Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Peter Espevoll from Extol on the Band's Legacy and their New Album
Transcript
- 0:30Speaker 1: Today, we've got Peter from Extol. So excited to chat
- 0:33Speaker 1: with you, Peter. This is a long time coming. Obviously,
- 0:36Speaker 1: we've had you on the podcast, you know, talking about,
- 0:38Speaker 1: you know, things like Harada and Entheosis. And we'll probably
- 0:42Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that today, too. But Extol's
- 0:44Speaker 1: got a new album coming out just here in a
- 0:47Speaker 1: couple months. And first new album in how long? Was
- 0:51Speaker 1: it like 2012 was.
- 0:52Speaker 2: The last album or something? 2013, right?
- 0:56Speaker 1: So it's been, yeah, it's been 13 years since the
- 0:59Speaker 1: last Extol album. And so it's been a long time coming.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Just very, very excited to talk about the new album.
- 1:04Speaker 1: We'll also talk about kind of like legacy type of
- 1:06Speaker 1: questions with you, but we'll dive into all of that.
- 1:09Speaker 1: But how are you doing today, Peter?
- 1:12Speaker 3: Hello, I'm doing all right. It's, you know, life, it
- 1:17Speaker 3: has its ups and downs. Yeah, no, it's all good.
- 1:20Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. Lovely to see your beautiful faces again.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Oh it's always great to see you too kind truly
- 1:26Speaker 1: you truly are like one of those people where even
- 1:28Speaker 1: though uh we haven't met in person that i'm aware
- 1:31Speaker 1: of you do feel like a like a friend that
- 1:34Speaker 1: like if i were ever in norway i just call
- 1:36Speaker 1: you up and we'd be oh yeah having a beer
- 1:39Speaker 1: and hanging out at the fjord.
- 1:41Speaker 3: Yeah yeah a hundred percent uh would love to meet
- 1:44Speaker 3: you guys in person would be yeah.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Make it happen i know you're not really traveling with
- 1:48Speaker 1: the band much anymore but If you ever happen to
- 1:51Speaker 1: be in the States, let us know. We'd love to
- 1:53Speaker 1: even try to, you know, even if you don't happen
- 1:55Speaker 1: to be in the area that we're in, we want
- 1:57Speaker 1: to go and find you and hang out with you.
- 1:59Speaker 2: I think I'd rather go to Norway, personally.
- 2:01Speaker 4: I mean, I would, too. Don't get me wrong. I
- 2:03Speaker 4: would absolutely love to.
- 2:05Speaker 3: I'm not coming under this president, so maybe in the
- 2:07Speaker 3: next one.
- 2:08Speaker 2: Ooh, okay.
- 2:09Speaker 3: Noted.
- 2:11Speaker 2: That makes sense.
- 2:11Speaker 3: All right.
- 2:12Speaker 1: Well, if there's any reason to not vote for that guy,
- 2:14Speaker 1: then we'll try to make it happen.
- 2:17Speaker 3: All right.
- 2:18Speaker 2: So I need you to let me know if I'm
- 2:20Speaker 2: using this saying properly. So X-Toll's new album is kind
- 2:25Speaker 2: of like Svin på skogen.
- 2:31Speaker 3: Sorry, you were breaking up. What are you trying to say?
- 2:34Speaker 2: Okay, so X-Toll's new album is kind of like Svin
- 2:38Speaker 2: på skogen.
- 2:41Speaker 3: Svin på skogen?
- 2:43Speaker 2: Yeah, is that right?
- 2:44Speaker 3: Yeah, you can say that. I don't know if the
- 2:49Speaker 3: new album is that, but yeah, okay, sure. Because it's
- 2:52Speaker 3: been so long.
- 2:53Speaker 2: It's been so long, right?
- 2:56Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not the expression. I don't know what
- 2:59Speaker 3: you're trying to say.
- 3:00Speaker 2: I think it translates to pigs in the forest or
- 3:03Speaker 2: something like that. I heard it was like an expression
- 3:06Speaker 2: used in Norway. Is that correct?
- 3:07Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 3:08Speaker 4: It is.
- 3:09Speaker 3: You have svin på skogen, but that means that you
- 3:11Speaker 3: have done something crazy that, you know, you've kind of
- 3:14Speaker 3: hidden in the forest, you know. Oh, okay.
- 3:17Speaker 2: So I'm missing the context a little more. Yeah. I tried.
- 3:22Speaker 3: I tried.
- 3:23Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I did try.
- 3:27Speaker 1: I do love, I've got a friend from Denmark who,
- 3:29Speaker 1: she recently taught me all of these, like, Danish sayings.
- 3:33Speaker 1: And one of them is new balls in the soup.
- 3:35Speaker 1: which is basically like there's like new context now that you,
- 3:38Speaker 1: like there's new information that's added to the context that
- 3:41Speaker 1: you're trying to discuss. So they call that like new
- 3:43Speaker 1: balls in the soup. Or if there's something that's like,
- 3:47Speaker 1: what was it? It's like a surprise or something. It's
- 3:50Speaker 1: like there's something like there's owls are hooting. Anyway, they've
- 3:54Speaker 1: got like all of their little sayings, but this Norwegian
- 3:56Speaker 1: saying seems to be like one of these other kind
- 3:59Speaker 1: of Scandinavian sayings that are just kind of like silly.
- 4:02Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 4:02Speaker 3: No, yeah. We have a lot of silly sayings for sure.
- 4:06Speaker 3: Love it.
- 4:07Speaker 1: Well, before we talk about the new album, I'd love
- 4:11Speaker 1: to just kind of talk about legacy of Extol. You know,
- 4:14Speaker 1: you guys have been around for like as a band,
- 4:17Speaker 1: even though obviously you've kind of been more or less
- 4:19Speaker 1: pretty inactive since 2013. You know, as a band, you
- 4:22Speaker 1: guys have been around for 30 years now.
- 4:25Speaker 4: Is it over 30 years?
- 4:28Speaker 3: Yeah, like 94. So I guess 32 years. Yeah, 32 years.
- 4:30Speaker 3: Literally the age that I am.
- 4:35Speaker 1: So, you know, you guys have, it's, you know, you,
- 4:38Speaker 1: you guys have been around for a while. And I
- 4:39Speaker 1: think what's really cool about Axtel is, you know, you
- 4:43Speaker 1: guys were, you know, basically coming out, uh, right around
- 4:47Speaker 1: that time when a lot of other bands were coming
- 4:49Speaker 1: out of kind of the Scandinavian world, especially Norway with
- 4:53Speaker 1: a lot, you know, just really good metal bands coming
- 4:55Speaker 1: out at that time, you know, especially, you know, if
- 4:57Speaker 1: you really want to like dive into the specific sub genres,
- 4:59Speaker 1: especially a lot of like black metal. And obviously a
- 5:02Speaker 1: lot of your sound kind of early on was kind
- 5:04Speaker 1: of that, that vibe, but I'd love to just kind
- 5:06Speaker 1: of talk through like when you guys look back at
- 5:10Speaker 1: your history as a band now, even though, again, you
- 5:13Speaker 1: have been more or less pretty inactive for the last decade.
- 5:16Speaker 1: I'd love to just kind of hear, yeah, hear more
- 5:18Speaker 1: about like when you think back to a lot of
- 5:21Speaker 1: those like really influential bands that were coming out of
- 5:24Speaker 1: the like Norwegian world, even Swedish world that were, you know,
- 5:27Speaker 1: metal bands in the 90s. Like, you know, whether one
- 5:31Speaker 1: was a Christian band or not, like you guys were
- 5:33Speaker 1: one of the most important bands coming out of that scene.
- 5:36Speaker 1: And like, do you guys think of it in that way?
- 5:38Speaker 1: But I'm just, yeah, I'm curious kind of just the
- 5:40Speaker 1: way that you kind of reflect on maybe your legacy
- 5:43Speaker 1: or the impact, the influence that you had on music,
- 5:46Speaker 1: especially your specific scene at that time.
- 5:50Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't think we, when we look
- 5:53Speaker 3: at ourselves, we don't think we are one of the
- 5:57Speaker 3: big influential bands from that time. But I mean, for sure, we.
- 6:05Speaker 3: We had something different, I think, to bring to the table.
- 6:11Speaker 3: Of course, we were quite on the, you know, Christian,
- 6:17Speaker 3: fronting the Christian message, which was, of course, different from
- 6:20Speaker 3: most of the Scandinavian bands. And then also, I think
- 6:24Speaker 3: we had this kind of technical, melodic twist to us
- 6:29Speaker 3: that made us kind of unique in some sense. So, yeah,
- 6:34Speaker 3: I mean, Back in those days, obviously, we didn't think
- 6:37Speaker 3: about stuff like that. We just wanted to do our
- 6:40Speaker 3: thing and wanted to be a part of the bigger
- 6:42Speaker 3: metal scene. And I guess it wasn't until we were
- 6:48Speaker 3: signed on Central Media for the Synergy album that I
- 6:52Speaker 3: felt that we kind of branched out more properly into
- 6:59Speaker 3: the whole metal scene. But what's pretty cool is that now...
