Der Weg Einer Freiheit – interview met Nikita Kamprad
Nikita Kamprad: “We have to remind ourselves that there is still good inside of us and we have to value that and take care of it.”
Het zesde studioalbum ‘Innern’ van de Duitse post black metal band Der Weg Einer Freiheit is zopas verschenen als opvolger van het avontuurlijke ‘Noktvrn’ (2021). Wanneer black metal het ruime sop kiest en vermengd wordt met andere muzikale krenten, ontstaat er in het beste geval magie. Als er dan nog een spirituele meerwaarde toegevoegd wordt, zit je op rozen. Dat gebeurde tijdens het bijzonder fascinerende gesprek met bandleider Nikita Kamprad die ons alles haarfijn uitlegt.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 2 oktober 2025
How are you doing?
I am just fine, thank you. The week has just started. Actually this week is the most crowded one in terms of interviews, because it is the week of the release. Our new album finally comes out Friday and I am very much looking forward to that and I love speaking to people about the album. People finally can hear it, that is always something you work towards for such a long time and now that it finally happens, I am very happy.
How do you look back at the time between ‘Noktvrn’ (2021) and this one?
Actually I planned to start song-writing way earlier than I actually did now after the release of ‘Noktvrn’, between ‘Finisterre’ and ‘Noktvrn’, it was four years which is sometimes quite a long time from the outside perspective or for our fans as they always ask for a new album every year basically (chuckles). My plan was actually after ‘Noktvrn’ to start song-writing right after the release and put out a new album way earlier. However this did not turn out as expected. I needed way more time to do and get myself in the proper headspace and actually also in the physical space, because I was lacking a studio where I could fully focus on song-writing and on production, which I have now and speeds up all the processes of the song-writing, production, everything, because I love doing that mostly on my own, alone. That all came together at the end of 2023, so already two years after ‘Noktvrn’, and that is the reason basically why it took again four years to finish the album. As always good things need some time, it is just our time we need.
The result is better when you take your time I guess, especially when you now have a kind of freedom to experiment a bit. ‘Noktvrn’ was a record with many new things, in some way a tryout, but maybe you feel surer about the direction now or not?
Yes you are right I think. ‘Noktvrn’ – as you said – was a lot of experimenting, especially on the songs ‘Immortal’ and ‘Haven’. We are not a band that is rediscovering their own style on each album. I think we are always rooted in this kind of black metal thing, and we not aim for a completely different style. Still experimenting, taking risks by implementing new soundscapes, new sounds, clean singing, synthesizers. It can be a risk, it is something you have to get used to in the first place and also wait for the people’s reactions. You cannot just ask them, you have to put out an album where you are taking risks and doing something new and then you can see how the people react and how do we feel as a band about that. The reception, the feedback and our own perception of ‘Noktvrn’ was great. It was perfectly the right thing that we could do at that moment and of course we took that positive experience forward to ‘Innern’. We for instance extended the use of synthesizers, which became quite a big element in the whole mix. It is not very present, it is not very above everything – which is not supposed to be – but rather adding a very nice texture to the sound which I personally really like and the others as well (chuckles). So let us see how people react to that again.
Theme-wise it goes deeper than ever, because this album is inspired by the inner self. It is very introspective. It should go from suffering to transcendence, rather spiritual I would say…
Definitely spiritual. Maybe someone who is familiar with Buddhism for example. It has a kind of ties to Buddhism as well, because one of the main things in Buddhism is that suffering is inevitable in life. You cannot really avoid suffering, in different levels, with yourself, with your mental health or just injuries or you loose someone very close, things like that. It is very clear that things like that will happen and the only thing that you can choose or that you can control is how to react to these things. If you get yourself in a mental state that you can take this, when you can find… – it sounds very paradox when I say that, I know – some kind of meaning in negative things that happened, you can transform it into something good or something beautiful. Sometimes if you just decide to think about things differently, and that is the core of the lyrics on this album. I think everyone can agree that the world we are living in is as turbulent as it can be and it gets more and more turbulent and chaotic in a way and I think it is more than ever important to try to find mechanism to cope with it and find a way to also go back to your inner self, to focus on what’s important. First for yourself and then you can reflect it to others in the world around you. It is important – in my opinion at least – to not fully let yourself control or even manipulate by all the outside factors which mainly happen on the internet. To be honest, most of the negativity that is coming to us is through the internet, through social media and there is a reason for that. With ‘Innern’ I wanted to present a way – at least just for myself and I hope that others feel the same – with the lyrics to get out of it. There are ways…
To find inner peace maybe…
Yes, for your inner peace, exactly, because everyone of us has this, inner peace inside. Sometimes we loose it, sometimes we loose the connection and it is so important nowadays that we remind ourselves of it. In German you have the word ‘erinnern’ and ‘innern’ is taken from that word. We have to remind ourselves that there is still good inside of us and we have to value that and take care of it.
