Philip A. Wickstrand is a contributing freelance writer for Metal Psalter Webzine. He sat down with vocalist Chrigel Glazmann at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR on Saturday, April 10th, 2010 to conduct this interview.

Having been one of the opening bands on last year's Paganfest USA tour, ELUVEITIE went from being an excellent, if not very well known Folk Metal band to being one of the biggest in the genre. With the release of their newest full length album, "Everything Remains As It Never Was", ELUVEITIE have hit the road as the main support act for AMON AMARTH's North American tour and are sure to play to many sold out shows with rabid crowds.

Phil: The tour just started on the seventh, how's it been so far?

Chrigel Glazmann: Quite okay. As you say, it just started, it's only the third show tonight, but I think it's going quite okay.

Phil: How do you think it's going to be compared to your headlining tour, opening for AMON AMARTH?

Chrigel: I mean, of course, there's doing your own tour, like your own headlining tour is of course more comfortable, you have more time and everything. You don't need to hurry up for changeovers and stuff like that because there's no one playing after you, so that's more comfortable of course, but touring is touring.

Phil: Are there any shows in particular that you're looking forward to?

Chrigel: Well, basically, we look forward to play anyway, always - we love all our shows. As long as we can play our music, we're happy. Actually, Canada shows like Toronto, Montreal is always quite cool, quite cool to play there, the crowd there is quite good - we'll be sold out for sure. So yeah, that will be nice. But basically, we're always looking forward to playing.

Phil: What are you expecting for the New England Metal And Hardcore Festival?

Chrigel: I guess it will be nice. It will be like the third time we've played there and so far, it has always been nice. It will be cool.

Phil: Ever see anybody hardcore "dancing" to your music?

Chrigel: Yes!

Phil: Oh… my… God…

Chrigel: Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't even there, it was in like Detroit, somewhere. That was quite fascinating because I'd never actually seen that - people in Europe don't do that.

Phil: That's because they have better taste. (laughter)

Chrigel: It was a couple of really fat guys, like really BIG guys - they were jumping around, like completely insane. I'm like, "Wow! What the hell is that??? I've never seen something like that." (laughter) It was interesting, though.

Phil: How's the fan reaction been on tour to the new material from "Everything Remains As It Never Was"?

Chrigel: Really good. Obviously, people seem to like it a lot and obviously the songs turned out to be good live songs, so yeah, the reaction has been really, really good and we really enjoy playing them so far.

Phil: Some people have said that while the album is good, you're not branching out as much as they would like - what are your thoughts on people with that opinion?

Chrigel: Branching out? What does it mean?

Phil: They don't think there's enough progression in the music.

Chrigel: Ah! I don't know. I don't care, to be honest. I mean, basically, I never care what people say about anything because it's my life anyway, it's my music anyway, so why the hell should I give a shit about what other people think about? But, personally, I think there's a lot of progression. But that actually wasn't something on purpose; we don't really think about those things, just do our music and we don't really care if it's progressing a lot or anything like that; we just do what we feel like.

Phil: Are there any instruments you haven't used yet that you would like to use on future albums?

Chrigel: I would like to include a Celtic harp, like smaller bardic harps. I would really love to include one of those, probably on the next album, I guess. And carnyx I would like. I don't know if… do you know what that is? Those old Celtic war horns, they used to open battles and stuff like that, but it's really hard to find them and to find people who play them, but once I manage to find someone, it sure will find it's way in on one of our albums.

Phil: What are your favorite things about "Everything Remains"?

Chrigel: I'm pretty happy with the mixing of it, the production - it really turned out the way we wanted it, so we're happy with that. Also, what we think is a good thing, I guess at least it is… I mean, if you would ask us what our personal favorite song off "Slania" or "Evocation" or something like that, we could immediately give you an answer, but we can't for "Everything Remains" because we really like every single song the same, so we guess that 's a good sign.

Phil: What do you do to pass the time on tour?

Chrigel: Oh, being bored. There's not much to do. (laughter in the background) She can tell; she's just laughing. We just do what she's doing and we drink. Yeah, we drink. That's the main thing to do. (laughter)

Phil: Do you find it difficult being away from home for long stretches of time?

Chrigel: It can be hard at times, but I think you get used to it and being on tour is almost all we actually do. I mean, we just finished a European tour, before that tour started we had a break for two and a half weeks or something in between. That's pretty much it. I don't know; it's just something you get used to. We like to be on tour.

Phil: There's a lot of spiritual influence on your music, could you tell us something about that?

Chrigel: No. (laughs) I don't know. It's not actually something that is done on purpose or something like that. Writing music, it's like it all just kind of grows or converges quite naturally, you know, and it's that I actually think about something like that, it just happens in a way. Lyrically, on the new album, there's a lot of things that are rooted in Gaulish mythology, but it's actually not obvious things. It's probably more stuff than we did for our first album, something like that, like stuff in the song titles that refer to certain things and make sense with something else. It's just not obvious stuff, but as I was saying, the whole thing comes up quite naturally, it's not that I especially think about this, like "How can we make it more mythological or spiritual or whatever?" It just happens that way.

Phil: What was your experience like being a Pagan band on a Christian label with Fear Dark?

Chrigel: In the end, it's a label and they did quite a good job. I mean, it was a very, very small label of course, but regarding that, they did a really, really good job and they did a lot for us. We're really thankful - they helped us a lot in the beginning and we were started up as a new band, so that was good. And sometimes, we still have contacts with them. I mean, not that often, but sometimes we'll write emails or something and say hello. So it's  cool; they've been cool, cool people.

Phil: They're not even active as a record label anymore, are they?

Chrigel: No, not really. By the time when we left them, they kind of broke up. We've been the first band, actually, selling that much CD's, so for them, it kind of became too much to handle. That was one of the reasons why we left. I mean, not the only, of course and at the same time, one of the guys, there were actually only three guys running that label, one of them, he got married and became a father, so he didn't have that much time anymore anyway and so to them, it was just time to say goodbye and finish the whole thing. One of those guys, he established his own record company after that and as far as I know, it's actually doing quite well.

Phil: Just one last question, the term "Pagan Metal" gets thrown around a lot, you know, a lot of bands that aren't even remotely Pagan just get tagged with that title - what are your thoughts on that?

Chrigel: We don't think about that. (laughs) I mean, we really, really don't care about what music is labeled and we don't even consider ourselves a Pagan Metal band. I mean, it's just fucking Rock 'N Roll, come on man. We just don't care and we don't think about these things.

Phil: Okay, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Chrigel: Well, just thank you for the interview and thanks to all the readers for their interest in our band.

April 10, 2010

Interview: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Vên (Demo 2003)
Vên EP (2004)
Spirit (2006)
Slania (2008)
Live at Metalcamp (2008)
Evocation I -
      The Arcane Dominion (2009)
Everything Remains as
       It Never Was (2010)

DISCOGRAPHY:

Chrigel Glanzmann: Vocals, Tin and
                       Low Whistles, Mandola,
                        and Bagpipes
Kay Brem: Bass
Merlin Sutter: Drums
Ivo Henzi: Guitars
Sime Koch: Guitars
Päde Kistler: Bagpipes, Tin and
                            Low Whistles
Meri Tadic: Fiddle, Vocals
Anna Murphy: Hurdy-Gurdy, Flute,
                           and Vocals

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Formed: 2002
Berna, Switzerland
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Folk / Melodic Death Metal

Eluveitie's Chrigel Glanzmann

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