Paragon Music Magazine: In the past, you guys have been compared to Cradle of Filth, and for a long time it was really evident that you hated it. Yet, you’ve taken Cradle of Filth’s ex-drummer, Nick Barker, as your own. Do people break your balls about it? 

Silenoz: Well I think most people should know that we don’t like the comparison and I’m sure they don’t like the comparison either. It’s something the media made up, and that’s something that the media should take responsibility for, not us. The only link between us is Nicholas; he plays drums for both bands, and he’s the one who can tell everyone how different the two bands are. But I mean, every time we’re asked about Cradle of Filth in interviews, their name is in print and they get free promotion even though it’s a Dimmu interview. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Is there any bad blood between you and Cradle? After all, you’re playing the same Fest, even though you’re playing on different days. Have you guys ever run into each other?

Silenoz: No, we just don’t hang out together or anything like that, that’s all. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Your website lists Dio and Black Sabbath as two of your favorite bands. What era of Black Sabbath do you like better ---the Ozzy years or the Dio years? 

Silenoz: Actually, for the amusement, it’s obviously the Ozzy years, but musically speaking, it’s with Dio. With Vortex, the bass player in our band, it’s the total opposite. For him, Black Sabbath is Ozzy and nothing else. I even like the stuff with Tony Martin; the 2 first that he did, I even liked those albums. I’m not that narrow-minded to say that the only good things are the ones with Ozzy. If you listen carefully, there’s good stuff on each album. Some, of course, not as good as others, and less enthusiastic to listen to. But it’s still Tony Iommi that made the music, you know, so there’s still a lot of good stuff. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Where do you guys come up with your stage names (Shagrath, Silenoz, Galder, Vortex, Mustis)? Do they have significance? 

Silenoz: Yes. I took my name from Greek mythology and the name of the character that I’m supposed to be is something like a fornicating forest demon that’s drunk all the time, so it’s a character I kinda feel close too. ::laughs:: Shagrath took his name from “The Lord of the Rings” story obviously. Mustis is short for his actual last name, which means black beard in Finnish because he has a Finnish last name, even though he’s Norwegian. Those are the only names that I know have some sort of significance. 

Paragon Music Magazine: I wanna ask you about your gear right now. I know you play Jackson guitars exclusively. When you pick out your guitars, what’s more important to you---looks or quality? Because I know that stage presence is a lot for you guys. 

Silenoz: Actually I’m the kind of player that can easily sit down to play with a Flying V shape as well. Some people can only play when they stand up but I like to play when I sit down too. But it’s not only about the shape. For me, the ultimate shape is the Flying V, but it’s also the kind of guitar and everything about it. I already ordered my next custom guitar, which I’ll hopefully get before this tour’s over. I’m looking forward to that, and it’s also the same shape as the one I have now, the Randy Rhoads Flying V. 

Paragon Music Magazine: What do you guys do on your off-time, when you’re not touring, playing music, or writing? 

Silenoz: Well there’s not much time left over to do other stuff really, at least not for me because I’m taking some part of the administrative jobs of the band as well, so it’s pretty much 24 hours on my mind. When I get away I always go fishing or something, you know? And just turn the phone off really, that’s the only thing you can do. ::laughs:: 

Paragon Music Magazine: How does touring treat you? Is it all fun and games or does it eventually catch up with you and wear you down? 

Silenoz: It catches up with you after a while, yes. After the first 2, 3, 4 weeks on a long tour, it’s more fun because it’s been a while since you’ve been out. But now we’ve been on tour since September 8. The dead time of the tour, which is basically 22 hours of the day, you have to try to find something amusing to do. It’s quite boring sometimes. Now when you come to a show and you see a pool table, it’s like “Oh, killer!” ::laughs:: You really appreciate the stuff that you kinda take for granted when you’re at home, but you try to keep yourself occupied with some things, either watch movies or go out or do whatever. You know, alcohol is a time-killer too. ::laughs:: 

Paragon Music Magazine: How’s the current tour going so far? 

Silenoz: It’s been extremely good for us and for the other bands as well. The response has been very good, especially in Europe. There are sold-out shows everywhere and we usually play a lot bigger places in Europe than in the States. Over here it’s been really great too. 

Paragon Music Magazine: What do you think about the Nu-Metal scene? What’s your opinion on all these pre-mixed, carbon-copy bands out there lately? You guys, compared to mainstream US bands, have musical material that’s very different. 

Silenoz: Well, first of all, the Nu-Metal term, to me, is kinda contradictory in itself because when I listen to those so-called Nu-Metal bands, when I see them on TV, they’re basically pop music with distorted guitars. And it has nothing to do with metal really, so it’s a misuse of that term, if you wanna use labels or put terms on music. At the NJ Metal Fest, there’s a lot of good bands that I hadn’t been able to see live yet, like Superjoint Ritual and Strapping Young Lad. I like those bands but it’s so different over here. In Europe we always had a “proper metal” going on for years and it seems that here people are taking it a bit too far, trying to hide their pop music and call it metal. It’s kind of wrong. ::laughing:: 

Paragon Music Magazine: Yea, they’re just trying to get rich off of an old idea, basically. At least over here anyway.. 