Most people just join the rat race from home to work and back, but I wonder if they ever reflect on things and really enjoy without goal?
In this digital world we need more analogue things. It is as easy as it is, just reading a book or looking outside the window and go for a walk, ride your bike, anything doing in nature always helps. I experienced that in the past few years during the writing process that it is so important to reconnect with nature, with the real world and not with the internet. It can make things way better.
Indeed, as a good example yesterday we went to an open space to watch the total eclipse of the moon…
Oh very nice! I also saw it. It was so great!
There were other moon lovers and it created a bond, we started to talk… that’s the real thing…
Exactly and same happens with the live shows. Music and art in general I think it gives you a language. It creates talking, it creates communication and a bond and a connection in the real world while experiencing looking at the moon or watching a concert with a band playing. It is connecting, it is a community that’s been formed at that very moment, which – I’m very sorry – but I don’t find that on social media. Although social media have been created to connect people, right now it is only distracting our attention and our connection with other people.
I had the impression that the first part of the album – starting with the two lengthy tracks – happens to be rather harsh and in the second part we hear more clean chants and quieter stuff. Did you do that on purpose?
Actually no, there was not a plan behind how the songs sound, but maybe interesting is the fact that the album was intentionally written in chronological order from start to finish. So the first song was the first song written and the last one was the last one written. I think that creates a very natural flow through the whole album and when knowing this fact, maybe it makes even more sense to sit down, take your time off for 45 minutes, maybe put on your headphones, lay down on bed or somewhere and just enjoy this journey, this music. That is something I really encourage our listeners to do because then I think you will get most out of this album. And again, so many bands… the music industry pushes us, artists, fans, to make shorter songs and after a few seconds you have to catch the listener with a hook line or something like that. ‘Marter’ and ‘Xibalba’, which are the longest songs on the album, by placing them in the beginning of the album, we want to kind of force the listener to take the time and to sit down and just get yourself immerged into the music and not have like putting on the album and then have immediately a hook line or some modern thing. That is not the way we write or the way we consume music ourselves.
It used to be different…
With the digital music platforms like Spotify and everything else, unfortunately music industry urges the artists to shorten their songs, to make it more compact, because the attention span of people – and that again goes back to social media – nowadays is so short. You risk not been heard as a band by putting out long songs, which is paradox maybe, but we want to do it differently, we want to do long songs, because we know our fans and we ourselves, enjoy long songs and again, it brings you down to earth. You get fully immersed in the music, way better than just putting on a 3 minute song.
‘Finisterre III’ refers to a former album and it reminded me that you once had piano lessons…
Oh yes, back in the day, very long ago.
Can you tell a bit more about the song ‘Xibalba’?
It was the second song written and it was written in November 2023. When I wrote it, especially the main parts with a very prominent sound, in a way it reminded me of the same atmosphere that I felt, or the same emotion that I felt when watching the movie ‘The Fountain’. I am not sure if you are familiar with the movie, but it is a very, very good, very emotional, very deep movie and in this movie one of the elements and one of the places where this movie is playing, is in the area that is today Yucatan in Mexico where the Maya were active and Xibalba is the word for the underworld of the Maya, so the place of fear. I chose this title just as a working title in the beginning and maybe change it afterwards, but whenever the song was finished, I thought like ‘well, it still fits perfectly the song and the atmosphere’ so we’d stuck to that title. The other nice thing is at the same time when the song was written in November 2023, our drummer Tobias and myself travelled to Mexico for a show with the band Los Males Del Mundo (Argentine black metal band – VM); not sure if you know them, it is an Argentinean project and we were invited to play in Mexico for a festival. After the festival we went to Yucatan where the Mayas were or still are, but they are pretty oppressed unfortunately. We took some time off to do short holidays there, visiting some temples, some ruins and even take a bath into these cenotes, these underground pools basically they have there and that was really a kind of life changing experience for me. By experiencing this with our drummer together, it was clear that this song, the title needed to stay (laughs). If we change it we loose all the connection and just for ourselves as persons it totally makes sense.
What a great thing to experience this and every time you play the song you will think of it!
Yes, definitely, that’s the reason yeah.
‘Eos’ also seems to be a key track on the album. I like to hear more about it…
The special thing about this song is that I tried – not tried, I did it – I implemented three different vocal techniques in that track. The first is the throat singing, then the kind of harsh vocals I usually do and in the end of the track there is this clean and harsh vocals that is mixed together basically and that took a long time for me to practice and to get comfortable with, but I think with this song it was the right time to do it. The feedback from the people is good so far, so I am really happy that I did not confuse people with that kind of singing. My girlfriend always tells me if she hears that song, and she has a pretty big part in writing the lyrics for that song. She actually wrote the line which is the most important line in that song. Every time she hears me singing like that, she says ‘I have never heard you singing like that, it is the most emotional, the most powerful way you can actually sing’ I think that makes, especially the ending of the song, very strong and important.
