Metal Anarchy

During a recent appearance on the “Everblack” podcast, Ihsahn was asked about the possibility of a new Emperor album once again. The frontman responded by saying he “can’t say that it will never happen.”

Ihsahn said the following:

“Me and Samoth have discussed it at different points, especially since we’ve been doing these live things occasionally and now, I guess, more permanently in the end. But the discussion is really quite open. And I’ve talked about that in interviews as well.

If it were to be, what kind of EMPEROR album should it be? Should it be something that the fans would want, as in something that maybe sounded like the early records? Which would be, in practice, kind of easy for us to do, but still it wouldn’t really have the authenticity because it would be trying to recreate something that you did when you were teenagers, and it would almost be like the opposite of the motivation of all we did. If we were turning everything on its head and started creating music for the sake of pleasing some market or making money or any of that, it would kind of make everything that we did into a lie. And if we were to continue where we dropped out — I ended up recording and writing the entire last EMPEROR album on my own, in a far more experimental direction, and that’s kind of where I just [laughs] disappeared into what I do. And should we pick up from that point? And then there wouldn’t really be a point, if it wasn’t a band effort and it was just me pushing in my direction.

Basically, like I said with live shows, after every kind of anniversary thing that we did, ‘It will never happen again,’ so at this point I can’t say that that will never happen, because I’ve seen it happen with the live shows that I never thought that we would do either. But it would have to be at a point where we would get together and where the vision for what it could be, where that is in some way aligned, that we could create from the same uncompromising space and, I would say, without for a second dealing with what people might expect. Purely creating from that same state of mind, as we were back then. I think that would be the only way to properly do something that would be worthwhile for us to do, and down the line, for fans to experience too. I think if we started making records for those kind of ‘un-black metal’ reasons, it wouldn’t be enjoyable for either us or anyone else… It would have to come from a creative place and not a practical, ‘This could be smart. This could be…’ None of that. And it would be futile.

I think everybody, like you and me, who are drawn to this style of music, we’re drawn to it because it feels uncompromising, it feels like something real. We are drawn to this music because we just want a pure experience.”

[via Blabbermouth]