Interview with Anneke van Giersbergen and Liv Kristine from "The Sirens"

HM: So, let’s start with question about your new album, “Vervain”, that was released in the end of October on Napalm Records. My first question will be – where did that name come from? Are U a fan of vampire stories and tales?

LK: Yeah, but older ones, like those really black and white movies, “Nosferatu” and that stuff. That’s my favorite kind of thing, and we used that as inspiration for “Theater of Tragedy”, my former band. But actually – “Vervain” is the perfume of my husband and I just discovered one morning.

AvG: No way, that is so cool!

LK: Well, of course I know his perfumes, but I just realized – “That is such a  wonderful-sounding word”, and I just loved the sound of it, it’s good, it fits. And that is the story, that’s all. There is nothing big about it.

HM: On this album, there was a lot of collaboration, for example with Doro. Do U enjoy working with someone or are U more of a “solo” person?

LK: Well, so far I haven’t released an album with just me and a sort of triangle around me. I enjoy working with my band and do cooperation. That’s very important to me, actually, because I gather a lot of influence from cooperation and duets. And also “The Sirens” – it’s very inspiring to me. U discover new facets to yourself and when it comes to singing – U do it in different situations, like 3 female voices on stage, and also U have to include everything and everybody when U are recording on tape. It’s very inspiring, I do love cooperation. And it doesn’t really matter to me who it is, how big it is – the most important thing is the sound of the voice and if I like the song. It might be a garage band somewhere from Honolulu.

AvG: That’s sound cool, a garage band from Honolulu.

LK: Yeah, could be an inspiration.

HM: Back in 2004 U did vocals on Cradle of Filth’s “Nymphetamine”. In my opinion, and no offense meant to any other singer, no one did better than U with the concept of “beauty and the beast”, which U introduced years ago. How did U come to work with Dani?

LK: The management of Cradle tried to contact me and I kept putting their emails in spam because I thought it was a joke. There were such names as Tori Amos, Kate Bush and Cristina Scabbia and I thought: “Yeah, right…”. And then the phone rang and it was management: “We’ve got to deliver tomorrow. Can U do it?”. I was like: “Ok, send me the song”. I was in a moment of just becoming a mom and Dani had young kids himself. I called him up in his London studio and said: “Ok, I’m gonna do it, and this is my idea. I wanna do this Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave kind of thing”. Dani was absolutely happy, he was over the moon. And then something happened a month later. I was driving in my car to pick my song from grandma and they said on radio, that some singer from Swabia area in Germany have been nominated for Grammy in LA. And nobody had told me! So I heard it on the radio. Motorhead got the Grammy, but it was very nice thing. That’s also one big inspiration for me.

HM: Last historical question. On first Leaves’ Eyes, there was a song called “Norwegian Lovesong”. To my ear, it sounds lots like another Norwegian band called “Immortal”. By any chance, was there influence?

LK: “Leaves’ Eyes” is absolutely purely solely based on my Norwegian broods and heritage and my love for Viking mythology and history. “Leaves’ Eyes” is just something that appeared as idea during morning run. And I told my husband and it clicked – we went to studio and that was “Leaves’ Eyes”.

HM: Back to you, Anneke. U already had lots of collaboration throughout your career. Do U think it’s possible in future to set up something like “Women of metal” project/show (not like Metal Female Voices) with variety of female vocals? Would that be of interest to U?

AvG: I think so and actually I know some people, who are working on this. And as far as I know – they are thinking of making it more modern, so to say. Nowadays U have these kids, these girls, that do massive good singing, but they also like growling and screaming, so they do like everything. I think that is really cool to include these guys with such a show. Because emphasis always go on something like opera style, but it could be cool if U make a show with this ladies, because they have also massive singing voices, they are really great.

HM: U’re talking about someone like Alissa White-Gluz from “Arch Enemy”?

AvG: Yeaaaah, for instance, as she is massive. I know people are working on it, they are Dutch based, as I know. I think in one or two years, they are gonna make something cool, just like U proposed.

HM: Since we last met in Nov 2013, what has changed for U like a musician? Some amazing plans? Any new projects?

AvG: Well, actually, the project with Arjen (Lucassen, “The Gentle Storm”) is my next thing which I’m focusing on. It’s coming out in March so we are busy with preparations.

HM: You are hitting the tour after that?

AvG: Yeah, we are going to do some festivals, also clubs, all over the places, so 2015 will be mostly based on that. And, actually, we’re doing some festivals with “The Sirens”, like 4 of them.

HM: OK. Who’s your favorite singer of all times? Both male and female.

AvG: Well, I have few. Can I have few, haha? Well, I’d say Freddie Mercury, he is one of a kind. I love singer of “Faith No More” – Mike Patton. For female – I’d say Kate Bush.