- 7:03Speaker 3: the last decade when we have been inactive and we
- 7:06Speaker 3: haven't really done much, we experienced quite a lot of,
- 7:12Speaker 3: you know, the little bit younger metal bands that are,
- 7:15Speaker 3: you know, active now touring around when they come to
- 7:19Speaker 3: Norway or whatever, like we will suddenly meet them or
- 7:23Speaker 3: hear from them that they are like, you know, pretty
- 7:26Speaker 3: influenced by XTOL. So that's obviously really, really awesome, but
- 7:31Speaker 3: also a little bit weird. to, to hear.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 7:34Speaker 3: So, but, but yeah, I don't think none of us
- 7:38Speaker 3: really think about ourselves that we have been super influential
- 7:42Speaker 3: in the metal world.
- 7:43Speaker 4: Well, we know that you guys are so humble, but, uh,
- 7:46Speaker 4: but I get it. I get it.
- 7:48Speaker 1: But it is cool that, yeah, a lot, I mean,
- 7:49Speaker 1: I hear it all the time from younger bands that, yeah,
- 7:52Speaker 1: mentioned Extol as like one of the more influential bands
- 7:56Speaker 1: in their life. You know, maybe they started listening to
- 7:58Speaker 1: you guys in the, early 2000s or whenever it might've been.
- 8:01Speaker 1: And here you are now, like, you know, you guys
- 8:04Speaker 1: are still doing it. And also like, because you've been
- 8:07Speaker 1: around for so long, yeah, a lot of like other
- 8:09Speaker 1: younger bands are coming into the fold, you know, having
- 8:12Speaker 1: growing up with you guys.
- 8:14Speaker 4: I feel like I asked this question, maybe in.
- 8:17Speaker 1: The first time that we chatted years ago, and I'm
- 8:21Speaker 1: kind of forgetting what your answer was, but I think
- 8:25Speaker 1: what's like an interesting part of the the Norwegian and
- 8:29Speaker 1: even like Swedish metal scene was there was this, weirdly enough,
- 8:34Speaker 1: a very like satanic influence and especially in black music
- 8:38Speaker 1: or black metal. And I'm curious about like your relationship to, like,
- 8:44Speaker 1: did you grow up listening to those bands? Like, did
- 8:46Speaker 1: you have any relationship to any of those bands, especially
- 8:50Speaker 1: with the fact that you guys were so at that,
- 8:52Speaker 1: at that time, especially like so kind of outwardly or
- 8:55Speaker 1: overtly Christian and, yeah like what was like what was
- 8:58Speaker 1: the relationship was it non-existent was it something where you
- 9:00Speaker 1: kind of had to like keep your distance yeah was
- 9:04Speaker 1: it something where like some of those bands were actually
- 9:05Speaker 1: like pretty pretty chill with you guys like yeah I'm
- 9:08Speaker 1: just so curious about like what that whole relationship was
- 9:12Speaker 1: because a lot of those bands were still doing it
- 9:13Speaker 1: you know even in the 90s when you guys first started.
- 9:17Speaker 3: Yeah I mean it was a little bit both I
- 9:19Speaker 3: think like For some of the bands, I mean, Norway
- 9:22Speaker 3: is a pretty small place, right? So it knows everybody
- 9:26Speaker 3: somehow if you're in a scene. And at some point,
- 9:30Speaker 3: I think, you know, people had heard of us. When
- 9:32Speaker 3: we released Burial, like the biggest Norwegian metal sign, they would,
- 9:37Speaker 3: you know, write about us and gave us a really
- 9:40Speaker 3: good review on the first album. And I think that
- 9:44Speaker 3: created kind of like some tension because... As I say,
- 9:48Speaker 3: we were very overtly Christian at that time, and a
- 9:53Speaker 3: lot of these black metal guys didn't really enjoy I
- 9:57Speaker 3: appreciate that but on the other hand we had also
- 10:01Speaker 3: friends that were you know proper black metal heads and
- 10:05Speaker 3: into the scene and yeah so some were really really
- 10:11Speaker 3: not too happy about it and would show that and
- 10:14Speaker 3: others we were hanging out with and yeah It was
- 10:20Speaker 3: a very strange time. People have probably heard this before,
- 10:23Speaker 3: but I mean, yeah, as I said, everything from having
- 10:25Speaker 3: good friends in the scene to, you know, like small
- 10:29Speaker 3: threats or, you know, just people didn't want to play
- 10:33Speaker 3: with us live because we were Christians or, yeah. I
- 10:38Speaker 3: remember the church we were in, like some black metal
- 10:41Speaker 3: kid that, you know, I think they wrote like, we're
- 10:44Speaker 3: going to rape your... your women and kill your children
- 10:49Speaker 3: or something like on the wall on the church outside
- 10:51Speaker 3: wow well.
- 10:53Speaker 1: And then there was that whole story about that one
- 10:55Speaker 1: church that was burnt down i forget if that was
- 10:56Speaker 1: a norwegian.
- 10:57Speaker 4: Yeah it was a way or not but yeah there
- 10:59Speaker 4: was a church that was burnt down by that black metal.
- 11:01Speaker 3: Group several churches were burnt down and uh yeah it
- 11:06Speaker 3: was a lot of bad stuff like yeah one of
- 11:09Speaker 3: one of them i mean killed a uh a gay
- 11:13Speaker 3: guy just because he was gay uh and uh I mean, yeah,
- 11:18Speaker 3: a lot of destructive stuff in the scene. Like every other,
- 11:24Speaker 3: you know, community like that, it's a bunch of kids,
- 11:27Speaker 3: you know, wanting some community, basically. And they found their
- 11:32Speaker 3: thing and they were somewhat just, you know, were into
- 11:36Speaker 3: it as an image and others were taking it more
- 11:39Speaker 3: literally or seriously. Right. Yeah.
- 11:43Speaker 2: Was there ever an aspect of respect for you guys
- 11:46Speaker 2: that you guys felt because of your, as a band,
- 11:50Speaker 2: technical and musicality prowess? You guys are clearly on another
- 11:55Speaker 2: level in terms of just being able to show how
- 11:59Speaker 2: tight you are on stage.
- 12:20Speaker 3: Yeah Colin is following up but yeah I think I
- 12:24Speaker 3: understood the question like for sure I think we even
- 12:28Speaker 3: felt that at a time like we felt that we
- 12:31Speaker 3: kind of had to work twice as hard as everyone
- 12:34Speaker 3: else in the metal scene because we were Christians uh
- 12:38Speaker 3: But also, we also felt, I think, not that we
- 12:41Speaker 3: thought that we were super great, but we knew that
- 12:44Speaker 3: we did a thing that was, you know, we had
- 12:46Speaker 3: decent musicians in our band and we did our thing
- 12:49Speaker 3: quite well. So I think we knew that people at
- 12:53Speaker 3: least couldn't just write us off because of the bad quality.
- 12:57Speaker 3: So I think we had some confidence in that, that, okay,
- 13:00Speaker 3: we're not shit. So, you know, we can stand for
- 13:04Speaker 3: this musically as well. And I think that earned us
- 13:08Speaker 3: some respect, I think, from people who maybe didn't want
- 13:12Speaker 3: to listen to us, but were like, well, okay, these
- 13:13Speaker 3: guys can actually play, so maybe it's okay, you know, somehow.
- 13:16Speaker 4: Right.
- 13:17Speaker 1: Well, had there already been, I mean, obviously there was
- 13:20Speaker 1: the sort of satanic black metal influence that was probably
- 13:23Speaker 1: going to be skeptical of you guys to begin with.
- 13:26Speaker 1: But were there other like maybe Christian metal bands that
- 13:29Speaker 1: were coming out of Norway at the time that were
- 13:31Speaker 1: like maybe.
- 13:32Speaker 4: for lack of a better word, kind of cheesy.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Like, were they just, like, not very good, where that
- 13:37Speaker 1: kind of already created a stereotype of what Christian metal
- 13:40Speaker 1: could be like? Because especially here in the States, you know,
- 13:43Speaker 1: there was kind of this general stereotype of, like, Christian
- 13:46Speaker 1: alternative music, whether it's metal or hardcore or anything, that
- 13:49Speaker 1: some of it was just, like, not very good, and
- 13:51Speaker 1: then therefore, like, it made a lot of those, like,
- 13:55Speaker 1: early Christian bands have to work really hard to be
- 13:58Speaker 1: actually really good, because there was already a stereotype of
- 14:00Speaker 1: them not being very good. So, Was that something that
- 14:02Speaker 1: you guys kind of had to play with that dynamic
- 14:04Speaker 1: as well?
- 14:05Speaker 3: No.
- 14:05Speaker 1: With like other maybe previous Christian, you know, Norwegian metal
- 14:10Speaker 1: bands not being very good?
- 14:12Speaker 3: Not at all. I think, I mean, we were one
- 14:16Speaker 3: of the first extreme metal bands, Christian extreme metal bands
- 14:20Speaker 3: in Norway. But of course you had Antester and you
- 14:22Speaker 3: had Grums. And then also Lengsel. And I mean, it
- 14:28Speaker 3: was great bands that would, you know, get respect for
- 14:31Speaker 3: what they did. So, yeah, I think what the Christian
- 14:36Speaker 3: scene in the early 90s did here in Norway was
- 14:39Speaker 3: quite good. It was, you know, high quality. And I
- 14:43Speaker 3: think most people who heard it for the music were like, oh, wow,
- 14:46Speaker 3: this is good stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But
- 14:50Speaker 3: of course, if they listen to a lot of the
- 14:52Speaker 3: American stuff, they would be like, oh, this is bad.
