A few days ago we talk with Ulv and Mørke, from Snøgg, a two-piece black metal band. Here is the complete interview. 

Discover this particular band with us!

>Spansih version<

 

-Welcome to thedrinktim.es, you guys just got back from a European tour spanning seven countries. How was it? Which shows were your favorites?

Are there any particular cities that you especially enjoy playing? I think you were forced to cancel Niš, Serbia...

Hello, thank you for making an interview with us. Well the tour was awesome, a bit tiring as we only had one day off (well actually two, because of Niš) and making 6200+ km in 16 days, playing, than hanging with fans fans after each show and not sleeping enough takes its toll. But as an experience it was totally worth it, because we got to meet a lot of nice people and visited a lot of beautiful places. To choose which show was the best it is hard to tell. Every show was something special. When there was a lot of band playing, there was a lot of people, when we played alone, there were less. The same goes for big or small cities, and for weekend or week dates. But in the end I think the best show was the one which made us plan this tour in the first place, this was the show in Thessaloniki, where there was lets say a little festival with 5 bands of different genres (thrash, crust, hc-punk, etc.) and it was hold in a squat inside the university building. 250+ people came, response and hosts were all awesome. Then on the other hand in Bucharest we played alone during the week, there were, lets say 20 people, but we sold like 20 cds and I don’t know how much other merchandise. That was a really good show in support manner. Sofia, Athens, Komotini, Iasi are other shows that, lets say, point out of average. Its really bad that we had to cancel Niš due to some problems with papers for the equipment, because they were really expecting us, because we had a really good show there on our previous tour. But we are planing to go south again this summer, so I think we can make up to them and we also plan to visit some of the other cities we played in on this tour.

- Snøgg are a two-piece band, even on this tour. Why? What are the benefits of being two people in a band?

It is true we are a two-piece band, but we have guests on stage lots of times. We even had a guest on Athens show, it was Lorna from KUTWYV (Ireland), a friend of ours that performed with us the new ep Qivitoq. In Slovenia or it is easy to take one or few guests on stage for a show. I think there were six of us on the stage on MROŽ fest in Ljubljana. But when we go on tour, it is much more difficult to take guests with you. They have to be time and you need more money for tour planing. So it is a lot easier to plan a tour for two people both in economical and logistic way. Because we started performing as a duo this is perfect for us. Even though, the next tour we plan in April is going to be with extended crew. But I cannot tell you how many people at the time.

- Well, I suppose we should go back in time a few years in order to talk about the origin of the band a bit more. When did the idea of Snøgg come to your mind and how did you hook up with the other members?

Ulv: At the time I was playing in post-metal band Entheogen, but I always had some side project of different genres running. So I started a black metal project alone, recording on the computer and it sounded so good to me, that I wanted to put it on stage. I was looking for firstly for a singer and a drummer, and after talking to a local metal drummer and drum teacher Dado, he told me that Mørke might be the guy for it. Then after one gig that was hold in our local club, me and Mørke met at after party and started the conversation about that black metal band. The next day we had our first rehearsals and Køzhl, bassist of Entheogen, joined us. We were still looking for other members, but when Køzhl eventually left the band due to lack of time, we decided to stay as a duo.

- Please tell us a little bit more about the "Ulv of Snøgg 2014 Tour Demo". Where you recorded it, how many hours you spent, which songs  appeared on it...

Ulv: When Snøgg began playing as a duo, we basically improvised 80% of the shows. So when we got invited to tour with Cvinger, and when Mørke couldn’t join the tour, I decided to fix the themes that we played with into 13 songs, record them and release them as a tour demo for the upcoming tour. The recording and producing took me about one month. Its hard to say how many hours, because I was recording and producing at my home, when I had time… We still play the songs that appeared on this demo, mostly recognised are Vucari, Sellena Zolatta (The Change) and Norte Peluda (Perunovo / Moos trail, black mountain). As you can see, some songs have changed their names :)

-How does this new EP, "Qivitoq", differ from "Snøgg" EP (both works released in 2016)? Did you change anything in terms of your songwriting or the production?

Yes. The main difference is, that Snøgg EP was recorded  in an experimental way, so that Mørke firstly recorded the drums, then I started to compose and record guitars on that. Than Køzhl composed and recorded the bass, and then I finished with the keyboards, samples and vocals. Qivitoq was recorded in ordinary manner, being composed on rehearsals and then recorded. The other new thing is that beside Køzhl, who played bass on both releases, Ampulex Dememntor joined us on noise machine this time. So soundscapes from s/t ep are replaced with noises capes.

-What kind of reactions did you get on the "Qivitoq" EP?  What about metal labels? Is there any hope?

There has not been much reactions for the Qivitoq per se yet. But it was the same with s/t EP. Lets say some more traditional metal heads like better the old stuff. Some even prefer tour demo as the best release. Other more experimental listeners prefer Qivitoq. I guess it will always be like that. Metal labels? If they call us we will respond. For now we don’t need them :)

-What inspires you when it comes to the lyrical side of your material? Do you try to write in the occult way cause it fits the music or is there a real interest of yours in that kind of stuff? Do you read a lot of books about it?

For me lyrics are not that important. I like that the album is conceptual and I like that the music sticks to a story. But I have no need to express that through lyrics. So Mørke helps a lot with writing the lyrics, also the occurring members contribute their part, especially for the new, unreleased material. But as I said, there is always a story behind the song or an album. Some times from mythology, sometimes from real life, sometimes from phylosophy, some times from Star Wars :)

- I would also like to talk about the "Inverno" and "Discplaced Landscapes" videos. How did you come up with the ideas? Are you satisfied with the results?

Invierno in video first, music second thing. Goran just randomly recorded some footage of me in the snow blizzard. The music was recorded on one microphone on the rehearsals and it just fitted the video so well, that we just released it. I am satisfied with it, because it is a reflection of what Snøgg was at the time. Total experiment.

Discplaced Landscapes is different story. This was intentional recorded material for that explicit song. We just wanted to make something different again. And the animals were just the thing to use. We also have a lot of ruined castes around our town, so we incorporated that. Again the results are to our liking.

- Some interesting bands that we should watch out for from Slovenia?

Cvinger, Srd, Kholn, Ater Era… Black Metal

Carnifliate, Armaroth, Cordura… Death Metal

Jegulja, The Kojn, The Stroj….Other

- Which 5 bands would you vote in the Metal hall of fame?

Uf… hard one…

Ulver, Taake, Neurosis, Terra Tenebrosa, Kaoz

- What are your near future plans? When can we expect new releases? Do you plan going on tour again or playing some local shows?

We are planing to release new ep called Abeloth in collaboration with Azbuka by the end of March 2017 as we are hitting Western European tour in April with the main event on SOTU festival Amsterdam and we want to have it ready by then. We will definitely have at least one local show by then. We are also working on a video for Qivitoq and we all have other bands, I’m finishing production of an album for my other project, Mørke is going on a tour with his other band Carnifilate so it is really really busy here these days.

-That's all folks, thanx a lot! Anything else you'd like to add to this interview?

Stay black! :)

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