Speaking to Łukasz Dunaj of Noise Magazine at this year's Mystic Festival in Gdańsk, DIMMU BORGIR guitarist Sven "Silenoz" Kopperud was asked to name the hardest moment in the band's history. His answer was the one that has shadowed the Norwegians for most of their existence: the people who left.
"Obviously, I think every band out there wants to try and avoid changing lineup. But sometimes it has to be done to basically save the rest of the band," he said. He and vocalist Shagrath have been there since the start, and that has consequences. "We have had this real ownership to the band and the brand… And I think us running the band with that ownership feeling has maybe sometimes been way more than for other people involved, and that's understandable, 'cause everybody cannot feel the same."
Asked whether DIMMU BORGIR were ever genuinely close to collapse, Silenoz was blunt but unromantic about it. "Not really. We've been on the verge of probably hitting each other and fights and stuff, but that's normal, I think. After so many years, there's bound to be some disagreements. But I think what dials us back into the middle is that we love what we do, and we're meant to do this."
He acknowledged that 2007's "In Sorte Diaboli" marked the end of a run in which every album outsold the last, and that a major clash and lineup change followed it. "You feel like you have to kind of start from scratch. The only alternative is to give up, which is not an alternative for us… And sometimes you don't hit 10, sometimes you hit seven or six, and that's normal. But that only makes you more hungry to get back up on top."
His explanation for the band's survival is almost administrative. "Giving up or giving in has never really been there for us, 'cause we don't have a plan B. We never had a plan B, and I think that's been one of the keys to why we're still here." As for how decisions get made: "Democracy only works up to a certain point. There are easy decisions to be made, and that's when everybody wants to take credit. But if there are difficult and challenging decisions that have to be made, then it's Shagrath and me that has to do that."
DIMMU BORGIR have just wrapped a ten-date North American tour with SUFFOCATION and HULDER, which ran from New York on August 7 to Los Angeles on August 23. It supported "Grand Serpent Rising", released May 22 through Nuclear Blast and recorded in Gothenburg with Fredrik Nordström, the producer behind "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" and "Death Cult Armageddon".
In October the band cross Europe on the "In League With Satan" co-headline tour with BEHEMOTH, with DARK FUNERAL as special guests.
Source: blabbermouth.net