Vores begejstrede anmelder kvitterede da også med 9 kranier. Vi fik for nylig en snak med gruppens frontmand og vokalist, Attila Csihar, og vi kom langt omkring. I det følgende kan du blandt andet læse om den snakkesaglige Attilas holdninger til gruppens jubilæumsturne, Mayhem som kreativ kraft, AI i metal, hvor inspiration kommer fra, og så selvfølgelig masser om det nye, mesterlige album.

Good morning, Attila and thanks a lot for speaking to Heavymetal.dk today. By the way, it must be pretty early in the morning for you right now.

Yes, I'm in California so it's very early here but that’s OK, I’m a morning person these days! But yeah, good morning to you too. I'm happy to do this video call and it's great to have an interview from Denmark, I love Denmark! It's always been awesome with great shows when we’ve played there.

We can talk about that a little bit later perhaps, because I would like to start with your new album, Liturgy of Death if that’s OK. In 2023 we did an interview with Necrobutcher and back then he told us that the new album would come out in 2024. Here we are in 2026 and it’s finally ready. Can you talk a little bit about the writing and recording process of the new album?

Oh yeah, it always takes a long time for us and this time it was also because we had the COVID situation. I don't know why, but something always happens so we have seven years between the records, which is strange. The biggest change from the past is that now we have two guitar players, and we send ideas back and forth between our home studios. We’re also on the road much more these days, so we also work on stuff then. It just takes a long time to get everything in shape before we’re ready to go into a studio and put it all together.

I wrote most of the lyrics in the winter period because that's where I'm more inspired, feeling more blue you know, but I prefer the sun to be honest. I always get my best ideas driving my Harley!

Maybe you can talk about the theme of the album? I don't know if we can call it a concept album, but there definitely seems to be a concept behind it?

Yes, the theme of the album is basically death! Not as an ending, but as a universal law that affects all life. The concept just came to me, and then I realized, oh, wow, this is pretty heavy! This theme is the most universal and something everybody has to face. What’s on the other side of life? Then I realized how deep it is, you know, how many philosophers talk about it? How much art, how much poetry, how much literature, how mythology, how many religions deal with death? Especially, how religions use it for manipulation of mankind. So, I thought this is really, really heavy, but now I'm 55, maybe I'm grown up enough to tackle this heavy task.

I've seen in other interviews you talk about where inspiration starts, and that you think it actually comes from somewhere or something external?

Yes, it does! The first time I realized this I was on stage with Tormentor in ’85 or ’86. I will  never forget that time when I first faced it. I was like 15, and I was so freaked out! We were backstage with another 20 or 30 bands, and my stomach was going crazy, but when we went on stage, it was just gone, and I went into this strange kind of inspired state. I actually think there’s a video on YouTube with this show.  This is how my career started, and you can see in the video that I was already out of my mind! I couldn't control it, and that's the channel I talk about. Then through the years, I learned how to deal with it, but it's like a voice, you know, I don't know how, but it communicates to me, and this is where most of my inspiration comes from.

Let’s go back to the music again. In recent years you’ve been on your 40-year anniversary tour where you played songs from every Mayhem album. Do you think this affected the songwriting for the new album?

I guess so. I think our last album [Daemon] was also inspired a little bit by what came before. I didn't think about it so much until now, but someone mentioned that in an interview, maybe it was Necro, that when we did the tour for De Mysteriis [in 2017] that inspired Daemon. This album [Liturgy] kind of embraces the whole history of Mayhem, you know. We have some experimental riffs and some new riffs. So maybe yes, the whole thing represents the whole career of the band. But of course, everything is influencing everything, and we are not set in stone. We just go with the flow too, you know, so nothing is really planned, including the lyrics.

I was reading a lot of philosophers at the time, I mean, I always do, but it was Karl Jung, a lot of audio books with old Greek philosophers, the Romans like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. I like to have depth in the lyrics, you know. Sometimes like with Ordo or Esoteric Warfare, it takes a while for people to get it, you know, but that's fine!

Completely new topic here, but if I'm not mistaken, the current lineup of Mayhem is the longest-running in the history of the band. Do you think that somehow affects how you do things today? Especially live, where you have never sounded better in my opinion.

That's interesting. That's pretty cool. I didn't think about it, but you are right and thank you! I think it is really amazing that we sound better than ever, but we hear this everywhere we go.  

To join Mayhem is a really, really big task. I kinda brought in Charles [Hedger/Ghul – medlem siden 2012], and we sometimes joke about “what, do you really want to ruin your life and join this band?” I mean it’s a really heavy job you know. But with Morten [Iversen/Teloch, med siden 2011] we have two guitar players who are so diverse, it's amazing. And that's what I hoped for [when Ghul joined]: Either it will work or it will kill us, and it took some time to make it work. I respect them so much, and they are both amazing. Morten is coming from the core, from the garage, from the dirty depths of Norwegian black metal, while Charles was coming from the UK, and he was a teacher in a music school, a university I think, in London! So if you think about it, it's quite the opposite background! So, I was thinking, it could be like alchemy, you know, it could ruin us or it could bring us something amazing. And I think it's the latter!

So, in the beginning we sometimes had a lot of difficulties. They [Teloch and Ghul] have so many different approaches and ideas about music, but they always respect each other. And Mayhem is like a clan, a family, like a (secret) conspiracy. You're not just a member, you know, it requires so much more.  

And it seems to have worked. Most old conservative fans, like me, who were there in the beginning, still appreciate the way you do things these days…

That's really good to hear! Sometimes I guess we must have disappointed the Mayhem fans. Even if I was not part of the band, I remember The Grand Declaration… That was pretty divisive. But you know, artistically a band like Mayhem needs to break the rules. We should not fulfil any expectations! And if we survive, that it gives us a tremendous freedom or we just die out again…

Let’s talk about the upcoming tour in February in support of Liturgy. So far at least, Denmark is not on the schedule, so I was wondering if you have any message for the Danish fans about playing the new songs for us?

That's very, very disappointing. I didn't even look at the tour schedule yet. I don't know why man, I love it there. I love Copenhagen and have great memories from there, not just with Mayhem. Great crowds. Great people. I have a lot of friends from there too. I don’t know why we don't play in Denmark this time, but I hope we come back.

So do we! Maybe later in the year perhaps? Copenhell still has a few open spots….

Really? That would be great. I would love that. I remember that festival and I'm always happy to play in Denmark. So, nothing against the fans I can assure you of that!

That's good to know. We still have a little time left, so I’d like to change the subject. There’s a lot happening with AI these days, also in the music business, and I’m curious what a guy who has been an active musician for so many years thinks about AI. Especially in metal of course?

Oh, that's crazy. That's very crazy man. For people like us who are from pre-AI time, you know, it's different. I've never been this guy who was always looking back, so I really hope AI can help mankind. I mean, at home I use AI for daily tasks and shit like that. But in music and art? I don’t know, it's crazy, it's dangerous. It can kill the artistic world, you know, and it’s impossible to see the effects right now.

I think for us, black metal or extreme metal in general, our fans are super dedicated. Bands will always have to play live, and of course AI will never be able to do that. Even if you use AI for composing, you will still have to play live, right? And people want a real show. Robots playing metal is stupid. That's never going to happen in our lifetime, I'm sure. I saw this ABBA hologram show in London and it looked fucked-up. But I feel sorry for all the young architects, lawyers, programmers and so on who work so hard for their degrees, and AI can take it all away.

But in art it's going to affect everything. Especially in visual arts, and I think it's just; you have to stick to not use it, you know, stick to be trve. But on the other hand, if we use it right, it should help us, it should help us create good and valuable things. As long as it is helping us and not taking over, you know, I think it's fine. But I believe that in metal, especially in extreme metal, it's very hard to see it work. I mean, I even tried it out, and to be honest it was just shit!

But at the same time, I always try to hope for the best. And like any new technology, you know, it’s the same. When the internet came, when the phone came, when everything came, we were all skeptical. Would it be used in the right way? Could it help us? Obviously, it's always been used in a bad way too you know. So yeah, man, it's a good question. It's a very good question. We will see, but I'm never going to do an interview with an AI! I want you to write this, not an AI. I can assure you that I'm old school that way!

So are we here at Heavymetal.dk, and I can likewise promise you that we’re writing our own stuff! Thanks a lot for you time and hope to see you in Denmark later this year!

You’re very welcome. I could talk a lot more but maybe next time!