Elvenking – interview met Damna (vocals)
Damna: “Yeah it was a lot of writing, making sure that everything was consistent throughout the whole story, all the characters, we did not want to make any mistakes, but anyway the story was pretty clear in our minds. Now we really can’t wait until we can start on a regular album, because of the opportunities that it can give, like total freedom when talking about the song writing.”
De laatste jaren stond alles in het teken van ‘Reader Of The Runes’ bij Elvenking. De band ging de uitdaging aan om een trilogie te schrijven van mythologische aard en was daar behoorlijk lang mee zoet. Nu het derde deel ‘Reader Of The Runes – Luna’ klaar is om te delen met de fans, kijkt de band alweer verder naar nieuw onontgonnen terrein, maar zover zijn we nog niet, want we hebben nog het spannendste deel van de trilogie tegoed, het album waarop alles duidelijk zou moeten worden. We zijn benieuwd en leggen dan ook een afspraak vast. Geen Aydan (gitaar, componist) deze keer, maar zanger en tekstschrijver Damna die we voor ons hebben wanneer we videobellen.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 4 april 2025
It is a story that started way back in 2018. That is a long time you have been working on the same trilogy. Wasn’t it a kind of relief that you could finally fulfil what you once started?
Yes, definitely you can say that. It was a feeling of relief, both due to the fact that we had finally come to the end of the story, as you said, a long ride, very hard and a difficult job in getting all of the three chapters fitting together and it is a feeling of relief also because we finally ended this thing about concept albums. We really can’t wait until we can start on a regular album, because of the opportunities that it can give, like total freedom when talking about the song writing. Of course there is nothing negative on working on concept albums – it has been great, it has been a really interesting ride and very stimulating – but it has been tough. When you write the music for such a long story, the story itself dictates the tone of the songs as soundscapes of these songs and of these albums. It has been a bit more difficult, combining the songs and getting them all together.
I was wondering, when you started with the first part, did you already have the whole story ready?
We had a general idea of the whole story of course, but we developed the first part at that time. We were really busy in developing the first part, but we knew where the story was going. Then, during the pandemic, we had all the time to write part two and part three. We did that together. We wrote them all together, all the songs, all the pre-productions. All the lyrics were done at the same time during the pandemic, so we had like a clearer view of how part two and three would be going without just working on part two and then part three separately. It has been easier that way.
What is the feeling in the story that prevails this time? The second part it was anger…
Indeed, like you said the second part was anger and the disruption, the end of all the eight main characters and the tone was very tragic and violent. On this part, we went in kind of two directions. One is in the past, because we are going into the past of these characters and we are revealing how they are all connected to each other, so it is like going back when they were very young. The tone is more light hearted as you may have heard in some songs, especially on those two last singles that we have released and there is another side on this story which is more tragic and sad, because we are revealing also why all of this happened in the present. Of course it was a terrible happening, that really started all of this, so that is why I think that this album has these two sides. On one side it is more light-hearted, through the lyrics and in the music and at the same time there is this other side a bit sad and tragic. So that is when the music gets more epic, more melancholic and a bit more heavy on one side and a bit doomy on the other side.
I had the impression that of the three records, this one happens to be most recognizable as Elverking, even a bit going back to your roots…
I agree. This relating to the past of these characters, when there was a bit more carefree feeling. It definitely resembles a little bit of the past, probably also because it reminded us a little bit of how we were when we were younger and we were starting this band. A bit more carefree, a bit more free from a lot of things you get on your shoulders to experience. When we were approaching these themes and these stories, we definitely went back to that idea and to the heavy metal that influenced us back in the days, in the late nineties, that epic power metal that we were really big fans of. Probably what you say is correct. There is definitely a link between this album and our earlier material.
Recently I saw you live at Paganfest. Of course we are all happy about the return of Paganfest as concept. How do you look back at this experience, because you were the first band and people were still entering the venue… did you have a good feeling about it in the end?
Oh yes, definitely, it has been a great tour. A bit exhausting, because it was a long one, but few were the times where people were still getting into the venue when we were playing. Fortunately it happened four or five times in the whole tour. Usually I was very surprised to see the opposite. Even if we opened, people were already there. Nearly all the venues were packed from the beginning, that was really good about this tour and this is not a regular tour. This is like having an identity which is not so common I think. When you go to the 70,000 tons of metal, or the ProgPower Fest in the United States, where you basically see the same people all the time. It is like gathering a community. That was really good on this one and also the mood of all the bands we were going on tour withn it was marvellous all together. It was a really smooth time with so many bands playing together every night. It has been great!
When the second part of the trilogy came out, you were still recovering from the pandemic era. Could you pick up the thread of playing live after that rather smoothly?
Yes, we did a North American tour last year with Alestorm and Paganfest. Those were the latest two big tours we lately did. We have been playing festivals through the years. We had to cancel a headline tour that we had to do in 2020, that was the main thing that we had to cancel and that we could not make happen again, but after a while we got back to normal and we did festivals and those two big tours after all.
Why is the third part of this trilogy called ‘Luna’?
It is the name of a character, it actually is the nickname of one of the characters. The character is Ethel. We already wrote a song for her. It was a digital single that was released between part 2 and part 3 and this album specifically is explaining a lot about this character, about this Ethel/Luna female character and basically it is all about her. The whole story is about what happened to her in the past.
What is ‘The Season Of The Owl’?
