Exclusive Interview with Samael
Behind the Scenes with Samael: 2008
Throwback interview with Vorph of Samael. This year the Swiss band is back in the US playing on the 70000TONS OF METAL Cruise in 2025 and also playing Hell’s Heroes in Houston in March!
In-Depth Conversation
Samael: A Journey Through Music and Metal
In this interview, Vorph of Samael talks about the band’s journey from their early days, progressing to where Samael is now. Discussed: their creative development, the evolution of their sound, instrument changes, record deals, videos, vinyl and more. This interview was recorded in 2008, and is presented to you in advance of the 70000Tons Of Metal Cruise, which they will be playing on in Jan/Feb 2025! This is a must-read (or listen!) for fans and music enthusiasts eager to hear about the band’s progress and writing and composing processes.
Part 1 of the Podcast. Part 2 of the Podcast. Samael’s website.
Diane Farris
My guest today is Vorph from Samael- their vocalist and guitar player. We’re talking in Poughkeepsie, New York right after their show with Amorphis, You’ve been on the road for a few days. How do you like touring?
Vorph / Samael
I love it. And physically we love being in America. And it’s a long time since we’ve come here, fresh for us to be back and to have the chance to present, basically, two of our albums because as we didn’t come for Reign of Light, it’s a way to promote both albums at one time. You know, I’m kind of glad to see that people really enjoy it, and I don’t really feel like there’s people from our past and people from now, because we have a difference in our music. Sometimes you feel that people get stuck somewhere, and people separate one album or those two and the rest, but here they are more open to it. Wider because just the last one we saw a couple of people, who have everything we ever released, and you feel a little bit like, wow. You have to be open minded, if you have all that we’ve got. It goes from here to there and it’s not really a one single path.
DF
So I would not say all of your recent releases are the same at all.
Vorph
Thank you, I think this is a compliment.
DF
Well of course, how old were you when your first record came out?
Vorph
I was almost twenty!
DF
I can tell from the lyrics that your view of life has changed.
Vorph
I’m not the same person,
DF
Obviously!
Vorph
Hopefully (laughter) If you think the same way when you are eighteen and when you are thirtysomething. There’s nothing wrong with it, but maybe you’ve missed something.
Diane
Or maybe you’re not looking! Are you renting much gear for this tour?
Vorph
No, everything is from our own gear, except for some drum parts. And Mas brought some lights, because you know, he is handling light shows for many bands.
DF
Yeah, I saw him doing lights for Carcass.
Vorph
Totally, he must have worked with hundreds of bands, doing it like 10 years, now, I mean he’s not doing the lights for us because he is playing bass, but is always looking at the design and what we might have to use to look cool onstage, whatever.
DF
You don’t have to use that much to look cool!
Vorph
Yeah, but you know I kind of agree with you to keep it simple. Once the music is good, it’s good. It doesn’t need much, but if you can add something, it’s like a cherry on the cake.
DF
Tonight’s show you did have a banner up and you did have the use of lights and I saw you at BB King’s two nights ago, and that was not the case I don’t think you had it up.
Vorph
It wasn’t wide enough, it wasn’t high enough to have a backdrop there.
DF
I was actually glad to get to see two shows! The first time I saw you was at Dynamo 97
Vorph
Cool, I remember that one. I remember our first Dynamo, I remember our first time playing Wacken. That is not the same but it’s a kind of festival, they’ve got not only big names, so wide, they are picky about the bands there.
DF
Yeah, it’s pretty open and they really have different genres. Can you talk about your label, how Galactical came about?
Vorph
Totally, yeah. As we finished our deal with Century Media, we decided, well maybe we won’t give everything to a label anymore we might have a little bit more control on what we’re doing, so we’re trying to do our own label and just assign licenses -for Reign of Light it was Regain in Europe, Nuclear Blast in America, and for Solar Soul was Nuclear Blast worldwide. Except Switzerland we have a different deal. Basically that’s how we work, so we own the masters, and that’s something important for us -to not give everything to someone else.
DF
What is your deal with Century Media was it a year deal or a number of products deal.
Vorph
There was a very bad deal.
