Dark Funeral

The Apocalyptic Reveries of DARK FUNERAL

Interview by Ken Morton Band Photo by Bartosz Szydlowski Live Photo by Jack Lue

Swedish black metal legends Dark Funeral will be releasing their new full-length album We Are The Apocalypse on March 18th via Century Media Records - and it’s an intriguing underground masterwork! Featuring dynamic anthems such as Let The Devil In, When Our Vengeance Is Done and Nosferatu, We Are The Apocalypse is the perfect soundtrack for this dark and desolate pandemic age. Lord Ahriman (guitars), Heljarmadr (vocals), Chaq Mol (guitars), Jalomaah (drums), and Adra Melek (bass) are at the very height of their creativity, ready to unleash their latest and greatest chapter of scathing darkness upon the world at large. Highwire Daze recently interviewed founding member Lord Ahriman to find out more about their gripping We Are The Apocalypse manifesto, their great respect for horror movies, touring the States, the upcoming 30-year anniversary of the band, and more!

We Are The Apocalypse is such a powerful name for an album. Some would think it’s about the worldwide situation we are living in today, being like an apocalyptic event. Is there any overall story or concept behind that title?

No, it was – every time you’re looking for a title, you want a title that really speaks for the whole record. Since we have different topics on this record and you can enter different kind of dark worlds, we tried to find a title that would really sum it all up. But of course, as the state of

the world is now, that’s the first thing we obvious thought about – when you write the record, you’re influenced by what’s going on around you and from the state you’re in. The world is mad at the moment, so I guess that was the influence a little bit – but only to a certain extent.

What was it like to write and record We Are The Apocalypse in the middle of a pandemic and all of the social unrest going on in the world today?

It was something really special – with all these restrictions you couldn’t really live your life as you normally do – and of course that affected your mood. But other than that – like the last couple of records I’ve been writing in my home studio and fine tuning them. Me and Heljarmadr worked pretty much the same as on the last record – he was in his home studio, and I was in mine – and we were sending files between each other. On the other hand, I actually started writing for this record a couple of years ago, so it’s not like we’ve just been writing during the pandemic. We finalized the record during the pandemic. When we recorded, it was an ease with all the restrictions, so there was really nothing we were worried about. The situation really didn’t bother us that much.

It’s been six years since the last studio Dark Funeral studio album. Was it frustrating to wait this long to record and release new music at all?

No, I started writing it four years ago. But like always, there’s many years between each record when we write. It’s especially because we’re touring a lot between each record. I’ve tried to bring recording equipment and a computer with me on the bus, but I’ve got to be in a certain place spiritually when I write music. I don’t do it just for the sake of writing – it’s gotta be the right situation for me to write. I need to have something to say with the music – there’s gotta be some kind of feelings I need to get out from my system. And that’s maybe why it takes a long time. It’s a combination between lots of touring, and when it come to the point where we are really going to focus on nailing this, then I cancel everything else basically, and I just dive deep into this nightmare like world I’m going to be in when I work.

Your last tour out here in the States was in 2019. Overall, how did that tour go for you?

It was an amazing tour! We sold out pretty much all of the gigs. The US has been really good to us. You guys have treated us fantastic and thank you for that! The last

two tours have been really good. And there’s some places that have always been good ever since the first time we played there, like New York, Los Angeles, Florida and so on. The US has been good, and we really enjoy touring the US too. We like the US.

One of the songs on We Are The Apocalypse is called Nosferatu. Are you a fan of the Nosferatu and Dracula movies – or horror movies in general?

Oh yeah, I’ve been a big horror movie fan ever since I was a kid. I actually started collecting uncensored horror movies when I was 12 years old. But when it came to this song, the whole idea came from Heljarmadr. We watched the original Nosferatu and got really inspired. Normally you would speak to him about the lyrical side, but I know he wanted to bring back the original dark feel from the movie into the lyric. And it fits really well with the music. As I told him when we were arranging the vocals in the first couple of takes from him, I was like, “I’ve never had this feeling before. It’s like I’m entering a movie or opening up a book and just sinking into a really good horror book.” It was just a totally different feeling – I’ve never had it with a song I’ve written like that one.

Here’s the deal – one of the reasons we decided to do a song about Nosferatu as that this year is 100 years since they’ve released the original one. It was also the first horror movie at the same time. So, it’s 100 years since Nosferatu came out and it’s 100 years since the world got to love horror movies. So, in a way, it’s a tribute to that also. So that song has a lot of different meanings. It’s a big song for us.

‘Death’ Released May 14th2021

‘Furyous’ Released September 10th, 2021

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don’t follow any rules – we do whatever we fucking want – and this is what you get. We create our own rules and our own dark world – and I guess that’s something that people also maybe notice.

You were mentioning we are celebrating 100 years of horror movies. Next year we’re going to be celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the creation of Dark Funeral. What do you think has kept Dark Funeral so exciting and creative for you for nearly 30 years now?

That’s hard for me to say anything about really. For me, I don’t know what else I would do. This is just my life. For me, I want to keep on trying to develop the band, keep on improving, keep on challenging ourselves musically and artistically. I feel like it’s always possible to reach new heights. I’m kind of never satisfied with where I am in my life and with the band. I just want to keep on pushing and challenging myself basically. As long as I have that urge that I just want to keep going forward, I guess I’m going to continue doing this. And we’ve kept on growing as a band and just got more support from all of the fans. I don’t know why, but I guess there’s gotta be something special with our music that brings emotions. I guess we’re not one of those super obvious bands – we

When you listen to the debut Dark Funeral album Secrets Of The Black Arts, what do you think if it now in retrospect?

It’s a great record! As every record you write, its a testament of it’s time. The life we were living at that time was quite fucking chaotic, which also reflected into the record at that time. Nowadays life is - I’m living in kind of controlled chaos. I still want to bring chaos into the world, but I want to have everything under control - if you know what I mean. But that record is for that time - and I have so many good memories when I wrote that record and everything around it that was going on. That was years ago and I’m in a different place in my life right now. But I’m still proud of my history and what we have achieved over the years and what we have created together.

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