- 14:57Speaker 4: Just kidding.
- 14:58Speaker 1: Imagine being a kid in Norway, growing up Christian and
- 15:02Speaker 1: then finding yourself into metal music and then listening to
- 15:06Speaker 1: Extol and maybe there were some other bands that came
- 15:07Speaker 1: out afterwards and thinking like, oh, well, if you're a
- 15:11Speaker 1: Christian band, you must be really good because all the
- 15:13Speaker 1: Christian bands.
- 15:14Speaker 3: Are really good.
- 15:15Speaker 1: It's just totally the opposite experience as like... Like, it
- 15:19Speaker 1: reminds me, there's a comedian named W. Kamau Bell. He's, like,
- 15:22Speaker 1: this black comedian. And he's got this, he's got, like,
- 15:25Speaker 1: a daughter. And he, like, makes this joke about, like, his, like,
- 15:29Speaker 1: family doctor is, like, this black woman. And so his
- 15:31Speaker 1: daughter just had this assumption that every single doctor is
- 15:34Speaker 1: a black woman. it's like oh you're just waiting till
- 15:37Speaker 1: you actually like learn about the real world but like
- 15:41Speaker 1: i would imagine like that could be really funny if
- 15:43Speaker 1: there was like some kid uh you know that grew
- 15:45Speaker 1: up in norway who was christian that was like well
- 15:47Speaker 1: i guess just every christian band is a really good
- 15:48Speaker 1: really good band only to find out that's not the
- 15:51Speaker 1: case at all.
- 15:52Speaker 3: Yeah yeah but i mean obviously we were influenced by
- 15:56Speaker 3: the american scene as well so uh which had some
- 16:00Speaker 3: really really awesome bands from the christian scene with uh
- 16:04Speaker 3: of course, Living Sacrifice, which was, you know, one of
- 16:07Speaker 3: the first bands that I was like, holy, this is
- 16:11Speaker 3: so brutal. And the vocals, like DJ, when he was screaming,
- 16:15Speaker 3: it was such a big influence on me. And of course,
- 16:18Speaker 3: the Australian mortification was a huge inspiration for our death
- 16:23Speaker 3: metal stuff, you know? So, yeah.
- 16:26Speaker 2: Yeah. I, you know, you can, you can see that
- 16:29Speaker 2: there's a little bit of, at that time, crossbreeding was
- 16:32Speaker 2: kind of like worldwide, right? It wasn't just your little
- 16:36Speaker 2: scene at home. It kind of had to be worldwide
- 16:39Speaker 2: if you're a Christian band, at least.
- 16:42Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 16:43Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. But also, at some point in the
- 16:48Speaker 3: early stages of XTOL, we didn't really know anyone else
- 16:52Speaker 3: in Norway that did extreme metal. And then we heard
- 16:57Speaker 3: about Antester and Grums and the Lengsel guys. And we're like, oh, wow,
- 17:02Speaker 3: there's more of us. That's awesome. We finally found some
- 17:07Speaker 3: community with these guys, and it was just super fun.
- 17:10Speaker 2: So did you guys tour together a lot with those fellas?
- 17:14Speaker 3: No, we never. I guess we just played one festival
- 17:17Speaker 3: with Grums and Tester. We had just some shows here
- 17:21Speaker 3: and there, no bigger tours. And then, of course, with Lengsel,
- 17:26Speaker 3: the guys at Lengsel just became a part of XTOL
- 17:30Speaker 3: after a while. So, yeah.
- 17:32Speaker 2: That's cool.
- 17:34Speaker 1: I'm curious for you guys, especially when it comes to
- 17:37Speaker 1: your Norwegian influence, you know, when we think of like
- 17:41Speaker 1: some of those metal bands that were coming out of America,
- 17:44Speaker 1: you know, around the same time in like the nineties,
- 17:46Speaker 1: early two thousands, you know, a lot of those bands
- 17:49Speaker 1: are still, I mean, many of them are still active
- 17:51Speaker 1: and many of them, whether it's, whether in the Christian
- 17:55Speaker 1: scene or not, became very influential bands, you know, like
- 17:58Speaker 1: Under Oath, Norma Jean, Devil Wears Prada, trying to think of,
- 18:02Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, like we mentioned already, like Living Sacrifice.
- 18:05Speaker 1: And so a lot of those bands became very influential.
- 18:08Speaker 1: And so like when you hear, if you, you know,
- 18:11Speaker 1: talk to any like newer band, many of those bands
- 18:13Speaker 1: are bands that are like cited as influences. And I'm
- 18:16Speaker 1: curious for you guys, I have no idea about what
- 18:20Speaker 1: the Norwegian metal scene is like now. Obviously, at one point,
- 18:23Speaker 1: it was a big deal 30, 40 years ago. If
- 18:27Speaker 1: there is any metal scene in Norway now, is it
- 18:31Speaker 1: something where you guys hear your name kind of thrown
- 18:33Speaker 1: around as an influence of those bands? But obviously, that
- 18:37Speaker 1: question is probably assuming that there's still a pretty prominent
- 18:40Speaker 1: metal scene. So yeah, I'm curious what your answer to
- 18:43Speaker 1: that would be.
- 18:45Speaker 3: Yeah I think there's still quite a big metal scene
- 18:48Speaker 3: in Norway a lot of the old bands are still
- 18:51Speaker 3: you know going on so and I'm honestly I'm not
- 18:55Speaker 3: so much into metal anymore and I haven't been for
- 18:58Speaker 3: many years I'm not super updated on the scene but
- 19:04Speaker 3: yeah you know I'll check out some music here and
- 19:06Speaker 3: there but whenever I hear about stuff it's usually like
- 19:10Speaker 3: you know all the old bands you know right So, yeah.
- 19:17Speaker 3: But I think metal is still strong in Norway. Like,
- 19:19Speaker 3: the biggest festival in Norway, like, in any genre, is
- 19:23Speaker 3: a metal festival.
- 19:24Speaker 1: Right.
- 19:25Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 19:26Speaker 1: Well, and even, like, the way that, again, you know,
- 19:30Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure what it's like in Norway. It
- 19:33Speaker 1: sounds like it's still pretty strong. But especially here in America, like,
- 19:37Speaker 1: if you were, I mean, if you're, like, in your
- 19:39Speaker 1: 40s right now and you grew up, especially, like, in
- 19:41Speaker 1: the Christian metal scene, like you guys are just constantly
- 19:45Speaker 1: thrown around as one of the biggest influences, whether it's
- 19:48Speaker 1: just a fan or another band. The way that people
- 19:52Speaker 1: respond to, a few years ago when Extol played at
- 19:56Speaker 1: Furnace Fest, it was one of the most highly anticipated
- 20:00Speaker 1: because obviously part of it is you guys just don't
- 20:02Speaker 1: really tour much anymore, but it's kind of one of
- 20:05Speaker 1: those things where you just don't realize how influential Extol is.
- 20:09Speaker 1: until you start talking to some of the people that
- 20:12Speaker 1: grew up listening to you guys, and you realize how important,
- 20:15Speaker 1: it's not just that they listen to you guys, but
- 20:17Speaker 1: you guys were truly deeply influential in people's lives, especially
- 20:21Speaker 1: here in the States. So it is really cool to
- 20:24Speaker 1: know that a band thousands of miles away that really
- 20:29Speaker 1: hasn't been active for almost a better part of 20 years,
- 20:32Speaker 1: how incredibly important still you.
- 20:35Speaker 4: Guys are to so many people here, especially in the States.
- 20:40Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's like I said in the beginning,
- 20:42Speaker 3: like the past decade, we have kind of understood that
- 20:45Speaker 3: more and more that, oh, wow.
- 20:47Speaker 1: Oh, really?
- 20:48Speaker 3: Like, and it's, of course, super humbling. And yeah, I
- 20:54Speaker 3: don't know what words to use, but of course, it's
- 20:56Speaker 3: a very good feeling to know that what you have done.
- 21:00Speaker 3: You know, I started the band with my brother and
- 21:02Speaker 3: David when I was 14. And we were just seriously,
- 21:07Speaker 3: we were just kids. Even up until the hiatus in 2006, 2007,
- 21:12Speaker 3: I was still just a kid. To know that something
- 21:19Speaker 3: that we did as kids has had that amount of
- 21:24Speaker 3: influence of people all over the world, it's crazy. It's,
- 21:28Speaker 3: of course, super nice.
- 21:29Speaker 4: Go ahead, Calvin.
- 21:32Speaker 2: That's something I kind of want to talk about again here, too.
- 21:34Speaker 2: Christopher is back in in the fold here, right? I mean, he's, he's,
- 21:39Speaker 2: he's playing with you guys again. And what's that been like?
- 21:45Speaker 3: Oh, it's, it's, uh, super nice. I mean, it's so
- 21:47Speaker 3: cool to be, uh, all, all of us, uh, back
- 21:51Speaker 3: together again. Um, yeah, it's, uh, I would have loved
- 21:57Speaker 3: for him to be on the last record as well. Uh,
- 21:59Speaker 3: 13 years ago. Uh, but yeah, I'm so happy that
- 22:04Speaker 3: we could do an album now with, uh, with the
- 22:06Speaker 3: four of us. It's yeah. It's very nice. And he
- 22:09Speaker 3: has his riffs and his signature stuff and also writing
- 22:14Speaker 3: some of the lyrics, which is just super Christer. So yeah,
- 22:20Speaker 3: it's awesome. Really, really cool to be all of us again.