DF
Okay.
Vorph
Nothing against the label themselves, and we had bad blood between each other at some point. Yeah we signed a very bad deal, and you know we were young, inexperienced, and we really wanted to do something, so were ready for anything, more or less. So, okay, that was a mistake, you know, we learned from it and try to not commit the same one once again.
DF
But then it got you motivated to do your own label and to look at things differently. And will you keep the Galactical imprint for the future?
Vorph
I think so, because we don’t want to give the masters to anyone anymore. So that means the label we are signed with, they can exploit the music for a certain time. And once this time is over, they cannot do whatever they want with it. They can’t decide that they want to do a compilation, or a “best of” or whatever. Once we are free of them -which wasn’t the case with Century Media. They could do whatever they wanted, with everything we did from the first album to Eternal.
DF
Were any of those releases not what you were wanting to have come out?
Vorph
Okay, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the DVD. I had to admit after it went out, that it was a missing link. We should have done something before and people asking for it, so that was probably our mistake, but we’re a little bit picky about what we want to expose…we keep thinking well that’s not good enough, that’s not good enough. And we thought we had nothing and they decided, well that’s good enough for a DVD, so they just put it out. That best of thing, which is Aeonics, which is more or less a collection of everything we did from, from day one to even include things from Era One, because it was released under the Samael banner, but to me it was a different project and I didn’t want it to mix both things. And that was their choice, the same contract, they could do whatever they wanted with it.
DF
So can they just pull songs and do the Greatest Hits forever with everything that had been released?
Vorph
Yes, they can if they want, but they’ve been nice enough to ask us what we thought about it. Not that we could say we don’t want to have this out, but we had a choice either we approve or not. So I thought, it’s going to be out anyway, so we better look to be sure that it’s as good as possible. Finally, you know, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, I would never have done something like this, the way they did it. But we had the chance to have a word in.
DF
So you’re getting a little quality control.
Vorph
Yeah, we had that. I mean, they don’t have to ask us, but they do it because they don’t know we’re gonna try to make it as good as possible. I think it’s all good.
DF
Well if you have stuff out there, you never know who’s going to find that record and it’s the only thing…
Vorph
Exactly.
DF
Can you talk about the instrumentation of the band, because when you started it was just you and your brother.
Vorph
Yeah, actually we thought we could go forever like this. I didn’t know many bands who did it I know Hellhammer when it started up, there were only two people, a little bit like this, we might keep on doing it like this forever.
It’s probably when I saw for the first time Alastis live- Mas was so full of energy and, he didn’t have much to say in the band, but he was really the leading thing, you know, you just see him and say ‘wow, somebody like this would probably add a lot to the band’. And we asked him, he knew Xy very well, and they even thought at some point they’d have a band together, so it was a good combination. We clicked immediately from then on. We had a keyboard player for one album and then a mini album, which was just somebody that could play the things that Xy composed. We were not coming from the same background and we didn’t have the same view on a lot of things. So well, he went his own way, not such a big deal, but we had to find a solution, either replace him or have somebody playing drums while Xy would move to the keyboard. It took us some time to decide that, because sometimes we use a drum machine, program the drum and play – that could be it. (The) record company was not really up for that -a lot of people said, well you’re just going to kill yourselves on this one. That’s not gonna fly. You can do that in studio situation, lots of bands do it. But live, people want to see a drummer. We thought it was going to be different, fair enough. And I was very surprised by the reaction because since before the album was out we played festivals in Europe and it was such a step from Ceremony to Passage. They were totally into it. Very few complained out of 1000s and 1000s of people. So that was not such a big deal really. Nowadays, people still ask us if we would go back to a real drummer. I don’t think so, because this is something that’s made Samael different from other bands probably have other things that set us apart from the rest, but this is kind of the big thing, especially in rock music because it’s gonna make us a crossover between metal and industrial, electronic, whatever. It’s kind of a weird combination, but it makes sense in our minds.
DF
It works on stage completely I mean as an audience member. He drums, where the accents need to be where the heaviest stuff was.
Vorph
Well he is a drummer in the first place, he likes to hit things. That’s what drummers like to do!
