Metal Zone was a Swedish metal magazine that existed between 1998-2003. One of my favourites at the time. I prefered it then to Sweden Rock Magaine and Close-Up Magazine. Anyway, here’s an loooong interview with Legion of Marduk translated from Swedish to English.
MARDUK — one of the absolute heavyweights in the black metal ring.Their track record can be measured in kilos. They hit faster than most and are once again ready to knock the black metal consumers out. Yes, double knock even — the seventh full-length ”La Grande Danse Macabre” and the double life ”Infernal Eternal” have just landed on the record shelves.
YOU WILL HAVE TO FORGIVE ME for the slightly “corny” boxing theme in the introduction, but there is actually a slight connection between Norrköping’s black metal pride and the world of sports. It strikes me that the quartet’s vocalist Legion sounds like any serious athlete when he begins our conversation with a status report.
— I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in 6 weeks and will take it easy until we get home from our tours. We are going on two tours, a total of two and a half months, with only a few days of rest in between. So right now it's just strength and conditioning training that counts. When I get home, then hell I'm going to go out to the pub with three thousand in my pocket and burn the trash, he adds wistfully.
One of these tours is "No Mercy", an annual festival package that MARDUK has been a part of twice before, in 1998 and 2000.
— We start in Dublin on March 19th, then we continue down through England, over to France and after that we cover Portugal, Spain... well, that's a big part of Europe actually. Even some countries in Eastern Europe. This year we're the headliners. With us we have platoons such as AMON AMARTH, GOD DETHRONED and VADER.
Wow, you've got some great traveling company.
— Yes, absolutely! Still, I don't think it can beat last year's festival package: Us, IMMORTAL, DECIDE, CANNIBAL CORPSE plus a couple of bands — the best from both the black and death metal scene. We could have done even more shows than we did and played in front of 3,000 people every night.
— 11 of the 33 shows we're going to do in Europe are part of the "No Mercy" tour. When we're done with Europe, it was originally planned that we would go home and rest for about a week and a half, and then head to the States. There we'll hit the road with DEICIDE. Now it seems that the plans have changed so that we'll stay in Holland and do a few extra shows and then go down to Greece and do three concerts there. Then we'll come home to Sweden on the first or second of May. The plane to the USA takes off on the fourth of May, so there probably won't be much rest. You'll have time to do the laundry, not much more.
So they're very busy. And rehearsing all the songs is a real job, that's all: They're going to have two completely different live sets — in Europe it's mostly about promoting the new album, while the setlist for the US will be more of a "best of" character, since they've never done a real tour there.
According to Legion, touring life is the best there is. It's obvious that he's looking forward to getting going.
— When you're on stage, that moment is absolutely fantastic. There's so much energy that's released and you get the worst kick.
You can even get a bottle in your head, I say, referring to when Legion and company played in Stockholm a few years ago.
(Laughter)
— Yes, it was quite cheerful to start that Swedish tour with a jack in the temple. Fortunately, it was a one-off.
I was there and took a look and was surprised — and impressed — that you didn't ask the audience to pull the plug and then cancel the concert.
— It wasn't everyone else's fault that that damn idiot was acting like that. I've heard some funny stories about him getting a few serious rounds, Legion coos.
We continue on the "getting things in his head" topic and it turns out that Legion can talk about which band it was that got a fish on them when they played in Svea Rike. IMMORTALS' Abbath told me that DIMMU BORGIR got a stray beard on stage but he also said that there was a band that got to taste fish, but he couldn't remember which one.
— It was DIMMU BORGIR, that too. The singer got a fish devil on him. If I have to choose between a bottle and a fish, I'll damn well choose the bottle, Legion tans.
Norwegians do like fish.