- 22:24Speaker 2: Would you say that you and Christer have very similar
- 22:29Speaker 2: Matic topics in terms of lyrical content?
- 22:33Speaker 3: No, no.
- 22:35Speaker 4: Interesting.
- 22:37Speaker 2: I kind of figured there was not necessarily....
- 22:43Speaker 3: Well, thematically, I guess we have some of the same
- 22:48Speaker 3: stuff that we are dealing with and that we are
- 22:50Speaker 3: interested in these days. But the way we write is very,
- 22:56Speaker 3: very different. Me and my brother, we are two, I
- 23:00Speaker 3: would say... extremely different personalities.
- 23:06Speaker 4: In what way?
- 23:08Speaker 3: In every possible way.
- 23:11Speaker 2: So he's very extroverted, is what you're trying to say?
- 23:14Speaker 2: Because you're introverted?
- 23:17Speaker 3: No, the opposite.
- 23:18Speaker 2: Oh, I'm just joking.
- 23:20Speaker 3: Oh, you were joking. Shit. Yeah, no, I love my brother.
- 23:24Speaker 3: But yeah, we're very different. And the way we write,
- 23:27Speaker 3: the way we think, the way we express feelings, the
- 23:29Speaker 3: way we express ourselves is very different.
- 23:34Speaker 1: Does that ever cause tension when it comes to trying
- 23:36Speaker 1: to write music with him?
- 23:38Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, of course. You know, in a process like this,
- 23:41Speaker 3: like we've been spending the last three and a half
- 23:44Speaker 3: years writing this album. And I'm just I'm sorry, I
- 23:48Speaker 3: just see Colin. He's frozen like this. Oh, yeah.
- 23:52Speaker 4: It's actually, it's a great, great, great photo for him
- 23:55Speaker 4: to get frozen on.
- 23:56Speaker 3: All right.
- 23:56Speaker 4: There you go.
- 23:59Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, we spent like two and a half
- 24:01Speaker 3: years writing this album and we are grown men with,
- 24:05Speaker 3: you know, kids and families and our daily jobs. And,
- 24:10Speaker 3: and of course there is when you are then also
- 24:13Speaker 3: quite different personalities in how you write or how, like
- 24:16Speaker 3: how we want to do things. Of course, it's going
- 24:18Speaker 3: to be frustrating at times for, for every one of us.
- 24:22Speaker 3: But yeah, it's all good. Everybody has just tried to
- 24:26Speaker 3: do their part. And, you know, in three and a
- 24:29Speaker 3: half years, like I could have a period for some
- 24:32Speaker 3: months where I'm super on and then something happens with
- 24:35Speaker 3: me and then I'm super off for some months and
- 24:37Speaker 3: then some other guys on. So, you know, it's just
- 24:40Speaker 3: going to be like that. It's been an interesting process. Honestly,
- 24:44Speaker 3: I think we have met like the four of us.
- 24:47Speaker 3: in studio we have met like maybe three times in
- 24:50Speaker 3: three and a half years wow wow uh the rest
- 24:54Speaker 3: is just everybody in their own studios and of course
- 24:57Speaker 3: a lot of dialogue on on mail and on whatsapp
- 25:01Speaker 3: and phone calls and stuff like that uh yeah.
- 25:05Speaker 1: Well it's just crazy how much like the the technology
- 25:08Speaker 1: of you know when you guys especially uh with uh
- 25:12Speaker 1: with your 2005 album like i can't imagine like the
- 25:15Speaker 1: technology wouldn't have been there for you to be able
- 25:18Speaker 1: to write and record the way you're able to now.
- 25:21Speaker 1: The fact that we all can be in different places
- 25:24Speaker 1: and still basically come together with an album. Obviously, there's
- 25:28Speaker 1: certainly going to be moments where you're going to have
- 25:30Speaker 1: to come together to record some stuff. But the fact
- 25:32Speaker 1: that most of it can probably be recorded completely remotely
- 25:36Speaker 1: and then you just piece stuff together, it's just amazing
- 25:38Speaker 1: how that's even a possibility. And I think it's what's
- 25:41Speaker 1: given rise to a lot of these bands that you know,
- 25:44Speaker 1: maybe were around for a handful of years and then couldn't,
- 25:48Speaker 1: you know, for a variety of reasons, had to break
- 25:51Speaker 1: up or go on hiatus. And now with the way
- 25:53Speaker 1: technology is, it allows a lot of bands to maybe
- 25:56Speaker 1: at a slower pace, but still kind of still write
- 25:59Speaker 1: music and still play music.
- 26:00Speaker 4: And then every now and then go on a tour.
- 26:03Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, if we were like, if we should
- 26:05Speaker 3: have been like one month in the studio together, like
- 26:09Speaker 3: it wouldn't be possible. Like none of us could have
- 26:11Speaker 3: done it.
- 26:12Speaker 4: Unless you'd be fighting your brother probably.
- 26:14Speaker 3: Right.
- 26:14Speaker 4: You'd be five years old again. Yeah.
- 26:17Speaker 3: But also like, you know, in terms of money and
- 26:19Speaker 3: family and everything, like, you know, it's, it would not be,
- 26:23Speaker 3: be possible.
- 26:24Speaker 2: So I think, I think you kind of talked about
- 26:26Speaker 2: that with, uh, with entheosis as well.
- 26:28Speaker 4: Right.
- 26:29Speaker 2: That like, it really just couldn't have been done, you know, 10,
- 26:33Speaker 2: 15 years ago even. And now it does allow it
- 26:36Speaker 2: to happen and it's great stuff. And the new, new
- 26:39Speaker 2: tune out there too.
- 26:40Speaker 1: Right.
- 26:41Speaker 3: Yeah. But of course, it's a little bit sad as well.
- 26:45Speaker 3: It's good on one side, but it's a little bit
- 26:48Speaker 3: sad as well, because a lot of good things happen,
- 26:51Speaker 3: you know, in the direct connection between human beings, right?
- 26:55Speaker 3: Like we did, you know, in the past where everything
- 26:59Speaker 3: would happen at the rehearsal space. You know, someone would
- 27:02Speaker 3: come with a riff and then they would start playing
- 27:04Speaker 3: drums and I would start screaming on top of it
- 27:06Speaker 3: just to get some, you know, phrasing on top. And
- 27:08Speaker 3: then it will just evolve naturally into something. which is
- 27:13Speaker 3: kind of the same way it is now, but it's
- 27:16Speaker 3: a much more kind of technical, distant kind of process. Whereas, again,
- 27:20Speaker 3: someone would send some ideas on email and then, you know,
- 27:24Speaker 3: everybody would just listen to it. Okay, do we like
- 27:26Speaker 3: it or not? If everybody likes it, then we will
- 27:29Speaker 3: go to the next step or maybe David would put
- 27:31Speaker 3: some drums on it or I will try some melodies,
- 27:33Speaker 3: like just kind of like that. I think it was
- 27:36Speaker 3: more fun back in the days when we were together, actually.
- 27:40Speaker 2: With how technical this record is sounding so far, to
- 27:44Speaker 2: me at least, I feel like you'd have to have
- 27:48Speaker 2: so much more focus being in different places all over
- 27:52Speaker 2: the place, right? That would be very difficult, I would imagine,
- 27:56Speaker 2: because it's like, alright, so we've got these nine different
- 27:58Speaker 2: parts that are all very technical and have their own
- 28:02Speaker 2: kind of like crazy polyrhythms and times and stuff like that.
- 28:05Speaker 4: Right.
- 28:05Speaker 2: But like, how do you get it to gel together
- 28:08Speaker 2: so well? Because that seems like a monumental task.
- 28:14Speaker 3: Not really, to be honest. I mean, yeah, it's just
- 28:18Speaker 3: a matter of like what, let's say Ole has an idea.
- 28:21Speaker 3: He would have a couple of guitars recorded, maybe in
- 28:24Speaker 3: the bass. And then he's probably, sometimes he's programmed the
- 28:27Speaker 3: drums just like to get some feeling for it. And,
- 28:31Speaker 3: you know, everybody understands the idea. Uh, and if, if
- 28:34Speaker 3: it's good and everybody likes it, then, you know, Chris
- 28:37Speaker 3: and Ola were like, Chris would learn his part and
- 28:40Speaker 3: record it on his side. Ola would record it on
- 28:42Speaker 3: his side. David would record the drums and then I'll
- 28:45Speaker 3: do the vocals. So yeah, it hasn't really been hard
- 28:50Speaker 3: in that sense.
- 28:53Speaker 1: So for you vocally, you know, with Harada, you're like
- 28:57Speaker 1: exclusively singing. And obviously with Entheosis, you know, it's a
- 29:01Speaker 1: little bit different of a project than Harada. I'm curious,
- 29:05Speaker 1: like for you, like, you know, again, last album was 2013.
- 29:08Speaker 1: You know, I would imagine it's not like you've been
- 29:11Speaker 1: screaming a lot over this last decade or so. And so, yeah,
- 29:17Speaker 1: like what's the, what's been the process of like kind
- 29:19Speaker 1: of getting your voice back ready to scream again and
- 29:22Speaker 1: screaming quite a bit?
