Svartsot – Interview met Cris J.S. Frederiksen (guitars, mandolin, backing vocals)
Cris J.S. Frederiksen: “We are still a folk metal band, but the music has become more serious in many ways. We have matured. It should be strange if not, in 20 years…”
Deense pagan/folk metal songs voorzien van ruwe death metal vocalen en allerlei authentieke folk instrumenten. Dat is waar Svartsot al twintig jaar voor staat. Ze liftten mee op de golf van populariteit van het genre in het begin, maar met de jaren is hun aanpak heel wat ernstiger geworden. Ook al waren ze in onze contreien een beetje uit het vizier verloren, de band is altijd actief gebleven. Met het nieuwe, zesde album ‘Peregrinus’ schreven ze zelfs een conceptalbum. Voor tekst en uitleg konden we terecht bij oprichter Cris J.S. Frederiksen.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 23 september 2025
I am glad that Svartsot is back with a proper album!
Oh, we haven’t really been away.
The album ‘Kumbl’ in 2022 was more an interpretation of you from traditional Danish songs. You did some shows after its release, but there was a problem with the drummer… what happened?
We had a new drummer in 2023, but he wasn’t quite good enough for what we wanted to do, so we managed to get the old drummer back to do a couple of shows with us, one of them was Graspop last year and Wacken Open Air, before we finally found the guy Rune Frisch who is our drummer now.
In the meantime you had written the material for the new album ‘Peregrinus’. It is a concept album. Can you tell a bit more about that?
Yes, it is about a guy who falls in love with the wrong woman. They got a child before marrying and the church did not really like this, so she was taken away from him and the child was taken away from the birth. He was totally indulged into his sins and he went on a crusade. So he goes on a crusade and watches in Jerusalem during this crusade that he starts losing his faith in humanity and losing his religion. So the whole thing is pointless, and when he says that, he is almost murdered. When he is healthy again, he returns to Denmark where he is killed by an outlaw (laughs). So there is not a good ending at this story, no happy ending. In the end he loses his faith in humanity and in religion.
I like the idea that you have song titles in Latin for every virtue a crusader should have, for instance silence…
Also monks have to be silent, but it can be seen in a different way, meaning that you are obliged to keep the misuse of things or persons between the walls. You cannot come up with personal meanings. We have that in the last track called ‘Silentium’. We chose Latin for the titles and this is basically when he is facing silence, his death…
It starts with slowness. I like that virtue…I have a feeling that the world is going too fast…
(laughs) Yeah sometimes it feels that way. Our singer Thor Bager was doing the whole lyrical concept for this album and he found these virtues that crusaders were supposed to live up to. We decided to use these virtues as the general themes for the tracks. Without actually referencing the actual word itself, it is more like there is an association of the title with the lyric. I am not really sure where he took his ideas from, but this one deals with not being too hasty in a way…
Is spirituality important for you and did you ever travel to India or other places?
All of us are atheists, so we are not so spiritual (chuckles), but the medieval people were very spiritual, so we have to put these ingredients in the music as well, like we more often do. We still have a member for authentic folk instruments like bagpipes and tin whistles while Thor and I play mandolin. Same as when we started twenty years ago. When we started we did not have anyone who played those instruments, but within the first six months we got our first whistle player in the band. Since then it has been an issue for our sound.
There should be melodies of songs from medieval times in some of the tracks. Can you tell something about that?
The intro track is based on a creation of music from Spain and Portugal in the Middle Ages, also known as ‘Cantigas de Santa Marias no.166’. The intro is called ‘Como póden per sas culpos’ which means ‘because of his sins’. A melody in ‘Libertas’ is borrowed from the 13th century German crusade song ‘Palästinalied’ by Walther von der Vogelwiede. This is quite a famous melody, I think In Extremo once used it as well. In the song ‘Spiritualitas’ we use a melody from the traditional Lebanese song ‘Al Nedda’ for the Arabian part of the crusade.
Let’s have a look at the beginning of the band, since your 20 years existence is drawing near. You were one of the new bands at that time, signed by Napalm Records. How do you look back at this time when folk and pagan metal used to be very popular?
Yeah it was pretty big at that time. I think that was one of the reasons why we decided to do it, because it was getting more popular and fun to play. One of the only folk metal bands was Finntroll, they were really huge then. I always liked folk and metal, so we tried to put these things together and tried. I think we changed quite a lot since then. We are still a folk metal band, but the music has become more serious in many ways. We have matured. It should be strange if not, in 20 years. Everybody goes through a constant development, you cannot ignore that. We should be boring if we should still do the same thing after 20 years.
And countries like Germany and Scandinavian countries still have a proper and well respected folk community in the metal scene…
Denmark was always a little bit behind. We were pretty much the first folk metal group in Denmark. Together with Týr, but they are from the Faeroe Islands, allied with Denmark, but not really Denmark. And then there is a band called Wuthering Heights. They had folk melodies in their progressive power metal, but in harsher metal I think we were first. There was a wave pretty quick with a lot of other bands and now there is a new wave coming again… but it is not the same development as in Finland or Norway for example.
What can you tell about the artwork?
The artwork is done by a guy called Frederik Jensen who is in a band called Thus from Denmark, who won the Metal Battle last year. I don’t know how old he is, to me he seems like a young guy. He has got a lot of potential. We just really like his style and because he lives near us, we can get together and talk about the whole idea behind the album, so he got a lot of information about what we wanted. I think he did a really great job.
Are you from Aarhus or Copenhagen?
I live in a town about 30 kilometres north from Aarhus. We practise in Aarhus. Three of the other guys live there.
I think producer Tue Madsen is also from that area, isn’t it?
Yes, he is, so it was kind of nice to be concentrated with the whole thing quite local. We are now on a Danish label, it is the second album we release via Mighty Music.
It is mentioned as the last ‘traditional’ album by Svartsot. Why?
As we spoke about it earlier, this is a concept album. You really should listen to it from start to finish. We have done this several times before, ‘Maledictvs Eris’ was a concept album and ‘Vældet’ was a concept album, but people just don’t listen to albums from start to finish anymore. A lot of people just listen to some play list on Spotify or something like that. On our last album ‘Kumbl’ it was noticed that it was the intro that’s been listened to most (chuckles). That is fun. There is no real representative of the whole album. We just decided we should try to change our approach and a lot of other bands have done that too. So we are going to try to do some new stuff. EP’s or singles, we will see. Most people listen to music through streaming platforms. Making a concept album is a lot of work. People should listen to the whole thing (chuckles).
Is there something in the pipeline for touring?
Not for this year. We hope there is going to be a tour next year. Unfortunately this year is very quiet. We have some shows here in Denmark, but for next year we hope there are going to be more European dates.
What is the most far place you have played?
At 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. It is a while ago, before corona. We all have a normal job, there is no money to be earned playing heavy metal. Only now it is starting to get better after corona, because first there was an overkill of bands and live shows. The last album we put out in 2022. A lot of concerts were happening at the same time. Where ever we played in support of that album, there was another concert at the same time nearby. I think people were kind of getting tired after a long time with no concerts. Now it is starting to get a little bit normal again.
