In 2022 Arð happened to be a new project for you, based on the region where you come from: Northumbria. Why did you decide to shine a light on this heritage?
My passion is how musicians represent where they come from and all the different ways it manifests itself: the different ways that comes out. You might know that I did a PHD in national identity and heavy metal. Some of it was how some bands will incorporate elements of old poetry or mythology or history in the lyrics. Some bands will take old national romantic paintings of the 18 hundreds and put the landscapes on the front covers. Some bands will take old folk songs and incorporate elements of old folk tunes and some bands will do the combination of all of those things. I think it is kind of interesting, the different ways that ends up sounding and the different ways that ends up looking. For me Arð is a very personal project, because it was an excuse for me to be musically selfish, because my passions are spread over arranging different things. I am a piano player by trade and the piano is not the coolest instrument in heavy metal, it does not get the love it perhaps deserves from a lot of the metal fans. So if I was going to make my own project, all my love was going to come out. I am a big fan of the early nineties doom bands such as Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride. I am obviously a piano player, so there’s lots of piano in it, but then I have also written choirs for 25 years actually. I am obsessed by vocal harmonies. My voice doesn’t do extreme vocals, I cannot scream, so that’s what my voice sounds like. I am obsessed by harmonies and melodies, cello and song and of course – like a lot of people from the North East of England know – it is well-known in England that people from the North East are very passionate about where they are from. So all of these things combined into one is what we know now as Arð.

When I listened to Arð for the first time, it reminded me a bit of the band Funeral and when I looked at your Facebook page, I noticed that their album ‘From These Wounds’ has been one of the influences for the sound you wanted to achieve. You liked it as well…
I am a huge fan of Funeral, but they are an unusual case for me. Usually, when I fall in love with a band, I like most of their records, if not all of the records, but from some Funeral records I am not as much of a fan. Some of those early Funeral records are quite difficult to listen to. They are a challenging listen, let’s call them like that. But ‘From These Wounds’ I think is a very special record. I have been a huge fan of that record for a long time. I think if I was going to say if there is any band a little bit an overlap in what Arð sounds like, then Funeral would be the one.

In 2022 we had the first Arð album ‘Take Up My Bones’, but when did you decide to bring this project also to the stage in playing live?
That notion came later. It was not the original intention to ever do it live, which is probably why ‘Take Up My Bones’ has just so many layers, so many harmonies, so many guitar lines, so many cello lines. Most of the songs have two or three cello lines, two or three piano lines, four or five vocal lines and lots of things are stuffed on top of each other. So you don’t write that stuff by mentioning this would be very easy to put on the stage. But when I signed to Prophecy, Martin, the boss, asked me: ‘if there was ever any interest in it in by people hearing this live, would you do it?’ And I said: ‘yes I would, but I would have some conditions and the conditions would be: I wouldn’t want to do it all the time. I wouldn’t want to be touring the world playing this music. I’d rather protect it, preserve a little bit mystery, a little bit of ‘special occasion’… protecting the atmosphere. I don’t think that it is music that is suited to small, sweaty rock clubs. Also, I am not in my twenties anymore, I am in my forties. I don’t want to be away from my wife and daughter all the time. I think that the music deserves to have a special occasion and touch to it. Also, if I wanted to do it, I want to do it properly. I wouldn’t want to do it with just three or four people and hope for the best. We need to find a way to make it work, so Arð will never do a lot of live performances, but hopefully when we do one, the people who care for the music can come.

Prophecy Fest was one of these exceptional occasions…
Yes Prophecy Fest was perfect to play. We are doing that again this year…

Yes, magnificent! You have a live band now with many familiar faces, going from Winterfylleth buddies to the ex-drummer of My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost Jeff Singer… So we are in fine company…
(laughs)