- 29:24Speaker 3: Yeah. It's been... It's kind of like riding a bike,
- 29:30Speaker 3: to be honest. Like if you just learned it as
- 29:33Speaker 3: a kid, like if you don't ride a bike for
- 29:36Speaker 3: 10 years and you get back on it, you'll still
- 29:38Speaker 3: ride the bike pretty good. Right. but of course I
- 29:42Speaker 3: want to challenge myself I always do when I do
- 29:44Speaker 3: vocals so I've tried to evolve somehow but still keeping
- 29:50Speaker 3: my signature stuff and what I've been working the most
- 29:56Speaker 3: on for this album is the clean singing um kind
- 30:01Speaker 3: of challenging myself to sing try to sing better somehow
- 30:06Speaker 3: yeah so uh yeah it's it's been pretty yeah not
- 30:12Speaker 3: too hard with the screaming part and uh then i
- 30:15Speaker 3: worked quite hard with uh with the clean singing stuff
- 30:17Speaker 3: to get better.
- 30:21Speaker 1: Does it i've just i'm always like fascinated with especially
- 30:24Speaker 1: with the kind of screaming that you do it's just
- 30:25Speaker 1: like you must scream in a way where it's not
- 30:28Speaker 1: super hard on your vocal cords because, you know, I
- 30:31Speaker 1: just can't imagine like going from like not screaming for
- 30:34Speaker 1: quite some time to doing the kind of screaming you're
- 30:36Speaker 1: doing where like, it just feels like it's gotta be
- 30:39Speaker 1: one of those things where it's like, you know, like
- 30:41Speaker 1: if I were to try to play a football game
- 30:43Speaker 1: right now, I'd probably get injured pretty quickly because I'm
- 30:45Speaker 1: not like, you know, I'm not trained for that anymore
- 30:47Speaker 1: the way I used to be. So like, I would
- 30:49Speaker 1: imagine it's gotta be, I don't know, maybe it's not
- 30:52Speaker 1: similar in terms of singing, but in my mind, I'm like,
- 30:55Speaker 1: When I think of you, like you're singing or you're
- 30:57Speaker 1: screaming that like all of a sudden, if you start
- 30:59Speaker 1: going from not really doing much screaming to now starting
- 31:02Speaker 1: to scream again quite a bit, it feels like it
- 31:05Speaker 1: would be hard on your vocal cords, but I don't know,
- 31:07Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong.
- 31:07Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a little bit to get into, but
- 31:10Speaker 3: I mean, it takes like one session to kind of
- 31:13Speaker 3: find the technique again. But I don't like, it's so
- 31:17Speaker 3: funny because I see all this new, like for the
- 31:20Speaker 3: past years, this metal vocalist these days, Oh.
- 31:26Speaker 4: Yeah, what's her name? Melissa Cross.
- 31:29Speaker 3: They have such great technique and they're kind of like
- 31:32Speaker 3: just showing you how to scream with all the different techniques.
- 31:34Speaker 3: And I'm like, I just scream my guts out, to
- 31:38Speaker 3: be honest. I spend so much unnecessary energy and I'm
- 31:44Speaker 3: just like exhausted after screaming for a couple of hours.
- 31:48Speaker 3: It's just like, you know.
- 31:49Speaker 2: But that's why you've got an eight pack, right?
- 31:52Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 31:52Speaker 2: You've just got washboard abs.
- 31:57Speaker 3: This doesn't help i would have but this doesn't.
- 32:02Speaker 2: Help the beer i'll dang it i tell you what.
- 32:07Speaker 1: Yeah what was something with this album that you guys
- 32:11Speaker 1: uh maybe maybe it's a sound thing maybe it was
- 32:13Speaker 1: lyrical but what's something that felt like.
- 32:15Speaker 4: Very new for you guys um that you were exploring.
- 32:17Speaker 1: With this album that maybe you hadn't explored before uh
- 32:20Speaker 1: with the previous album.
- 32:25Speaker 3: It's a good question what I really enjoyed about some
- 32:29Speaker 3: of the parts of the new album, uh, that we
- 32:32Speaker 3: haven't done much, I guess, since at least the early
- 32:36Speaker 3: days is we are diving a little bit into some
- 32:40Speaker 3: pretty awesome black metal parts here and there. Uh, and
- 32:46Speaker 3: that just gave me so much joy. Uh, like it's, uh,
- 32:50Speaker 3: it's super fun. And then in the mix, uh, That
- 32:54Speaker 3: was one of the few times we were all together.
- 32:56Speaker 3: We all traveled over to Jens Bogren in Fascination Street
- 32:59Speaker 3: in Sweden for him to mix the album. And when
- 33:03Speaker 3: we were mixing the songs that had this black element,
- 33:07Speaker 3: we were just like, hey, let's go all in. Let's
- 33:11Speaker 3: just go all the way. So that was, to me
- 33:17Speaker 3: and to us, I think the other guys as well,
- 33:19Speaker 3: felt refreshing for us. so I really really enjoyed that
- 33:26Speaker 3: and also what I talked about a little bit earlier
- 33:29Speaker 3: with my clean vocals that was also something I felt
- 33:33Speaker 3: I kind of yeah developed in a way that I
- 33:36Speaker 3: felt was really good both singing wise but also some
- 33:39Speaker 3: of the melodies that I made yeah ended up something
- 33:45Speaker 3: new that I don't think we have done in Extol
- 33:49Speaker 3: before so yeah for me at least it was those
- 33:53Speaker 3: two things was probably the most fun.
- 33:56Speaker 2: I would say my favorite thing about it is it
- 33:57Speaker 2: feels like every tune is, uh, it's a complete mystery
- 34:03Speaker 2: box as to what you're going to hear next.
- 34:05Speaker 3: Right.
- 34:06Speaker 2: It feels like a genre bends so much and I
- 34:09Speaker 2: love it, but like, it almost like tracks right into
- 34:12Speaker 2: a certain genre and then immediately switches right into a
- 34:14Speaker 2: new genre. And it's such a fascinating and fun way to, to, uh,
- 34:20Speaker 2: to listen. But you're talking about your vocals, your clean
- 34:24Speaker 2: vocals especially, and your melodies especially. Do you feel like
- 34:29Speaker 2: doing stuff with Harada and stuff like that has really
- 34:32Speaker 2: improved your melody writing? Because I'm feeling a lot more
- 34:36Speaker 2: of that pop sensibility almost kind of come through, or
- 34:40Speaker 2: almost like earworm-y kind of melodies coming through.
- 34:46Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like the whole RADA project
- 34:53Speaker 3: for me has been super developing and yeah, a project,
- 34:57Speaker 3: you know, a genre I've never done before. So I've
- 34:59Speaker 3: spent some years now with that and it's of course
- 35:02Speaker 3: made me another kind of songwriter and with a lot
- 35:06Speaker 3: of focus on vocal melodies. so yeah 100% and also
- 35:12Speaker 3: Ole and David are also excellent pop warm melody writers
- 35:19Speaker 3: so it's a great combo there with all our melodies
- 35:23Speaker 3: combined it's super.
- 35:25Speaker 2: Fun yeah especially Ole's yacht rock sensibilities.
- 35:30Speaker 3: Yeah that's true that is true but I mean to
- 35:33Speaker 3: me David he is like he When David writes pop melodies,
- 35:40Speaker 3: my heart just melts.
- 35:44Speaker 2: He's kind of the dark horse of the band, isn't.
- 35:49Speaker 3: He? No, he's the glam dude of the band.
- 35:53Speaker 2: Yeah, but as a listener, he's the last guy I
- 35:58Speaker 2: would imagine to have that kind of vibe. You know
- 36:01Speaker 2: what I mean?
- 36:03Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, no, David writes the most,
- 36:09Speaker 3: sometimes super crazy melodies, but I usually love them. And
- 36:14Speaker 3: then sometimes it just turns into this pop beauties that
- 36:19Speaker 3: are just so lovely. Yeah.
- 36:22Speaker 4: And you guys do it. You guys do that so well.
- 36:25Speaker 4: I'm curious, I'm curious with like, just what inspired making
- 36:30Speaker 4: new Extol music?
- 36:32Speaker 1: Was it something where maybe each one of you guys
- 36:34Speaker 1: were just kind of, you know, starting to, you know, like,
- 36:38Speaker 1: you know, maybe Oli or whatever, or maybe it was
- 36:42Speaker 1: David or you or whatever, maybe you were starting to
- 36:44Speaker 1: write some stuff where you're like, this doesn't quite fit
- 36:46Speaker 1: Harada or this doesn't quite fit this project. It kind
- 36:48Speaker 1: of sounds more extal. Was it something like that where
- 36:51Speaker 1: you guys were just kind of creatively individually kind of
- 36:53Speaker 1: doing your own thing and then kind of realizing like, oh,
- 36:56Speaker 1: there's maybe there's some more extal stuff here. Or was
- 36:58Speaker 1: it something where one of you kind of came together
- 37:00Speaker 1: and you're like, let's, let's try this again. What inspired
- 37:05Speaker 1: you to even want to make another XTOL album?
