SUMMONING INTERVIEW

September/2014

“I see melancholy as a necessary feeling that is useful to recover the mind again. It’s like a harvest: there are times to put the seed into the earth, and times to get the grapes of your effort”.

Summoning

Your latest album was released last year. How were the reactions so far? When you compare with the older stuff, what do you wanna say about regarding sound, recording and the feeling the album brings?

Silenius: All in all the reactions were great so far. I think people seem to be relieved that we still exist after all that long time of silence, but of course, as ever we could not appeal to all our fans. it seems that those who liked oathbound and lmhsyf very much have been a little bit disappointed by the new one, because it seems to be a lot darker and less epic in their eyes, but those who like us since minas morgul and dol guldur seemed to be more attracted by our new album, and as even when we have a new CD out, we gained a lot of new fans and that’s of course great.

With the new album Old Mornings Down, Summoning sounds darker, atmospheric than epic and reminds me Burzum’s dark ambient albums like Dauði Baldrs. May be because of less flute usage also contributed this mood, since from my point of view flute softens sharper melodies… What do you think? This idea is somehow classical music origin but I wanna ask if you assign a meaning to the instruments and the moods they set off?

Protector: For me the album also has a more old school black metal feeling; mainly because of the guitars, which were produced and played in a quite different way than before. They are more arpeggios styled with a deeper and more direct and rough sound, which gives the songs more black metal feeling, than on the albums before. The general sound is also more direct, with less reverb, what gives the complete album a more direct feeling. I don’t think that we changed so much concerning the keyboard sounds we used, they just might sound different because of the reduced reverb. 

We are not really inspired by classical music. Of course we use many classical instrument sounds with our sampler, but the way how we treat them, is different from classical music. We create songs based on melodic loops, what makes them total different to the classical structures. We just do, what people do in rock and metal music since the beginning, create "riffs" and repeat them for a couple of times. The only difference is that we often do this with keyboards in addition to the guitars.

Summoning is formed by two musicians of Protector on Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Drum programming and Silenius on Vocals, Keyboards, Bass and both members have many side projects. Are they still active?

Silenius: Kreuzweg ost is still alive, although one of the project members has moved to England and I am not sure if he will still contribute. However, never the less I will continue to compose material for a 4rth kwo CD next year as soon as all the work for the missing summoning songs will be finished. Maybe tt of Abigor will do some technical work for the album, we will see. To be honest I did not think too often about this now, because I am still busy with summoning. Besides that, I was doing the main vocals for the new Abigor CD, which was released a few weeks ago and I did some session vocals for the new Amesitgon album, which will be released later this year. 

Protector: I still plan to release a 4th ice ages CD, but so far I am occupied with creating songs for the next summoning mini CD. But as soon as this one is finished, I start working for ice ages. 


Could you please give more info about Austrian Black Metal Syndicate seems to be a meeting point of Australian black metal bands. Does it still exist? Is there any specific ideology behind? What makes Austrian black metal scene different from the rest of the world?

Silenius: In the beginning, the Austrian black metal syndicate was a connection between Austrian black metal bands, tape traders and some fans. The main reason for its existence was to coordinate everything connected to the very young black metal movement. You have to imagine that in those times black metal did not exist in the public of Austria as in many other countries except Norway and Sweden, from where the movement started. In the beginning, everyone helped each other, and brought connections in many different ways to build up a kind of international networking. but soon there have been a lot of quarrels and two different ideas between the contributing bands of how this union should be run and so everything broke up after some years and most of the contributing bands worked for their own, made their way, or failed.

Summoning has a deep influential epic side even can be said as a sound of Tolkien works. He is the creator of fantasy style with his outstanding middle earth. Many things said about his works; resemblances from Viking mythology, 2nd world war or just a contradiction between good and evil. What do you think about his works and what do you wanna say about effects of Tolkien works on Summoning, how did it start?

Silenius: First of all, I want to mention that Summoning started as a black metal band, so it was not clear in the beginning in which lyrical direction the band will move during the first years of existence. Although we used some fantasy and even Tolkien topics within our debut the main influence of Tolkien stared to be presented in minas morgul. From this time, it was clear that we wanted to build up the middle earth concept around our music. I think this was very important for us in those times because back then I still was the singer of Abigor and we wanted to differ from the satanic lyrics of this band and of course wanted to have a strong own identity. 

Are you involved in literature rather than Tolkien also? Do you have some specific authors whom you follow or masterpieces, which you adore?

Silenius: To be honest meanwhile I am not too much in exploring new fantasy literature; I am a bit fed up with that thing in the moment, but during the 90ties I explored a lot of modern fantasy authors, but to be honest I never found anyone who build up such a detailed vision of a whole world such as Tolkien did with the middle earth concept. And also, the story concepts of most of the modern heroic fantasy authors have many similarities to Tolkien and use it as a template for their own stories, especially this quest topic. 

Please tell us the story of the song called Mirdautas Vras written in Orcis language from Oath Bound album?

Silenius: To be honest I cannot really remember too much about the working process from oathbound, its 10 years ago by now. what I can remember is that we always tried to put guitars to the song but somehow it does not fit to the horn section so we just tried to give this song a new direction and wanted to make something special out of it and one day there came the idea to put lyrics in one of the language Tolkien created over the song and of course the black language was the most attractive one and so I asked a friend from the band Greifenstein to help me to work for lyrics written in this black speech and the result was really breathtaking and after we had the lyrics we still got the next problem how to sing this lyric. I tried many different pronunciations but many things I tried just did now work well and in the end I just made the singing as aggressive as possible and mixed my vocals with some orkish scream samples. 

