Nowadays, there is a lot of medieval rock and metal, only few artists contribute something new to it. Yet, with their debut „The End Is Nigh“, on which the Swedes mix doom metal and medieval compositions and instruments, APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA created an album that feels fresh and inventive. We talked with mutli-instrumentalist Mikael about his origins as a musician, why exactly Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry) did the mixing for the album and why the band feels unsure about being labeled as a doom metal band.
Greetings and thank you for answering our questions. How are you?
I feel awesome! Our album is out and it has been received very well and our first video has surpassed 600.000 views.
Your band is called APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA. However, you don’t really play symphonic metal or something like that, which some might believe because of the name. Why did you choose this bandname?
It suits us. The apocalypse has been ever present through history, and the medieval era is no different. The black death must’ve seemed like the end of days for a lot of people back then. At the same time, the word apocalypse also means „revelation“. And we kind of see ourselves as an orchestra even though we might technically might not be one. Hence APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA.
You play a mixture of medieval music and doom metal what fascinates you about these two styles of music?
Medieval music has so many qualities! To be able to listen to and play songs that were composed many hundreds of years ago gives a bit of understanding that people were not that different from us. Some melodies are amazingly beautiful, others weird and disharmonic with a completely off beat tempo. When we started this band we thought about what kind of metal would resonate well with medieval music and came to the conclusion that doom metal was where to start. A heavy slow and creeping darkness with dronelike sounds (drones were commonly used in medieval music). But we feel a bit ambigous to be called a doom metal band. We feel that we don’t share some of the most common denominators of that genre. Sure, we play slow sometimes but we don’t feel that we always have to. There most certainly will be faster songs in the future.
Would you say that these two genres are equally important to you or is one of them more representative of your music as a whole?
It’s a balance, but we usually say that we are a medieval inspired metal band and not the other way round.
You make use of various medieval instruments. How did you come in touch with them for the first time and how did you learn to play them?
I started playing hurdy gurdy after I heard the swedish group Garmarna which often utilizes said instrument. I ordered one without ever even having touched one in real life. I’ve loved bagpipes since I was a child but I started playing about ten years ago when I „inherited“ one from a friend who had decided to quit playing. That was a swedish bagpipe, a smaller bagpipe with a mellow and soft sound, a lot more neighbour friendly than the bigger medieval one!
According to press information your melodies reach back into the 11th century. Did you really use the exact same melodies or is your songwriting just influenced by them? If it’s the former, where did you get those melodies?
Both, I would say. On some melodies we have to make small changes since they sometimes use scales that would sound too strange or the beat is too uneven. Others we play as true to the original as we can. But of course, since they´re so old, they´re bound to have changed several times through the course of history.
Are you also inspired by contemporary music?
Sure! Everyone in the band has a different taste in contemporary music but we have many bands in common like Opeth, Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, Amorphis, Anathema and Myrkur, just to name a few.
What is your opinion on other modern medieval rock/metal bands?
We know that medieval rock is very big in Germany but we honestly haven’t listened so much to those bands, we feel that they’re doing their thing with lots of big drums and many bagpipes and we’re doing ours. When it comes to folk metal there are several good ones, for example Otyg, Lumsk, Grimner and Myrkgrav.
Where do you spot your strengths and weaknesses as a musician?
I will answer this question from the perspective of the band: One weakness is that we’re prone to be perfectionists and maybe overanalyzing some details, this is very time consuming. Some of our strengths are that we’re fairly unique in our sound and themes and that all members have different talents to make everything work.
Your debut is called „The End Is Nigh“. Its songs seem to be rather independent from each other, dealing with various medieval topics. Is there still some coherent concept between the tracks?
We like ambiguity when it comes to interpreting the album. The apocalypse and the feeling of impending doom on one side, the strength and inventive versatility of mankind on the other.
Most of the time the lyrics are sung cleanly, there’s only few parts with growls. What’s the reason for this and why did you choose exactly these few parts to feature growls?
In the song „Pyre“ it is to accentuate the absurdness of religious prosecution, be it pagan witches or any other religion. In „Here Be Monsters“ we use it to give the feeling of fathomless fear, both for the depths of the dark waters and the unknown.
Do you have a personal favorite track on the album and if so, which one and why?
I believe we all have different favorites, mine personally is „Here Be Monsters“ since it has a lot of different parts, it´s quite challenging for me as a musician and it´s an overall powerful song.
You even made a music video for „The Garden Of Earthly Delights“. Why did you choose this exact song to be made into a video?
Quite easy, it´s our most accessible song. It´s very catchy!
The mixing was done by Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry). However, the music of his band is rather different from yours. How did he come to do the mixing and do you think that it was a bit of a challenge for him to work with such a different style of music?
He actually asked us if we needed help with the mixing so we said: „YES PLEASE!“ Per is a long time friend of the band since we´re all from the same town in Sweden. It was probably a bit of a challenge for him, our production had A LOT of channels to keep track of. Balancing the the wall of sound when a huge choir clashes for space with electric guitars, drums, organs, hurdy gurdy and bagpipes who all fight for attention is no small feat. Per was simply amazing and we couldn’t be more happy with the result.
APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA is not just a studio project, you also play live, right? How do you manage to do that with so many different instruments to be used?
Of course we can not bring all the people it would take to perform every instrument and voice on the album when we play live, we have some technical sollutions instead.
What will be the next steps for APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA?
New video and new homepage in the near future. And, of course, we want to get out there and play for you all!
I’d like to end this interview with our traditional Metal1.info-Brainstorming. What comes to your mind while reading those terms:
Medieval market: Perfect breeding ground for plague bacteria!
Black Death: 200 million dead and/or Icelandig vodka
Cruelest medieval torture method: The Judas Cradle
Religion: Oppression or necessary evil?
Electronic music: Oscillotron
APOCALYPSE ORCHESTRA in five years: Third album released, household name on the big stages and we’ve made the plague doctor mask fashionable again.
Alright, thank you once more for this interview. The last words shall be yours:
Stay folk!
24. Juli 2017 Stephan Rajchl