— Yes, but still, what an insult. Oh, now I'm reminded of a funny thing that George from CANNIBAL CORPSE told me, the singer continues excitedly. They were out in 1996 with ANTHRAX and MISFITS and they were in Los Angeles… or was it Chicago, I can't really remember but it's all the same. Doyle, the guitarist in MISFITS, had said: "Damn, I think an old friend from here might come and visit tonight...". George was a bit surprised because it had been 13-14 years since MISFITS had played in that city, but Doyle said: "This guy definitely remembers me. I cracked his skull by hitting it with my guitar." Apparently the crowd at some club had a habit of throwing a lot of things at the bands and MISFITS were crazy when they were younger, I've heard a lot of stories about their violent orgies. Anyway, they couldn't stand getting a lot of shit on them so they flew into the audience and fought. Doyle, who was probably like a house already then — Glenn complained that his hands were too big to learn to play the guitar — the guitar hit this guy in the head, so hard that the guitar broke into pieces. It's "Take no prisoners", as well.
Real GG Allin style, it sounds like.
LEGION LIKES TO TALK ABOUT TOURING LIFE. Touring is a big and important part of MARDUK. He is happy to share the incidents the band has had. About the legendary DEICIDE he has the following to say:
— They are really cool but you don't see much of some of them. The Hoffman brothers stay away most of the time, Eric comes down and eats at the catering a couple of times a day and then it's fine. Glen is more talkative. We sat almost every day and talked to each other about everything. But they are in control, they have a peculiar sense of humor, giggles Legion, and it's shit everywhere.
Yes, I heard from the AMON AMARTH guys that they had been exposed to DEICIDE's shit humor. DEICIDE had found a fridge and written a note that said "Beer for AMON AMARTH" and put it on the fridge. When the AMON boys opened the fridge, there was no beer but some shit sausages.
— Ha, ha, yes, that's typical DEICIDE. When we played with them in Hamburg, we heard the worst roaring from their backstage room. Of course, we went there to check and saw Glen walking around with a tray with a piece of bread on it, and on the piece of bread was a shit sausage. Their personal assistant — who had important duties such as holding Eric's guitar on stage when Eric stretched between songs and serving Glen coffee — filmed with a video camera, so there will probably be some cool material to take if they release a commercial video. Somewhere in the ancient East, Eric shit in the only sink there was. Then they sat and laughed in their backstage room.
It sounds like the poop man will have tough competition if DECIDE comes to the Hultsfredsfestivalen.
— They have a twisted sense of humor but are, as I said, really nice and accommodating.
Now we slide into festival talk and end up in Germany, more specifically in Wacken. Every year at the beginning of August, the small village is transformed into a real metal mecca where an estimated 30,000 metal fans make a pilgrimage. Wherever you go in the little cave, there is metal, one example is that the inn every morning serves something they call "metal breakfast". MARDUK performed there last year — unfortunately at the same time as LOCK-UP, which resulted in me missing them — and Legion is as positive about this great festival as you are.
— No festival is perfectly arranged because there is so much hustle and bustle and so many bands to take care of, but Wacken is the one that is the best organized of all the ones we have played at. You just have to get there, get your backstage pass, tell the driver when you want to be picked up and then everything runs pretty smoothly. It was fun playing there because we missed a gig at Wacken in 1999. We had only come thirty kilometers from Norrköping when the car broke down. Then we called and said we couldn't come: "No, what a shame", they said and rescheduled our time from 18:00 to 01:00 but of course we couldn't show up anyway, for the sake of the car. They did an intro at the stage where we were supposed to play and there were a lot of people shouting "Marduk! Marduk!", and then it was a strip show! Then there were rumors that we were there but that we were too drunk and that we had told the organizer "fuck off!" We heard a lot of strange things, laughs Legion.
What is the worst organized festival you have played at then?
— Hm, the worst we've been to… Earlier this year we played at a festival in Belgium, it was a bit shady. I don't really understand why they booked us because they were hardly any metal people. There were 80,000 people there and when we played there were an estimated 5,000 in front of the stage. It was almost just a bunch of weird bands playing. In the big hall, where they had arranged makeshift changing booths, they played that fucking gangster hip hop the whole time and when we had changed and were about to leave we ran into DESTINYS CHILD, who were on their way in to change. Then you wondered what the hell they were doing there, Legion tans. It was also badly organised; no one picked us up, no one knew English and they drove us to the airport too late so it was a hell of a mess before we got home.
— One more thing, Legion continues, who by now has gained steam and is talking without getting a word in edgewise. It doesn't bother me — it's Sunday, I've just had lunch, the only thing planned is a movie rental in the evening, I have two 90-minute cassette tapes (which turns out to be necessary) so I listen with pleasure when I hear more anecdotes in the sound of Norrköping dialect.