HM: With both of your husbands being part of the band – does it help? Or sometimes, on the contrary, it’s like a distraction?

AvG: Well, I personally love having Rob (Snijders) around. He knows me, he knows what I can do best, he knows what I cannot do best and he is very honest with me. I’m not with my head in the clouds, I’m much more focused because of him. How about you, Liv?

LK: Absolutely! If somebody can see through U - that’s a good thing. U don’t have a manager, that goes “Oh yeah, she looks good”, but a person that is being honest and it’s not like U have a dollar sign on your forehead. That’s also what differs from what manager may do, whereas husband knows all sides of U. And also, in my case, he is the one who pushes me that last 1% when I do 99%.

HM: Liv, in one of your interviews, U mentioned “Anathema” and “Paradise Lost” being inspirational for U. Do U think there can be some project with them?

LK: Oh, yeah, absolutely, I’d love that.

HM: But who introduced U to those bands?

LK: Oh, we were young, we were kids partying up there in the darkness of Norway, eager to find things about new bands. So we hung out to the local record stores and every time there was something – we would spend all of our pocket money on it.  So we were really searching and digging for new bands.

HM:  Back in 2004, you took part in project called “Genius” – a rock opera. Have you ever been offered to participate in other super-groups and projects, like Avantasia or Aina?

LK: Well, that would be awesome, because it’s great to use your voice in different manner, to feel the atmosphere, to get on stage. Sometimes U need to change your vocal settings or singing manners and I think that’s what U learn from. Your experience when everything is set in a new frame and installation –it’s a challenge and it’s good. I think it makes us who we are with all experiences and still going on after all these years. Experience is everything – the studio, the stage, everything.

HM: Anneke, how did it happen with “The Sirens”? I remember, it was initially yours idea? U both have lots of collaborative projects, but how have U decided to work all together?

AvG: Oh, you know, we met at one festival and then we said: “We know each other for so-o-o long, but we never really worked together”. That day we decided we should do it. That was like ideas sprung from that moment. And we also took a picture together, put it on Facebook and things exploded like: “Oh, holy shit, Liv and Anneke, together?”. And then we decided – we definitely need to do something together, because people apparently like us together. Then we called Kari (Rueslatten) in a deal, because there are a lot of duets, but to have a trio – that is more unique, in a way. It’s like 3 tenors, but then it’s us.

HM: That leads me to question for Liv. U have a younger sister – Carmen – how is it so, that we haven’t heard a duet yet?

LK: Oh, U know, I’m on her latest album with her band “Savn”. And she was appearing every now and then on “Leaves’ Eyes”, but she just became mom for the second time, so she has been busy.

HM: The last question. You are both moms, of your respective works, you would choose as a lullaby for your children?

AvG: I did once a lullaby song with “The Gathering”, that is called “Lullaby” and I still love that song, because it’s sweet and with good message, like “Sleep, close your eyes, everything is gonna be fine in the morning”, a classical one.  Did U ever make a lullaby, Liv?

LK: Not really, but the same kind of thing you, Anneke, did with “Lullaby”. It’s with “Leaves’ Eyes” and it’s called “For Emily”. The thing is – first I thought my baby is going to be girl, and that was supposed to be Emily. But then I realized, after the song had been recorded, that it’s Leon, it’s a boy! But he knows the story and he’s OK with that. So, “For Emily” is actually “For Leon”.

HM: Thanks you so much, ladies, it has been a pleasure. See you on stage!

LK, AvG: Thank you too, see you, guys!

Interview with Johannes Eckerström from Avatar, 11.12.2014

HM:  First question – intriguing one for us – what’s up with Avatar logo and resemblance to Slavic letters?

JE: Yeah, I know, finally someone asked me… ha-ha-ha…So… So when we were 16 years old, 17 years old, we tried to find a logo, U know, to make a cool logo for a band, it was just our friend who did that logo for us, we didn’t know. That it was from Cyrillic alphabet and it actually was… it is Д, right?

HM:  Yes, absolutely, this is Д.

JE: So, name is “DvDtDr”, something like this. We didn’t know. We just “Oh, that’s cool. That reminds me of something…I don’t know what…”. You know, it was kinds of that. And then it was a friend of ours, I think he was Polish, who said: “You know, your name is not AVATAR?”,  “What?”, “You know, your name is DvDtDr”. But it was pretty cool. At some point we worried that we would piss people off, you know, from Ukraine, from Russia, wherever. And then people come and think it’s funny and we are a bit stupid. And I’m OK if people are OK with that. We didn’t know that, we just started look nice, for us it really looks like “A”.