It is about the reader of the runes himself. In this song he is seen as a predictor, as an owl is, an animal kingdom. In the limited edition there will be a book where we explain a bit more of the story on this one and also the previous parts, a final recollection of all that happened and finally be able to understand the story, because I think it is not that easy to just read the lyrics. There are a lot of things that are hidden, there are sometimes metaphors, that’s why we wrote some notes, both in the regular edition and we have extended notes in the limited edition.
I can understand you have enough of it for a while…
(laughs) Yeah it was a lot of writing, making sure that everything was consistent throughout the whole story, all the characters, we did not want to make any mistakes, but anyway the story was pretty clear in our minds. It was just about details and we had to make sure that they were all fair and in the right place.
The last track ‘Reader Of The Runes – Book II’ is a long and epic track. Can you tell a bit more about it?
We have always been very fond of long, epic tracks. We are all huge fans of Iron Maiden, when you listen to ‘The Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner’ or ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’, it is just incredible. Being able to listen to those songs that go through a lot of different moods and soundscapes, still being one long song, that is great and it is the most difficult thing to do I think as a song-writer. There are two big difficult things to do for song-writers for me. One is writing a hit. That is probably the most difficult one and the second is writing such long and epic songs, articulated songs that make sense, not just riff after another riff, that is easy to do, but make a song that has a beginning and an ending and all that happens between these two moments has to make sense. So we did that a couple of times in the past, also in the first part of the trilogy and we also wanted to have another on this final part. We did not take that for granted, we just tried, me and Aydan sat down and as usual, we were just going through pieces and riffs that we had and we tried to put them together and see if they could make sense. That is how this song was born and we were able to use all of the tones that we used in the story, because we needed something that really closed the story and closed the trilogy and that could go throughout the mood that we have in the story. The light ones, with melody, also the tragic ones, the violent ones, epic ones, more extreme riffings with the rhythm section going faster. We are happy, we also were able to include some things that are related, some riffs and some melodies that are related to the first part and the first long song of this trilogy.
One of the interesting features of Elvenking remains the fact that you have a permanent violin player in the band…
Yeah. As you might know, when we started this band, we were really fascinated by a band from the UK called Skyclad. Being fans of Skyclad at that time… we were young and it was so cool to see this thrash-like band – basically at the very beginning they were mostly a thrash heavy metal band – that added all of these melodies, these folk melodies while they had a violent sound and it was something new. I mean, in metal, nobody was able to do that. In the seventies some bands did that of course, but in metal Skyclad was one of the first examples and we were really fascinated by that and I think that when we started together all of the other influences that we have, we knew that Skyclad taught us a lesson about being as unique as possible, because they did not only had this thing about folk melodies and the violin, but they also have really intelligent and interesting lyrics due to the song-writing of Martin Walkyier, so that was a lesson that we learned and we wanted to have our own sound. Of course, adding a violin player was something that we got from them. Undeniable, so I think the presence of a violin player is still something that stands out, we are not a regular folk metal band. It is something that makes us a bit different from all the regular metal bands. I don’t know if I explain myself well, but that is the feeling.
It has a link with my next question: it is said that Elvenking wants to bring back the sense of wonder and magic in metal. A very noble wish…
I like what you said. It is not something that is easy to explain, because it is not just about writing lyrics that go with what you say about magic or about this kind of feeling. What we do is kind of try to create a whole world that is made of music – of course, because that is the main thing that we are doing here, but – also like enriching the music with lyrics and with an imagery that extends the music. We always try to do that and thank you for what you said, because that means that we are successful in doing that or at least someone is noticing that. I like that.
Elvenking has a kind of mystery and melancholy sometimes as well…
That is important for us. Sometimes I am quite obsessed about that, because trying to put all those things in a song, in our music, is not an easy task. It would be so simple to just write a song, a heavy metal song or a power metal song. I even don’t really know what power metal means today, but being able to get all these feelings and tones in a song or in an album, that is our goal. That is what I crave for when writing a song and I think it was really important that we did that especially through the trilogy, through this concept, because we really needed to express these tones, these feelings, because the story is telling something, the characters are living those feelings, those moments, so it was really important to do that, but still we keep on doing that, even if won’t be telling a story or going through a concept.
Is there something you want to tell about the videos you have made for this record?
No, I mean, we had to do these videos pretty quickly. For example ‘Luna’ we made that and we were still signed with the previous record company and in the meantime we changed record company. After the recordings, everything was okay but then we went through a period of change. We shot those videos quite in a hurry. The last one we released, some scenes were shot right after we came back from the tour. One Monday night I shot this playback and bam, it was out. It was a bit in a hurry, but I think we got still some good material. Let us see what will follow. We just signed to Reaper Entertainment and they made all the best efforts to make us do this, these videos and all the promotion and they are great. I really can’t wait to next time when we can do it also together in this regard. Finally we have found the perfect team for Elvenking.
Then let us occlude with the plans for the near future…
Well… the very near future is Summer festivals. We will play a bunch of festivals. In Autumn I think we are going to Japan this year and we are working on a little project with Elvenking, that’s not going to be a regular album. You will see, it is going to be something really interesting and the release will be not so far from this new album which is released on the 11th of April. And then we can’t really wait to start writing new songs. We have already started, but – as I always say personally – I need to get this trilogy out of my system before we are really diving into some new song-writing, but some ideas are there and we are really looking forward to writing, as I said, a regular album and that’s going to be exciting.
Have a nice evening and say hello to everybody…
Thank you so much for the interview and see you next time.
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