DF
Are you saying that as a brother that he’d like to hit you?
Vorph
We never did that, no! We’d never really fight, not that way.
DF
Who is older?
Vorph
I’m older. So, we did Passage and Eternal. For those we had a second guitar player, Kaos from France. That was good to have somebody because then I put something more focus on the vocal, and the guitar harmonies and you know things you cannot do as a single guitar player. It went on for a few years. I think it was 2001, at that time we didn’t have many shows, and he had other projects because we did not live in the same area, almost 1000 kilometres from each other.
DF
Really?
Vorph
Well he was living in the South of France, and we’re up in Switzerland. So he just called us and said “I’ve got other things in my mind, and things were not moving at the moment so I’ll just move on to other projects.” And we thought, wow, maybe it was written somewhere that it has to happen this way, but that’s when we decided to focus on a different project. Era One, which was totally electronic and we didn’t know, it was like really, a new start, strange thing. Because Eternal was out in ’99, Makro joined in 2001 and we actually did a world tour in 2003, for the album that came out in 1999, which is something no bands do. Some hardcore band, maybe Rollins can do that. In the business there’s always people telling you, this is not the way you should do it. And works fine, totally fine. Europe was fantastic. America was with Strapping Young Lad and Cathedral. In Europe we were just withCathedral.
That was fantastic to be to be with Lee, we were writing to each other for a very long time. Before we had an album out. We just had a couple of songs on a compilation, and we had a seven inch EP out. We were trading stuff. So I’ve known him forever. He’s a fantastic guy. Yeah, that was good. The following year we did not come to America for Reign of Light; that’s a bad thing, we were frustrated. when you got a new album out, for example, sure we can promote both albums on this tour, but actually from Reign of Light we played Reign of Light, that’s it. One song. If we had a tour for this album, we’d play at least 5 songs from it. That’s what we did in Europe. At a certain point we even played 6, but that was too much, because people want to hear the old stuff; you mix the new things in with the old stuff and try to find a way. So there are a lot of songs we never played here from that album, maybe, in the future we’ll find a way to add this and change that. But it’s always a bit frustrating,
DF
You’ve got plenty of stuff to choose from in terms of needing to support the latest release.
Vorph
This is the thing- if you do a new album, you usually think this is the best ever, you could do, in general. So you want to play it and propose it to people and see how they react to it, you know, if it works or not.
DF
Right, because you don’t know.
Vorph
You never know!
DF
You’ve made this record, you’re in the studio you put out the record and you guess “does this suck?”. You don’t even know!
Vorph
That’s a good thing when you play songs, new songs live for the first time.
DF
How does that feel?
Vorph
It’s exciting, but it’s kind of funny, but that first show, not that much of a stress thing -but you just wonder. You just don’t know. There is like the normal set, and then you hit that new song. And this is a question mark, but it gives you kick, which is cool.
DF
Waldemar been working with you since Blood Ritual.
Vorph
Exactly. That’s actually one of the things I’m happy about when we were with Century Media. Thanks to Century Media that we have the connection with him. Because he was good friends with Robert, the owner of the label and they were proposing him to produce the album and we didn’t know what a producer was all about. We didn’t have this before and we thought it was somebody who would just come and say that this is not good enough. And he was really the perfect guy for us. He was totally humble. He didn’t try to push us in one direction or another. He was just taking in our stuff and goes, “yeah, that’s good enough” and “what about this.” It was not a fight, never fight but we were very protective of our music. It was kind of difficult on the first album, we didn’t trust him too much. There were a couple of things that he said “maybe this can make a big difference to it.” We were “well, no, this is too much, this is too different from the original idea so we won’t go there”. And then we listened to our own songs and think, “hey what about that bit. He said it in the studio and we should have done it.” And then the second time we worked with him, we’re more confident because things he said actually came back to us in a good way that was meaningful. And I think for Ceremony, we knew better what we wanted to achieve, and we knew better how to interact with each other. Now it’s easy and it’s like we’re playing forever together. The two last albums actually, what we did, we finished the whole songs the way we thought they should be on the album. Then we asked him to check it out. And he just came with the magic touch you know; “well just move this there.” And it’s better. You don’t have to say it twice, you heard it once. Of course it is better, I don’t even know what I thought before. I may be too close to it, and don’t see it anymore and then, of course, it will not be there, I suppose, a year from from the recording, you will look at it and, you know, we should have not done this, that way, bla bla.