When you record an album, you play and record most of the instruments yourself, but there are guests. In this case four of them. Can you tell something more about the people who helped you this time?
Yes. Once again Callum Cox plays drums, like he did on the first record. Callum is a good friend and the drummer from the band Atavist. He did such a fantastic job on the first record, I wanted him there again. My friend Dan Capp, who used to be the guitar player in Winterfylleth and also from the neo folk band Wolcensmen, he came and played lead guitar for me in and also helped me with the backing vocals again. So these two people are the same as on ‘Take Up My Bones’ and then this time on cello a lady called Robina Huy who is a German cellist who played on the last Empyrium record. Because I was recording with Markus from Empyrium and I was in his studio in Germany where I recorded the record, he recommended this local artist. I am a huge Empyrium fan, so that was great for me. And a lady who was local to me, called Beverley Palin… I wanted to have some Northumbrian Pipes on this record, just a little in one track, because it adds a nice, unique sort of haunting characteristic to the sound, and yeah… the Northumbrian Pipes on that one track was actually the first thing we recorded for the album. We did that first, near where I live and then flew over to Germany to put the rest together.

That was also new to you. It was the first time you recorded an album with Markus Stock from Empyrium. How do you look back on that?
How I reflect on it? Well, as a big fan of Empyrium, you can imagine that it was quite an experience to spend two weeks with someone’s music you love and have known for a long time, on his home turf as it were. I guess I was a little bit nervous at first, I don’t know, but he is a super down to earth, friendly and funny guy and we got on very, very well. It was a fantastic experience. I really love working with him. He made it really easy.

It is all part of the Prophecy family I guess…
Yeah exactly. The main reason I chose Markus, without being too much of a geek, is because the last Empyrium record ‘Über Den Sternen’ has an absolutely impeccable production. Empyrium have always had good productions, but that last record is a stunning production. Especially the drums, So it was a really special moment to know that we were using the same drum kit and the same acoustic guitars, be in the same studio. There was a really fun moment when we were recording the drums when Callum hit a snare drum for the first time and in my head, I thought: ‘my God, it is the Empyrium drum sound!’ I instantly recognized it. Yeah, it was a perfect experience. If you listen to the last Empyrium record and the new Arð record, clearly it is a different sound, but if you listen to the drums and listen to the acoustic guitars… then my inner music fan was very excited (laughs).

Precious it is! Now, also important: on the first album we had a theme and on this one too. I am not familiar with the person of King Oswald. So you have to give me a historical lesson…
(laughs)

How did you come to that theme and what kind of man he was? What happened?
Oswald is considered to be one of the most important figures in early English history in fact. For many people he is one of the most important characters in bringing Christianity to England. I am not a religious person, I consider myself an atheist, although I was raised in a Christian family, but when you are around Northern England, it is very difficult to avoid Christianity or religion in the history of the region, because it has led a very important role in religion as far as England is concerned in history. So Oswald was a character who was already sort of part of the royal line, as it were as a young child. As it is often the way with the stories of that time, there were lots of battles, lots of inner fighting between families and tribes and stuff and so on. The information we have from that time is rather sparse, we don’t have a lot to go on, but there are one or two texts who are often used as close to facts as we can get and both… The main one is called ‘Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ and Bede was a religious writer who came a little later and so we have to keep in mind that the text we are relying on was written by a Christian scholar. Oswald, when he was a child, he had a paternal uncle. The story goes that it was on the rampage, so the mother took the children and fled up North to the West coast of Scotland where there is an island of Iona. It is said that he was there approximately the age of ten until approximately the age of 28. He converted to Christianity. He became a soldier. He fought for various tribes in Ireland and Scotland and he earned the name ‘Whiteblade’, which in Irish was ‘Lamnguin’. He eventually came back to claim Northumbria as his own, as now a young man. He united two regions that were split, he reunited them as Northumbria and became King of Northumbria. He became a very important figure in English history and he also converted Scotland to Christianity. The album ‘time line’ if you will, begins with him fleeing to Scotland with his mother and brothers as a child and the album ends with him dying in battle. Later various legends and myths that started, were associated with the land where he fell away. Essentially it is about him as a child until the years after he died and the mysteries and legends that start to circle to surround his death.

Did you like how the series ‘Vikings’ were treating Northumbria?
I can honestly tell you I have never seen it. (laughs) I wasn’t sure how I liked the idea. Sometimes these dramatizations can be a bit… In English we have an expression: ‘toe-curling’.