One of the most influential symphonic black metal bands ever – that is definitely Norwegian Dimmu Borgir. Their ninth studio album is gonna be released in few weeks and that´s why we wanted to bring to our readers some interesting information about their album entitled Abrahadabra. New material sounds really amazing but it´s all a bit mysterious because of the recent changes in the line-up of the band. Galder, the guitarist of the band, lifts the veil of secrecy of the album and some other interesting information.

Abrahadabra, sometimes translated as "I will create as I speak", was created by author Aleister Crowley in his work, Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). This is also the title of your newest album. What did inspire you to choose the title like that? I mean to name album in this way...

Well, first of all we wanted to have a title that wasn´t three words. We did so many new things on this album so we also wanted the title that was not a three words. I think there was some lyrics on this album that dealt with Aleister Crowley and his work so it was just a natural choice to use the title like that. For us it means something like rebirth and karma and transfusion of new blood. We really thought that that title suits to the album overall very good so yeah...that´s the main thing.

This time you also changed the whole style, the entire image of the band. I mean you use furs instead of leather for example. What can actually your fans expect? Are there, on the album, some new elements that you have never used before?

Yeah, there´s many. I mean we use choir and we have never used choir before. And there´s a lot of different sample works, full around with like some crazy ideas. This is definitely the most experimental album we´ve ever done. And yeah, there´s a new style and image. We have to wait and see. But we wanted this to be a surprise. If we knew exactly we wouldn´t tell you anyway (laugh).

How will you perform it live?

Yeah, it´s real challenge to recreate it live. But of course we have to have something on tape, you know for the fans to hear all the stuff because we can´t play all the sample stuff. But we really want to play that for the fans with not just guitars and keyboards but to hear all the other details as well and the orchestra. I think we will use something on tape.

The cover artwork of the album, designed by Joachim Luetke, who described the artwork's setting as "icy, bleak, wintery, post-industrial“, is also very interesting. Can you explain the meaning of the face? What´s the story behind?

Well, it´s actually not as compicated as it sounds. At first, we wanted to have something that deal with cold, ice and bluish colours. But we really didn´t know what to do. We had some ideas and we really didn´t become happy with it. Actually we had a photo session and Shagrath has his mask which you´ve probably seen in a couple of photos and the photographer just took the picture of that mask and he went home and he worked with the picture in some photoshop and he came with the idea for cover. So the cover is actually Shagrath´s mask. We were like: “Ah this is cool!“ It´s also cool to have the mask on the cover because then you don´t really know what on the mist of the mask. So you also get the mysterious element in that you know. Yeah, that´s the story of that. We wanted to have very simple cover, not really lots of crazy stuff...like a playing cover you know.

But it´s very nice, actually it´s amazing!

Thank you!

You used to compose songs together with Mustis and Vortex. I mean especially Mustis was very important. This time you did it alone, I mean all three of you. Was different or maybe even more difficult?

I mean we three are the main songwriters always. All members always contribute so it wasn´t really different in those aspects. Actually for me it´s a lot easier because I have another band and I´m use to working alone so the less people the better. It´ s a lot easier for three people that for six people. But I think actually on this album it´s very much like a team. We all really knew what the things should sound like and Shagrath on the keyboard parts, you know I do some guitar parts and we just mixed all those elements together. It was like a really good team working and really organized. It was very smooth actually. It´s the smoothest album we´ve done actually as far as working is concerned.

How long have you been working on this album? I mean composing songs and the whole process. Because I´ve read that it was almost one year. Is it true?

Yeah, I mean it took some time. We started like last spring. We were working very hard, we were meeting like 3 or 4 times a week. But I mean at the same time I think is not really that long if you think about all work that it takes you know. And after all that guitars and bass we´ve done vocals and we still need to finalize the sounds for the samples and the keyboard sounds. You know it´s a lot of work. I think we worked like 9-10 moths on it. We went back in for the song and we can make one song and then move to the next one then go back again to the first one so we never worked like before either. We just complete the ideas until the day we left the studio. In the album...we put so many elements in it and we really tried out all this different stuff. I think even in the studio we were experimenting a little with this album. It really wasn´t finish before it was mastered pretty much you know.

Who has been recording this album with you? Did you have some quests in the studio?

Yeah! But it´s a secret (laugh)! No, it´s not a secret but we don´t really want to focus on it because people like to talk about it and we like to see them talk about it. We just think it´s funny! But of course, there´s a girl, female singer and two other quest musicians that sing you know so yeah that´s it. There´s many but we might mention the whole orchestra as well...all the names of 101 people, so it´s the same thing you know. But we don´t wanna do that.

I suppose that you´re not gonna play live gigs only three of you...

No!

Do you have some new band members? Can you tell something more about that?

Yeah, we have new members of course but we would like to choose the best ones. We have many people to choose from and we know a lot of good musicians and of course we will always take the best of the best. We don´t really want to say the names because s*** might happen we might change it you know. We´d like to keep the secret as long as we can.

Who is actually gonna play drums? Daray?

Yeah! I´m not suppose to tell you but...(laugh) It´s not really big secret.

And what about some new video? When can we expect it?

Well, we were just making two new videos in Berlin few weeks ago. I think these are some of the best videos we´ve ever done if not the best. It´s for the Gateways song one of the videos. You´ll see the female singer in the video. It´s really cool. We recorded it in one of the coolest location I´ve ever been to in my life. It was awesome! You´ll see, in the video, the new image, you know.

When will it be out?

I think it will be out in mid-September, 15 or 16 or something like that but I´m not really sure.

And could tell me story of the video? What´s going to be about? If it´s not a secret...

No, it´s not really that much secret thing about the video but, of course, we don´t want to reveal anything. We were doing this different elements we will be playing live...with the guitars, we were acting...just different stuff and we have that female quest singer and she is also part of the video. It´s not really a story, it´s more like some acting a little bit but it´s not a story. We did the video for The Sacrilegious Scorn and that video was really shitty and it was like a story so we didn´t wanna do a story anymore. We wanted to have it more like Progenies of the Great Apocalypse video. It´s not a story, it´s just to make it look cool and that´s the most important thing in the video of course.

I´d like to also ask you something about Old Man´s Child, your second band. What´s new actually?

Oh! Not much! (laugh) I mean, on this last album my contract deal expired. I was done with the contract so now I´m just like relaxing a little bit and see what I´m going to do now. I don´t really want to release Old Man´s Child´s album just to release it you know. I want to see like I have something to release, some good material. I will wait until I have that before I do anything. Right now I ´m gonna be touring with Dimmu Borgir anyway. I just take it some time and see what it takes. But I´m ever restless person too so I might release an album in two months, you know and it might two years or it might never, you never know (laugh).

But anyway the band is still active. Slaves of the World from 2009 is the latest album. Have you got a time to part of two bands at the same time?

Yeah. I mean all of us play in different bands. Shaggy has Chrome Division and Silenoz is in Insidious Disease. So it´s not really anything special, we all have some different stuff. It´s not really that difficult, you know. We just have to make sure to be without work on Old Man´s Child or Insidious Disease when we have Dimmu Borgir. We have to take it step by step and make sure it´s not a crash. We are musicians on full time so we have plenty of time. We have lots of time to work on it.

Thank you very much for your time and this interview.

Yeah! I thank you! It was my pleasure!

I can´t wait to see you on tour!

Good! So see you there!

Have a nice day and good luck with your new album!

You too and thank you very much!

added: 15.09.2010

Added: Dominika Nováková