DF
You’re attached to a way that it is, or way that you’ve rehearsed it.
Vorph
Totally, totally! It’s very difficult to to have perspective. So he gave us that, and we trust him. I don’t know but probably for the next one we’re still gonna work with him.
DF
So did he really mix the last two?
Vorph
Just for production. On the construction of the songs, sometimes take one part out, add this, or just move this part there. It’s very silly. It’s not much, but it makes so much of a big difference. So it’s worth it. We mixed the two last albums in Sweden with Stefan Glaumann. He did Clawfinger, Rammstein. He’s become famous for Rammstein. He did a lot of things before like Peace Loving Pittbulls. We totally freaked out when we first heard them, it was so powerful and over the top great. We didn’t know how to get in touch with him and I got his contact and tried, and he was totally cool about it. We did Reign of Light and Solar Soul with him. I don’t know about the next one, we’ll see. Because we want to have something more guitar oriented. He’s mixing a very clinical way, because everything which is on the recording he makes sure you can hear it. And sometimes you have to sacrifice something to have more power. He never did that, he just told us that you have to sacrifice before -like you erase this, you just come with less [on the] channel. And so I tried to mix it more powerful, but it’s very hard because it just adds up and adds up and you cannot stop.
DF
Do you have any aspirations or doing producing, other bands or anything?
Vorph
I never thought about it. I don’t know, I might feel a little weird about it. Xy did it. He did a record for Rotting Christ, he did it for My Insanity, which is a German band that he actually signed and released on his own label back in the days. I don’t know for myself because I’m not as musical as he is, but I usually have outside vision of the thing, it’s more conceptual than very musical. I’m not sure I could be a producer, maybe just, overlook as an executive producer, yeah something like Rick Rubin just coming in – change this and that and I’ll be back! When it’s done I’ll be back! (laughter)
DF
So I see that you have a lot of merchandise for sale. Interesting different merchandise – I bought the Swiss Army knife!
Vorph
We thought better not to write, knife because I think it’s not cool in the club.
DF
Oh right, “tool!” So what’s the coolest piece of merchandise you have ever offered?
Vorph
If you ask me, I think it’s this one. It’s the thing I own and use -open bottles, it’s great.
DF
It would be cool if it had like a little section that had a guitar pick that came out or something that was oriented to the band somehow.
Vorph
It’s still possible to do.
DF
The white part. It’s the toothpick. A toothpick is very metal.
Vorph
Okay, if you say so!
DF
What about vinyl, do you license to vinyl, what’s your view on collector stuff?.
Vorph
So far, every record has been released on vinyl and the last one, just very limited edition 1000 copies, or even less. I don’t know if it was the 666 thing, once again. I’m not sure, but it might be. Actually it’s Nuclear Blast who deals with this. I think that they license it an Italian vinyl factory. I feel the vinyl is very nice. I was surprised, they had almost like a booklet that was bigger,
DF
Like a libretto?
Vorph
Totally, yeah.
DF
Tonight I noticed that you were not wearing in ear monitors and the other night you were.
Vorph
Yes, we didn’t have any channel for tonight, I don’t know what happened but sometime you cannot
DF
Do you prefer them?
Vorph
Yeah
DF
What’s in your mix?
Vorph
Drums, of course, I need a little bit of Makro guitar, my guitar my vocal
DF
Is it more of an isolated feeling for you in terms of performing?
Vorph
I don’t think so. I mean it was kind of weird, the first time because you’re not familiar with it and my guitar was way too loud so yeah that was a little bit like “I’m the only one playing here.” Which is not the reason why I’m in a band, if you want to be the only one playing, just play alone! It’s fine, so yeah I like the band vibe and I think tonight it was alright, and using them just wasn’t possible. That’s funny that you noticed that.
DF
I did notice! Do you have any ideas or thoughts about doing remixes or collaborations or something taking another look at your material or working with other people?
