interviews_forefather

Music Interview: FOREFATHER

FOREFATHER

English Version:

OURS IS THE KINGDOM!

- Exclusive interview with FOREFATHER

by Demogorgon

Done in September 2004

Will be published on the 2nd issue of Dragonland Magazine

Finally FOREFATHER made the step forward after being born already in September 1997. Athelstan and Wulfstan started as founding members and they are brothers in real life too. The aim was to create powerful and epic Metal which should be seen as a tribute to their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, straight from the heart and with a very high level of quality. In August 1998 they recorded “Deep into Time” in their own home-studio and they released it themselves early 1999. The album was very well received in the underground. The follow-up “The Fighting Man” was released in October 2000 and even more positive reviews were published worldwide. In 2000 FOREFATHER released a limited CD called “Legends Untold” on Germany’s Millennium Music, with unreleased tracks. By the beginning of 2002 the third and so far best album “Engla Tocyme” was released and it saw FOREFATHER’s unique style brought even more to the forefront with all the power and passion one has come to expect ! Now FOREFATHER was contacted by KARMAGEDDON MEDIA to join forces with their new album called “Ours is the Kingdom”. During 2004 the previous three albums were re-released with bonus-material and in a re-mastered sound… the world witnesses the Anglo-Saxon invasion again… the Kingdom is belonging to FOREFATHER!

Congratulations on the latest album by Forefather! Ours IS the Kingdom! Could you recall some early days of Forefather here please?

Wulfstan: Thanks for the praise! We came up with the idea of Forefather in September 1997. We wanted to make high-quality Metal music in tribute to our Anglo-Saxon English forefathers. Instead of making demo tapes and sending them out to labels we decided to work on a debut album straightaway and release it ourselves. This album was “Deep Into Time” and it came out in March 1999 on our own label Angelisc Enterprises. “The Fighting Man” (2000) and “Engla Tocyme” (2002) followed and then we signed with Karmageddon Media for “Ours is the Kingdom”. There was also a limited edition CD called “Legends Untold” in 2000 that was released by Millennium Metal and had some demos and other things on it.

Certain Extreme Metal bands like Bal-Sagoth and Manowar set their music (at least some songs) in Anglo-Saxon England. How do you see them? Does Forefather draw much influence from these bands or share the same vision with them?

Wulfstan: I like both Bal-Sagoth and Manowar a lot and own all their albums. The first time I heard Bal-Sagoth was when I bought their “Starfire Burning…” album. The intro track absolutely blew me away and I was praying that the guitar-based songs wouldn’t be a let down. They were not! That is still my favourite Bal-Sagoth album but they’re all excellent. I don’t think Bal-Sagoth or Manowar have been as big an influence as some other bands but certainly a little bit. I think our outlook is quite different to Manowar but not too different from Bal-Sagoth in some ways.

Could you compare Forefather and Manowar here and analysis the differences please?

Wulfstan: We’re a lot younger! Haha I think Forefather and Manowar are very different. They are like a traditional rock ‘n’ roll band that goes out on long tours and drinks and parties whereas we are the total opposite to that. Musically though there are some similarities. We both write a lot of proud songs and celebrate the strength and greatness of older times. We both also take what we do very seriously.

What made you begin to praise your ancestors with Epic Metal? Although I have been working with some UK record labels (such as Peaceville) for quite some time, I am not quite sure of what made you nobleman to create powerful and spectacular music. I said so maybe only because we all know English cities like London are gloomy and misty. As far as I know, the most famous Metal music come from your country is Doom Death Metal, bands like My Dying Bride move me quite a lot with their emotional music and painful lyrics. Is music direction the decision of ages or experiences of musicians?

Wulfstan: My interest in the Anglo-Saxons, the founding fathers of England, was ignited to a certain extent by listening to bands such as Bathory, Enslaved and Einherjer. They were singing about their dark-age Viking heritage and it made me examine my own English history of the same time. I soon developed a great connection with this period and was disappointed with how the Anglo-Saxons were largely ignored in modern day England. This led to us writing the lyrics that we do.

We’ve never had what you could call a traditional English sound. We’ve always been more inspired by the foreign bands and scenes so maybe this is why we sound different to other English acts. Even if you don’t live in the most naturally beautiful of places you can still use your imagination to take you to such a place. Actually where we live isn’t too bad. There is a lot of natural beauty where we live. With us our musical and lyrical direction was definitely decided by our experiences, both music and otherwise.