— Well, last summer we ran into a really fucking idiot down in Germany. It was right after Wacken when he offered us a gig at the beginning of spring but we said it was impossible because we were going home and writing material for a new album. "Ok, that's cool" he said, but then a lot of flyers appeared at some German festivals that we did. It said we were to headline plus ASPHYX was to play, and then there were a bunch of German black metal bands and stuff. Then Matti from DARK FUNERAL met this German guy and asked a bit about the gig. “Ah, damn, there was a mistake on the flyers, you know, but I’ll go out on the Internet and tell people that it’s not MARDUK’s fault,” he said. Matti told me this so people thought everything was calm then. Then when the festival took place, there were a few people I know there — ASPHYX had just split up by the way — and then it said on a big poster that The only ones you should hate are MARDUK, the fucking pigs, because they just screwed up everything and stayed home. We were so pissed off because that wasn’t true at all.
— We got in touch with the organizer and he claimed that people had lied to us and that there weren’t any such posters, but we knew they did. So our reputation was damaged just because they wanted to get a lot of people there and make some money. He even had a fake contract that he showed to Rock Hard. I recently met some guys from Rock Hard and talked to them, but what the hell would they think, and write, when he holds up a piece of paper and says "Look here, they've screwed up everything". Now we have an official website, www.marduk.nu, where we post all the tour dates. Then people can look and if they don't make the gig there, they can be sure that we won't show up. Then you don't get a lot of crap for things that aren't your fault. The talk and the rumor-spreading starts and then it doesn't matter how many interviews you do and explain how it really is, it's hard to change people's minds.
Those of you who have been around for so long should have received a lot of crazy fan mail. Is there anything you remember in particular?
— Oh, we've received so much mail, so it's hard to pick out anything in particular. For a while, about sixty letters a day were pouring into our mailbox. Now it's much calmer, people understand that we don't have time to answer everyone. We try to answer some, but it's impossible to get to everyone. Some of the stupid letters we get, apart from blood-soaked letters from people who think they're the worst in the world, the stupidest is probably a letter from a guy in Colombia. He wanted us to come there and play, but he thought it was only right that we split the costs. To start with, we could send him a couple of thousand records, and he would get back to us later. So there are some stupid suggestions.
— A funny thing is that when we play in France, a girl, her boyfriend and her mother always come and check. This girl usually writes me letters that are four or five pages long with the most beautiful handwriting in the world, where she tells me a thousand things. The most bizarre thing is that the guy writes some parts of the letters. She writes something like “Oh, I want to fuck you…” — the worst porn stuff — and then he comes in and tells me about concerts he’s been to. Then she comes in with some more smut and then the guy comes back and asks me what I think of this and that album. Those bastards are perverted, Legion laughs. And her damn mother, she clung to our tour manager while the girl clung to me like an idiot. What did the guy do then? Well, he stood next to her and offered me booze! Talk about a funny family. But that’s also the charm of being out and about, you run into so many crazy people.
THEY WERE PLANNING to do the interview with Mogge, who is the only original member, a couple of days ago. However, he had to cancel the interview. My questions about the previous albums — Legion took over the microphone from Joakim Af Grave just before the recording of the fourth full-length “Heaven Shall Burn… When We Are Gathered” — can be deleted, for obvious reasons. Instead, I’ll ask Legion when he first heard MARDUK and how he came to start singing in the band?
— I bought the “Fuck Me Jesus” demo. They got a cult following right away, they were the craziest and worst group around. At that time, I was playing around with some demo crap. Then I thought, “Damn, I’m going to sing in that band.” Then I was in OPHTHALAMIA from 1993 until the spring of 1995. Then I got the chance to sing in MARDUK. At that point, I knew the guys well and they were going to get rid of Jocke and I didn’t like OPHTHALAMIA, so it was perfect for me to start singing in the band.
Nowadays Legion, Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson (nickname: Mogge. Guitar), B. War (nickname: Bogge. Bass) and super drummer Fredrik Andersson (nickname: Froding) can make a living from the band. Legion says that it is a lot of work to answer interviews, negotiate tours, and of course write music.