Vorph
Remix, yeah, we thought about that quite a few times especially Xy, but, strangely enough, I think, a lot of bands when they mix they actually give their stuff to other people who will remix it. Yeah, but his idea is to remix himself, his own style.
DF
Ah, OK, well he can remix it forever, all the time.
Vorph
Probably, probably! Like, for Reign Of Light we had two songs: On Earth, and Telepath that were remixed by Xy for a single version,
DF
Those are the first real singles you put out, aren’t they?
Vorph
Totally, yeah. Probably didn’t make much sense, but it was a long time that we didn’t release something we wanted to have a new face, and I think in a way, Telepath is that -it’s different. It’s not like too binary, the rhythms, are little bit complicated.
DF
Is this something that you had wanted to do and then since you had your own label, you felt more in control to do the singles or did it just happen at that time?
Vorph
I just happened, I guess, really. We thought it’ll be good to have a single to to light up something before the album, but it doesn’t work like this. Nowadays for Solar Soul, Nuclear Blast had a single for the song Valkyries’ New Ride but it was just a downloading thing. You couldn’t buy it in shops,
DF
That’s the single off of the record? That song is the one that they picked?
Vorph
Yeah, because they asked us which one we wanted to, but we were like, “any one.” We did the best we could on the album. There’s no filler in there. There was not one song we thought was not good enough, so whatever rocks your boat, go ahead. We thought a certain point maybe Slavocracy. Because I thought well, it kind of represents the album in a good way, it’s kind of middle tempo, but a little bit sped up. It’s not too middle but it’s not a fast song either. And there is a big break in the middle, which is like some of our other songs before. And they just, loved Valkyries New Ride. I think Slavocracy was the second one on it.
DF
Okay. And what were the videos that you did for that record?
Vorph
Yeah, we did the video for Slavocracy.
DF
Was that shot with a green screen?
Vorph
The green screen was Telepath. But that was from the album before.
DF
Okay, so how was that shooting.
Vorph
Great, because we did a couple of videos before, and I was always the only one appearing on it. For Telepath I fly to Sweden and I did the whole thing, it’s kind of weird plan, but whatever I can do it. But, if you are in a band, you like to have that interaction. People may say “that sucks” and that’s good to hear sometime- or “that’s good”. You want to have their (the band’s) opinion. Actually they liked it when they saw it so I was relieved.
DF
So you didn’t want to have the attitude of “I’m doing this”
Vorph
No, if you want to do that you do a solo project. This is not my thing. I might one day, but I don’t really think so. It’s totally easy the way we work. With Slavocracy, it’s is the first time we actually were the four of us somewhere in Germany doing it. That was a great experience. We had a very good time there. People were very concerned about the song. It wasn’t like coming up with one idea and yeah that’s easy, it’s done. That really took time and I admire the work they did because there was no blue screen on that. It was a very different way to work. Yeah, they had always kind of a sculptor with, I don’t know how you call it- it wasn’t a painting exactly; half of a painting and the rest was done with a computer but it was always black and white on something, so that was that was very different.
DF
It’s a very striking video, it’s really it’s really different from almost anything I’ve seen.
Vorph
It IS different. That’s why i like it.
DF
How long did it take to do all together?
Vorph
Two full days. Long days, starting at 4 or 5 in the morning…playing the song over and over and over again. But it was the four of us. So sometimes it was Xy’s time and then we switch to another guy and so we had other things to do. I watched a couple of movies during that time. But you are together and you don’t feel like you’re the only one. It’s not just on your shoulders.
DF
Why did you cover Alice Cooper, years ago?
Vorph
Different reasons. First, I was totally in love with that song. I mean, it was kind of strange thing because you know how he is, he’s a character and it’s dark and funny at the same time- very theatrical. I thought that song had the potential to be not funny anymore. It was funny the way he did it, and I thought, well, how about we do it for real, and I thought well maybe we can try to bring it back to the dark side. I don’t know how we succeeded in it, but that was funny because we took the live version, we didn’t reinvent the song itself but he had a different version when he did his comeback shows. He had a different version, with the guillotine, and we thought, well we are going to use the live version with Eric Singer’s drum, break, and Xy learned that version. Yeah, that was good. And we would play it. Actually we never played it here but we have a couple of times in Europe. We might do it one time, it’s good to have this on your back because sometimes it can surface again.
