Banger TV 's Sam Dunn recently conducted an interview with

frontman Grutle Kjellson and guitarist and primary songwriter Ivar

Bjørnson of Norwegian progressive black avantgardists ENSLAVED. You
can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed
by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On what elements of black metal still exist within ENSLAVED circa 2018:

Ivar: "I think the atmosphere would be retained from those old days
that there's still there, even though songwriting is maybe a little bit
different and the musicianship, arrangements, and all that — last year
we did a rendition of our first album ['Vikingligr Veldi'] at the Beyond
The Gates festival. We did the whole thing. We still play old stuff during
our live sets, so, we live and breathe, I would say, our entire catalog."

Grutle: "I don't think we will ever travel completely away from that
concept. We're still extreme metal and there will always be dynamics
between the harsh and shall we say, the beautiful or mellow. For me
personally, that's really important in music. It's supposed to be
emotional and it's supposed to be a reflection of your own mind.
Everything is not completely horrible; it's not just black and white."

On the risks ENSLAVED took during the writing and recording of their
latest studio album, "E":

Ivar: "The changing of members, like in the middle of the whole process.
There was a moment there where everything could have been
postponed. Then, the sensible thing, like normal people would do, put
things on hold and see if we can find a keyboard player who can sing.
And that moment passed and it meant, 'It's going to work out.'"

Grutle: "Basically, we said, 'Yeah, fuck it. We're going to make an

album.'"
On what ENSLAVED did differently on "E":

Grutle: "The arrangements, of course. The vocal arrangements. I

basically had to do all that by myself because [new
keyboardist] Håkon [Vinje] wasn't involved in the process until we
actually started the recordings. He actually went into the studio and did
his things weeks after we finished. I think the whole band kind of
stepped up a little bit because we had to."

On the pros and cons of having a new band member (Vinje) who is
much younger than the rest of ENSLAVED:

Grutle: "He's positive and very energetic. I mean, we're old farts to him,
really. I could have been his father. [Now ex-drummer] Cato [Bekkevold]
could have been his grandfather or something. [Laughs] Of course, his
musical skills are amazing, too. This guy, usually nobody wants to be the
keyboard player. This guy, grew up, his father played him DEEP
PURPLE and he was like, 'This is it! This is what I'm going to do. I want to
be a keyboard player.'"

Ivar: "'I want to be Jon Lord [DEEP PURPLE] when I grow up.' I think a
potential con would have been if we got a young guy. Sometimes you
meet new bands who had success very fast and they have a bit of an
annoying outlook on things for us where we've worked our way up.
Luckily, Håkon has been in a band who has been struggling for years
already. He's very appreciative of the setting ENSLAVED is in now. It's a
good human thing: 'If you weren't there during the war years, son.' He
gets that."

Grutle: "He doesn't know a lot about the band history. We were in
Montreal the other day. They screened the movie, the documentary, he
was so fascinated, he was like, 'I didn't know these things.' I was like,
'And you're in the band?'"
Ivar: "For us, it's a very good thing. I think for some bands it can be
problematic because there could be a lack of what they perceive as
respect tor something like that, but we can also exploit it for our own
entertainment. He'll never know when we tell old stories what is true or
not."

On being confident in writing "simpler" songs:

Grutle: "It's always more difficult to play super slow than super fast. I
mean, I can never be the bass player in EARTH; I could never do it. That
slow, you have to be so precise. So, it's actually a lot more difficult to
play primitive and slow riffs. Listen to AC/DC. I mean, for a drummer,
that's hard."

On whether ENSLAVED's music is getting more difficult to play in light of

their new approach:

Ivar: "Yes. The new album is the most difficult thing we've done. It
forced us to think about rehearsal in a new, old way. It was enough just
to play the same songs and learn the songs. We really had to go and
spend some extra time and find the mechanics of the songs."

ENSLAVED will embark on a co-headline European tour with HIGH ON

FIRE. The string of dates will run from late September through to mid-
October, and is set to include 14 shows across seven countries. Two of
the U.K. show dates — Milton Keynes and Leeds — will
be ENSLAVED headline shows.

"E" was released last October via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to
2015's "In Times" was recorded at Duper & Solslottet Studios in Bergen
and was once again mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination
Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden.