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Ved Buens Ende - interview with Carl-Michael Eide (guitars / vocals)

par Powaviolenza › lundi 26 juin 2006

I. Hello there, Carl-Michael ! Thanks in advance for accepting to do this interview with Guts of Darkness ! As a first question, let us be a little bit indiscreet and ask you to enlighten us regarding the now famous, yet kind of obscure events of march 2005 : what exactly happened when you were up there ? And by the way, how is your actual health, both psychologically and physically ?

Carl-Michael: I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I hit rock bottom, quite literally. I fell from 5 stories. Just about everything from my feet and up to the lower part of my spine was broken in different ways. I had 26 different fractures. My heels were actually pulverized. My pelvis was crushed. My right elbow. But the most severe injury is the one to my spine. My feet and parts of my legs are now paralyzed. When I eventually came in to intensive care, the surgeons could actually stick a fist into the undersides of my feet. Luckily one might say, they were the ones that took the blow. The only strike to my head was to the jaw. But one never knows if anything happened to the brain, you know. I`ve started to speak in anagrams, and inviting the doctors to go on stamp-exhibitions in London. I have also started to claim to be a competent collector of old houseporter-uniforms. My ideas about the great annual wilderbeast-migration actually taking place in a tramshed in Moss, Norway has been dismissed by a kind, worried friend of a friend of mine. Hahaha! Just taking a piss at you, folks.... I`m probably the only one having fun right now, but what the fuck.This whole thing is a great source of absurdities you know. Its an out of place situation. You can twist and turn it just about every direction. I`m a great lover of the absurd. I`m an absurdist..... I`m feeling fine now. Everything has been stabilised. All the extreme pain has calmed down. I`m still on morphine, but cutting down rapidly these days. I was held in an artificial koma a month before they woke me up. That process of waking up was an experience I`ll never forget. You know, they say that morphine-komas creates the most vivid fusions of dream and reality when you`re in the process of waking up. Those are stories of their own. I`ll probably create manifestations of them lyric-wise. Psycically, I`m not that particular about things anymore. I can relax and say and do things I feel like. Theres not so much anxiety surrounding everything anymore. After this ordeal, I know I have experiences noone can relate to. It has made me stronger, more content about myself. I have kinda established who I am, and what I wanna do. Theres no voice in my head nomore, saying Im a fool, and the things that I do are rubbish. Luckily, the state of Norway takes care of their wounded artists. I have now everything practical in my life fixed, and they say I can keep doing my thing.

II. Coming off as a shocking surprise for many fans, your new band Virus is now muting into a reformed Ved Buens Ende. What was the actual process which led you and the band to take this decision, and how did partner-in-crime Vicotnik from DHG come back into the whole plan ? It must be pretty cool to at last work once again with such a talented guitarist, and how would you qualify your relations with him ?

CM: Me and Vicotnik have some sort of a creative brotherhood. Our songs kinda writes themselves. Its a very fluent process, and its very comfortrable working with him. We have been talking about placing the band back on track for years, but it has allways been some "project" that has to be finished, an album here and there with different bands. There has allways been an atmosphere around our talks of the reformation of Ved Buens Ende telling us that this is our main thing. Our true creation. And that all that other stuff are just outlets of different sorts. The reason that it has been postponed for so many years, I think, is that vbe is ours. Not just a band were in, not a one-man project with members. It s ours in the flesh. We created it. Its very real, and sometimes the very things thats real are intimidating. We in our part of the world are so used to substitutes, were so blasè about all and nothing that the stuff thats from the very inside becomes allmost frightening. I think that this incident of mine has made me think so thouroghly about seperating the wheat from the corn, that I have discovered whose my real friends, whats my real drift, whats the real music. So what I`m left with is vbe, aura noir, a few close friends and my family. Feels nice. .

III. Could you explain with words what you guys are now trying to musically achieve with Ved Buens Ende, in comparison with both Written In Waters and Carheart ? As far as composing goes, is it a band process or are you and Vicotnik mostly in charge of everything ?

CM: I dont think we`re able to. Its not like we`re trying to achieve anything with our music. Like I said, our songs make themselves, what we`re left with are creations we can describe afterwords. I think our next album will be some sort of a blend between the two mentioned albums. As far as composing goes, its a 50-50 effort between me and vicotnik. As I said, its our band, not a one-man thing with members. As far as lyrics goes, it`ll be mostly mine. I know he`ll write some, but not many. After this experience of mine, I have alot on my heart, so I know everybody will understand that I`ll be productive.

IV. There supposedly is a tour coming after the new recordings of the band, or at least you pretend to be willing to go on stage with Ved Buens Ende. How do you envision that ? Do you think it's going to be hard to pull off such progressive and complex compositions in front of an audience ?