DF
Well it seems like your newer records are more like pieces. Would you include a cover in them, as you think about in terms of when you’re ready for another record?
Vorph
Never say never as I said before, but I don’t think we’ll ever actually put a cover in an album. I mean, on the mini album, that’s what we did, for Alice Cooper, we did a single with a cover from Depeche Mode. We did I Feel You on, the On Earth, single from the previous album. We covered Venom- Manitou, we also covered Hellhammer. We covered Motörhead’s Locomotive, but just live.
Yeah, that’s the Motorhead one I like the best. It’s not very famous in the Motorhead repertoire, but I love it. We just did it live like, 10 or 12 times on out tour. So we might record it sometime to have it as a bonus somewhere. On an album, I feel it’s bizarre to have a cover, because, you can’t have enough songs, can’t you? I mean we can’t! So we don’t need to have a cover. Just for fun to landmark, to show people music we like as well.
DF
It really seems like the last maybe four records have been full pieces, front to back, really complete, as opposed to a collection of songs. Except that’s pulling out Exodus: Solar Soul, Reign of Light, Eternal and Passage almost like like movements.
Vorph
Well, first it IS songs. And then, that’s one thing we spend a hell of a lot of time on. I mean, really a lot of time to choose which song is first, and second. You want to keep a flow. This is where Xy is totally crazy about this, usually nowadays, there is a way to create a record – the best song at the beginning and the three first songs are brutally fantastic, and that rest are – not fillers, but they are weaker and weaker. Who goes until the 10th song – you listen to the beginning and then you’re bored. We listen to the record the whole thing. So so we like to have, high points until the end, more or less, and that’s the idea.
DF
Well I hear the songs complement each other. There’s a little bit of a flow.
Vorph
That’s what, we’ve tried for.
DF
So what’s the songwriting process like? Is it different for each song?
Vorph
Xy composes everything music wise. We discuss things, of course. We play things to each other. If there’s something I think is so fantastic, I’ll show him that. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna do something comparable, but, he can record it, and it will come up for consideration one way or another.
DF
So are you saying that you listen to what he’s composed and then you put words to it?
Vorph
Yeah. First, it was the four of us, we actually discuss what we like music wise. It has changed from 10 years ago because we are not the same band situation. And if there is really something that we think is fantastic, we play it for Xy and say, “hey this is worth listening to”, maybe he will getting some inspiration from it. And then he will come with his own ideas and then we’ll probably take some influence that we bring to him, eventually. On my side; I don’t finish songs, I have ideas and I usually just have some meat there. Once I get the music, I see what could be on which song. Or sometimes I just started fresh, like On Earth. We don’t play this song because the bassist doesn’t like it. I like it personally so yeah that was a song, I didn’t know exactly what I would write it on this one it was smooth a little bit like, I don’t know. It was more or less easygoing, it wasn’t really deep and I went with the idea of naming cities all over the world and it worked for me. At the end of the day I thought wow, that makes a very positive and light song, it’s nothing too heavy or deep, but it’s fresh, it brings a good mood.
DF
It’s the feel good song on the record,
Vorph
I think it’s good. Yeah, hopefully. For Makro it’s a feel bad song.
DF
In the early days, did you ever consider wearing corpse paint?
Vorph
Naturally, yeah, I think the picture on the Blood Ritual album shows that. It was more complex than what most people do because it used a whole afternoon to make it with the makeup. I was very precise!
DF
Between Exodus and Reign of Light, your voice has gotten a lot stronger. Is it a mixing thing or did you have a lifestyle change, are you eating better, or working out or something?
Vorph
I think that was the first time I’d record the voice a few times. So I had different takes together, and they’re mixed together.
DF
I see. But there’s a huge difference.
