WATAIN - Shock & Awe
Written by: Tom Wilson @thetomwilsonexperiment - Sense Music Media | Thursday 28 April 2022
Photos by: Evelina Szczesik
Talking Blood, Sweat & Fear with Erik Danielsson
The average show by black metal veterans WATAIN is not most people’s idea of a “good time”. It reeks of blood and rotting flesh and smoke. It’s transgressive. It’s obscene. These qualities have generated no shortage of column inches in the music press over the last two decades, as the band have been accused of everything from animal cruelty to racism, concerts have been cancelled, and the band has been refused entry into the U.S. twice. But frontman Erik Danielsson wouldn’t have it any other way, and with the release of their new album The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain, he spoke to SENSE about the high price and high reward of shock value.
I know you’re probably thinking, “Hey, this is a cool interview, but seriously Tom, when are we going to start talking about watersports?” Well, I’ve got good news for you; my first question is about watersports.
[Laughs] Go ahead!
Last year, during a performance by an American band called BRASS AGAINST, the singer brought someone up onstage and pissed in their mouth … The music world lost its collective shit. As someone who is famous for pretty intense live shows, what did you make of the whole reaction to it?
I wasn’t following it that closely, but I was watching the video together with Tobias from GHOST … We just looked at each other like “That girl is a genius.” From now on, they’re going to play [to] twice the crowds that they’re doing now. Because that’s how these things work these days, you know? I don’t know. I always love when people walk the extra mile and dare to be a little bit extreme. I think it’s very refreshing, in the day and age that we live in, that people just do weird shit, and there’s a reaction to it. I miss that a little bit, to be honest. I grew up with not only black metal but also a lot of industrial music, and alternative music in general – radical punk music and so on – and all of that always had that notion that anything can happen at any time. While that was more underground-based, so it might not have had the same widespread reactions, but it still had that feeling that anything can happen at a show. I think I always seek for that in a way, and I really try to keep it in WATAIN, to maintain that sense of unpredictability somehow. But you were asking more about what I thought about the reactions [to] that video?
Yeah, yeah. And to expand on that, I remember watching it at the time and thinking, “Ah, rock ‘n’ roll is back after COVID.” [Laughs]
Yeah, exactly! [Laughs] I think we’re on the same page then, you know? Anyone who does anything to bring rock ‘n’ roll back in this day and age have my vote. That’s as simple as it is!
Can you imagine if G.G. Allin or someone was alive today?
Yeah, exactly. It’s surreal to think. I was talking the other day with a friend about that, someone who has been interested in making a movie about G.G.’s life, and we were just like, “How is that going to come across now?” Obviously, he has this cult following, and that’s people who maybe still abide to those antics, but there’s so much of that [that] just wouldn’t work now, I guess … It’s so much more organised now, this kind of criticism, and the way things are controversial now, it doesn’t produce the same fun results. It’s just getting shut down. I guess that’s what I mean. They don’t put these people on talk shows anymore, they just shut them down. That’s a shame, I think. I mean, come on. [Laughs] … On the other hand, G.G. made such a good point of being an embodiment of everything that is bad, you know? He was as much a Nazi as he was a rapist as he was a beater of minors … He wanted to corrupt the souls of the youth. He was just all bad – that was the concept, right? That’s a pretty unique concept in a way … You have to go all the way back to Georges Bataille or someone like that in order to find these artistic concepts that are just embracing everything that is obnoxious and chaotic and, so to say, “evil” in man, right? I believe in those concepts. I think they are super interesting. I think they open up for a lot of really important discussions, they pose a lot of really important questions for people to ask themselves, you know? And I embrace them, totally, you know? I think that people get too caught up on details more these days. It’s way more difficult to do radical shit in culture I guess, and that’s a shame, but that doesn’t stop us, on the other hand. We’ll just keep on doing it, but we might also get banned from playing shows or banned from entire countries. Who knows? But someone has to keep on doing it also.
Do you think that a concept of that is that these days, people are just craving safety, more than anything else? I feel like, to deviate from the norm in ways that G.G. and people like that did, I don’t know if people have almost fetishized comfort these days, that they don’t want to leave room for anything that makes them uncomfortable.