The last track ‘Forlorn’ moved me. It is more an introvert song… Here we have the line ‘I don’t want to know if anybody’s hurt’ that leaps to the eye…
For the lyrics I must say I did not write them. The lyrics were written by Nicolas, our guitarist. I am sorry that I cannot go so much into details, because it is a very personal thing and I don’t want to tell things about the lyrics over Nicolas’ head basically. But how the song came together, was also a very special thing, because after I wrote ‘Fragment’ and the piano interlude ‘Finisterre III’, I had the very deep feeling that the album was finished. I had everything said that I wanted to say and at the same time Nicolas came with the idea ‘if there is some space on the album’ – we had about 35 minutes – so there was space for another track and he said ‘give me any idea you want, no matter what’, so I gave him four notes and these were the four notes in the beginning of ‘Forlorn’ and he took that four notes to build the whole intro and the verse parts. When he sent me the track, I added some other ideas, I sent it back to him and then the song was finished within one or two weeks where we really focussed on this collaborative song-writing process which we did not have before. Since he had such a big impact on the song, writing the intro, he also wrote the lyrics for that in English. That is the back story of that song.
Tell me something about the changing of the bass player, because I think that is a new one…
Yes that’s right. The new guy is Alan Noruspur. We met him in 2019 at the show in Cologne where he is living and ever since there was a connection. We met him as a fan, but he was very kind, asking us at the show or after the show, if he could help us load out, if he could just be with us, talk to us and he has such a great kindness to him that we just couldn’t say no, basically. Right from the start it was like talking to a very old friend. Now he is playing in the band and we were right from the very first beginning. Ever since meeting him in 2019, he came closer and closer to the band and in 2023, when we did this huge tour with Amenra and Igorrr, our guitarist Nicolas could not play the whole tour with us, so the second part of the tour, Alan jumped in as a guitarist for Nicolas. He had not played any show in his entire life before, so he was thrown straight into the cold water (chuckles), but he did a great job and we got even closer to each other on a personal level. Then on that same long tour, our bassist got a phone call from his girlfriend that they were receiving a baby half a year later. So the baby was born, everybody was very happy, but Nicolas very soon found out that family life and his private life just took over the priority over the band, which is of course very natural thing that is happening. He said: ‘guys it would be nice if someone would take over bass duties from him’ so he can focus on his private life and again we called Alan and immediately he said yes. He is a crazy guy, he never played bass before (laughs), now he does. He just did an outstanding job with the recordings. He brought in a very new character to the band and we are very happy to have him. Our former bass player Nicolas, he is still in the band, rather in the background. He is not playing live, he did not record the album with us, we aimed to have him back on the stage at some point again, but it is not clear if this can happen. Until he is ready again, Alan will play bass with us.
For the artwork, did you work with the same people or is it different?
We worked together again with Max Löffler which is a good friend of ours. We are working with him since ‘Stellar’. More than ten years now, so he knows what we like without too much talking. We actually went straight to the point with the artwork first and then the other illustrations, so again he did an outstanding job. He is a very talented artist. It is always a pleasure to work with him.
I see there is a release tour with Heretoir, but are there still other plans?
After the release shows, we play our debut in Istanbul in Turkey, which will be the most unique show we have ever played without wanting to speak bad about other shows, but this one will be very special, because Alan, our new bass player, is actually a refugee from Iran. He came to Germany only in 2017, two years before we met him actually. He learned German and everything and he is now a fully integrated German citizen. By playing this show in Turkey, it enables his family and friends from Iran to travel freely from Iran to Turkey for the show. So after more than ten years, 12 years actually, he is able to see his best friends from Iran again, at the show he is playing actually and that is a very, very special and unique occasion. I am very much looking forward to that. Apart from that we try to focus on festivals next Summer. We are playing our very first show in the US in May on Maryland Deathfest. We are right in the middle of the visa process, which is a pain in the ass to be honest. We hope it works out this time. It costs so much money, it takes so much time to make all the documents and all the proves that you can enter the US for just one single show.
Did you ever play in the US before?
No, it would be the first time, but we get huge feedback, the numbers of the streaming or the sales, they tell a very strong language that people want to see us there and we had always been trying to make that possible and next year finally chances are very good if all the visa things work out, right now we have plenty of time left and it is all running, it should be possible. After the Fest we hope we can do a full tour in Fall 2026 or 2027.