Vorph
Well okay good, I didn’t notice it was that different but I think was more screaming before. On this one, I had the screaming voice, and I actually really pushed it even stronger than before, but it had a mellow thing more, just deep. Stefan, who mixed this album, he actually liked the deep voice better than the screaming one so he mixed it that way. And I think if it would be mixed the other way will be a hell of a lot more aggressive, but maybe less…
DF
That’s a way to look at it it’s just the the speaking vocal is pushed forward more.
Vorph
Yeah, exactly, that’s what he did.
DF
Can you talk about the Era One and Lesson In Magic a bit?
Vorph
Sure, but what I was trying to point out before is to us, we considered as a side project. That was Xy and I and that’s it. Only electronic stuff with vocal. We tried to keep it simple. Something naked so I can play around with the vocal. That was a good experience for me too, because if there is not much in the music, you fill up the space somehow, and I tried to find that flow, to have rhythm in my vocal which wasn’t much the case before. So I learned a lot on this project but there was still something parallel to Samael, not really, bound to Samael. But, it had fallen under the same contract. Century Media decide that they will have it under the Samael banner. So it cannot hurt the band. In a way that’s I think people thought, well, that’s a new direction of the band and that’s what they’re gonna do and that wasn’t. That was totally something we wanted to separate. If one day, because you never know, we would do a second album for Era One, Samael won’t be mentioned anywhere. It is really something we want to have separate.That was the moment, Kaos left the band, we didn’t have a guitar player, nowhere to go on tour, didn’t want to start writing new songs for Samael, because we didn’t know the future. It wasn’t a breakup; Mas was still together and we were meeting from time to time, but there was no activity. I think it was in 2001 we didn’t even play one single show the whole year, had never happened before so it’s a little bit like well, we’re no longer on the map, we’re no longer there. We have nothing happening, besides that project. So that’s why I say 2002 Makro joined the band, was really like us being back on the, map and doing things again.
DF
In the fan world there is a lot of conjecture about Eternal being your last record. It almost sounded like a last record, in terms of subject matter and stuff, and there’s so much change. I can’t remember what show it was but I said something to Mas, and he was just like, “well, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, if we just did other stuff,” and I was terrified.
Vorph
Well it could have definitely gone there, but yeah, I’m happy it turned the way it did.
DF
I am happy too! (Laughs) In terms of your own personal expression in your lyrics, it seems like you’re really saying more worldly things in your music now. And it seems like you have a point to make.
Vorph
Right. I don’t even know if I do have a point to make, but hopefully with time, you’ve got something that matters to say, more than before. I suppose at least our two first albums, were pretty much influenced by my readings by my phantasm, or my -I don’t know, projection but it wasn’t something I went through or they weren’t that much an experience in my life I talked about. And then over time, yeah, you probably have something to say because you went through things and things tend to repeat, somehow, and when the next circle is coming, ‘I’m not following these things.’ I might try to break this thing and go somewhere else- or else you you go wrong and wrong and wrong, like we said before. You’re reaching 30 and you’re still thinking like you were 15. It could be too, I mean why not, but that’s the thing that’s not what life is all about to me. It’s about going forward trying at least, to have more than one life in your life, that will be great thing isn’t it. I mean, at least that’s what I’m saying.
DF
Is writing music enough for you, would you want to write anything else?
Vorph
You know what? I could do nothing. For real, I could do nothing and I will be fine. But it’s enjoyable, I don’t have to write something, it’s not really a need. Sometimes it is but not to have lyrics, I need to write something- but for myself. It doesn’t have to be constructed in a way that it could be given to others, it might be just for myself. It is raw, the first thing that I might need sometimes. Then I try to construct it because I want to share it. You want to do it good.
DF
It really feels like the new record is written from a completely different perspective, in terms of growth and development. It’s more about humanity.
Vorph
It has, and it was already somewhere there in the Reign of Light album. But yeah, totally. I mean, you focus on yourself all the time, which is nothing wrong with that, why not. But you might reach a point when you are even bored with yourself. You know, now what? It doesn’t add up. Yeah and I think, meeting other people adds up a lot of things for us. Change is probably the best thing in the world. So yeah, you want to share a little bit, what is in your my mind so you try to make it as good as possible for people to take it in.