- 37:10Speaker 3: Honestly, I don't remember. I do remember we sat down
- 37:14Speaker 3: the first time like three and a half, four years
- 37:16Speaker 3: ago to talk about it. But I don't really remember
- 37:21Speaker 3: what sparked that idea to do a new album, to
- 37:25Speaker 3: be honest. So ask David, he always remembers everything. Yeah. Yeah.
- 37:31Speaker 3: I don't know what to answer. Right.
- 37:34Speaker 1: But maybe, maybe for you then individually, like what, what
- 37:36Speaker 1: made you want to be a part of another XTOL album?
- 37:39Speaker 3: Right. It might actually have been Chris, maybe, maybe David
- 37:44Speaker 3: and Chris, cause they were working on Azusa album, I think.
- 37:50Speaker 3: And then probably they just finished that. And yeah, Maybe
- 37:55Speaker 3: they started, you know, hey, you know, Chris maybe wanted
- 37:58Speaker 3: to do something again with XTOL. Maybe that's how it started.
- 38:02Speaker 3: For me, I think all of us were quite, do
- 38:05Speaker 3: you say ambivalent in English as well?
- 38:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 38:09Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we all were quite ambivalent when we
- 38:13Speaker 3: were sitting there in the first meeting with the four
- 38:15Speaker 3: of us and like, okay, are we really going down
- 38:18Speaker 3: this road again? uh we know how much effort it
- 38:21Speaker 3: takes you know uh we're not getting getting any younger
- 38:25Speaker 3: uh we know it's going to be super hard we
- 38:27Speaker 3: are very different personalities we have very different musical tastes
- 38:33Speaker 3: these days you know ule working on his things me
- 38:35Speaker 3: with rada chris and dave with you know azusa it's
- 38:39Speaker 3: very different styles of music and so i think all
- 38:42Speaker 3: of us were quite ambivalent and uh I think we
- 38:46Speaker 3: spend some time just everybody in themselves like, this is
- 38:49Speaker 3: really worth it. But for me, I felt like coming
- 38:55Speaker 3: back to music, which, you know, happened for me under
- 38:59Speaker 3: the COVID thing. I started Radha and suddenly music became
- 39:04Speaker 3: something fun for me again after, you know, 10 years
- 39:07Speaker 3: where I hadn't been doing any music at all. So
- 39:10Speaker 3: I was kind of like at a creative high. I
- 39:14Speaker 3: felt I had a lot of energy, a lot of creativity,
- 39:17Speaker 3: a lot of drive. So for me, it was like, yeah, okay,
- 39:21Speaker 3: if everybody wants to do this, then let's go. I
- 39:24Speaker 3: have a lot to to offer and a lot of
- 39:27Speaker 3: time and energy to put into it. And I thought
- 39:29Speaker 3: it was fun, like, you know, to do something, who knows,
- 39:33Speaker 3: maybe this is the last thing we will do. I
- 39:35Speaker 3: don't know, but you know, to do something again with
- 39:37Speaker 3: crystal also would be super nice. So yeah, it was
- 39:41Speaker 3: for me, it made sense to, to, to give it
- 39:43Speaker 3: another go, you know?
- 39:45Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 39:45Speaker 2: Were you the, were you the hardest one to convince?
- 39:50Speaker 5: No, no.
- 39:51Speaker 3: I think maybe David was a little bit unsure about
- 39:57Speaker 3: the whole thing because, yeah, he saw all the problems
- 40:02Speaker 3: I had with us four trying to agree on something.
- 40:07Speaker 1: So with a new Extol album, does it mean that
- 40:10Speaker 1: you all are going to grow out your hair again
- 40:13Speaker 1: and do a bunch of white makeup?
- 40:16Speaker 4: It's getting long. You've got nice hair. You always wear
- 40:22Speaker 4: a hat every time we interview you, but you've got
- 40:25Speaker 4: good hair, man.
- 40:27Speaker 2: Wow. Did you just do the tongue flick? That was
- 40:31Speaker 2: too much.
- 40:33Speaker 4: Oh, yeah?
- 40:34Speaker 3: Is this like a Christian podcast or something?
- 40:37Speaker 4: I can see why you're married. Holy cow. You had
- 40:39Speaker 4: my heart fluttering for a little second.
- 40:42Speaker 2: You've got good 90s flow. Yeah, like 90s boy band flow.
- 40:49Speaker 3: Totally. My kids are saying that it's getting thin, so
- 40:53Speaker 3: they're kind of making fun of me that my hair
- 40:55Speaker 3: is thin.
- 40:56Speaker 4: That doesn't look thin at all.
- 40:57Speaker 2: You've got the straightest hairline I've ever seen. That's awesome.
- 41:05Speaker 1: So we shouldn't expect long hair down past the shoulders anymore?
- 41:11Speaker 3: Nope.
- 41:15Speaker 4: Really hoping that, but.
- 41:17Speaker 3: Yeah, it is what it is. We might do wigs.
- 41:24Speaker 3: Who knows? Wigs.
- 41:26Speaker 4: There you go.
- 41:27Speaker 2: Will you do wigs?
- 41:27Speaker 4: That'd be fun.
- 41:28Speaker 2: When will you do wigs? I hope that reference lands.
- 41:33Speaker 2: I hope everyone knows what I'm talking about.
- 41:34Speaker 4: I have no idea what that is.
- 41:36Speaker 3: I have no idea either.
- 41:38Speaker 2: Oh, okay. It's, it's, it's from a Lord of the
- 41:39Speaker 2: Rings behind the scenes thing that became a big one.
- 41:42Speaker 3: Okay.
- 41:42Speaker 4: So, oh, no, there we go.
- 41:46Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 41:46Speaker 2: Somebody will get it out there. I'm sure.
- 41:51Speaker 4: Colin, you have any more questions about the album?
- 41:53Speaker 2: Uh, not about the album, but I do, I do
- 41:56Speaker 2: want to know what's going on with, with Rada and, uh, entheosis.
- 42:02Speaker 2: What's the, what's the timeline look like? Because I will
- 42:04Speaker 2: say Harada last year, two years ago, sorry, was, uh,
- 42:09Speaker 2: my number two, most listened to band of the year
- 42:11Speaker 2: or not artists, I should say.
- 42:13Speaker 3: So, wow.
- 42:15Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely love Rada. And that's coming from a metalhead,
- 42:21Speaker 2: so you've got crossover.
- 42:24Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean, I've been simultaneously working for new
- 42:29Speaker 3: albums with Extol, Rada, and Entheosis for basically three plus years-ish.
- 42:36Speaker 3: So with Entheosis, we have released, is it our sixth
- 42:42Speaker 3: or fifth? I don't remember a single just this Friday,
- 42:47Speaker 3: we released a new one called Oblivion with Bruce from
- 42:50Speaker 3: Living Sacrifice. And it's so good. Which was super, super fun.
- 42:55Speaker 3: I mean, as I said earlier, like Living has been
- 42:58Speaker 3: one of my, you know, influential bands back in the days.
- 43:02Speaker 3: And of course, Bruce is a lovely guy. And he
- 43:05Speaker 3: stepped in for me when we played Furnace Fest, you know,
- 43:09Speaker 3: on vocals. And yeah, so I thought it was super
- 43:11Speaker 3: nice to have him on the Intiose song. Yeah, and
- 43:15Speaker 3: then we're doing one more single in like a month
- 43:19Speaker 3: or so-ish. And then we will release all those songs
- 43:23Speaker 3: plus another four songs, I guess, ish.
- 43:27Speaker 4: Nice, beautiful.
- 43:28Speaker 3: As a full album in the new year sometime.
- 43:32Speaker 2: Sweet.
- 43:34Speaker 3: Yeah, it's super nice. I love doing this project with
- 43:38Speaker 3: John Reichardt, the other half of Inteosis. He's so talented
- 43:46Speaker 3: as a songwriter, as a musician, as a producer. He
- 43:52Speaker 3: produces and mixes all of this, except for the last
- 43:54Speaker 3: one we did with Jesse Ceretti. That was George Lever
- 43:57Speaker 3: who mixed it. But other than that, he's mixed everything.
- 44:01Speaker 3: And yeah, it's so lovely working with him. And yeah,
- 44:04Speaker 3: he's such an awesome guy. Super smart.
- 44:07Speaker 4: Very, very nice.
- 44:09Speaker 3: Yeah. So I love that project.
- 44:12Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 44:12Speaker 3: And with Radha, I mean... I've probably said this earlier,
- 44:16Speaker 3: I think with you guys, but I mean, Radha is
- 44:18Speaker 3: my baby, uh, for the past years. And it's what
- 44:23Speaker 3: I really.
- 44:23Speaker 5: Yeah, where I feel I can be really.
- 44:26Speaker 3: Really a hundred percent myself in the songwriting. Um, on
- 44:31Speaker 3: the past album or the first album we did, uh,
- 44:35Speaker 3: it was with Osman, uh, and he quit after the
- 44:38Speaker 3: first album. Uh, now I'm writing with, uh, Brazilian guy,
- 44:43Speaker 3: friend of mine, called Vinicius Cavalieri. He lives in Canada.
- 44:47Speaker 3: So again, it's just long distance stuff. And we're taking
- 44:52Speaker 3: it a little bit in another direction. The first album
- 44:56Speaker 3: was very orchestral, you know, just so many things going
- 45:00Speaker 3: on at the same time. Yeah, so lush.
