This time, we have a young band from the city that once ruled Europe: Rome. Tundra have just recorded their first promo Cd, and are trying to emerge from the multitude of BM bands that are growing from the empty after-school afternoons of to many children. They propose a very old school sound , so much anchored to the basically characteristics of the once glorious Norwegian scene, made of glacial riffs and raw screamings. I have interviewed Vörgehn and Pesten, respectively guitar and bass of this horde. Let's read their words...

Let’s start with the usual boring question: tell us something about the creation of the band and its musical history…

            [Vörgehn]: The band started in 2001 with the monicker Afterglow, with the purpose of playing old school Black Metal inspired by the Norwegian scene of early '90. After a complete change of line-up (the singer Erebo is the only one that remained from the original band), we decided to change also our monicker in "Tundra", because our sound was extremely different from our first "incarnation". Actually the members of Tundra are: Erebo- Screams, Vörgehn- Guitars, Pesten- Bass and Abominio- Drums. We've released our first Mini-CD featuring raw old school Black Metal without any kind of modern influences, trying to rediscover the trueness of the old sounds.
            [Pesten]: Tundra is a young project, but behind this monicker there are musicians involved in the extreme scene from years ago. I tried to have a Black Betal band since 1996 but it's very difficult, in our city there are a lot of posers or stupid kids involved in Black Metal. In the meantime I have played in a lot of bands, the most known is the thrash/death metal band VII Arcano. The drummer Abominio was in the cult band Another Day (now Klimt 412). Erebo was the former member of the BM band Afterglow with Vörgehn. They had my same problems, so we have united our strength under the monicker Tundra.

From where does the name “Tundra” come and why did you decide to use it? Is there a relation between the classical frozen desert landscapes of places such as Siberia and so on, and your music?

            [V]: Yes, basically our monicker "Tundra" takes inspiration by the landscapes of Siberia, with its lifeless trees and icy soils. We think that describes very well the idea that we have about Black Metal, pure coldness and solitude, and that's the feeling that we want to communicate to our listeners. We want to lead the listeners in our world of endless frozen lands, where the sun never rises and the wind never stops to blow, with his cold deadly breath. It maybe sounds too "canonic" but that's our idea and we think that the coldness in our music is the main part of our sound.
            [P]: We think that Tundra is better than Afterglow for a BM band. It's a word connected with something cold, frozen, dead. Yes, it comes from the typical Eastern Europe landscapes, but I took it from my old work. I believe that this word has the same feelings of our music: cold and dead as the true fucking Black Metal.

Let’s talk about your last promo-Cd: “In Cold Dimness”. What are the feelings that inspired you during its creation?

            [V]: Well, I can start saying that the creation of our mini-CD was pretty troubled and painful, cause we recorded it with a very little amount of money and poor conditions, also because we mainly recorded, mixed and produced it in my house... If we add a lot of problems due to the recording of the drums, you can imagine our happiness at the end of the work. So, you can be sure that the pain was the main feeling in our minds during this release... For the music, I can say that every track has different topics and feelings, but mainly we speak about ancient wars, the old ones battled with axes and blades, filled with honour and glory, but also about our hatred against the cristianity and the population with its trends and sheep-like thoughts.
            [P]: “In Cold Dimness” is our debut mCd, and I think that is a good album. We have some problems with the guy of the studio, but in the end the product now is complete and we are very happy for this. About my inspirations, I listen to Black Metal since a lot of years, since 1993, and I’m inspired by this music, especially the old stuff. I’m also inspired by this fucking society: I see myself as an external entity into this society, I don’t believe in all this stupid religions and I hate the incredible ignorance of the mankind. So all this shit is a great inspiration for me.

Can you analyse the songs that make up this promo and their mood? What kind of topics do they face?