— Mogge takes care of almost all the songwriting and I do almost all the lyrics, Mogge has written some lyrics for the new album so it was obvious that we used them. Bogge is a rock on bass and he usually has a good ear for what fits together and so, so the arrangements of the songs are usually his part. Everything around, talking to people and such, is usually mine and Mogge's job.
That Bogge is a terribly good bass player can't have escaped anyone who has heard MARDUK. But it's not until the new opus "La Grande Danse Macabre" that I think the bass is far enough forward in the soundscape. Take the phenomenal bass line on the opening track of the "Heaven Shall Burn..." album, "Summon The Darkness" — according to my well-constructed musical ears, it should have been significantly higher in the mix. It turns out that the culprit in the drama is the mastering.
— Previously, the mastering has always been done at Sony in France, under the supervision of our former record label boss Hervé. He got it done for free if he ordered over a certain number of records for pressing. We burned, for example. “Panzer Division Marduk” before it was sent for mastering and then the vocals were quite loud and the vocal sound was “raspy”, about the vocal sound we have on the new album. But when Hervé was finished, the vocals were in the background. So the mastering has made a difference. Now we have total control over that process. The people who mastered the new album made two different versions and sent them to us so we could listen to them and decide which one sounded best. It ended up being a mix of both. To go into detail, I can say that each song was mastered differently. The heavier tracks have more bass in the soundscape while the faster ones have more treble and more “grit”. When it’s mangling, it’s easy for the bass element in the speakers to not be able to handle too much bass. Of the speakers we tested, only my Cerwin Vega refrigerators — with two hundred more HiFi watts — were able to handle the pressure, Legion says.
I am also a proud Cerwin Vega owner, so for a few minutes we talk about different models, watts, angry neighbors, and more. I assume you won't be upset if I withhold that part of the conversation.
ONE THING I've noticed when reading interviews with MARDUK is that they seem to be constantly striving to become faster and more violent. I assume the peak was reached with the last album, the ultra-fast "Panzer Division Marduk", because on the new album there are significantly calmer tones. Even though it sometimes gets really loud.
— We're actually thinking about making a hyper-hysterical album again, but it'll take a while. If we had made a "Panzer... II" we would have probably painted ourselves into a corner. We can't make an album where we grind more, because that entire album is grind. We even removed the outro because it was played on toms and stuff. Instead, we put some machine gun stuff in to end the album, it was more fitting. We were so tired of so much trashy black metal coming out with synths and girl vocals, everything was supposed to be melancholic with fairies in the forest and so on. Then we thought we would make the most brutal album ever, with super cruel war lyrics. Take for example the songs “Christraping Black Metal” or “Fistfucking Gods Planet”, that’s total blasphemy. The wording in the lyrics is so fucking mean, the absolute most brutal thing I could bring myself to write.
— We had expected that this album would sell less than the previous ones because it was so extreme. It was supposed to be a “love album” for die hard fans and the “normal” listeners would think: “Now they’ve gone too far, those bastards…” but it was very well received everywhere. People perceived it as a breath of fresh air because there was so much synth crap coming out. Some have objected to the war concept, but it wasn't like when "Fuck Me Jesus" came out — it was completely boycotted in seven countries.
"La Grande Danse Macabre" is, as I said, considerably heavier than its predecessor. According to Legion, this had to do with the fact that it's a concept album about death. Then it fits with a bit more heavy metal. The idea to make three concept albums in a row was born when they were writing the "Nightwing" album. On that one, the theme was "Blood," on "Panzer..." it was "Fire," and on the new release it's "Death." The BATHORY bell is ringing.
— It shouldn't be seen as a declaration of love to Quorthon directly. It's more that we're using the same argument as Quorthon, "Blood, Fire, Death" — that's the foundation of metal.
Now the trilogy is complete. How do you move on now? Considering that you seem to have a really good foresight, I assume you're not completely at a loss?
— A mini-album is mostly finished, it will be released at the end of the year. We are also working on song ideas for the eighth full-length, it is likely to have a doomsday theme. Soon there will be a lot of touring, but this summer we will continue with the songwriting. Then we will go on a big autumn tour, about the same tour as we are doing this spring, i.e. Europe and the USA.
