Rockezine.com interview with Green Carnation on Jul 28, 2003

with Tchort on Jul 28, 2003


		Hello there! How are you doing? Hey! Doing alright here, thank you!
		The record has been out for a couple of months now and I have to say this, I love every single second on it! How have the rest of the reactions been so far? I believe we are all overwhelmed by the reactions it has gotten so far. I mean, it was voted 6 times album of the month (Terrorizer, Metal Hammer, BW&BK, etc.). We thought it would be very hard to top the scores that Light of Day, Day of Darkness got when it was released, but we are far beyond that now. We also performed half the new album live recently, and I am happy to say that the songs worked out great in a live situation and the audience were really happy about our performance.
		On of the founding members of Green Carnation is a former Emperor member as well. Isn’t this a bit hard to mix together? I can imagine that Emperor fans might be somewhat disappointed because this band is totally different. It was a problem for the first album, as the label put a big sticker on the front cover, announcing the new band of Ex Emperor/Satyricon member, and I read in some forums, that some hardcore black metal fans had bought the album and it was nothing like they had expected. From the doom side, the album had great reactions and I think that is the case with Green Carnation, that if you have an open mind, you will love the band, but if you expect a band that will continue in the same path or that will make the same album over and over again, you are going to hate us because we will be messing with your head with each album.
		Instead of doing another 1 song full length album, this is a true full length with 9 songs. What made you decide to do this? Because we had already done two non-typical full length albums. The first album had 4 songs lasting 72 minutes while Light of Day… was one song clocking at 60 minutes. We wanted to try something new for Green Carnation, and doing a “regular” album was something we still hadn’t tried.
		The band has had a lot of vocalists but now you’ve got a permanent singer. Was it hard to find someone like Kjetil Nordhus? We were forced to use different vocalists on our first album, for reasons we have explained many times before. Kjetil was found through a mutual friend and was taken into the ranks even though we never had the chance to hear him out prior, because he hadn’t been in a band previously. Needless to say, I am happy I followed my gut feeling….
		How’s the video coming along? If I only knew…. I know its still in the editing process and if it ever will come through that stage, I don’t know at this point…
		On the front of the new album, there’s a well dressed child. What does this have to do with the record itself? It’s a visualisation of the lyrics on the song The Boy in The Attic and is also linked to the title of the album, A Blessing in Disguise.
		I personally found it very hard to put you in a precise place, musically. Where do you think you fit in? I don’t now, as we change from each album. However, I feel that the terms atmospheric & progressive is represented on all three albums, so I guess it can be described as Atmospheric prog rock.
		What about touring…? Is there going to be a tour in Europe any time soon or are you busy putting it together? We hope to do a tour in Europe and in the USA eventually but right now, only a few summer festivals are booked.
		Do you consider yourselves a live band? Because the reactions to your Wacken performance were amazing. We have only done 4 shows since the reunion, and one of them was the Wacken show. I think we are a live band, and I base that on that the Wacken show was a good show for us, but not the best we have done, so we have more to give. I mean, it was our second show ever and only 6 rehearsals behind it, even though we played for one hour. If we could coordinate future shows with a sound engineer who knows our music and a light engineer, I think we will be able to present a very atmospheric package that would be appreciated by our fans.
		“Journey to the End of the Night” was a concept album based on the loss of your daughter. What’s the deal with the new album? Is a concept record or do all the songs have different meanings? A Blessing in Disguise is the first non-concept album we have done. Both the first album, Journey to the end of the night and the second album, Light of Day, Day of Darkness presented deep and complexed personal themes made into musical concepts. A Blessing…. Show different songs with different themes, representing different musicians and personalities within Green Carnation.
		How did you get the record deal with Season of Mist? It took a long time of kissing a** hehe They approached us after Terje Refnes, the producer, had recommended us to them. He had heard our Light of Day… album and he really liked it. When I was in France with Carpathian Forest to record an album, Season approached me and offered us a contract that we agreed to.
		When I look at the bio of the band, I can see that 2002 was a pretty big year for Green Carnation. Do you think 2003 and 2004 will be anything like this? I think that depends on if there will be a tour or not. We are going to do a few summer festivals but the rest of 2003 was or will be spent working on the album and a MCD. If you compare the media reactions from either year we released an album (2000, 2001 and 2003) I would say that 2003 tops that list by far rating.
		Alright, that’s it! Thanks a lot for taking to time to answer these questions. Do you have anything enclosing to say? Thank you for the interview. Check out our albums and our new website: www.green-carnation.tk for news and updates! See you on the road sometime.
(Robert Graalman)