HM: Ok. Is it a coincidence that your stage image is alike the hussars (soldiers during czar days)? How did U choose your wardrobe?

JE: U know, what we were looking for…It started with me and I don’t have hussar thing, but we needed, basically, to find a uniform, that came with some color. When using uniforms, in a metal kind of way, it is very common that people look for old Nazis. Seriously, look at all metal and goth stuff. Nazis is shit, but uniform is cool, right? These were colorful, felt more like old era we take a lot from, and it made sense in that context. So it was purely esthetic choice. But it is fun, there is so much more Eastern influence then we realized.

HM: To finish it up with this theme. What about “Bloody Angel” video? What was the idea behind it? What’s this guy doing in his cabinet? Again, it looks like horror movies about KGB and Soviet Union. Again, the resemblance for Eastern people may be there.

JE: It supposed to be “time and place unspecified”. It could be any totalitarian society in the world at any time, but actually the guard watching the door wore the uniform from GDR. But it’s not supposed to be that specific, because this is something that happens and has happened across the world all the time and we make a surreal version of that. We wanted it to be something that everyone can associate with something that is recognizable, but not necessarily particular. We didn’t put any country’s flag, because it is not a historical thing. It’s a very dark fairytale. 

HM: Oh yeah, it’s about a particular experience of a guy who stamps and sends people to die.

JE: Exactly. And he’s trapped in the system, you know, he just feels like he is a tiny piece of something and he can’t get out.

HM: And then U come with a saw and help him get out. Let’s move to musical subjects. Last album brought U success and popularity and you are now touring over Europe. Have it brought enough satisfaction to U for all years of hard work?

JE: Well, it’s something that is still happening and we are still, by any way U measure us, a small band. But we have felt big changes in the last few years, the last year I would say. Things had spin up a lot for us. I wonder if satisfaction would be the word I use, because I had lots of fun when I was 16 or 21, even if nobody was listening. It’s something ever-going. And the artistic satisfaction was always there, maybe now more than ever. But still, I guess I was always satisfied and hungry at the same time.

HM: So, when U started the band – did U guys know each other before that?

JE: No, we met because of the band. John and Jonas actually first played tennis together. U know, when 2 boys are 14-15, had this long hair and one has Iron Maiden t-shirt and another guy has Metallica t-shirt and then U become best friends. After that, they put an article on paper looking for vocalist and bass player. It’s always like this: 2 guys start a band, guitar player and drummer, because those two are the coolest instruments. And then they drag a guitarist’s best friend, who can also be a guitar player. And then we look for other band members and we find 2 kids: a rich kid and a poor kid. Rich kid becomes a bass player, because dad bought him a bass guitar, and poor kid becomes a singer. It is always like this. After a while U realize, that singing is the most fun part: U get to stand in a centre of stage, U got to be a front person for a band, if U like those kind of things. If U don’t – you’re still in a band, anyway. But in the beginning, when U are a little boy, it’s scary to sing. U know, maybe U were in a choir back at school and singing was kind of for girls, because boys are supposed to fight and play football and spit and stuff. We don’t sing! So it took a while. U can play guitar and sing while playing a guitar, but probably it’s better if someone else is singing, and that was me.

HM: Last album, “Hail the Apocalypse”, brought more melodic sound, less technical death metal sound. So, what changed particularly this time?

JE: What really happened…With the first two albums – we were babies, really. We learned how to play and our common taste of music was technical and melodic death metal. So, we did this kind of technical, kind of melodic and brutal metal. But then we realized this is not what we wanted to do. We kind of stopped, and on the third album we started to experiment a lot and we tried to find ourselves everywhere. There is more old-school rock-n-roll heavy metal. But there was a problem with that album – it was full of “Please like us”. It wasn’t like that before and it was a good lesson for us because it didn’t work. There are lots of good songs on that album, I’m proud of it, but the whole aura of something “let’s make something that people will like” didn’t work like that and it was good. Because what happens next – “Ok, fuck it, let’s do something we like”. Let’s put what money left into making album we wanna hear and if nobody listens – fine, we will listen to it, and it became the most honest work. “Black Waltz” was the most honest work and people get that. And that what we continued to do with “Hail the Apocalypse”, not just: “Oh, people like Black Waltz, maybe we should repeat that” – “No-o-o, keep doing what we wanna do”. And if people like – they like it, if don’t – we couldn’t fake it anyway. So they (albums) are very honest and we rehearsed a lot together, we evolved together. There are certain things that are good only if U play them a lot with those musicians. “AC/DC” is a perfect example, it’s a groovy band, simple stuff, but it’s amazing. And we started to become better in that, because we were playing together since we were little boys with long hair.

HM: All of your videos till now are full of hidden irony, I would say, like in “Torn Apart” and “Hail the Apocalypse”. Is there an idea behind such approach?