Yeah, I hear you. I think that’s a big part of it, absolutely. On the other hand, I find it’s deranged that … People have always, like you say, I think it was nicely put, “fetishized comfort,” you know? It’s how the western society is kind of built up, you know? You get comfort in return to your favours to the state. But that also produces a longing for discomfort, for disruption, for transgression and so on, and that’s where radical art comes into the picture I guess, to fulfill that need of people, because that need is being produced by the way our world is made up. I find it weird how that need for comfort has spilled over into culture as well. Culture should have disruptive elements in it, otherwise is kind of loses its whole point, I think, you know. So that’s kind of weird. It’s one thing in politics, and how to govern a country and how a system is made up and so on, but when it comes to art and culture and music and so on, I find it a bit strange that the people are so afraid of disturbing and problematic and controversial things. I think that if there is any place where those really should have a platform, it’s in art, I think.
I’m reminded of, on the director’s commentary for Fight Club … Edward Norton was there with David Fincher and Brad Pitt, and he was shocked that they had so much resistance from the film coming from the left. This whole concept of “this subject matter disturbed me, therefore I declare it an invalid subject to do.” I found that interesting, and that was over twenty years ago.
Yeah. I mean, to be frank, I think with WATAIN, we are facing as much criticism from the left as we are from the right, I suppose. There’s no rationality there whatsoever, it just is what it is. [Laughs] They’re waving their flags on both sides, but luckily, we are apolitical in that sense. I enjoy it. I enjoy facing any kind of opposition, from left or right or above or below, whatever it may be. I think that’s a role that black metal should play. It should be a problem, to a lot of people. [Laughs] And it should represent the devil in culture, you know? It’s beautiful, it’s alluring, it’s magnificent, it’s larger than life, but it’s also quite horrible, and it reeks, and it asks a lot of very uncomfortable questions. That’s exactly what it should be.
As someone whose band has generated no shortage of column inches over the years, what are some of the stupidest things you’ve ever heard written about your band?
Well … There’s been a few. It’s funny now, when you ask it, because I can’t really think of one, you know? I bet a lot of bands could answer that question way better than I can. But I think it also has to do with … We have always worked with extremes in our expression. We have always worked near the borders of sanity, and the limits of what’s being allowed and so on. In doing that for twenty-five years, you’re going to have a lot of weird shit written about you. That’s just something you kind of have to expect and live with, and maybe even work with, you know? Hopefully to your own benefit in the end. But I think, maybe, all these different interpretations of what we do, all these misconceptions and so on, I think they serve the purpose of maintaining a well-needed and quite flattering mystery around the band, you know? I don’t mind that at all. I actually like that people don’t really know how to approach us sometimes. Ultimately, I think 90% of everyone that listens to WATAIN does that because they find what we do relatable, maybe in a musical taste sense, or they like the way our things look and so on. Everything is pretty elaborate and meticulously done and so on … I don’t think most people see it as such a radical thing, in their lives, to be a fan of WATAIN, but I think there is definitely a general conception among people who don’t like WATAIN, or that are not that well acquainted with our sound or our records or our live concerts, I think maybe it’s more around those people that there’s this general confusion or misconception about what we stand for and so on. That’s fine by me. [Laughs] That’s not really the people that we are playing to anyway, you know? I’m fine with being an elusive anomaly when it comes to trying to pin us down or whatever, in a larger context.
If money, safety or sanity wasn’t an object, what would you most like to do in a WATAIN show?
Well, I can think of a lot of things, obviously. I’ve always been a great admirer of huge stage productions and so on, and I can really see what we do in WATAIN being taken to an arena stage. I can definitely see us filling that, and making something actually quite unique with that setting. I think the rock concert in general is such an unexplored platform in general. I’ve always been very fascinated with it, and I think there is so much to do in that context, you know? It is the modern-day ceremony, I guess. It’s loud, obnoxious music … In WATAIN terms, it’s also fire, there’s blood, there’re all these smells. There are all these people that appear to be in ecstasy or almost possessed or something like that. It is just a very unusual situation, I guess, for people to be a part of, compared to how people live their lives these days. To answer your question, I think we are always on the way towards what we consider the perfect stage setting, but that journey will never end, I think. It’s something that we are really interested in, and really as interested in as writing albums or creating art … graphic art and so on. The stage setting, and what we do onstage, is easily as important as writing songs and so on. We consider WATAIN more as an artistic collective rather than a band in that sense, you know? There’s a lot of things in our studio going on. It’s not only writing music.
The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain is out now on Nuclear Blast
Pictured: WATAIN
Photo by: Evelina Szczesik