- 45:02Speaker 4: I still remember you saying that there was like a
- 45:04Speaker 4: hundred tracks.
- 45:05Speaker 3: On each one of the songs on the garage band.
- 45:09Speaker 3: Which I love and it was so right for us
- 45:12Speaker 3: to do that with me and Osman. Both of us
- 45:16Speaker 3: are like more and more is more kind of guys.
- 45:20Speaker 3: But with this one, I kind of wanted to challenge
- 45:22Speaker 3: myself to write stuff that is a little bit more
- 45:26Speaker 3: simplistic and to kind of have more space for feelings,
- 45:32Speaker 3: to breathe and to kind of, yeah, just again, just
- 45:35Speaker 3: try to develop myself in some ways. So now it's more, yeah,
- 45:41Speaker 3: almost no orchestral stuff at all. Much more into like
- 45:47Speaker 3: the 70s, I guess you could say like progressive singer-songwriter
- 45:51Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
- 45:53Speaker 4: Like something like Rush?
- 45:56Speaker 3: No, not rock.
- 45:58Speaker 2: More like Donovan or something like that.
- 46:02Speaker 3: Yeah, Simon and Garfunkel, the more crazy songs from them,
- 46:07Speaker 3: Joni Mitchell. But again, with, of course, my thing on it,
- 46:14Speaker 3: so it doesn't sound like that at all. So yeah,
- 46:17Speaker 3: I'm super excited to get something out, and I've wanted
- 46:21Speaker 3: to release something for quite a while now. But I
- 46:26Speaker 3: just want to wait until Extol and Intelsis is kind
- 46:29Speaker 3: of settled a little bit and everything is out because
- 46:32Speaker 3: I don't want to kind of compete with, you know, attention.
- 46:37Speaker 4: So you've already got a lot of eggs in your basket, so.
- 46:39Speaker 3: Yeah. So, but it will probably be an EP, not
- 46:43Speaker 3: a full album. So I think we'll release, you know,
- 46:47Speaker 3: some songs February, I guess. And then just, yeah. release
- 46:53Speaker 3: some singles and an EP around springtime or something like that. Awesome.
- 46:58Speaker 2: I'm going to be looking forward to it for sure then.
- 47:01Speaker 3: Thanks, Colin.
- 47:02Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 47:03Speaker 1: I love how much music you're putting out right now.
- 47:06Speaker 1: I mean, I know that there was obviously a whole,
- 47:08Speaker 1: almost like a whole decade where you weren't putting out
- 47:10Speaker 1: new music.
- 47:10Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 47:11Speaker 1: But yeah, the fact that you've got Harada, Entheosis, obviously
- 47:14Speaker 1: now new Extol. I just think the world's a better
- 47:16Speaker 1: place when you're putting out music.
- 47:19Speaker 2: This is true.
- 47:19Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. And I'm also producing... the last couple
- 47:23Speaker 3: of years I've started producing just a little bit here
- 47:25Speaker 3: and there for other artists. Just, you know, friends of
- 47:29Speaker 3: mine or smaller artists here in Norway, which has been really, again,
- 47:33Speaker 3: developing for me and fun to help other artists just
- 47:36Speaker 3: find themselves and find their thing, you know? And yeah,
- 47:38Speaker 3: so it's a lot of time spent on music the
- 47:41Speaker 3: past years.
- 47:42Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say so.
- 47:45Speaker 1: Well, Peter, I didn't, I guess we didn't prep you
- 47:47Speaker 1: on this before we started recording, but the fact that
- 47:50Speaker 1: you've been on the podcast a couple of times, we've
- 47:53Speaker 1: asked you typically, I think maybe one time, I'm sure
- 47:55Speaker 1: we asked you your top five most influential albums.
- 47:58Speaker 4: Um, I'm sure we, I think if I remember.
- 48:00Speaker 1: Right, we talked about your guilty pleasure artists, but I
- 48:02Speaker 1: don't think we've done, uh, if I, if I remember right, uh,
- 48:05Speaker 1: and Colin, you have a better memory on this stuff
- 48:07Speaker 1: than I do, but, but we typically, when we have
- 48:09Speaker 1: somebody on for like the third or fourth time, we'll
- 48:11Speaker 1: ask them artists or bands on paper that they should like,
- 48:16Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, they just can't get into, um,
- 48:18Speaker 1: And then on the inverse of that, of bands on
- 48:20Speaker 1: paper that maybe for whatever reason you wouldn't think you
- 48:22Speaker 1: would like, but you just love. So as you're thinking
- 48:26Speaker 1: about what those bands could be, Cullen and I can
- 48:28Speaker 1: kind of give you an example for each one for us.
- 48:31Speaker 1: So like a band on paper that I should like,
- 48:32Speaker 1: but I just can't get into is a band called
- 48:34Speaker 1: Law Dispute. I don't know if you're familiar with Law Dispute,
- 48:36Speaker 1: Peter or not, but they kind of like to me,
- 48:39Speaker 1: this is.
- 48:39Speaker 4: Going to be very disparaging. So if you're listening and
- 48:42Speaker 4: you love Law Dispute, I apologize. This is disparaging.
- 48:46Speaker 1: I think they kind of sound like the JV version
- 48:48Speaker 1: of me without you. And so even though like, I
- 48:51Speaker 1: love me without you, they're one of my favorite bands
- 48:53Speaker 1: of all time. You would think that I would love
- 48:54Speaker 1: law dispute. I just can't get into them though. Like
- 48:57Speaker 1: it just doesn't, doesn't work for me. So that's like
- 48:59Speaker 1: an example for, for me, for that kind of category.
- 49:02Speaker 1: What would you say is a band that on paper
- 49:04Speaker 1: you should like, but you just can't get into other
- 49:06Speaker 1: than next door.
- 49:14Speaker 3: Oh, cut out. Shoot.
- 49:15Speaker 1: While we wait for Cullen, so on the inverse then, Peter,
- 49:20Speaker 1: a band that on paper that I shouldn't like for
- 49:23Speaker 1: whatever reason, but just absolutely love. So I'm not really
- 49:26Speaker 1: into a lot of like folk stuff at all.
- 49:29Speaker 4: But one of my.
- 49:30Speaker 1: Favorite artists of all time is Sufjan Stevens. I just
- 49:33Speaker 1: absolutely love Sufjan Stevens. I think he's just one of
- 49:36Speaker 1: the most talented artists I've ever heard. And I don't
- 49:39Speaker 1: really like a lot of that kind of music for
- 49:41Speaker 1: the most part. but Sufjan is just like truly like
- 49:44Speaker 1: one of my favorites. So anyway, can you think of
- 49:46Speaker 1: a band on paper that you should like, but you
- 49:48Speaker 1: just can't get into?
- 49:51Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Many, but I think the most obvious one
- 49:56Speaker 3: coming from where I come from, the time that I
- 50:00Speaker 3: come from, I should like Metallica, but I, I, I
- 50:06Speaker 3: hate Metallica. I have never enjoyed Metallica. I've never enjoyed
- 50:10Speaker 3: Metallica one single bit. Really? Yeah. So, I mean, I should, like,
- 50:17Speaker 3: there's no reason I shouldn't, but I can't stand Metallica.
- 50:22Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 50:22Speaker 1: Especially like your contemporaries of like other, you know, bands
- 50:25Speaker 1: that you guys would have played with or whatever. You know,
- 50:27Speaker 1: I would, I would imagine like Bruce's like this, like
- 50:30Speaker 1: so many of those bands grew up with Metallica and
- 50:33Speaker 1: that's why they play metal music. so it's just a
- 50:36Speaker 1: common thing especially for like your generation of metal artists
- 50:39Speaker 1: that like everybody started playing metal because of Metallica so
- 50:42Speaker 1: that's crazy that you just like never got into them.
- 50:45Speaker 3: And I would just add one more to me Iron
- 50:51Speaker 3: Maiden is the worst band in the universe really?
- 50:55Speaker 4: Yes that is a hot take Peter it's.
- 50:59Speaker 5: The truth yeah we've talked about it So yeah, hope
- 51:08Speaker 5: that's good enough for you guys.
- 51:10Speaker 4: What about on the inverse?
- 51:11Speaker 1: Like what's a band that on paper you maybe shouldn't like,
- 51:13Speaker 1: but for whatever reason you absolutely love?
- 51:16Speaker 3: So this is nothing you have heard of or any
- 51:18Speaker 3: of the listeners have heard of. So I guess I
- 51:20Speaker 3: have to explain it a little bit, but there's a
- 51:22Speaker 3: Norwegian band that I discovered four years ago called Tiger State.
- 51:29Speaker 3: And they play indie disco music. And there's literally no
- 51:36Speaker 3: reason why I should love that band in any way.
- 51:43Speaker 3: But the first time I heard like 10 seconds of
- 51:46Speaker 3: them live and I fell immediately in love. I don't dance.
- 51:52Speaker 3: I never listened to disco at all. I never really
- 51:55Speaker 3: enjoyed it. But these guys, they just took my heart
- 52:00Speaker 3: and my body and my soul within 10 seconds. And seriously,
- 52:05Speaker 3: I've been listening to them nonstop for four years now.
