Life truly is a journey. The experiences musicians have as they travel through life is what inspires them to create meaningful music. I was given the chance to pick Erlend’s mind and find out what shaped the metal Viking he is today.
Welcome to MHF magazine.
What was the starting point for you? The moment that you knew you were destined to play music for a living?
I can’t think of a specific moment like that but for me I got into metal wan I was about 13 years old and I haven’t looked back since. I stared playing keyboards on a cover band and I did that for a few years, then I was 15 and I got into heavier music like slipknot, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth and that sort of bands that made me wanna sing. Then I started singing and I just focused on singing ever since then.
When did you feel accomplished in your career?
Good question. I feel pretty good about everything I’ve done so far, and with my old band too. We’ve had a lot of great milestones I think. We won awards for our albums here in Norway, we got to play with bands like Metallica, Slayer and Ghost, so that was great. But for me I feel that the biggest milestone was writing my own album and staring my own band. Even starting up my own label, setting up a business, with my wife as a manager. I would say I feel the most accomplished right now.
Let’s talk about surviving disappointment. Was there a moment in your career in the music industry that you felt like it was hopeless? And how did you move on?
I haven’t really felt hopeless, I am a pretty positive person, so I think there’s always something you can do when you are struggling. In my opinion the worst thing you can do is not to do anything. There’s always an opportunity and you know that they say, fortune favours the bold so you just have to be brave, I think. Leaving my old band was a scary thing, even though the band was doing really well, you know. But like I said the worst thing you can do is not to do anything so for me the best thing I could do was to leave the band, and start my own band. And I haven’t regretted it. It feels good to talk about my new band with now.
As a musician you are experiencing different cultures. How do you incorporate those elements to your work?
When it comes to lyrics I focus on the Norwegian culture, history and, mythology. Musically I’m inspired by black metal, death metal, and thrash metal, from all over the world.
Welcome to Hel! Blackened Viking heavy metal, as you call it. That’s definitely a milestone in your career. Let’s talk about that. What would you like the world to know about this album?
I hope the world will agree with me that this is great album, in my opinion is the best album I even made, I really put 100% of myself into it, writing the music and the lyrics exactly as I wanted them to be, I’m very proud of the result and I think there are a lot of elements in it that a lot of fans of my old work will appreciate an hopefully I’ll get new listeners as well since the new music is heavier that what I’ve been doing before. I would also like to inform people that it would really help if they would pre order the album from our website.
Until the next one,