Your words reminds me of what Danzig has said in the booklet of his new-classical Black Aria, I think I could call you visionaire! Men like us will never need any additional stimulators to make our imagination beyond this mortal world. Maybe we were all put down to the earth, am I right?

Wulfstan: Yes, some people certainly live on another planet to others! Many people are easily led and need exciting pictures, objects and other stimulants to enjoy themselves mentally, or ‘escape’ from reality. A smaller percentage of people will have the ability to create incredible worlds and soundscapes from only the contents of their mind. These creations are brought to life through the ‘mind’s eye’ or in our case the ‘mind’s ear’. Of course you need a certain amount of ‘ingredients’ in the mind before you can start though. It may seem stupid and obvious, but it is interesting to think that all this music has been imagined into existence from nothing, especially the most original music.

As Forefather drawn much influence from foreign bands, then how did you mix elements by Anglo-Saxons? Have you faced with critics of you should add more national elements?

Wulfstan: The main influence that comes from the foreign bands is the musical styles. We then apply our own lyrics. We were inspired by Scandinavian bands singing about their Viking heritage so we just changed that to our Anglo-Saxon heritage. Not many bands have ever used Anglo-Saxon history as an influence so there were lots of new things to explore. Sometimes we get a bit of criticism for being nationalistic with our lyrics. In Europe nationalism is seen as a bad thing because it doesn’t fit with the current political European agenda which aims to create a multi-cultural, borderless Europe, much like the USA.

Do you take the concept represented by Forefather seriously? Can I say you brothers live and fight and will die for your fatherland? Is it a "Must" in your opinion?

Wulfstan: We take Forefather as a whole seriously. None of the lyrics we write are false. What we write is always from the heart although some of it is perhaps exaggerated. There is no way that either of us would fight and die for England the way it is now. I would take a lot of joy in seeing modern England (or at least its regime) fall apart. If I had lived a thousand years ago though, I would be standing in the shield-wall with all the others to defend our land and ways.

Could you tell our readers your opinion about Cradle of Filth (only for their lyrics)? I heard of they are famous in England nowadays for the usage of Mother tongue.

Wulfstan: I first heard Cradle of Filth back in about 1996. I bought their first album. It was quite different from the bands I had been into before so at first I disregarded it. But later I got into it. The first 3 CDs from COF were good in my opinion, “Principle of Evil…”, “Vempire” and “Dusk and Her Embrace”. Their image and the lyrical style never related to me much but the music appealed, particularly the Iron Maiden style melodies. Since “Dusk and Her Embrace” I haven’t bought anymore of their work though. I was increasingly put off by their image and how they came across in interviews.

Many bands are writing about the decadency of civilization and humanity, and crying for the lost of pride and glory with devilish anguish. But can music do real help in raising or encourage our inner power or accelerate any changes in our society towards a positive direction? Music cannot be equalled to speech anyway...

Wulfstan: I think music can be quite a strong tool to achieve such things but I must point out that Forefather was not created as a political tool. For us it’s always been a love of Metal music that has driven us. It is still good to sing about things that you feel strongly about though. You could say that some of our songs have political leanings but that is not why we do what we do. In fact I don’t like these bands that infiltrate Metal purely to spout their political views. That’s false Metal!

I notice your new songs are shorter and intenser than previous, what's the original idea?

Wulfstan: This was planned. “Engla Tocyme” lacked faster parts and had longer songs. Even though we succeeded in introducing more speed and shorter songs with “Ours is the Kingdom” there are still many slower parts and longer songs. There’s no point leaving great ideas that you come up with out just because they don’t fit your plans. Our next album is planned to be fast again but with a darker atmosphere. Whether this happens or not though, we will see.

Do Forefather take elements from military music? If so, I see it great. I am going to tell you I do not pay too much attention to those bands that just take some folk tunes and play them with guitar, bass and etc...

Wulfstan: We have never really been hugely inspired by military of folk music. A lot of people say some of our melodies sound folky and that’s true but really we just write melodies on the guitar and some end up sounding this way. The same can be said of Iron Maiden and other bands. Maybe on “Call to Arms” from “The Fighting Man” you can say there is a medieval military sound.

Yes, I love it! Symmetrical composition of moving cover artwork of Forefather is another character and it fit for your sovereign music very well. Please tell me something about your working partnership with Chrille Andersson! How can he present your music ideology with paint brush? Where is the juncture?