JE: In both mentioned cases – they all have their own purpose. “Hail the Apocalypse” deals with the end of the world, deals with it as a metaphor in terms of consequences. “U caused this – now deal with it”. This is the message of the song. But still – the whole setup is Apocalypse and we like to use humor as a nice way to put it forward. And it was esthetically stimulating, fun and challenging to do something that looks that old. That was the idea and ambition. And with “Torn Apart” – it was purely a musical decision. The song is about feeling that U don’t belong, it’s pretty primal and simple song and what’s it about: “not finding a place, not feeling welcome, faking what U were supposed to do”. It also echoes to a book like “Fight Club”. The song itself is something U can listen at the gym. So it was basically that feeling that we wanted to show in a cool and funny way.

HM: That’s why U chose wrestling?

JE: Exactly. I grew up watching lots of wrestling. And it just happened to be that in Gothenburg there is a small group doing that stuff. We got to know them and it was a really cool collaboration.

HM: To funny questions. When “Avatar” movie came out – do U think band won or lost in terms of name awareness?

JE: I think we got very little problems, comparing to what we thought. Hard to tell, it’s already been 5 years. The one thing that was good – the movie wasn’t good at all. I think it would have been worse if movie was good. Everybody saw it, but I think very few people saw it again. James Cameron fucking did “Terminator 2” and “Aliens” and “Titanic” and won fucking Oscars. And then – this…I don’t know…tech demo of a movie? I guess that helped. But anyway – Avatar – we thought it was good name. John was 14 years old and studying religion and history thought it was cool, I’ll call my band that way. It was also on a letter “A”, so it will be first on a list. So, lazy people will discover us too. But then what happened…I told a friend, who was into computers and that stuff, and he is like – “Oh, avatar, like in forums?”, U know this small picture. And I’m like: “No, no, it’s Hindu thing, Gods coming down to Earth” – “No, it’s a picture on Internet”. Damn! And then people started to play MMO games: “Oh, Avatar, it like a small troll?” – “No, no, it’s like Hindu manifestation of Gods on Earth” – “No-no, U are a little troll, level 12”. So, we always have problems – but we never changed name, because we will survive them all, we will outlive them all!!!

HM: With movie happening – have U thought maybe about changing your face-paint to blue colors?

JE: Haha, funny! Actually, I wouldn’t mention a name, but bigger European magazine wanted to make a photo-shoot with us, painting us blue. They did not get the interview with us!

HM: So, U’ve been around several labels, like Sony or E-music, and what in your opinion is the most critical criteria in choosing label?

JE: Well, they need to have resources to be able to do things. And also, it’s hard to know before, U need to be priority. It doesn’t matter if there are 50 other bands or 2 or you are the only one – U need to be what they focus on. Because there are that many hours in a day. And when they pick up their phones or write an email – U just need to be their priority. I see many examples of bands that I know, that went to bigger labels early on and they just disappeared under weight of big ones. Basically, we have been on one label since the day one – “Gain” in Sweden, and they licensed rights to Sony and E-One. We haven’t felt until this point, that anyone showed the same intention. Lots of people wanted to sign us, but they just didn’t show that “U will be our number one”.

HM: Tell us about funniest recollection from your touring life? Any example.

JE: Oh, I always drop off such questions. I’m boring like that. I’m sure something funny happened, but the moment someone asks – I forget everything. I’m sorry. Once we played chess with our drummer and we hit a speed bump – all of our chesses fell over. We had to start again, funny?

HM: So, what are your future plans after tour is over? Do U plan on hitting studio?

JE: Well, first of all, we are writing constantly, always writing, and hopefully at some point what we write will not sound like shit, but it will sound good, and then we will record it. Up until then we feel like we have covered lots of USA, big share of Europe. I don’t know, we didn’t return to Spain or Portugal on this tour, and France was really good for us, but we only did one show. There are still black spots on European map, so we will try to do some dates. But first and foremost – take some time off, focus on writing and taking care of loved ones.

HM: Last question and we ask it pretty much everybody. What of the songs U would choose as lullaby for your children?

JE: It’s funny, we have this song, “Tower”, that is a softer song, but I guess it’s the darkest piece of lyrics. And it’s written from perspective of antagonist person, like “I keep U in tower and I control U, everything will be fine if I do what I tell U”. And that is not a message I wanna give to my children. Melodically it’s OK, but I care much about lyrics, so I would put stuff like “Wildflower” from “Schlacht” and do an acoustic version of it, because there is a message and thoughts I would like them to fall asleep with. 

HM: Thank you for your time and interesting interview. That was “HolyMayhem.com”, see you!

JE: Thanks, guys, see you!