Olmer: Hi. Life's such a thing that you cannot do only what you wanna do all the time. It makes you spending your time and power in order to complete numerous dull and unnecessary tasks . It makes you pulling off all other. So, ORCISH BLOOD was pulled off though I knew it worths not to stop…

Fawkes: You have started as two-men band but on Moral Invalid have extended your line-up. Would there be any live gigs or whatsoever?

Olmer: We have extended our line-up primarily to play live. We've done several shows here, in the North (band is based in Severodvinsk-1 - F.). We had no offers to play in Moscow, and that's a pity. We really had what to show.

Fawkes: As a main songwriter in the band you must have been charged for dictatorship or something like that…

Olmer: To be a dictator means to prevent any charges against yourself. The line-up is totally renewed by now. I am the one who has left since, you know.

Fawkes: OK. Say few words about your last (yet, hardly new - F.) album "Moral Invalid". You have fully abandoned the fantastic atmosphere of "I See No End Of A Winter" and focused on prog-death elements. Don't you think that fans have been waiting however for a sequel to "Winter" more than what they got?

Olmer: Yes, you're right. With "Moral Invalid" we aimed on more progressive audience. We've got many letters from disappointed blacksters (:))) - F.). They've been asking where's atmosphere, where's screaming. Maybe I go somewhere wrong but tell me where is that atmosphere today? We've been searching for a new ways to go. We nearly felt that the classic black metal scene has a one foot in the grave already. I think there are two main reasons we failed with "Moral Invalid". The first is that our album's been released through Hobgoblin Records. By the terms in contract, the part of the whole issue has been due to us to obtain. Those guys from Hobgoblin sent us our share fairly but when I've tried to play a single cassette I have found that the record is totally corrupted! It seemed like we have recorded it in a cellar using a dreadful Chinese dictaphone. I have called those guys and they said that despite all that I am lucky. They said that one band has recently got their music recorded backwards, you know… So I have to say that I cannot agree with that! I'm not a lucky because people all over Russia who's been waiting impatiently for our new album and bought it among the first, they got a true shit. The album has been re-issued later but up to this moments the most of our fans found themselves totally disappointed. And the second reason of "Moral Invalid" is that it has no any promotion at all. People apt to think about ORCISH BLOOD as a black metal band got no interest in it because they disliked black metal at all…

Fawkes: What song is the most precious one for you on "Moral Invalid"?

Olmer: "Pyramid", I think. It's a heavy song with heavy lyrics. I had so much troubles in my life that time…

Fawkes: What a strange name do your band carry? If you ask me it scarcely fits your music…

Olmer: This band was a joke in its beginning. People told me, 'Black metal is on the rise!' I've managed to get DIMMU BORGIR "Stormblast" and found nothing extraordinary on it. I've composed the first album in a week plus I spent three days in a studio. And "As All The Gods Do" has been released in Moscow next month already. That's it. I've been thinking how to name my project for trifling five minutes, you know (what about three? - F.). And I think that this name is rather good because people at their most get it the first time they see it.

Fawkes: Do you like to reveal what your lyrics mean? Do you share somebody's opinion when you create music?

Olmer: Lyric itself must reveal what meaning it carries. And I appreciate critics. If you don't you easily could lose the trace of reality. Take last TIAMAT comings, for instance (cannot agree with you - F.).

Fawkes: Whom your band is usually compared to?

Olmer: I don't know really. Maybe DIMMU BORGIR on the first two albums. But on "Moral Invalid" it is more late EMPEROR I think…

Fawkes: Tell me about the new material. What is it like? What about a female vocalist who participated on "Moral Invalid"?

Olmer: That would be something unusual - far away from what we've been doing before. I've welcomed a new guitarist and there would much more guitars actually. A singer is a new man as well. New things are far more simple and lighter. There's no a chance to hear Anja's voice on a new record because she left to Moscow to join the pop band ARMIA (don't mistake with ARIA!!!) (noooo!!! - F.), a real second-grade pop shit, you know. Why she did that?.. I don't know… (Do not know too:( - F.)