DF
Your early stuff seems to just be like one person saying some stuff.
Vorph
I think the two first albums were dark because all my interests were dark. Poetry, paintings I love Giger as a painter.
DF
Have you met Giger?
Vorph
Yes a few times but, nothing really came out of it. He’s not really a talkative person. I can be eventually you know, but I need a little push, so..
DF
So you two sitting in a room is not going to be like a whole lot of chatter.
Vorph
It wasn’t because he was with his girlfriend. He wasn’t talking much, I said hi. We only said a couple of things to each other.
DF
Well you shot your band photo.
Vorph
Yeah, totally. The first time I met him was just before that one because we are actually arranged to be in the museum and he was agreeing how much it would cost and everything. We just had to drink together with one guy who knew everyone. And that was the first time I met him, I met him a couple of times after that
DF
And you have a new Giger tattoo. I don’t know how new it is.
Vorph
Well. It’s 15 years old! (laughs)
DF
Who did the tattoo?
Vorph
Filip Leu.
DF
Oh, he did, wow!
Vorph
He is a great guy. His father did this one.
DF
Really? Wow, you’re gonna have to get skinned when you die! You are gonna have to leave those to somebody. In the tattoo world, those are a big deal. You have a piece from Felix, that’s amazing. My god, wow.
Vorph
Yes, he did the Baphomet.
DF
So when you played Into The Pentagram tonight, you introduced it as being dark.
Vorph
I think it is. It is dark and it is heavy.
DF
Yes I know, it almost seemed like you were like cautioning people like ‘you know it’s dark’.
Vorph
Compared to what we’re doing on on our latest recording I think that is hella darker. But I’m glad because after that we play, Ave. Which is still heavy. It’s a march, it’s very square. It’s very in your face. It works.
DF
If you had a benefactor -if somebody gave you like $5 million for the next or 5 million Swiss francs for the next Samael project would there be some ‘thing’ that you’ve been dying to do like some technology thing.
Vorph
I don’t think so. I don’t think we need much money to do a good album. I mean, sure, the mixing costs a lot of money but so far we always managed to do things the way we wanted to. Nowadays you can have a lot of things recorded at home, and you don’t need to go in a big studio for 9 to 12 months. It could be an experience. If you have that much money to spend, okay, why not go into a studio, and think well, we don’t leave this one, until the album is finished. What about that? That could be an interesting thing. If that would be the case, we might try that. Yeah, that would be totally different because it’s not the way we work, usually. That will be a kind of record like in the old days when people would go to the studio, compose there, record, and mix. Until Passage, no, until Eternal actually, we always record everything in the studio. Not compose, but record and mix. But the two last albums we recorded a lot of things home and in different studios, smaller studios for things, like guitar. If you just have a good room, it doesn’t need more than that to get a good guitar sound so you don’t have to have a big huge studio just for that. You just want a bigger one for a real drum thing, for your toms and cymbals and for the vocals.
DF
What do you listen to personally?
Vorph
Myself? Mostly classical music to tell you the truth. Since a couple of years, basically Russian composers, which I like better than the others -for whatever reason I cannot tell you. There is something about most of them. We used Mussorgsky on the Baphomet’s Throne song back in the day, already, I had something that I thought, well, that’s great. I know what it is, well, not only Mussorgsky too, least different stuff.
DF
You have something interactive on your website, like a virtual band?
Vorph
Right we started it, actually though, the record is finished. Above (2009), that’s the name of the project, but it is not connected to Samael. This idea was to have a different project so we could put whatever we want into it and we don’t have to stand behind it. We are involved one way or another.
DF
And so how is it working?
Vorph
There’s an album ready. There’s a video which is on the way to be ready but it’s gonna be an animation thing. A little bit like Gorrilaz, but really a metal version- more, way more.
DF
That’s really cool. Is there anything that you want the fans to know that I haven’t asked you?
Vorph
No, as long as they enjoy the music that’s good enough for me. That’s what matters.
DF
In parting, your latest release is Solar Soul, and it’s on Nuclear Blast your website is Samael dot info. And thank you very much!
Vorph
It was a pleasure.
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