You have been in
business for a while now, to be exact from the beginning of 2006. But do you
still know how it started?
Bjarne: Some
details are a bit hazy by now, it was a long process, but a looong time ago me
and Nanna got to talking about our dream of making a folkmetal. We got some
people together for one meeting and realized that it wouldn’t work haha.
So little bit later Nanna got to talking with people in the medieval band Gny (where Laura plays violin) and she also wanted to try this folk metal thing, so the three of us started getting a band together. Between 2006 and 2009 we went through a couple of various lineups and exploring the musical style that we wanted, with people releasing they weren’t that into the style before we finally found the right people, that shared our vision and ideas for a great folk metal. But even though we had those years of exploration it wasn’t really until our 2009 lineup that Huldre was truly created and things started taking off.
So little bit later Nanna got to talking with people in the medieval band Gny (where Laura plays violin) and she also wanted to try this folk metal thing, so the three of us started getting a band together. Between 2006 and 2009 we went through a couple of various lineups and exploring the musical style that we wanted, with people releasing they weren’t that into the style before we finally found the right people, that shared our vision and ideas for a great folk metal. But even though we had those years of exploration it wasn’t really until our 2009 lineup that Huldre was truly created and things started taking off.
What does the name of
the band – Huldre, mean and how does it reflect what you’re about?
Laura: Since a
Huldre is a forest creature (primarily female) from Nordic folk lore that lures
men with music and kills them if they don't satisfy her I think it's very
suitable for our band
Bjarne: Yeah, we
found the name fitting for a music group of our kind, since elves generally, in
nordic folklore, were also known for luring people into neverending parties
inside hills and underground, besides the specifics of the Huldre.
Band’s member played
in other bands before Huldre... How did you get into your first band or bands?
What was the name of this band and what music did you play?
Laura: first
ensemble was a chamber orchestra playing classic music as well as traditional
Danish folk music. First "real" band was called Fenris - a band where
we played Irish Folk Punk
Bjarne: My first
band was called “Suicide Something”… I think. We were very very young, played
in my parents barn and did a valiant attempt at mixing grunge and metal as only
14 year old angry teenagers in the mid 90’s can do.
Nanna: I have played in some folk/rock/metal/trash bands before and I was
co-founder of my first metal/rock band I had in highschool.
Is it hard to get out
of Denmark singing in the language you choose instead of the almost universal
English?
Bjarne: I don’t
think the language is any barrier when you play folk metal. If you look at other
bands in the genre you see all kinds of bands using their native languages and
still going on big tours
Nanna: Now I think about it, I have actually never thought that singing in
Danish could be an issue for playing in other countries. It is very naturally
to sing and write lyrics in Danish. Especially with our folk inspired genre,
singing in our mother tongue will maybe give it even more authentic atmosphere.
It took you a long
time from 2012 until 2016, how hard was it to get it all worked out and start
building up?
Nanna: We have spent a lot of rehearsals working on new songs but also give
life to songs we started on a long time ago. Sometimes we can put a song away
for many years or change a song many times before we all agree. From we start
and till we finish a song everyone has to be satisfied with the result. It is
very interesting but it also takes a lot of time. The result is that we all lay
our hands and hearts in the songs
Bjarne: I think a
lot of stuff happened and time kind of just slipped. We always try to be very
active live and when you are rehearsing for gigs all the time, you sometimes
forget to spend time on composing. Our debut album was also very well received
which helped the gigs happen, and especially in 2014 and 15 when we got third
place in Wacken Metal Battle, we became very active live. So in late ’15 we
decided to do a focused effort on getting Tusmørke finished and recorded and
get it out there.
Some of the tracks on the album have even been played live for 2-3 years before we recorded them
Some of the tracks on the album have even been played live for 2-3 years before we recorded them
How pleased are you
with your previous record ‘’Intet menneskebarn’’? What has it done for the band
so far?
Bjarne: Quite
pleased still, yeah. We learned a lot about a lot of processes involved with
writing and releasing an album like that ourselves. The album has gotten us
quite far, farther that most bands might get on the debut album. As our bio
tells we managed to somehow stay relevant for 4 years following that release so
we must have done something right, haha.
Nanna: We were all pleased with our debut album, but I remember we were very
curious about the public’s reaction to our music. But we couldn’t have wished for
a better reception from the audience and we got very fine reviews. Hard work
and self-promotion, and people who believed in us lead us to where we are now.
How do you define the
metal you play ?
Laura: Genuine
Nordic folk metal
Bjarne: Yeah, to
sound like a kliche: Trve Nordic Folk Metal haha. We do our best to merge the
two genres 50/50 and find the synergetic effect of both genres on each other,
rather than sprinkling stuff over melodic death metal and calling it folk
metal.
What band(s) have
been the most prolific in shaping your sound? Where do you draw influences
from?
Bjarne: None,
really. It may sound boring, but we compose music as a consensus and as such
there are not any music that influences us as a group. There are a lot of
influences on an individual level, and you can probably find some of those
influences in sporadic traces on our albums, but as a group we don’t draw
inspiration from any single sources.
Nanna: We all have different influences, I am inspired by Doom metal and old
ballads and Nordic folk. And nature
Do you as a band
follow a specific musical ideology?
Laura: Every
bandmember should be content with a track before we declare it for done but
except for that we don't have any dogmas or other strict rules about our
compositions or creative processes.
Nanna: I mentioned it a bit in one of the questions before, but it is
important that we all have a part and heart in the music and the composition.
We also agree that we work with the inspiration of folk, metal and folklore and
the expression in the moods of the songs can change a lot from part to part.
You have released a
new album this month, ‘’Tusmørke’’. What was the creative process?