            [V]: Well, the songs on the Mini-Cd are mainly created by me and Pesten, in the specific, I wrote “To Build A Reign” and “Silent Fields” and Pesten the others. I'll let him speak about his creations and I’ll describe mine. “To Build A Reign” is a song about an ancient battle, but really no one in specific... It talks about people that are trying to conquer a land, to build their houses, their towns, to create a kingdom where they can live in freedom and peace, but it talks also about the force that this motivation can spread in their minds. Practically is a story of survival, cause they have to fight to conquer a place to live, but also of courage, because they have to find the force to beat an enemy greater than them, risking their lives, for a common objective, melting the forces of many against the incoming menace. “Silent Fields” tells about the end of a furious battle, a battle for the freedom of a population that fought till the end of their forces. It's also a song of honour for the ones that died in the middle of the battle, and their journey to the sacred fields of Wotan.
            [P]: Speaking about my songs, “Total Human Collapse” is a classic BM fist, old style stuff with classic lyrics. It's my vision about the modern mankind and the will to destroy it. I think that has a great feeling, It’s like a single eheheh, but it’s just fucking Black Metal. “Christianity Has Failed” is a bit different. It has a kind of feeling inspired to me by old Celtic Frost, but in the middle the song is crossed by a classical Darkthrone-style riff, I love it! Lyrically, the title tells you everything. The words are my opinion about the true story of the Templars, but slowly they turn into something more personal, like feelings and conceptions about the religion.

How do you create your music? What inspires you during you rehearsal or when you play alone at home?

            [V]: We create our music mainly at home, playing our instruments and searching riffs that are more suitable for the song that we have in mind. Then we put the riffs together and in studio we arrange the music with the others, putting drums and vocals. During the rehearsal I’m inspired greatly by the fantasy literature and history of the middle age, but my main inspirations are my feelings. I create music during specific moods of my life; during periods of delusion and sadness, anxiety, depression...I think that the right mood is fundamental for the right message that you wish to send to the listeners. Black Metal isn't a music that expresses happiness and joy; it communicates rage, wrath but also sadness and solitude and to send these feelings to the listeners correctly. You have to prove them by yourself.
            [P]: Usually I take the bass or the guitar when I feel a particular sensation, and some fucking riffs and ideas came out. Then when I’m alone at night in my room I try to arrange the ideas and give us a structure: the nighttime gives me the right mood to arrange all my ideas. Then I go on studio and I play the song to my comrades.

Can you tell the readers something about the members of Tundra and their musical influences?

            [V]: I’m influenced obviously by the music that we listen at home, mainly Black Metal, but also death and thrash. In my stereo are spinning continuously all the Darkthrone albums of course, all the Burzum stuff and the first three of Immortal, plus a lot of other underground bands. My inspirations come from all this, but naturally we try to create our unique sound, with our own solutions and "melodies". We don't try to be original... we just try to be Black Metal.
            [P]: I’m inspired by a lot of band, principally Black Metal, like Darkthrone, and the old stuff of band like Dodheimsgard, Emperor, Enslaved, Burzum and so on. But also great bands like Celtic Frost, Sodom, Death, Carcass and Morbid are influences for me.

Tundra is a young band Italy: tell us your impressions and thoughts about this so called “scene” and the relation you have with the other bands. What do you think of all the groups made by complete idiots that are coming out like flies around a shit? I think I don’t have to mention them…

            [V]: I knew that! Finally it came...the old same question on the Italian metal scene...
Well, I personally think that here in Italy, there are some good bands in the underground that have really something to tell and make very good Black Metal music and that really haven't anything to envy to the others European bands.
Sadly, are only a few...Noctifer, Forgotten Tomb, Orkrist, and some others...
The main scene is in the hands of crappy bands that follow the trends of this period and make horrible pseudo Black Metal without any inspirations, filled with nazi / satanist messages without knowing anything about all these topics. I'd be glad if these posers will be erased by the face of the earth...
            [P]: Hum, I think that there’s not a scene in Italy. Actually Italy is the country of Rhapsody, Luca Turilli and things like this. Sure, there are a lot of great bands, but there is no co-operation, too much people want to make money with metal, this is the big problem. There are too much bands made of stupid kids, every day a new “legion” is born, all this things are killing those who believe in music and in metal. Too much “blah blah blah”, why don’t you spend your time killing yourselves? I’m oppressed by all this stupid words, stop!!!

