It’s been 22 years since the last Dark Funeral live album but the Swedish satanists are doing it again with A Beast to Praise, their second live LP. Due out August 21 on Century Media, A Beast to Praise immortalizes Dark Funeral’s first performance back from the Covid-19 pandemic. Recorded at Fållan in their hometown of Stockholm, it’s the end of an era and the start of something new for Dark Funeral.
Decibel spoke with founding guitarist Lord Ahriman about A Beast to Praise and what’s next for the band.
What made you and Dark Funeral want to do a live record?
For us, it’s quite natural because we’ve always been a live band, so to save our live shows for fans to rediscover time by time, and also to give fans who are never going to watch us live a chance to experience us. For us, it’s quite normal to do studio records, do live records in between, even though this is just our second one. We wanted to do this for a long time.
Your last live record was in 2004, so it’s been a long time. Did you feel like you had to choose a selection that covered a large amount of ground?
We didn’t think about it in those terms. Whenever we have a show professionally recorded and if it sounds good, we try to do a live record with it, [especially] a show with a great setlist, spanning the whole catalog more or less. I think all of us think that this show was special in many ways, since it was the first show after the pandemic. It’s just a great setlist and a great atmosphere. To be able to put it out on a live record, it means a lot for many reasons.
The response I get on the setlist so far, people are like “Fucking awesome setlist.” Of course we can’t put all the classics on a live record, but everybody has been like, “Fuck, man, the setlist is killer.” I think it’s going to be a great release beore the next studio record.
Would you say this is the conclusion to an era of the band? You did the pandemic and you put out a record in 2022, so this is wrapping things up for you?
That’s one of the reasons too. Closing the chapter—I always feel like in between every record a lot and I come to a point where we’ve been touring for three or four years, it’s time to move on. For me, it’s always been very important to just find this place, a good place where I feel like “OK, this is the end of this touring cycle and album cycle, chapter is closed but we need to do something to close the chapter.”
This time, it’s releasing a great live record and we’re doing a final support tour with Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir this fall. After this tour, it’s bye bye to old stuff and we’re looking into the future, full focus on the next studio record.
Something like Covid was such a big era for so many bands, did you have any memories of being stuck at home, since it’s a recording from that time?
The only thing was, “Did this really happen? Did it really happen?” It did, I know it did. Now you look back and it’s been a couple of years, it feels kind of unrealistic that we went through all that bullshit.
I guess maybe to keep my psyche well, I try not to think about the time. On the other hand, the pandemic for us as a band came at a very good time. We had been touring. That was also like the closure for the album before.
The plan was, when we got back from vacation, we were going to start writing a new record. Some of us, especially me, got stuck abroad because some of the flights got canceled, so it took a while to get home. We couldn’t really do much. I was like, “Perfect! I can just focus on writing new music!” That was We Are the Apocalypse, which came from the pandemic.
In that sense, the timing was good, even though I would have preferred for the pandemic not to happen. I was stuck in Mexico a couple of weeks and it was a weird situation.
When you guys did this show and you recorded it, was the intention always to be a live record?
I’m kind of old school and I like to watch old live DVDs and stuff like that. Nowadays, you can find a lot of old concerts on Youtube too, so my original idea was to do a DVD with the live record. Long story, it didn’t turn out the way I was hoping. It’s going to be a couple of live videos, at least, not a full DVD.
So when you set out with this show, you set out to release it in some form when you went in?
Yeah, because we worked with professional video and film team. We had professional sound engineers to record. When you do that, you want to do the best outcome. It turned out really good, so I’m happy we decided to record it.
It’s the second recording for two members of the band. Do you think having them perform some of your older, classic stuff presents an interesting or different version of those songs?
All the songs, all the time, they’re all kind of in a live environment. Some of the songs have some new twists and takes that are not on the actual studio record, but that’s why we’re not doing too many special effects in the studio and such. We try to keep it as simple as possible so we can do it as closely as possible live on stage. That’s always been a philosophy ever since the first EP. We wanted really good production but not adding too much extra stuff that we can’t pull off live.
Are you working on new music while you do these tours and this live record, or will you sit down to start once it’s all done?
Me and Heljarmadr have been working. I can’t remember when we started but it might be two years. We’re in the end of the writing process. I’ve been working today. I had my bassist, Adra-Melek, there. We went through the songs and me and Heljarmadr have been tweaking some vocal arrangements on the last song for the record.
We’re almost there. Not really there but the music is more or less finished. For this record, from the beginning, we kept it open, which is good, because the songs keep on growing once you enter the studio. This time, I kept it a little more open than I usually do and see where the songs take off.
I’m really excited. It feels fresh. It feels Dark Funeral, lots of surprises. It’s probably the most varied record I’ve written so far. It feels like it touches all the different worlds I like with music—evil, speed, fucking aggressive, intensity into the darkest melancholy, deep black hole. There’s a wide span of feelings into the songs this time.
It must feel good—you’re over 30 years into your career with this band and you’re still pushing your boundaries.
That’s the tricky part when I started writing this record. I had ideas for what I wanted to improve from previous records. When I finish one record in a studio, I always have ideas where I want to move the next time, but this time I felt like I really need to step up the game bringing new ideas into the music, mainly for myself. I want to feel inspired, which makes me more creative. It feels great.
Do you think working on the live record, going back to older stuff, has that influenced you at all when writing new music?
I never try to look back or re-listen to older records because I want to be here and now in the present. If I get stuck—what I’ve done in the past, it’s done. I’m really happy with the back catalog but why would I try to go back and copy myself? That wouldn’t make any sense to me, so I’d rather not listen to older stuff and try to be in the present and see where it takes me. For me, that’s very important when I want to write songs.
It’s what’s happening now. What’s going on in my head, what brings me inspiration at this time. That’s what I want to bring out in the music. I don’t want to copy myself, but of course I have my way of writing. Of course, you’re going to get lots of classical me riffing Dark Funeral melodies and stuff.
There will always be things that are Dark Funeral but there’s no need to live in the past either.
I don’t know why, but for this record it felt more important than ever. I wanted to refresh myself a little bit more than before. This time, I really was struggling in what direction I wanted to bring in new stuff into the songs to make it interesting for me. It’s been going well. I was so used to doubting myself in the beginning, but when everything starts coming together, like I told Heljarmadr the other day, I think we fucking did it again.
That’s a great feeling to have.
That’s why it’s got to start with yourself. If you’re satisfied and happy with it, then whatever comes after that, you can’t control.
Is there anything on the live record you’re particularly happy with?
I think the show in itself, the setlist, it’s just a great live album. The show has newer stuff, older, slower, fast. It’s a great mix of different Dark Funeral music and as I said before, we’ve always been a live band. For us, it’s important to pull off the studio version as well as possible on stage too.