Summoning is declared as studio band so far. What is the reason of not interested in live shows? Is it a kind of hatred over spotlights and thought of how meaningless of the worshipping fan base as Dark Throne supported so far? Will you keep your attitude in the future?

Protector: It is not hatred against live concerts, it is just the knowledge that we are not made for the stage, and that we are a pure studio band. I wonder why people expect a band that they like when they listen to their music on CD, should be automatically a good band on the stage; these are two total different abilities for me. One means being creative and getting good new melodies and rhythms for the album; the other means to be able to perform already created songs live on stage. The latter is a matter of the abilities on the instrument, and also a kind of ability of self-presentation, which we are both totally missing in summoning. Apart from that we are no perfect instrument players and also prefer to use our precious time for creating songs, instead of practicing old ones over and over again. 
Protector, you mentioned how he likes tonbak drum from Persia. It is used in Turkish oriental music also. How did you come across with this instrument? Any curiosity for oriental music?

Protector: Well, that information is not 100% correct. I like the tonbak, but my specialty is the darbuka. I am learning to play this instrument since many years by now, and actually specially focus on the Turkish (split finger) style; and I don’t say this only because this interview is for a Turkish site J. I just get deeply impressed by those amazing finger skills I can see in all those Turkish darbuka videos (like for example Levent Yildirim). Actually people here are not aware about the huge Arab and Turkish influence on our culture which came during the medieval times. Instruments like the darbuka where normal those days. Most instruments which are used in western classical music also came from the Turkish and Arabic world (zurna => shalm => oboe, oud => lute, davul => rock bass drum). As I was always interested in medieval music but also in oriental music, and because I was always interested in drums, it is no wonder that I got in contact also with the darbuka. It’s really fascinated me to use those 4 fingers to achieve those "rolls" that are impossible to play just with two hand, like on a rock drum kit. But I generally like to explore new sounds, and as a person worn in "western" culture, for me all those oriental instruments sound really news and exciting and give me new ideas.

Summoning members declared that they have their own occupations and not earning their lives from music. Like me, author, writer, reporter but never earn my life from art, I’ve been working as chemical engineer for a while and according to me some distance from artistic life style gives you more influence and desire to create. That is why I am curious if there are similar people in music scene. So, may I ask what are you dealing with in your daily lives and what do you wanna say about artistic lifestyle and daily life differentiation?

Silenius: Of course it is cool to get money from the sells, but as we never play live it is impossible to live from the music. the positive thing about that is that you are independent in your artistic freedom, that means that you don’t have to crawl into the asses of all our fans and please them and please them in any way we can just to get their money, but we also want that our fans like our music, but we want to have the domination over our music. In my normal life I work in a record shop. 

Protector: For me it is important to be total free in mind while composing music. If I would know that the success of then next album will decide if I can pay the rent of my flat or not, then I naturally could not make music without any thought about the opinions the fans will have when they hear it, and such thought are just like poison for any creativity. In my normal live I work as a programmer, and now start to focus on working for android apps. 


Please share your thought for the concepts highly found places in black metal:

*Religion

Richard: I am a pure atheist and like to quote on of the most misunderstood lines "opium of the people". Unlike the later distorted version of that line "opium for the people", this quote meant, that we live in a cruel, cold world, while religion offers the people all the warmth and hope they never get in the real world, and therefore need religion to heal their wounds and soul. 

Its does NOT mean that anybody shall prohibit people their religion or any of their symbol; such suppression never worked, neither under the regime of Stalin, nor under the regime of Ataturk. The more you suppress religion, the more it causes resistance against this kind of suppression.

And I am as a person who grew up with metal music, dressed in leather-jackets with long hair, knows perfectly what it means if some state or person tells which cloths to wear and which attitude I shall have.

*Lucifer

Protector: Well as an atheist, none of the figures mentioned in any holy books exists for me. All religions where created a long time ago, when there was no science and people did not know how to explain the world. So inventing some gods and demons which are responsible for thunder, rain, and later ruled the world in a centralized way, was for me understandable a long time ago, but not really in the modern world.

*Suicide

Protector: Everybody should have the right to decide how long to live. Of course this should never been a consequence of a very bad mood or period in life that might pass. But if a person has for example a painful sickness that no one can heal, of course this person should have the right to decide to end this misery. 

*Melancholy

Protector: Melancholy is for me a kind of feeling that happens between some peeks of activation. I see melancholy as a necessary feeling that is useful to recover the mind again. It’s like a harvest: there are times to put the seed into the earth, and times to get the grapes of your effort. 

*Misanthropy

Protector: If someone decided that the whole humanity is terrible, it’s the right of that person. But in most cases this talk about misanthropy is often a kind of mask behind which people hide. They hate all people, but would not stand missing a weekend without their beloved metal parties. Often calling yourself misanthrope transports the meaning that you want to impress your individuality and as the world does not understand you, you hate the world and all people living there. But for me being an individualist, coping with the world at the same time was never a problem. 

Thank you for the interview. Please share you last words and wishes...

Silenius: Thanks for the interview. Up the hammers to all our fans in turkey.

Originally published in Turkish on filhakiket.net