CM: We`ll go on stage, for sure. We`ll do individual concerts, no tours. Probably alot of festivals. As far as perfomance goes, we play our songs well on rehersals. It should probably take some gigs to pull off good ones,. Its a learning process.

V. We all know that you were part of the DHG crew back in 2003, when they entered the studios to record their yet-to-be-released new album, Supervillain Outcast. Did it go well for you, when it comes to the drumming sessions, and what should we be waiting for in that regard ? How do you feel concerning the whole project and the new album, and why in the hell did you leave the band ?

CM: You know, we had about 150 rehersals, and I got used to the acoustics in the rehersalroom. Its extremely difficult leaving something you`ve grown so accustomed to. When we entered studio, everything was so extremely different that the songs (whitch were very challenging) were much harder to pull off. I had six days to record 18 tracks. It was one of the most difficult times of my life. I felt worthless as a musician. Needless to say, there was alot of editing going on afterwords, and it ended up sounding like it did on rehersals. Very nice listening to the album nowadays. Its allmost a life-achievement on its own having participated on an album like that. I`m overwhelmed. I left the band mostly because of my following depression, but also because of everything that was happening with cadaver at the time.

VI. 666 International, on which you also played the drums, had an immense impact on a somewhat sterile and sometimes way too orthodox black metal scene. What are your impressions towards that specific album, now that it has been released almost 8 years ago ?

CM: I didnt like it very much. I dont feel like I have participated on it at all since the drums was processed through a computer so much to the extent that I am totally unfamiliar with them. Actually I was meant to play guitar on the album, like I did on a gig or two. I learnt all the songs, but ended up playing drums on it! Then when we were ready for studio, suddenly I had to play the drums instead. I dont remember why. HAHA! What a waste! Actually I play guitar on a song or two, just for the symbolics of it. On the hidden track for example. Thats me, on that cosy accoustic guitar-fingering. I have listened to it a couple of times lately. Its ok. a bit messy.

VII. Last year, you were releasing Aura Noir's ugliest record yet, Merciless, but until now, nothing has happened and there are no news to be found. What's up with Apollyon and Blasphemer ? Are you guys still composing ?

CM: Well, we did that ûberthrash-thing, together with audiopain and nocturnal breed. That double 7"-thing with one song from each band. Inferno was on there also. Quite exclusive. Anyway, we have about 6 new tracks for the next record. We have the title ready, but I wont reveal it, cause its so cool, someone will steal it. HA! That fucking happened when we revealed the original title for what was to become "downtown hades" with Inferno in an interview. The title "destination hell" was fucking stolen by some band that same year, before we finished the album! Fucking rascals! Apollyon has moved out of town, and has become a friluftsmann (whitch means - NDLR : Blank in the e-mail - in norwegian). And Blasphemer has finally exhibited his impressive collection of vintage mopeds.

VIII. Cadaver split up some time ago, and since we think that you guys were at the peak of your musical expression, would you like to clarify what was so wrong within the band ?

CM: No bad about Neddo or Balvaz, they are beloved friends of mine, but Cadaver was a bit of a waste of time for me and Apollyon. The Merciless should have been released in 2000!! I think Cadaver anno the twentyfirst century had some strong material, but alot of crap as well. And, I have to tell you, I loathe playing drums live. I totally hate it! Putting that fucking kit up, night after night, and if you do one mistake, you`ll probably do some more, then it`ll just escalate and you`ll play like a cunt! Then you hate yourself after the gig, and the day after, and youll be on a bad mood the next gig, and the whole fucking ordeal becomes a nightmare. vbe and aura noir!! Thats were I belong..

IX. Ever since you released Thrash Metal Dogs of Hell, your thrash band Infernö has been kind of sleeping in the corner of your creations. What's up with the new album ?

CM: Well, Pussy is on another bag these days. He`s doing his electronica act ost og kjeks (cheese and crackers), and all in all living in the fast lane. You know, he was labeled as the best norwegian vocalist by fenriz, and I think I agree with him. His style is unique, he sounds desperately insane and has the stamina to pull it off all the way though. Anyway, Maybe we`ll record our songs, we have about eight of them, and make an album. Either way, thats quite far in the distant future. By the way, we have plans for releasing a concert we did that was recorded (actually three days before my accident), including the 7" songs and some more crap. We`re gonna call it Infernô; "live in concert" hahaha!

X. Let's now go back in time. In '94, there weren't many norwegian bands experimenting with psychedelic metal, and as you certainly were one of the first to do so with Ved Buens Ende, would you like to share with us what was on your mind back then, as to what were your goals and what inspired you to further explore the somewhat stritly limited metal field ? In retrospect, how do you see the impact you had on the norwegian scene with such unusual art ?

