Four years ago your previous album ‘Profan’ came out. What happened between 2015 and the break in 2017. Could you support ‘Profan’ with some tours and gigs?
We did several tours after ‘Profan’, deciding to focus on supporting other bands like Gorgoroth and Borknagar to reach out to more new people than in the past. Most of our tours for the last fifteen years have been headliner tours, which means you play to your audience, so a couple of those tours worked out really well for us. In addition we played our share of festivals, which is always an enjoyable variation from touring.

For the first time in your career you took a complete break from the band for one year in 2017. What was going on that you took this drastic decision?
It’s not really accurate that this was the first break in the band’s history, from when ‘Fra Underverdenen’ was released the band didn’t really do much for about three years, mostly due to health issues back then, too. Like then the decision to take a break, or what for us actually was more calling it quits but not being definitive about it, came from challenges in the personal lives of several members. Some of us are closer to 50 than 40 now, and that comes with its own set of setbacks, but things are better now.

During that break you even did not see each other. Why this isolation from each other in hard times?
We have this very intense relationship where for periods we spend most of every day together. In this sense we are more like brothers than friends, which also means that we naturally don’t hang out together that much when we’re not working on the band, there are just too many other people and places we need to give attention to outside of the band. Ole and I live so close that were it not for a single building I could see his house from mine, but we rarely hang out here in Bergen unless we’re at the rehearsal room.

How and when did the process of gathering together again take place? Can you tell a bit more about the writing process of the new album?
Ole started coming up with some ideas, he shared some with us, we started talking about meeting up and seeing what we could do with those demos. Then Ole’s father got ill, and during his last months we didn’t work on music much, but the seed was sown and after the summer last year we decided to write an album together and see what would come out of that process. The writing process was partially done here in Bergen, where Ole has his home studio and we would bring those songs into the rehearsal room, test them out a little, and then we would meet in Hemsedal for long weekends through the fall, refining the arrangements, discussing from morning to late night about anything from lyrical themes to the visual ideas, and within two months we were ready to record.

I can imagine that it was not easy and obviously your personal struggles had an influence on the record. Thus, can we see ‘Ofidians Manifest’ as a kind of catharsis?
For Dolk I am sure the word catharsis is fitting. I remember the last show we did on the Borknagar tour, in Rotterdam, afterwards him and I went to some friends of ours down there, and he was in a bad shape. Had it been up to me we would have cancelled all shows from there on out and called it quits, but we chose to go on for another year, which was not a great idea but came out of a duty we feel we have towards those we work with and those to pay to see us perform live.

Can you tell about the link between the madness of Medusa and ‘Ophidian’? It is also reflected in the artwork, isn’t it?
Yes, Medusa is a good image to use to describe the underlying emotions permeating through the album. And it’s not only about the mythical figure of Medusa but also from the way we incorporated the painting ‘The Raft of the Medusa’ by Théodore Géricault. These images are all just hints pointing towards the underlying stories on the album, in the same way as the lyrics telling parts of the story but not spelling it all out for anyone.

And in the video for ‘Ophidian’. Can you tell a bit more about the making of this video clip? Are there plans to shoot another video?
That video was a cooperation with Grupa 13, and was a way of trying to tell yet another side of the stories on the album. We had a good dialogue with them before we travelled to Poland to shoot our scenes, and together we developed these scenes in a way that we thought would fit the song, which I think we were successful in doing.

If compared to previous studio experiences, how do you look back at your time in the studio for ‘Ofidians Manifest’? Where did you record and who was involved as technician or producers?
This album was recorded in a similar way to ‘Profan’, we did strings in Ole’s home studio, drums in Abyss/Blacklodge studios with Jonas Kjellgren, and then we used Stamos Koliousis for vocals again, recording in Oslo. Like before the process tends to be very quick, we come well prepared and both drums and vocals are mainly first takes with the occasional second take to improve something, when needed. The drums were done in 3,5 hours, no need to spend extra time when you can just get it done.

Surprising is the contribution of two female singers in two songs. Please tell us about their background and how they got involved?
Agnete Kjølsrud should be a well known name to fans of heavy music, I think she is one of the best metal/rock singers there is, period. The decision to include her came from the need to add something to that song that we couldn’t add ourselves, and it was a completely collaborative effort where her and Dolk developed the vocal lines and lyrics together. As for the vocals by Marianne Maria Moen, the song ‘Det Sorte’ is a direct response to Ole losing his father last year, and as Marianne is my sister and this is the way she improvised at the burial ceremony for our father ten years ago, it was the perfect choice to bring her melodies into the song. I still have problems listening to that song, it hits hard for all of us really.