Silenoz: When we’re on tour we always try to offer bands that have something to offer and sound different. If there are 3 or 4 bands on the bill, it’s cool if they all sound different. I think we’re really lucky with this bill in the States because Hypocrisy is different from Children of Bodom and Nevermore is totally different than we are. But still all 4 bands are kind of extreme so you get your metal anyway. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Was the video for "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" fun to make? 

Silenoz: It was a lot of fun, but extremely hard work too. I didn’t expect it to be that hard, actually. It took 3 days for shooting and then the director took like 2 weeks for editing. But it was a new experience and one of the most professional experiences we’ve had, ever. We had the opportunity to work with a man named Patrick. He’s a Swedish director and he’s done multi-million dollar videos and stuff before, but this time he wanted to do something totally different. He is a kind of metal guy anyway and he was just waiting for the opportunity to work with guys like us. It cost a lot of money but he said that he had the whole summer off and even if it would cost him more money to finish the video, he said ‘fuck it, I’ll just do it because I love it.’ That’s cool to work with people that don’t just do it for money. Well, you actually don’t really need the money when you’re a millionaire. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Yea those people are hard to come by these days. 

Silenoz: Yea exactly, so we were really lucky and hopefully he’ll have time to do another with us next time. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Are you gonna do another video for a song off the same album or are you gonna wait for new stuff? 

Silenoz: Quite possibly. It all depends if we’ll have time because we’re going to be on the road until Christmas and then the 1st of February we go back out again to Japan and Australia and we’ll be full-on until summer and then the summer festivals start. We’re looking at going back to the States sometime in May, perhaps headlining again, or in support of a bigger band. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Where do you come up with ideas/material for your lyrics and the music? 

Silenoz: I dunno, it’s hard to say. Lyric-wise, it can be a lot of different things that boil down to just one thing. There’s so much stuff around in the world that’s so negative that takes up a lot of your energies and the only way to get that energy back is to put it down on paper and write about it. That’s what helps me you know? Instead of getting angry for nothing and punching people in the mouth, I write about it to, in a mature way, get it down on paper. For the music part, it’s hard to say. You just pick up the guitar whenever you feel you want to, you know, because if you feel like you have to rehearse everyday, or just because someone said that you should, that’s wrong. You should play guitar whenever you feel like it. Same with any another instrument. Inspiration has to flow naturally. I don’t really have a particular inspiration when it comes to writing on guitar, I just try and pick out whatever I think sounds cool, present it to the other guys, and if they like it, we use it. 

Paragon Music Magazine: How much longer do you see the band making music? Do you guys plan on releasing another new album or are you going to take some time off? 

Silenoz: We’re probably gonna tour at least until September or October of next year. After that we’ll probably have a couple months off before we start thinking about the new album. Luckily now we have our own home studios. Whenever we have spare time after the tour, we’ll probably record some ideas here and there and start working on it after a couple months, when every member has material to present. We’re gonna take it very easy because I know the only way we can make an album and make it good is to use the time we have, and if we pressure ourselves or if someone tries to pressure us to finish a product early or whatever, that’s not gonna work. That’s the good thing about our record label, they’re really understanding when it comes to deadlines and stuff like that. We’ve proven each time we’ve released an album that it was worth the wait, and we don’t have any complaints from their side so that’s very good, and it’s very comfortable working that way. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Do you guys write anything on the road, maybe during soundchecks, on the bus, etc.? 

Silenoz: No, it’s very rare that we do that. Almost never. We’re the kind of band that can only work well in a quiet environment. On tour, there’s never enough time to put anything together. If we put a song together on tour, come home and let that song rest for 2 months and then pick it up again, we’ll probably think it sounds like shit so it’s kind of a waste of time. But you know, you always come up with some riffs and ideas that hopefully you’ll have in the back of your mind when you get home. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Since you’ve been with the band since it first started, are there any songs that you’re particularly fond of, that you love playing live or that you’re just really proud of? You have any favorites? 

Silenoz: Well, you know, there’s always the crowd favorites, like “Kings of the Carnival Creation,” “The Insight and the Catharsis.” Those are the two, kind of anthems, that we always probably have to play live, you know? “Mourning Palace” is far from the best song we have, but it’s the song that people recognize the most, you know? It was on a lot of compilations when the album came, and it stuck on a lot of people’s minds. Those are the three songs that we always seem to have to play live. And every tour it’s getting harder and harder to pick out the setlist because at the same time you want to satisfy the crowd, you wanna play songs the band wants to play. We try and find a nice balance. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Anything you want to say to our readers? 

Silenoz: All I can say is that all the people that have seen us at the Metal Fest in NJ probably know the history about us; that every time we’ve played in NJ, we’ve been forced to cut the set. The longest we’ve played there is 45 minutes. So hopefully we can come back and play a full 90-minute set or something. 

Paragon Music Magazine: Yea, I remember when you played in NJ at the club Obsessions a while back, you guys got cut off mid-song! 

Silenoz: Exactly. And at the Metal Meltdown, we played 5 or 6 songs, and we were supposed to be the headliners. I remember Hypocrisy played before us and they were only able to play 3 songs. We feel like we have some unfinished business to do in NJ. ::laughs::