CM: People didnt get it at all. Neither our contemporaries nor the metal-buying public understood Ved Buens Ende. It was not inspiring. Satyr created the expression "elite-bands", and placed satyricon in top-three. Vbe wasnt even placed in the little childrens-league. We were totally overlooked by everyone. Except fenriz. He really loved our demo, and since we looked upon him like a sort of a scout-leader (now, he`s the president of norway), that meant the world to us. We wanted to create something outstanding. Something far apart from that "norge ûber alles"- thing everyone was doing at the time. We really thought that sucked ass in hell. Fusions of folk music and metal did`nt work out.. We did our own thing. You`ll have to give us that. And the magic of it all, was that it came so natural to us. The songs made themselves. We had our inspirations you know, ofcourse celtic frost, but also coil and other stuff, but we didnt sound like them at all. We completely had our own sound.

XI. You participated in the original shaping of now huge bands Satyricon and Ulver. How do you remember those times, what do you think about their personal evolution and are you still in touch with them ?

CM: Satyricon was actually called Eczema back in the day. I was a crap drummer, and these two other guys and me were rehersing alot and playing some gigs here and there. When satyr came in, he took over the show, and threw me out cause I preferred hanging out with my girl at the time rather than kicking down gravestones together with the band. I met slick-ass Garm, and started Ulver. At first we played old-school thrash before we started making those songs for that demo I cant remember what`s called. Then Garm became a diehard norge-man, and I kinda lost intrest in the band. I had also started making psychedelic riffs by then, and wanted to move on. Also, something that kinda pissed me off, was that our guitarplayer, Reza, whitch was Iranian, got laid off because the rest of the scene didnt like him not being norwegian. I left shortly thereafter. This time I quit. Vicotnik is half Indian, and I remember, when we started, someone said "so he has started playing with a new pakki, has he?". What the fuck, when did music have to do anything with what country you hail from!? We said fuck off to the whole bullshit scene, and did our own thing.

XII. You are a multi-instrumentalist, and wether you play the drums, the guitar, the bass or sing, there's always something original and unique about it. Have you always been playing music, even as a child, or to put it this way, how did you gradually become who you are today, musically and artistically speaking ? I mean, did you have any solid influences in the past that made you approach your instruments with such an open-minded spirit ? In a more general aspect, what do you think about drugs in relation with musical composition, since some of your music comes off as rather psychedelic and mindbending ?

CM: I`ve never been extremely into drugs, just "a little". The best riffs I`ve made, has come for example in the morning after spending a whole night forgetting to eat or something. I`ve never made riffs stoned, or at least not the good ones. I dont know, maybe I have supressed alot from my old life, I tend to not remember much. People can come up to me saying I said or did this or that, and I go "what?!"... Anyway, I grew up with music, and started playing in the school-orchestra(!) when I was 7. My father is a musician, and my mother is extremely music intrested. She has allways had alot of music. I`ve had music around me since I was born, so I guess its only natural. Well, one can never explain in words how you become who you are. I guess I have had alot of misfortune, without going into boring details, and it has coloured me in many ways. I have never sought for success or status, maybe that has something to do with it. Playing, handling the actal instrument has allways been important, even though I have never practiced any instrument. I have only played drums with a band, allways played guitar to make music or with a band, the same with the bass, so I guess I have some sort of a talent, even though just saying that gives me a stale taste in my mouth. I truly hate people who brag about themselves. You just dont say stuff about yourself that other people are supposed to say about you.

XIII. What are your personnal views on the actual musical scene, wether its metal, rock, electronica or whatever ? Are there any albums or bands that you think represent some ultimate jewels and that you'd like to recommend to anyone seriously interested in different, or at least out of the ordinary music ? You seem to be open to many, many kinds of music, so that's basically why I'm asking.

CM: These days I just listen to the classics. Into the pandemonium is the album I`ve listened the most to during my life. It incorporates everything I want in an album. The bizarre, the dark etc.etc. I could give you a list of ten best records, but thats just too boring... Anyway, I`ve not been following any scene now for years. I have stopped trying to discuss the music-scene of today with people cause then I just get the raised brows and all too expressive eyes. "Are you there still, man?!" I would just go all embarrassed, and take the insipid steps back home. But I listen to all sorts of music. Everything from arvo pärt to darkthrone.

XIV. Alright Carl-Michael, thanks a whole lot for this interview, and please don't forget France when you will be booking tour dates for Ved Buens Ende in Europe ! Last words are yours !

CM: Yeah, the other night I was sitting in my room (1st floor) with the balconydoor open, then I heard a load NEIGH!! A HORSE was walking past my room!! cz

Mots clés : Carl-Michael Eide,Carl,Michael,Eide,Czral,Ved Buens Ende,Virus,Dodheimsgard,DHG,Aura Noir,Cadaver,Cadaver INC

Dernière mise à jour du document : lundi 26 juin 2006