Wulfstan: I can’t remember how we first came into contact now. I think maybe he e-mailed us and we looked at his website. We saw one picture he’d made that looked cool and we bought it for the “Fighting Man” art. So that cover wasn’t designed to fit the album title but we thought it worked pretty well anyway. It was on “Engla Tocyme” that we first had the opportunity to work with him during the creation of the cover. The cover for that album fitted the concept of the title brilliantly. It means “The Coming of the English” and the warriors surrounding Stonehenge really symbolises their conquest of Britain well. He also re-did the “Deep Into Time” artwork at this point and did a good job with that too. And we worked closely with him again for the “Ours is the Kingdom” artwork which really looks great throughout the booklet and everything. Basically we let him know the concept we’re looking for and he then comes up with ideas and we go from there.

Does it mean you sent him all the lyrics for each album before the recording? Do you think symmetrical composition is the best for Forefather album cover artworks?

Wulfstan: He didn’t have the lyrics first for every album. It’s not really necessary. All that is needed is a general idea of the concept of the album. We are always working together on ideas during the creation of the art. We have always aimed for the album covers to represent the themes well. We think it’s important that the music and the art fit together as a whole. I hope that answers your question.

With Ours is the Kingdom is out now as well as first three albums re-released by Karmageddon Media, are you satisfied with the deal? I guess it is almost impossible for a lesser label to afford the huge promotion service.:)

Wulfstan: We have to be satisfied with the greater promotion and distribution. This is what Forefather was really lacking because we knew that many people were out there who would like us but had never heard us. So it’s very important to be able to reach more of these people now. There are some things that we’re less happy about though so there are ups and downs. I hope that in the future if we continue to work together these downs can be eliminated.

Will other regions of this world, especially US, see the conquering of Forefather? How do you deal with the drum?

Wulfstan: I think it’s hard for a band of our kind to conquer anywhere but I hope we can build as big a fan base as possible in all the Metal communities of the world. Europe seems the strongest place. We’ve always used a drum module for our drum tracks. We upgraded to a better one for “Ours is the Kingdom”. We always do our best to programme it as best as we can, to make it as little an issue as possible. We had a drummer in the early days but he never played on any recordings. His heart wasn’t fully into what we were doing.

The last question - when I prepare for these questions I read of some websites even Metal Observer put Forefather under the genre "Viking Metal" (http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=6443), I see it is strange. But I am more interested in how you think about this... Do we need to create music categories for every national/pagan Metal strictly? Even all you bands are standing mighty, standing true on the opposite side of Christianity.

Wulfstan: We are most certainly not Viking Metal! The Vikings were a fierce enemy of the Anglo-Saxons. We fought some of the bloodiest battles in history with them. Viking Metal has become a type of music though, not just bands that sing about Vikings. So we get put in this Viking Metal category quite a lot just because we write epic, melodic songs about dark-age times. We call ourselves Anglo-Saxon Metal but the problem is that doesn’t mean anything musically to anybody so most people call us something else. It doesn’t bother me much really though. At the end of the day there was little difference between a Viking and an Anglo-Saxon.

Concerning this matter, my point of view is – Most journalists should go home and learn more about the meaning of WORDS before they categorize music! I think both “Anglo-Saxon” and “Viking” are added before “Metal” is because the ideology, especially the lyrics, of the songs. “Metal” is more about the music, what do you think?

Wulfstan: I agree. First and foremost we play Heavy Metal. Our lyrics are inspired by Anglo-Saxon history so we call ourselves Anglo-Saxon metal. And one Viking Metal band can sound totally different to another one. People would call “Hammerheart” by Bathory Viking Metal but it is totally different to Amon Amarth or Einjerjer for example. The Viking and Anglo-Saxon tags are more related to lyrics than music.

Just stop here this time, keep marching on all the time!

Wulfstan: Thanks for the questions!

Ages of battle and years of victory had long been forgotten. All those pride and glory, vengeance and courage had become pieces of dreams, only exist in the hearts of those ones who are brave enough to stand strong, to stand true, to stand mighty and defeat thousands of enemies with single hand! All the best wishes to Forefather. Man of today must be Forefather of tomorrow!

Wulfstan: Very well said! Best wishes to you too!

Copyright © 2004-2008, DEMOGORGON