Bjarne: Very long
hah. Well, as mentioned elsewhere the creative process for us is quite long. Some
tracks were done quite soon after the release of Intet Menneskebarn and have
been with us live for years, while others were done closer to recording the
album. Some ideas were jammed out, then put away for years as well, before
being brought out again and made into full songs. I think it was towards the
end of 2015 we decided to finally finish the album and get it recorded, so we
booked a studio time, created a deadline for ourselves, and started focussing
on finishing and polishing what we had.
What are the themes
in your songs? And do you write the songs themselves? What comes first: melody
or text?
Nanna: There are many lyrical themes in the songs, but many of the themes are
the same: death, sorrow, love, sadness, changing from human to beast, or beast
to human.
We write all our songs
ourselves. Sometimes one of us comes up with a melody or a riff and we all
bring our ideas to it, or we jam and something comes up and we continue working
on it more focused.
Most of the time we
make the melody first and I make the lyrics afterwards. There are two songs
where the lyrics are taken from old Danish ballads and we made new melodies based
on the lyrical content.
Let’s talk about your
brandnew album ‘’Tusmørke’’... can you talk us through the album, track by
track, and explain what the songs are all about?
Nanna: There are many themes in the songs and sometimes people get something
different out of the lyrics and I think it can be dangerous to tell too much
about the meaning of the lyrics. I have tried to illustrate some short
expressions and keywords instead.
1.
Jagt
“Hunt”. Ancestors walking north following the
reindeers, hunting and searching for adventure, loneliness, wilderness
2.
Hindeham
“The Maiden Hind”. A brother shoots a deer with
his bow and arrow and recognizes that it is his sister who has been changed into a deer. He cuts off his fingers, she drinks his
blood and turns into a human again.
3.
Varulv
“Werewolf”
A woman is going to be married, but she is
cursed and told she will meet a wolf on her wedding day. Her groom give
her his sword and let her ride alone through the forest. On her way she meets
the wolf. Her Groom hears her screaming and rides out to rescue her, but he
only finds her bloody dress
4.
Underjordisk
“Underground”
Underworld streams and lakes, soil, depression,
sunlight
5.
Skifting
“Changeling”. Old beliefs and advice about how
to you avoid a newborn child is taken by the trolls and replaced with one of
their own.
6.
Fæstemand
“Husband” in old Danish.
A young newlywed girl cries a lot because her
husband just died. The dead husband hear her crying and step out of his grave
to visit her. She let him in and ask him if she can come with him to the grave.
7.
Mørke
“Darkness”. Old pagan gods riding through the
dark
8.
Tæring
Old Danish word for Tuberculosis. A woman
stands at the hill waiting for her boyfriend, a sailor she is going to marry.
When the ship reaches the coast all on board are dead.
9.
Nattesorg
“Nightsorrow”
An elvish woman falls in love with a human man, the
love is shortlived and not requited and she kills him
Can you still
remember your first concert, which you played with the respective band?
Laura: Yes - it
was at a metal venue in Copenhagen with the most prominent Danish folk metal
band at that time (Svartsot). It was fun but we had a lot of fuck-ups so got
really drunk afterwards
Nanna: uh yes it was a support for the Danish folk metal band Svartsot at a
Danish club called “The rock”, (oh I miss that place, which doesn’t exist
anymore). We were so excited and had no idea about how the audience would react
to our music, and we were lucky, they liked us ;-)
Describe to me how
your music has changed in recent years and how it has changed you personally.
Bjarne: From
Intet Menneskebarn to Tusmørke I think the biggest change is in our approach to
composing. We used to be slightly anarchistic and have a lot of melodies
fighting for attention in the mix of the first album, but we learned from that
and as we composed new material we really focused on giving each melody the
space and support it needed.
Personally, I think we have gotten a lot of experience in dealing with various situations, be it live or in the rehearsal space and a lot of us have gotten quite a lot of management and booking experience by now
Personally, I think we have gotten a lot of experience in dealing with various situations, be it live or in the rehearsal space and a lot of us have gotten quite a lot of management and booking experience by now
What equipment do you
use? Do you have some endorsement contracts?
Laura: I'm
playing an electric violin from Bridge Instruments in England and use a Boss
pedalboard for the sound FX. I'm currently testing whether I should be part of
a violin mic endorsement so that I might be able to use my acoustic violin from
time to time.
Bjarne: No
endorsement contracts (yet) but I have a semi-custom Sandberg California TT5
bass, a (classic) Hartke HA3500 workhorse of an amp, with a Hartke 2x15 cab and
a Markbass 4x10 cab. On the pedal front
I got a vintage “Morley Power Wah Fuzz”, A Lone Wolf “Plague Rat” distortion,
and an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Bass “Big Muff Pi”.
What is the Danish
metal and rock scene? Can you recommend a couple of bands and rock metal clubs
?
Bjarne: hmm let
me think. Well on the club front it hasn’t been quite as good as back when “The
Rock” existed, but we have some quality watering holes in Copenhagen like
Voodoo Lounge, Zeppelin bar, High Voltage and Escobar (also found in Århus).
On the band front it’s always hard to point at any specific
bands, but if you are into black I would recommend bands like Solbrud and
Eldjudnir and if you are into thrash maybe bands like Velociter and Impalers. If
you are into death metal you might like Baest, although they drank all of our
beers last time we played with them haha J And if you are into
doom, stuff like Hamferd (from the Faeroese Islands) or Woebegone Obscured, or
if you are into oldschool rock, bands like SEA, but really, there are too many
to recommend. The quality of the Danish scene is fairly high.
What’s next for
Huldre? Any plans for any European dates
to support the album’s release, for example?
Bjarne: Currently
we are doing as many gigs as we can get our hands on. There are always plans
for gigs
Thank you for taking
the time to answer the questions. The
last words are yours.
Bjarne: Thanks
you for your time and hope to see you around
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