- 52:09Speaker 3: I can't stop listening to them. And I share them
- 52:13Speaker 3: with every person I meet when we talk about music. Like, hey,
- 52:18Speaker 3: go listen to Tiger States. So it's really weird, but
- 52:22Speaker 3: they just make me so happy. And their lyrics are
- 52:26Speaker 3: so charming and romantic in a funny way. And yeah.
- 52:33Speaker 4: Are they just like really great live as well.
- 52:36Speaker 3: They are awesome like they're like sometimes eight nine ten
- 52:40Speaker 3: people when i saw them first i think they were
- 52:42Speaker 3: like in their mid-20s like quite young kids and they
- 52:47Speaker 3: played so well like crazy ridiculously well and they were
- 52:55Speaker 3: grooving so much they had two drummers and they had
- 52:57Speaker 3: like some brass and guitars and some strings. It was
- 53:01Speaker 3: just like, wow, this, this is insane. So yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.
- 53:07Speaker 1: I'll have to, I'll have to check them out. Uh,
- 53:09Speaker 1: that's exactly what I was kind of hoping for that
- 53:11Speaker 1: type of pick where it's like, yeah, I would never, like,
- 53:14Speaker 1: I would never peg you as a disco guy, but
- 53:16Speaker 1: like one of your favorite bands right now is a
- 53:18Speaker 1: disco band.
- 53:19Speaker 4: That's so cool.
- 53:21Speaker 3: I have to add the story about when I heard
- 53:23Speaker 3: it the first time. I'm a part of this organization
- 53:25Speaker 3: in Norway with the composers, like songwriters, lyricists, and composers.
- 53:31Speaker 3: And once a year, we have this big party, like
- 53:35Speaker 3: seminars and stuff like that. And then we have a
- 53:36Speaker 3: big party with dinner and then some artists that will
- 53:40Speaker 3: play for everyone. And that year, they had booked this
- 53:45Speaker 3: Tiger set. I don't think there were any people there
- 53:47Speaker 3: that I ever heard of them before. And suddenly like
- 53:53Speaker 3: 10 young kids came in running from the back of
- 53:55Speaker 3: the hall. I think it was to like some Star
- 53:59Speaker 3: Wars soundtrack or something. It was like, you know, Jolie
- 54:03Speaker 3: running in up on stage and everybody was like, okay,
- 54:06Speaker 3: what's this? And again, like after 10, 15 seconds, I
- 54:10Speaker 3: think we're like 250 people in the room. And within
- 54:13Speaker 3: 10 seconds, everybody were standing up and dancing like that's,
- 54:19Speaker 3: And you have to remember that in that room, there
- 54:24Speaker 3: is people like me, not very famous songwriters at all,
- 54:28Speaker 3: up until the most famous artists and songwriters in Norway.
- 54:32Speaker 3: And you don't, it's not so easy to convince this
- 54:38Speaker 3: group of people about music, if you understand what I mean.
- 54:41Speaker 3: Everybody's kind of like, yeah, you know, what's this? But everybody, yeah,
- 54:45Speaker 3: we were just like captivated by, at once it was
- 54:49Speaker 3: so fun so.
- 54:50Speaker 4: That's so cool are there are there lyrics in are
- 54:53Speaker 4: they do they sing in English or they sing in Norwegian.
- 54:55Speaker 3: Uh English a little bit French uh a little bit
- 55:00Speaker 3: Italian I think but mostly.
- 55:01Speaker 1: English yeah wow okay cool yeah is it common for
- 55:06Speaker 1: most Norwegian artists to sing in English uh yeah is
- 55:09Speaker 1: that is that a common thing like or are there
- 55:12Speaker 1: like some artists that are kind of like they stick
- 55:14Speaker 1: to their roots of just only singing in Norwegian Yeah.
- 55:17Speaker 3: Quite a lot sing in Norwegian, but most sing in
- 55:20Speaker 3: English also, I guess. So, yeah, it's very common to
- 55:24Speaker 3: sing English.
- 55:25Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I would imagine if you want to
- 55:27Speaker 1: break out of Norway, you're probably going to have to
- 55:29Speaker 1: sing in English. Although, like, I mean, obviously, like one
- 55:31Speaker 1: of my favorite bands of all time is Sigur Rós.
- 55:33Speaker 1: And obviously that's all in Icelandic. But that's like you
- 55:37Speaker 1: almost have to be like transcendentally good like Sigur Rós
- 55:39Speaker 1: in order to be able to do that. But other
- 55:42Speaker 1: than that, it's probably pretty difficult to break out of
- 55:45Speaker 1: the Norwegian market if.
- 55:46Speaker 4: You're only singing in Norwegian.
- 55:49Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
- 55:50Speaker 4: I get that. Well, those are great picks.
- 55:53Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to be looking up this Italian disco band.
- 55:56Speaker 1: This sounds so much fun.
- 55:58Speaker 3: Yeah, Tiger Sides. Go check it out. Sweet.
- 56:02Speaker 4: Peter, what do you want to plug?
- 56:03Speaker 1: Obviously, New Extols coming out, I think it's at the
- 56:06Speaker 1: end of November, right, is when the album comes out?
- 56:09Speaker 3: Album comes out November 6th. So early November.
- 56:12Speaker 4: Oh, early November. Okay. So about like six weeks from now.
- 56:15Speaker 3: Yeah. So we have a new, the third single will
- 56:18Speaker 3: be released in October and then full album November 6th.
- 56:24Speaker 4: Love it.
- 56:24Speaker 2: Love it.
- 56:25Speaker 1: Are people, so I guess we could have touched on this,
- 56:28Speaker 1: but we didn't, but obviously it's getting released on solid state,
- 56:31Speaker 1: which is super exciting. Can we expect it on vinyl
- 56:35Speaker 1: or anything? Can we get any physical merch or anything
- 56:38Speaker 1: like that with this new album cycle?
- 56:39Speaker 3: 100%. You can already now pre-order the vinyl, the CD.
- 56:46Speaker 3: And I want to plug this because we are also
- 56:49Speaker 3: releasing the Synergy album on vinyl soon. Oh, um, which
- 56:53Speaker 3: is also, it's been out for pre-order now for a month,
- 56:56Speaker 3: I think. So it will be out in October, mid October,
- 57:00Speaker 3: late October, but you know, it's still possible to pre-order. Uh,
- 57:04Speaker 3: so yeah. And also a lot of new merch coming out,
- 57:07Speaker 3: of course, with a new album. So it's going to
- 57:08Speaker 3: be a lot of physical stuff that people can get.
- 57:12Speaker 1: Have you, I'm sure they're probably still in the production
- 57:14Speaker 1: process of the actual, like the new album with the vinyl,
- 57:18Speaker 1: but I would imagine you've got some really cool colors
- 57:20Speaker 1: and everything, right?
- 57:20Speaker 3: Uh, it's solid state just, uh, have kind of full
- 57:26Speaker 3: control of it. As I understood, it's just one edition
- 57:30Speaker 3: and it's got some cool colors. Yeah.
- 57:32Speaker 4: Okay, cool.
- 57:34Speaker 3: Sweet.
- 57:34Speaker 4: Well, I'm excited for it.
- 57:35Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 57:35Speaker 1: And then, uh, I know, again, I know you guys
- 57:38Speaker 1: aren't touring a ton right now, but, uh, can we
- 57:40Speaker 1: expect like any shows at some point, uh, in the future?
- 57:44Speaker 3: Yeah, there will be some, a couple are already booked. Uh,
- 57:48Speaker 3: I don't think I can plug.
- 57:50Speaker 5: Any of them, but, uh, yeah.
- 57:51Speaker 3: All right.
- 57:52Speaker 4: Well, but, But at some point?
- 57:54Speaker 3: At some point, I don't know, hopefully in the U.S.
- 57:57Speaker 4: As well.
- 57:57Speaker 3: But I mean, with the experience we had last time
- 58:00Speaker 3: with the visas and all that shit, I mean, it
- 58:04Speaker 3: costs so much money and it's so hard, to be honest,
- 58:08Speaker 3: to go over to the U.S. these days. But let's see.
- 58:11Speaker 3: Who knows?
- 58:12Speaker 1: Well, hopefully, you know, if we get a new president,
- 58:14Speaker 1: maybe we can then finally expect some extol shows.
- 58:20Speaker 3: That'd be great.
- 58:22Speaker 4: Awesome.
- 58:22Speaker 3: Sweet.
- 58:22Speaker 1: Well, Peter, uh, you're the best. It's always just the
- 58:25Speaker 1: best to chat with you. I really want to go
- 58:27Speaker 1: to Norway at some point. I love, I love Scandinavian
- 58:32Speaker 1: culture so much. I love, I love just the Norwegian, uh,
- 58:36Speaker 1: geometry or geometry, the geography of Norway. I love, just
- 58:40Speaker 1: love Scandinavian food. I just like love the whole culture.
- 58:43Speaker 1: So I'd love to, to come to Norway at some point.
- 58:46Speaker 1: It'd be just so much fun to hang out with
- 58:47Speaker 1: you and, um, and yeah, just experience a little bit
- 58:50Speaker 1: in Norway. So Yeah, hopefully at some point I can
- 58:53Speaker 1: head over and we can have a beer.
- 58:55Speaker 3: Sounds great. You're more than welcome.
- 58:57Speaker 4: Anytime. Thank you so much, man.
- 58:59Speaker 3: All right. Cheers. Thanks, guys.