Fawkes: You're working a sound engineer. How often do you deal with Russian metal things?

Olmer: I did never deal with them! I did never deal even with rock things! People come and ask me to re-master already mastered material - I never send nobody away but… We deal primarily with jazz-pop or something like. The worst thing is when people come and say that they want to sound like Igor Krutoj. We're living in a dread country!

Fawkes: Severodvinsk-1… I don't know why but I got a picture before my eyes: still welkin' just like a film exposed, the forest dark creeping closer and closer, chimney-stalks spitting with resin and rust… Do the things go the way I describe? Darker places breed darker people. What do you think?

Olmer: The things go very similar to that you described. We have a facility here which produces nuclear subs. We have a nuclear waste tomb as well (I'm not kidding!). I would not say I am a gloomy one. I'm very talkative to people I do appreciate. There are many such people always around. If I want to talk the minimum would be a computer and a good book.

Fawkes: Taking in account that you named yourself after a character of Nick Perumov's books, I sure you're much in his stuff. Do you know that our series-makers are planning to make a movie from an "Adamantine Sword, Wooden Sword" novel. What do you think?

Olmer: They made a good series from Alexander Duma's "Queen Margo" but she didn't throw fireballs and never used other magical stuff. So I don't know how do they plan to handle all that…

Fawkes: In one of earlier interviews you said, that your faves are DARKTHRONE, MAYHEM and other grim guys. Do you really find serious all this tales about Grav Grishnakh?

Olmer: Oh, I paltered a little maybe. Now when everybody knows that Fenriz works DJ it seems like guys there in Norway paltered a little too…

Fawkes: Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll…

Olmer: a) This kind of leisure is common (just common? - F.) for humans and also great number of other living beings…
b) Playing music, watching TV, ship modeling and drug consuming is a private right of everybody…
c) Rock'n'roll includes all that you mentioned and even more things. Good and not so good…

Fawkes: What's stronger, love or fear?

Olmer: What a strange question. Pity (??? - F.) is stronger than anything else. Dostoevskij said well about this. For those who are interested in a religious problem, in the first volume of his novel "Brat'j Karamazovy" Dostoevskij shows an evidence to the fact that a catholic church have sold out to the devil. Highly recommended reading for all Satanists and the pitiful ones… (and for pitiful Satanist the mostly most recommended!!! - F.)

Fawkes: "Smooth harbour's left for seas of grief…" Have you ever given up hope playing music here in Russia?

Olmer: I would never become who I am without living in this country. If we had a single really powerful label, it would be enough for me. I'm confused about what Russian metal scene is. The whole scene consists of the one band and this band is ARIA! And it is something stupid! And this stupidity goes on for twenty years already!.. Could you even imagine if we all still had to listen to Irina Allegrova and Valerij Leont'ev? If so, we would never watch the lesbian magic of TATU and gay giggles of Lagutenko and so on… In contrary, the metal scene is choke. There aren't record labels, there aren't producers or whatsoever. I refuse to believe that this people couldn't earn any big money from metal! That's in a country where RAMMSTEIN and HIM boom from every window you pass?!. It's just stupid, I think…

Fawkes: Something you ever wanted to say, but noone asked you about…

Olmer: If I want to say something I need not to be asked of it (lol!). If seriously, I've tried to listen to PARADISE LOST "Draconian Times" recently and found what a crap it is!.. "Icon" - waste! (save me!.. - F.) MY DYING BRIDE simply cannot hatch their axes! TIAMAT - a single good album, OBITUARY "Cause Of Death" - merely shit indeed. I liked all this bands in the past!.. But I can't listen to the last CD's of TIAMAT, PARADISE LOST and AMORPHIS without shedding tears. Here we come to ANATHEMA. "Pentecost III" - a brilliant album!.. "Enigma" - sounds pretty well!.. "Eternity" - the same thing!.. So on up to the latest issue. This is really great music played by heart and with knowledge. Chuck Schuldiner's works also the best. I mean that there is an essential in metal music too. There is still something to try to reach for…