INTERVIEW WITH GLITTERTIND – GEIRMUND SIMONSEN
«Our grandmothers- and fathers had to rebuild and rethink society after years of war, and this generation is now largely gone. I think we have a lot to learn from them, and this album is for them.»
GLITTERTIND are back with a surprising new album called «Blane For Blane«, with a sound a world apart from their previous records. Having this in mind, talking to the band was not a chance we could miss:
For those who still don’t know you, please tell us who are GLITTERTIND?
Glittertind is a norwegian band with six members, and we’be been associated with the metal/folk/rock genre ever since founder Torbjørn Sandvik created Glittertind in 2005. I (Geirmund Simonsen) joined as a producer for Landkjenning in 2008, and the rest of the band joined us shortly thereafter. We are a strange mix of people, who differ a lot in musical values and tastes.
“Blane For Blane” is your new album and you really took a long step from your previous work, what can you tell us about it?
It might be seen as a long step if you think in terms of genre. Obviously it is a long way from folk metal to acoustic folk pop! But for us, the genre is a tool for telling a story. In “Blåne for blåne”, we try to recover from the trauma in the previous album “Djevelsvart”. The album as a whole has an optimistic undertone.
Did you feel any preassure while making it on how was it going to be received by your fans?
Not at all. I think our fans mostly support us in our work, however, I can understand that some wouldn’t like this album’s style. If one is unfamiliar with a style it tends to sound bland, and that’s a barrier to cross for many people.
The album’s sounds lay somewhere between the Bluegrass and a sort of norweigan folk-pop, can you give as some insight on how was it written?
Torbjørn writes most of the music, but we all work on the details together. A melody might be changed, parts may be added or deleted – the whole band is in this iterative process were we try to perfect the songs and the sound.
Was this sound something you were aiming for or did it just happend?
What we had in mind was to make something primarily acoustic, that was the plan since day one. The songs were written with this in mind. We also had to sketch a lot, this was especially important as we wanted strings and horns in the final sound, and you’ve got to make room for them somehow.
In this album you took as concept the feeling of peace felt by humanity after several years of war, specially the end of WWII. It’s not a very commong concept, why did you decided for it?
We wanted to use what happened in Norway after WWII as a frame for our story. Our grandmothers- and fathers had to rebuild and rethink society after years of war, and this generation is now largely gone. I think we have a lot to learn from them, and this album is for them.
What can we expect from a future album by GLITTERTIND?
Hard to say! We don’t have a clear plan. In the mean time, there are so many things that can inspire nd influence us, historically, lyrically and musically. I hope we can come up with something fresh.
You write your lyrics in your mother language – that makes it really hard to get your message to non-norwegian speakers, have you considered changing to english?
Not really. Lyrics matter a lot to us, and it would be hard to express ourselves properly in another language than our own. And a language has its own unique musicality. That is part of the sound of Glittertind.
For those who haven’t had the chance to see you live, how is a GLITTERTIND show like?
We’re having a great time on stage, and I feel that is something that gets to the audience, as well. Most bands want their audience to have a great time on a concert and we’re no exception.
The Internet has become a huge factor in music industry, what are the pros and cons of it for a band like GLITTERTIND?
Smaller bands like ours have always have faced economical difficulties and I don’t think internet changes that one way or another. But I think internet makes our music easier to reach and appreciate. The consenquences of the freedom of internet is apparent – there is not a thing you can’t download from pirate sites, and this rightfully hurts sales. But our world is changing very rapdily, and the music industry has reacted unwisely as they try in every way to limit the internet to their own benefit.
