1349 - The historic Black Metal band's bass player Seidemann talks to us!

The fire still burns inside 1349's cauldron!

Joe Denby talks with Seidemann, bass player of 1349 about the band's history, their new album and all things Black Metal!

Music Trespass: How are you today?

Seidemann: Well I am fine I have been preparing for the release show tomorrow we are having in Oslo for the new album 'Massive cauldron of Chaos' which is out on Monday but we are doing a release show tomorrow.

Music Trespass: Lets talk about 'Massive cauldron of Chaos'.

Seidemann: Well the album is the sixth album we have done as a band and it is by far the most groovy and how do I say? a lot of people throw around words like "organic" and I'm not going to do that but I will say it's very groove based and heavy in the old fashioned sense of heavy more then just insane parts like we have done in the past. I would say it is heavier but by no means slow but it’s heavier and it has groove which has always been in our sound but this time we have pushed it up to the forefront. It’s a shorter album. In ways we have looked back. After having done five albums you can allow yourself to look back and see what you have done, what’s been going on in the band all these years. We have been going for seventeen years, so what are the things that constitute 1349? What is 1349? And well the answer was all the things that made 'Cauldron of Chaos' and we just went through all the things we have done and thought how can we move this forward? How can we make an album better then anything we have done before?

Music Trespass: I have found that the last couple of albums emphasized more on the slow and atmospheric while this album revisited the sound of the classic trilogy 'Liberation, Beyond the Apocalypse' and 'Hellfire'. It has a very classic Black Metal feel going back to Mayhem’s classic debut 'De Mysteriis, Dom Sathanas' It’s also much shorter then your previous album’s it’s very much an attack.

Seidemann: First I must correct you, Mayhem’s first album was 'Deathcrush'.

Music Trespass: You’re absolutely right! I stand corrected.

Seidemann: It is more aggressive and short and a more condensed album lets say 'Revalations...' and 'Demonior' with those albums, before them we came out with three full blast attack albums in a row. They were intense to say the least. So we wanted to figure out maybe we have done the blast beats a little too much. We don’t want to be one trick pony’s. So we explored atmosphere. It had always been there but maybe it had been a bit hidden and we wanted to bring it to the forefront, hence the two previous albums but now we have done that there is no, absolutely no use repeating yourself you’ve got to move forward.

Music Trespass: Let’s talk about the history 1349.

Seidemann: Well, I have played with the vocalist Ravn in several bands we did 1349 and lets not go into the boring details of those bands because they are insignificant the only thing important about them is that I did them with him and when he moved away from Oslo where 1349 formed he already knew me and asked if I wanted to play in the new band. Ravn came up with the name 1349 it comes from a year in Norwegian history when the black plague came. It’s deep in our history it is taught at school, it killed of two thirds of the population it put under foreign rule until 1905 so it’s a bad year it’s a horrible year.

Seidemann: So we knew that 1349 was going to be the name of the band and we also looked around and saw the way that Black Metal was in the late 90’s. We all felt that it along with many bands had lost it’s way and there was a general mediocrity. It seemed that label’s were simply saying “oh your from Norway, here have a record deal” and there was just too much shit and instead of complaining about it and sitting on the internet and complaining about the state of things we thought no we’re going to form a band and we’re going to play Black Metal the way we want it to be and that is what we have done ever since and that’ to play Black Metal the way we think it should be.

Music Trespass: What else do you have planned for the rest of 2014?

Seidemann: Well we have there release party concert tomorrow then we have the release for the beers we are brewing here in Norway. We are making two beers one 13.49 dark stout ale and the other 6.66 pale ale. That will be in late October I suspect. Then in November we will go on our first European tour in about nine years and that’s finally. Finally we get a chance to go back to Europe because we have been touring the states indefinably since 2006 and the European tours never really materialized we got tours in the states with Celtic Frost then Carcass and Cannibal Corpse then Behemoth we got so many good offers to tour the States we have gone there continuously while we haven’t really gone to Europe for very long. We have done some UK tours but now we are going to do eleven dates through Europe in November.

Music Trespass: You said earlier how you wanted 1349 to be Black Metal the way you wanted it to be, I was wondering what is your interpretation of Black Metal and what it should be? What does Black Metal mean to you? What’s the philosophy to you and how do you think Black Metal should sound?

Seidermann: Well the easy way to answer that question is how I think Black Metal should sound is 1349. So that’s the easy part. But what Black Metal is? There lies a longer part. When I was young in the 80’s I was like everyone else. I listened to all the classic stuff. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest but there was always something missing and I started digging deeper and I found Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate these darker bands from that time. They were good but there was still something missing then in the late 80’s I found Death Metal which was fast, aggressive and still there was something missing then one day I got this cassette handed to me by a buddy, you know cassette’s from back in the day! (Laughing) It was blank and written on it, it simply said “Burzum” and I put that tape on. It was the first Burzum album.

Seidermann: There was something really weird going on because there was something going on with the feeling in the music. I could listen to that music and close my eyes and I would hear and see mountains I would see the landscape and I would get this feeling this is it. This music speaks to me in a way that no music ever has and then I started. Ok this is Black Metal and I started looking into all of the bands out there. Really good bands from those days, there was a darkness that resonated with the darkness in me. So Black Metal more then anything else is a feeling.

Music Trespass: It’s like what Miles Davis said about Jazz “If you have to ask then you’ll never know”

Seidermann: I mean you can get the Black Metal feeling from other things that are… for example some Classical music gives me the same feeling as Black Metal, some Folk music, some Jazz. Have you ever heard of Robert Johnson the Blues man? He was basically sung about how he sold his soul to the devil and the crossroads. Something in there was darkness, desperation. Black Metal can be many things.

Music Trespass: What else do you have in the pipeline? You are involved in many other projects. You released an album with Den Saakaldte earlier this year.

Seidermann: I have been with Den Saakaldte for quite a while now. 1349 has and always will be my priority. So all the other bands have things going on, 'Pantheon' I released a compilation of rarities. I am releasing an EP with a new band this year. I have been keeping busy but 1349 is always my priority.

Music Trespass: What music have you been listening to lately?

Seidermann: When it comes to Metal I have been listening a lot to an American band called Black crown Initiate who is releasing their debut album soon. We have toured with them and they are fantastic. Also as always a lot of Folk music, Jazz. There’s something about old Norwegian music that makes me happy.

Music Trespass: Your Favorite albums?

Seidermann: Ningus Dynasty made me want to start playing bass. Mayhem 'De Mysteriis, Dom Sathanas'. Anything by Burzum and 'Nevermind' by Nirvana.

Interview and Questions by Joe Denby