MARDUK HAS EXISTED as a band for ten years and has released 12 albums, if you count EPs and live releases. For having been around for so long, they have changed record labels remarkably few times. The debut was released by Swedish No Fashion In 1992, the following year, they signed to Osmose where they stayed until last year. Then they started their own label Blooddawn, through which they now release their work. But they collaborate with Skåne-based Regain, which helps with distribution, among other things.
— Osmose was — and probably still is, for some bands — a good label to be on. But in the end we thought it worked too wretchedly, there were arguments about money and everything. Hervé became a fucking asshole, to be honest. You would think he would be accommodating when the label's two best-selling groups, us and IMMORTAL — who left Osmose at about the same time — started complaining. Not then, it was the fucking French pride. He was snoring and babbled about how rich he was and all that shit. Then we heard some funny stories about how he almost started howling because he had lost his bestsellers. We were irritated, among other things. that Hervé only signed a bunch of crap that sold like two thousand copies. So we brought in a lot of money for the record company that he burned through signing worthless trash bands that didn't sell a damn thing. It would have been better if he had taken that money and used it to push us forward. You could say that we had grown up to the roof and he couldn't take care of us anymore.
Legion can't leave it with Hervé and continues to complain about its former CEO. Metalwire is the magazine that thinks trash talk is much better reading than a bunch of boring talk about musical development, high-tech recording equipment, well-combed producers and so on. So I'm more than happy to listen when Legion tells me that Hervé is as good at doing business as a bag of fish meal.
— He fell out with everyone. He had started working with a new guy who printed T-shirts that were the best in the world, he said. Osmose was going to be the best in the world at everything, he could say. Then you ran into him six months later at some festival or something, of course he was drunk as an egg — he always was — and then you of course asked how that brilliant deal was going. The answer you got was: “Ahh, he was an idiot but I got a new guy and he is the best!” Legion mimics and sounds exactly like Inspector Clouseau. So he let himself down by being so cocky and thinking he was the world’s rock star.
One who is a rock star — for real — is Peter Tägtgren. MARDUK has recorded their last four albums in his Abyss studio. Although they are extremely satisfied with Peter’s work, they have talked a little loosely about trying something new in the future.
— We are a little tempted to bring in Eric Rutan as an advisor during a recording. He could certainly come up with many clever angles, he is such a super musician. When you meet him, he talks at hyper speed about his guitar, the new effects pedal and so on. Eric is probably the most passionate guitarist I have ever met. Bringing in a guy like that who can review our songs and come up with opinions on things that can be done differently and better, it can probably give an interesting touch to our music.
When Legion continues to talk about the work in the studio, it is noticeable that Abyss is not a studio you change in the first place. He praises Peter and even calls him "a fifth member".
— We have known him for so long and he has played with MARDUK on two tours. It is so nice because if Peter is going away on something, or if we want to work overtime, then we are entrusted to be in the studio ourselves and stay as long as we want - all night if we want. We know how the studio works, except for the mixing stage. Then he knows exactly what sound we want, so we work really well together. We recorded the new album in just nine days, it was a bit of a struggle and then it was done. Now it was actually Peter's brother Tommy who handled the recording, but he has also grown into it so well that it went like clockwork.
Another reason why the Norrköping gang chooses to return to Abyss is the band's extremely rotten humor. Legion doubts that any other producer would put up with their crude attacks on each other.
— There are never any built-up aggressions against each other because we take them out all the time by using insane Monty Python jargon with the crudest insults you can imagine. It always clears the air. We've come across people who have worked with us over the years who have become quite annoyed because of that, but Peter just laughs, because he can be just as damn damaged himself.
Legion now gives some examples of things they usually shout at each other, but since Metalwire's biggest goal is to end up on the shelves of elementary and middle school libraries, I'll spare you the vulgar stuff. But I can reveal that if I say that "colleague Lindh is a goat gut sniffer with a face that looks like it's spent the last seven years under rolling studded tires," that comment would fit in the Bolibompa block in comparison.
MARDUK is going up, by the way to Dalarna's main sound factory at the end of February.
