Utter Trash--Ancient

Night Visitors

An interview with Aphazel of Ancient

By Bob Ignizio

Ancient l to r: Dhilorz, Aphazel, Jesus Christ, and Grom

Ancient has been making music in the black metal underground since 1992. The band started as a solo project of guitarist/composer Aphazel. It wasn’t long before Ancient evolved into a full band, and after the usual comings and goings, the core of the group stabilized in 2000 with Aphazel on guitar and vocals, Dhilorz on bass, Jesus Christ (no, I’m not making that up) on keyboards and guitar, and Grom on drums. The band’s latest album, ‘Night Visit’, has just been released on Metal Blade Records. Although Aphazel currently calls Italy home, I spoke to him by phone while he was visiting relatives in the land of his birth, Norway.

UT: Tell me a little about the new album. How do you think you’ve progressed from your last release?
A: The production is different. It’s cleaner and more powerful, with less reverb. We wanted it to sound more chaotic than ‘Proxima’. Also, the bass player was more involved with this album. He participated more in the writing than on ‘Proxima’. Some of the songs aren’t typical Ancient songs at all.

UT: So you’re not one of those guys who say “This is my album, and you’re going to play what I want you to play”.
A: Well, I’ve done that kind of thing in the past. Now, the line-up for the band has been together for 4 or 5 years. We’ve played together so much that it just seemed natural to work together on the songs more.

UT: 4 or 5 years with the same band is almost an eternity in black metal. How have you been able to get along together so well for so long?
A: I think it’s because we all really have a passion for this music.

UT: Is there any underlying theme that ties the songs together?
A: No, it’s not a concept album. All the lyrics are separate. Different stories about different things.

UT: You mentioned that this album has a cleaner sound, and you’ve been trying different things. Do you ever worry about the hard core black metal purists saying you’re not “true” black metal?
A: We just do what we want to do. You can’t start listening to other people because there’s just so many opinions. I think that’s more true than worrying about other people’s opinions.

UT: It sounds like, at least on the new album, you have a lot of influences from eighties thrash and death metal.
A: I guess you could say so. All of us listened to thrash metal and death metal. It’s just part of what makes Ancient different from other black metal bands.

UT: Another thing that I think makes Ancient stand out from other black metal bands is you write really good, memorable songs. It’s not just about the brutality, or how complex a song you can write.
A: We always want to write songs that will stick in your mind. We want to write memorable and catchy but powerful music. Some bands are very good musicians, but when you listen to their albums even 2 or 3 times, you can’t remember anything. That seems useless to me. It’s not what we want to do at all.

UT: There are a number of different philosophies in black metal, ranging from church burning Satanists to various types of paganism to bands that just use the imagery of black metal as a gimmick. What’s Ancient’s philosophy, and how does it affect the music?
A: All of us have our personal philosophies, but I don’t think we really take that kind of stuff directly into the music. As far as the lyrics we have, it’s mainly fantasy lyrics. We’re not the type of band that really writes about Satan. I would say some of us are Satanists, but it doesn’t come through in the music. It’s more like King Diamond, what we’re doing.

UT: So what kind of things do influence your lyrics? Are you big into horror movies or novels?
A: Not really. It’s more fantasy stuff that I just make up. Sometimes something from a movie might influence the lyrics, but not directly.

UT: So tell me about the video for “Night Visit”.
A: It’s the story of this girl who’s being haunted. This person who died a few years ago is trying to reach out to her in her dreams, and she starts freaking out and panicking. WE were actually planning on doing an uncensored version of the video, but it turned out that the girl in the video is only seventeen. I know Metal Blade has been sending it to various video stations, but I’m not really sure who’s going to be playing it.

UT: Besides other metal bands, what sort of music do you listen to?
A: I listen to Dead Can Dance and a lot of other atmospheric music. I don’t really listen to a lot of music, but Dead Can Dance is something I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

UT: The bonus tracks on ‘Night Visit’ are sort of atmospheric pieces that would be good soundtrack music for a horror movie. Have you ever thought of doing a whole album of that kind of stuff as a side project?
A: Actually, “The Arctic North” was recorded back in 1996. I was doing a side project with a keyboardist then, and recorded about 4 or 5 songs. I was just going through some tapes and found that, and thought it would be cool to have on the end of the album. I just started recording on a computer again, so maybe in my free time I’ll do more of this type of thing. The other bonus track is just something we made spontaneously when we were finishing the album. It was just sort of an experiment. I think it came out kind of interesting. Some people say it’s just a lot of noise, but it does have a certain atmosphere.

UT: Ancient has been pretty much an underground band for most of its career. Now, it seems like black metal bands are catching on more in the US, with groups like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth doing well. What are your feelings on success? Is this the time for Ancient to break through to a wider audience?
A: I don’t know. I think if we have really good promotion, if the video gets played and we get on a good tour, we could do something. I think promotion is really what makes the difference. In the USA, especially, we’ll be working on promotion. Hopefully early next year we’ll do a US tour, because we’ve never really done a proper US tour. I’ve been told by some people that the metal scene in the US is growing, so I think it’s possible with this album we could make something happen.

UT: Would you want to headline, or hook up with a bigger act in the support slot?
A: Probably the most intelligent thing would be to do the support slot. We could go out and headline, but we’d be playing in front of just a small amount of people. In terms of promotion it wouldn’t be very good.