What are the ideals behind Tundra? In what do Tundra members believe and what they want to tell to the listener with their music?

            [V]: Our common ideal as a Band is to make the music that we like, no matter what the people, or the press say... We don't intend to be original or innovative, we want only to be Black Metal, without any kind of modern influence. I personally have an hatred against the modern society and the people in general, in fact, every time that I walk in the streets of my city, I have great doubts about the human intelligence, looking all the trends, all the models of being that are conquering the population and all the stupidity, the preconceptions... Any form of singular intelligence or individual thought is slowly leaving our race, transforming it in a mass of mindless puppets. I don't see any future, any hope. In the next chapter of our history we'll discuss about this... mental emptiness.
            [P]: About myself, I can say that I live believing in coherence, fidelity and my personal convictions. I don’t like to stay with a lot of people, but I’m not a misanthrope. I hate the ignorance and stupidity, so is difficult to me to live in a city like Rome, full of this shit. About the band, all I can say is that we are a true fucking black metal band, no other shit or “bombastic” words.

What do you think of topics such as god / Satan, Tradition / modern “values”, politics in music, and so on with all the typical topics in Black Metal?

            [V]: I think that in our music you can't find anything that can be in some way "Satanic", we express only our freedom to say and do everything that our conscience tell us, without the restrictions and laws stated by the christians. Answering for the values, I think that there aren't really Modern Values, especially in our times...Musically I see that a new trend is to mold togheter genres totally different from each others and I can't see anything of valuable in this, especially because it's simply a new Trend... and I can't see nothing new, nothing fresh... only a continuing recycling. Maybe I’m too closed minded, but I prefer the old raw good sound, the sound that we're trying to propose now in our era of "experimentation", cause it's now that our scene needs more rebel pureness, now that all seems too aseptic and fake.
For the politics, I don't think that we'll include them in our music; we'll leave them to the ones that like showing their political attitude using the music. We don’t.
            [P]: I believe that Black Metal is about death, sickness, hate, destruction, and against the religions. These are the traditions of Black Metal, and Black Metal is tradition! All this modern stuff is for extreme metal: I’m not against it, but don’t call it BM, please! Modern stuff can be used only by genial people like Dodheimsgard, a great BM band that now, with a lot of modern stuff, has created a unique sound, something incredible (I don't agree, anyway it's your own opinion... ndA). Concerning politic, I think that is not for metal. All this new “nazi black metal horde” and blah blah blah, 14 years old kids that spent the day in front of the Tv, bleah...There are just some NSBM bands that I respect, the others are shit. NSBM is now what keys and female vocals were some years ago... politics and modern values used by kids are destroying our music... fortunately in the east Europe the underground is alive, and some guys are fighting for it. Country like Poland and Czech Republic are the salvation of Black Metal.

What can you tell me about the nice cover illustration? It makes me remember the “Orlando Furioso” of Ludovico Ariosto, with the man transformed into trees… Am I correct? What does it mean and who made it?

            [V]: Mmmmhh interesting thoughts... Obviously everyone can have his opinion about our cover illustration, but anyone can judge if it'd be right or wrong. It depends simply by your own interpretations. By the way, the cover is an illustration of the 13th chant of hell from Dante's Divine Comedy, the guilties of suicide turned into trees.
            [P]: Is cool, is perfect for the title: there are strange creatures coming from the cold dimness near the trees...

I took a look to you website some times ago, and I liked its minimal but yet complete way of being: what’s your opinion about Internet as a big media and about webzines, forum, sites, mailorders and other things that in a way can help all the true adepts of BM art, but in the other can make BM loose some of its cryptic part?