— The reason for that is that we are going to do some new recordings of old songs plus a medley from the "Panzer Division Marduk" album. Brian Deagan is one of the USA's absolute biggest freestylecross stars, one of those sick heads who jumps with cross machines and does somersaults, jumps over road machines — deathwish on two wheels, that is. This kind of extremecross is a huge thing in the USA. Here in Sweden we pretty much only have Magnus Hedman doing it, I think.
Fredrik Hedman, you mean. He's actually Falukille. (Falun, a village in the northern part of Sweden)
— Yes, that's his name. But to get to the point. Brian Deagan got in touch and wanted a MARDUK song on his next jump video. So we have specially written a text called "Deathride" for that purpose. We have cooked up a three-minute grind song with riffs from the "Panzer..." album, it's going to be a hell of a banger. It should be a good soundtrack for when he's riding like a rock.
AS MENTIONED in the introduction, MARDUK is not only up to date with a new full-length album, a fat double live was also released recently. It's actually the second live album with the band. The first, "Germania", came out in 1997.
— It's important to us that fans who live in countries we haven't played in can get a chance to hear what we sound like live. Starting this year, we'll be touring all over the world so they can see us too. Right now we're considering offers for South America and Japan so we'll cover large parts of the world when we go out and play, which feels really good. Metal music is somehow made to be played live, that's when it comes to its full potential, Legion states and I'm not slow to agree.
Why do you think so few black metal bands release live albums?
— There are so many people who can't play, they can only achieve something in the studio. They're so fucking misanthropic — they hate people enough not to play live because only idiots come and watch, they claim. But if they hate people so much, why do they release records that they want people to run and buy? It's pathetic. We've always been about just fucking rocking live, tight and intense. That's what we wanted to show with the live records. And live records are so much fun. I wouldn't mind if the bands I like released a live album after every studio record. Then you get to hear the new songs live, which is great.
What kind of bands are you thinking of then?
— DEICIDE and MORBID ANGEL, for example, they're among my absolute favorite bands. And Danzig, he's never released a bad record.
Oh, he certainly has, I counter and am ready to start a little verbal fight about this muscle guy, who I personally think has released mostly crappy stuff since “Danzig III How The Gods Kill”. Before my nagging gets out of hand, Legion manages to smoothly change the subject and suddenly it’s live videos that are the topic of conversation.
— We’ve actually recorded two, but neither of them has been released. The first was when we played at MAYHEM’s reunion gig in 1997 in Bischofswerda, which is in the former East Germany. But damn what a disaster arrangement it was. We’re standing at the airport in Berlin waiting to be picked up, when the world’s most disturbed hippie bastard arrives with gigantic seventies glasses and is as tall as a house. It turns out that he’s our driver, also the organizer of the gig. We go out into the parking lot and he says there is a good bus and a bad bus: “The good bus has MARDUK on it,” we thought and walked towards a fairly fresh minibus parked nearby. Then it drives off and the hippie shouts “No, it’s over here” and points to two old Transit buses from hell. We had to sit on a sofa in the back, which wasn’t even bolted down, so every time he braked I pinched my feet. But the worst was still for MAYHEM’s guitarist, Rune (Blasphemer). It was in MAYHEM’s contract that they would go to the gig in a limousine — and he had to lie on the bags in the trunk! He was so pissed that he kicked out the side window so that the glass was flying across the Autobahn, says the vocalist and we catch up. When we’ve calmed down, he continues eagerly.
— As I said, the arrangement was disastrous. But partying and playing with the MAYHEM guys was exceptional. We were already packed at Copenhagen airport. We were behaving like real pigs. MAYHEM threatened people on the plane that they would kill them and started fighting, Legion remembers and laughs heartily. When the flight attendant came and told them to calm down, they screamed that she was going to hang herself. Of course she went and called the police so there was a hell of a commotion. And behind us there were some Danish guys who were arguing with us. When one of them put that tray down on the backrest so he could eat, Froding unbuckled his chair and started shaking it so that the jaw flew all over the world. Yes, damn what we were doing and wreaking havoc.
