Just some minutes before the show of Marduk in Athens, RockOverdose.gr had the honor to speak with the guitarist and the oldest member of the band, Morgan. So here we go!
RockOverdose.gr: Good evening, welcome once again in Greece. Did you ever thought that Marduk would still be around after 22 years?
Morgan: Maybe not the first 2-3 years of the band career but as you work hard on your vision, and things expand and you work even harder, I wouldn't be surprised if we would be around for 40 years.
Because the thing is, when you work with things, your vision grows when you get older and you get more dimensions to your works and you see how things expand so I'm just continuing to do what I' m doing and keep marching.
RockOverdose.gr: Okay. “Serpent Sermon” is Mortuu's 3rd album but he seems to be more aggressive in vocals compared to the other albums, do you agree?
Morgan: I don't know - comparing aggressiveness is always in the mind of the one who listens to it, but I don't know. But for me (personally speaking) more albums are being aggressive when it comes to vocals and music, and also the heaviness, everybody listens to music with different views and looks upon things differently. That's one thing that I learnt when I speak to a lot of people when we do every album. People tell me 'Oh it's so different compared to your other albums, and this and that' - but everyone will always have their own mind.
RockOverdose.gr: In this album have you experimented with different techniques?
Morgan: No, In a way---but not really. We're not really a band that is very experimental, we record in our own studio which is owned by our bass player - and we recorded the last 4 albums there. For us we usually go in the way we do, we're very well focused, we know what we wanna do, we work and music and lyrics and our bass player is being our studio technician, it's like a full circle, we go in and do what we do, and we nail it in a few weeks.
RockOverdose.gr: How important is touring in promoting your music?
Morgan: : For us as a band it's always been important, we're one of those few bands that tour a lot ever since we started out, ever since we made the first albums.. I believe in the power of the music and the power of being able to perform live in front of people, even if they're located in Venezuela, in China, or Belarus or Mongolia, we try to do what we can within reasonable frames to reach all the areas in the world, in which we have succeeded. I think we're one of the few bands that toured so many areas of the world.
RockOverdose.gr: ...and so many times in Mexico also!
Morgan: Yes, it's always nice for us to be in Mexico, it's a country that we've had a strong relationship with Mexico since day one
RockOverdose.gr: ...and the biggest fans
Morgan: Yeah in a way, but we've always been in a good contact with countries like Mexico, also Romania, Hungary, Germany, and generally a lot of countries -- Even Greece it's been really good. I remember back in the early 90's when the black metal scene was more or less located in Sweden, Norway and Greece - so we've had good contact with a lot of these countries. And thats why Greece also had a lot of good bands in the early 90's - you had Rotting Christ, Necroromancia, Varathron, etc.
RockOverdose.gr: Great bands all of them! How hard is choosing a setlist for a tour? With all these albums and your latest release, how do you choose the songs?
Morgan: Of course we always try to get a few more songs from the new album rather than the older ones, at least other songs we can do for like 60-70 minutes, we try to get around 3 or 4 songs from the new album, and then of course we try to get something from more or less every album, not all of them, but we've rehearsed most songs that we haven't done from the early days. Βut we try to incorporate something from all the different time periods. We try to mix it around a bit depending on where we are and what mood we are in.
RockOverdose.gr: “Phosphorus Redeemer” lyrics were written by a friend of yours. How did you decide that?
Marduk: Oh Yeah, Miika, I've known him since the late 90's and I always liked the way he writes lyrics. Ηe has a certain power in them and he has a strong personality so he's on of the guys that I always wanted to write something for Marduk.
RockOverdose.gr: Did he write for previous albums or just this one?
Morgan: No, He didn't write lyrics for previous albums, but he did only for that song “Phosphorus Redeemer”, never before though. But it was a great pleasure because I like his personality, the way he is and what he's been doing for the music scene and I also wrote lyrics for him once as well for his album... he has a special way of writing so he's one of the few people who I really appreciate in this scene.
RockOverdose.gr: Your EP “Portraits of dead children” is not released until today. Am I true?
Morgan: It's kind of a strange/very different recording, it doesn't really sound like Marduk and I don't know what we're gonna do with it - it's only four short songs. Μaybe I'll have it put up on a website in the future, or as an EP, I'm not sure.. it's a weird recording - interesting but different!
RockOverdose.gr: I recently read that you are going to sign with Polish company for having your own licensed guitars.
Morgan: Yeah, we've been talking for a long time but nothing's really happened yet, so we will see.. I'm still thinking about it and I will get back to them because its something we were talking about even many years ago, they're keeping with the guitars that I'm using but I'm working on a few different designs of my own so.. I might hook up with the polish company in the future.
RockOverdose.gr: Τhank you very much for the interview, it's been a pleasure.
Morgan: Thank you, my pleasure.
RockOverdose.gr: Ηope to see you soon in Greece again...
Morgan: Maybe... *laughs* we have a lot of things coming up so we will be back sooner or later.
RockOverdose.gr: And what shall we wait for tonight?
Morgan: You shall think blood, fire, death, marching, spreading the decease from older albums!
For RockOverdose.gr: Labrini Gouma (Stelli thx for helpin')
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