During Watain's concert, a father put a chair on the ground so his eleven-year-old son could see better. The boy's comment about the show was: »This is so fucking awesome!«
– Damn, how cool, says Börje »Boss« Forsberg with a persistent and stubborn tone. Bathory and this style of music have become so established that it's now like classical music: new listeners are constantly appearing. If someone had told me in 1984 that this would be so big today, I would never have believed it.
– I also got a funny comment. After the gig, a guard cautiously crept up to me and said: »What the hell, that wasn't Bathory, was it?« »No, not really. It was Watain, but they played Bathory songs.« He also thought it was really good, but seemed really thoughtful about how Bathory could be on stage. What's your impression of Watain?
– Really positive. They are great guys, who seem to be very serious and know what they are doing. Their own show was impressive and professional. The Bathory songs were done very well and they seemed to have rehearsed properly. Especially »A fine day to die«, which is actually a rather complicated song, was fantastic. I had not heard the band play the songs before, but when they kicked off it sounded exactly as they wanted it to. I have lived with the songs for so many years, they are in my mind, so of course I have thought a lot about how it could sound. I can't imagine that you can do it better live than what Watain did. It was actually a bit strange to stand and listen and I was actually moved at the beginning of the »Oden's ride over northland« intro. How did it feel to be on stage?
– It was pretty cool and nice. When they had played their set with their own material, everyone was standing. I don't know if it was something I imagined, but it actually seemed like more people were even streaming in. When the intro started, it felt really powerful and like this was really a cool thing for Quorthon, so then I thought: "Oh, just go in and do it." I hadn't thought through what I was going to say. Among other things, you said that "I'm sure Quorthon is with us here tonight".
- Yes, I just said what I felt then and there. It felt like a good thing to do it and to thank all the fans for how they have supported me over the years. Bathory fans are very supportive. Your partner Klaudia Scharein said about Watain that they were "a bit chaotic - just like Bathory - but that's how it should be".
- Exactly. When we made a Bathory album, it was never like we sat down and had a meeting and said "now we're going to do this and that". It grew over time. We always did the basics and then the album came out. Bathory wasn't something that grew overnight, it was step by step with a bunch of dedicated fans in the beginning. Then it found its own way somehow. Bathory didn't have a concrete offer for a gig at Wacken Open Air, did it?
– We had a standing offer for four or five years, but there was never really much to think about. There were such huge plans for everything Quorthon wanted to do with all the Viking stuff; he wanted a whole dragon ship on stage. It certainly felt sad to have to say no. I tried to work on it a bit and said that maybe we should have tried to do three or four shows: Wacken, Sweden Rock Festival and maybe one in England and the USA.
THOMAS VÄÄNÄNEN