with the rest of the band. We all needed the confirmation of the other guy that what we are doing here is right. The one thing I was thinking about when you mentioned emotions and stuff, and I brought longing because we are trying to recreate a feeling of a bygone era, of something that has been. That's the kind of feeling that we are trying to communicate here. And we are drawing inspiration from our influences. Not only from the 80's metal, you know? We have this heavy metal foundation. We also kind of add a special sauce and stuff that's a tiny amount of Norwegian folk music and composers like Edvard Grieg, and stuff like that. I think it makes everything sound a bit different from everyone else. You know what I mean?

Of course. It's all connected here. The past, the present, and the future.

Exactly. We're trying to put you in a mindset and trying to communicate a feeling of a bygone era. Something that happened a long time ago. I don’t think that everyone is capable

3 of perceiving that, but obviously, you are, and it’s cool to hear how you are understanding what we are doing.

It's because the music feels honest. It's like you're sharing something that normal people don't tend to share. You're sharing some intimacy with the listener. And you're vulnerable because of that. Don't get me wrong, you can have a big guitar, steel, and leather, be more manly than guys from Manowar, jump around and drink beer from a horn, but that's not how I imagine a real Norseman. Besides that, it's when you're vulnerable, as an artist, as a human being that's when you're most honest and most interesting. That's when you share the truth about yourself. And I think that's inspiring.

Exactly. What you just said is probably the best compliment I've ever heard in my entire life. You totally understand this! This is fucking amazing! No other journalist ever, ever has shown me this kind of understanding on this level.

Thank you. But it's all there. It's in the music and in the way you approach it with Einherjer. Judging from the reviews and the amount of interest in this record, I think, I'm not the only one who sees and hears that. But that's where we are now. Are you at that point that you're able to reflect on your career? It’s like 30 years or more that you're on stage. Einherjer also had its ups and downs. There was the hiatus, you were not around for a few years. Later you remodelled yourself and returned. And now you're in the spotlight...

Yeah, Einherjer had a lot of ups and downs. A lot of downs actually [laughs]. During the late nineties to early 2000, when you caught up with us, we were on fire. We did pretty well with that line-up. Of course, at one point it was too much and we broke up, pause, or whatever that period was. I was fed up with the whole Viking thing actually. And also, during that time, we were kind of writing a bit more symphonic stuff, and I didn’t like that at all. Gerhard [Storesund, band's drummer] was writing a lot of material during that era, and he was going all-in that symphonic thing. We both have been working since day one, and even as friends, we went way back. I mean I moved in the house next to him in 91 or so, so we've been friends forever. We found music together, you know? We listened to Kiss and Status Quo. But anyway, after Blot, which is a very symphonic album, or I at least felt like it was, I needed to do something else for a while. And it wasn’t because we were not friends at all or something like that. We broke up, and the same three guys started a new band. And then we did an album with Battered, played some thrash metal, and decided that perhaps it was the right time to do something with Einherjer again. But we needed to change a few things. We needed to change the boundaries we set for ourselves. We still had to be a "viking band" because that's what it’s all about. That's also the reason why we didn’t continue, you know, as Einherjer just doing different music because that kind of felt wrong to make the name "dirty" if you know what I mean. When we started throwing riffs at each other, we soon figured out what we wanted to do with Einherjer. That took quite some time and a lot of rearranging of the songs we had, but it turned out to be the album "Norrøn".

And that was something else...

Yeah, I think we've grown as songwriters are grown as songwriters, and as persons or friends because we allowed ourselves to show where we are coming from. And on the last album, we allowed our influences to shine through. No matter how cheesy or how stupid they are because they are our influences. For instance, if you take "Stars", the song, if you listen to the snare drum, and how it's dubbed you'll know what I mean. It from Nazareth, I love this band, and I love their ballads. And you can hear that in our music. What Gerhard and I have been doing for the last few albums was giving each other kind of "easter eggs", you know? We quite openly give tribute to some band or song, or whatever that has meaning for us. We just let it shine through in the songs. And there are quite a few of those on the last few albums. It’s just a gag between us. But I think that some people actually might find those things in our songs in this as well. There is a lot of Rainbow stuff, a lot of Quiet Riot, and all kinds of heavy metal stuff that kind of made an impression on us growing up, now we are bringing it back in there, you know

So, it’s like a full circle.

Yeah, and it's also more comfortable and fun for us to do. I think it makes us better songwriters to have this attitude towards the bands we grew up listening to. I think that we have grown as a band and got better a little bit on every album. For the band, it's almost 30 years. I mean, we should sound like shit by now [laughs] Most bands would be gone, but we're not...

Do you feel the necessity to prove yourself, that you should outdo yourself, be more aggressive, faster, harder, or...?

No, we don’t think like that at all. We just kind of want to challenge ourselves. We just want to write better songs, better arrangements. I don’t mean like more riffs, or more intricate. I just mean that it has to flow better. It has to feel better for us. That's what we've been trying to achieve. And also, at some point, I’m not sure how actively we are doing that, but we did that on the last album, me and Gerhard we were both working and trying like is it possible to make a song with only two riffs? Can we do that? That's kind of how we challenge ourselves that way. Of course, over time that would be boring. But when you always put in a lot of riffs to the song that also would be boring. Because you have to challenge yourself in some way, and we have been trying this stuff. How many riffs do we need? How simple can we do this and make it kind of better? So yeah, maybe it’s time to go for us the other way now. I don’t know. We haven’t started writing a new album yet, I have 2 or 3 songs, but yeah, you never know what the future holds. And that’s also very rewarding of doing a band over time, that you don’t know what’s going to happen, what is going to give you.

But you certainly already know what’s going to happen after the premiere, do you have any concert plans? I know it’s a little stretch to talk about the concerts with the situation here, but I think a record like this deserves a European tour, so are you planning on visiting Poland?

We are ready to do whatever as soon as the world will allow us to, I mean when we planned this album in the first place, we wanted to do it kind of properly. We wanted to have an album announcement, at the same time as we also announced Norwegian tour and

European tour, and we had all the time, and that’s for the first time in ages. But everything turned to shit, so that didn't happen. We are ready to touring again as soon as we can really.

I hope that I will have the opportunity to see you live again because it’s been way to long for me...

Absolutely, if you haven't seen us since 2001 [laughs] I will say that we are a better band today, so if you liked us before you will like us better now.

But it’s meaningful that I still remember the show from 20 years ago, you know. I think you weren’t that bad after all [laughs]

Guess not. [laughs]

It was a pleasure talking to you. Hope to see you around, and good luck with your latest record!

Thank you!

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