— At least we had hired a camera crew, he says. We had planned to have six cameras film us and it would be released as a commercial video. But the PA equipment was so useless, I have better stuff in my living room. It wasn't even daycare center quality. And the sound guy was more interested in stuffing himself with food than adjusting the sound for us. So there was no commercial video, as you might imagine.
— The second time we were going to arrange a live video was at Dynamo in 1999. There were ten thousand people in the audience so it had gotten really hot. But Hervé didn't want to send a camera crew, he wanted to wait until the next day when we were going to play in France. There we were allowed to play in daylight, and it was so hot that the audience just stood there with their tongues hanging out over the fence. When we watched the recording, we realized that it was too miserable to use.
LATER THIS YEAR, a massive MARDUK box will be released to celebrate the 10th anniversary. It will contain several unreleased songs; leftover songs, a lot of weird versions of songs, new recordings — in total, it will be two or three CDs. The box will also include a video of almost two hours with clips from TV shows that MARDUK has been on, live clips from lots of different gigs, backstage stuff and some fun events like when Legion is on stage with CANNIBAL CORSPE in Italy and strips. A super thick booklet with all the old lyrics, plus tons of pictures that have never been published before will also be included. According to Legion, it will be in the same format as a comic book, but with stiffer and glassier paper. As if that weren't enough, newly taken photos with autographs will also be stowed in the box.
— The box will be printed in at least 10,000 copies and we will sign the autographs by hand. I can imagine how much we'll swear before we've even got everyone's heads turned, laughs the singer. As has been shown before, MARDUK has a good idea of what they're going to do. I'm hardly surprised when Legion starts talking about another project.
— We're planning to record a kind of MARDUK documentary. A camera crew will follow us for a whole day, when we do a festival gig or something like that, and film everything. Five, six professional camera guys who will record an entire performance plus everything that happens around us during a day. We'll probably also record a real video for a song and throw it in because it's fun for the fans. There are no TV channels that dare to play the kind of music that we do, so we haven't thought it would be a good idea to make a video for any song. But if we're going to do this thing, we might as well go ahead and shoot a video too. It will be released on video and DVD, but that is a bit far in the future, around 2002, 2003.
It sounds like MARDUK fans have a lot to look forward to. For the upcoming tour, they have already arranged five new T-shirt designs. Plus they have a couple of designs that are being painted as we speak. These will be released this summer. After CRADLE OF FILTH, MARDUK must be the black metal band that has released the most T-shirts. Legion doesn't even have an idea of how many different designs there are with the band, but he announces that there are at least a good bit over fifty.
LEGION ALSO HAS a life outside of MARDUK, even though most of his time is spent with the band. He likes to ride motorcycles and, just like you, is interested in tattoos.
— I'm in the process of starting a tattoo studio here in Norrköping. In the fall of '98 I bought some equipment and since then I've been practicing on friends and stuff. I'll be driving a couple of hours a day when I'm home. It's mostly for fun. I have income from MARDUK so I can afford the apartment, the car and the bike, that's enough for me. If I can get the tattoo studio to break even, then it's okay, no harm done. Tattooing people is a creative job, not an ordinary boring job. I really enjoy it. And the day MARDUK has burned its gunpowder, I'll have something to fall back on. We'll never start releasing bad records and living on old credentials just to be able to get by. It's too tragic with groups like that. Then I'd rather do like Greta Garbo and end on a high.
Let's hope that's the case. Legion ended this interview on a high anyway. He got the chance to play Metalwire's traditional low-budget version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which in this issue goes under the title Who Wants to Be a Metalwire T-shirt Owner? He got three correct answers out of four, which is enough to win. Considering that this article is already three and a half kilometers long, you'll have to bear with me summarizing the competition: Legion was given three options for each question. He managed to guess the name of DARKTHRONE's first album, which state in the US ABSU is from, and which band out of IMMOLATION, MERCILESS, and NECROPHOBIC has released the most full-length albums. The only thing he missed was which is IMMORTAL-Abbath's favorite.
Name: Erik Legion
Age: 25 ½
Last album purchased: Repurchased Danzig “Danzig 4” because it was broken
Favorite food: Pork tenderloin, potatoes with a yummy sauce and salad
Rule that rules: The Shining, The Godfather 1 and 2
Coolest T-shirt: Celtic Frost “Morbid Tales”