            [V]: First of all, thank you for your positive opinion about our web site: we're happy that you appreciated the poor look of our pages and their essential contents, 'cause we think that it describes perfectly the rawness of the genre that we play with so much dedication.
I think that Internet is a great and powerful way to communicate end exchange, it's easy and it's fast... but what's the cheat? More people visit your site and more chances you have to meet posers, nerds and many other kinds of crappy people.
But I think that the risk values the candle don't you?
            [P]: Well, I think that Internet is cool. Black Metal underground is hidden very well, and thanx to Internet we can find the ultimate hordes or the best label for this kind of music: things like tape trading, paper 'zine, correspondence are now dead, and only on Internet I can found great mailorders or cool 'zines. I don’t know if can make a loose of mystery, look at our website: is poor, you’ll find in just what it has to be in. The same for the others: you’ll find the right things only if you are good to search. I don’t like all the colours, animation and fucking things in Internet, I prefer fast things, clear website: I hate to wait 10 minutes to open a site just for a fucking animation....

A thing that I didn’t liked, even if it’s my favourite song, is the intro of the second one, “Total Human Collapse”, that reminds me too much the intro of a Cannibal Corpse song of the “Butchered at birth” period. Why did you choose it? What does it mean?

            [P]: Obviously I know Cannibal Corpse, but I think that the intro of “Total Human Collapse” is not so similar. Cannibal Corpse’s intro are taken from B-movies, splatter series and gore, this sample is different. I found it on Internet, and it's an explosion in a park: there are children, birds, happiness and other things. Than a big explosion and only silence. I put as intro of the song because I believe that is in perfect connection with the title and the words, the extermination of the mankind: don’t you agree?

Mhh, I'm not really sure yet... anyway,what are the next projects of Tundra? Live dates, another recording, silence and solitude, what? Let us know…

            [V]: The works for our next creature have already started... It'll be a full length this time and the topics will be the mental illness, madness, lunacy, hallucinations and the psychological chaos, in little words a voyage in our "dark subconscious" if you pass me the Morbid's quotation.
For the live dates we haven't anything of 100% sure but you can always take a look at our website for future concerts, but in general we wouldn't like to play in Italy because we think that many (if not ALL) concert organisers are doing their work for the only purpose of earning money, and carry on their activity without passion or dedication. We haven't anything against our nation, but here we wouldn't have the opportunity to be appreciated, because the labels and the productors are looking very far away from us, our genre and our principles of music.
We don't want to have anything to do with these people, so we decided to search support outside; in fact we're in contact with several labels outside of Italy, but actually we're still trying to find one that could spread our work in all over Europe.
            [P]: We have played two gigs, the first with Corpsefucking Art and the second with Spectral Forest, they were both good concerts, the response was nice. I don’t know when we'll play live again, we don’t like the concerts in our area: there are a lot of festivals with a lot of bands, and I think that playing for 20 minutes with other 6/7 bands, one brutal, one thrash, one gothic, one power, is not good for a BM band. We are trying to arrange some dedicated gigs, also in other country, I can tell you that probably we’ll play next July in Czech Republic at “Open Hell Fest”, one of the best festivals in the eastern Europe, that in the past years have seen on stage great bands like Dark Storm, In Aeternum, Maniac Butcher, Centinex, Root, Desaster etc etc. We are working on the album, but in the meantime I’m working on the promotion of the mCd. I am the guy in band that works on promotion; Vörgehn is the man behind the mixer eheheh. We haven’t spread in the world a millions of promo, I’m making a dedicated work, just the 'zine, distro and label that we consider the best for the underground Black Metal, so Nuclear Blast will never listen our mCd eheheheh... We have some offers from foreign label, we have to choose the best for our music: every promo sent has received an offer, so I believe that we are working in the right way...

We have reached the end: finish with your last sentence or ask me something if you want.

            [V]: Thank you for the opportunity that you offered us to communicate our thoughts and feelings to the rest of the Black Metal population. We wish you good work, and the best of Heils!
            [P]: Thanx for the support, and compliments for your 'zine. Suicide – fanatism - oblivion.

Thank you too for your time and best wishes for your band. Hails.