By Carl Begai

Borknagar guitarist / founder Øystein Brun admits he’s never had his eye on the big prize. If he’d listened to the advice and elbows in the ribs offered by industry people over the years with regards to making records he’s fairly certain Borknagar would be a much bigger deal than they are, but Brun is interested in the music first and compromise dead last. In fact, “compromise” isn’t even part of his musician’s vocabulary. The band’s latest album, Universal, gives the finger to commercial appeal, even in a day and age where aggression in music has turned the likes of Norwegian countrymen Dimmu Borgir and Polish juggernaut Behemoth into Ozzfest-fan favourites. In actual fact Universal can be considered the metal album Pink Floyd never made, a simple yet effective eight song journey steeped in a ‘70s appreciation for organics and dynamics. Or, in less flowery terms, imagine Voivod doing an album’s worth of music sounding like their cover of Floyd’s 'Astronomy Domine'.

“When I was a kid my father had LPs from Black Sabbath and the bands from the ‘70s, so for me that’s ground zero. That’s the way good music should sound. Not necessarily the sound, but the feeling you get when you listen to it. That’s something we really tried to achieve with the album, and of course some people don’t understand that,” says Brun. “Maybe they’re too young, I don’t know. Maybe they just don’t have any real experience when it comes to music. We’re really searching out this organic ‘70s feeling. We’re not trying to make ‘70s prog rock or anything, but we want to capture some of the magic from that era. We wanted to make things sound like 2010 – very big and professional and sounding like a million dollars – so it was a balance between keeping Universal sounding natural and up-to-date and organic.”

Universal was a good three years in the works following the acoustic-based Origin record from 2006. Brun chalks the wait up to a combination of reasons.

“We ended our contract with Century Media because we felt like we were at a dead end with them. I have nothing against them, but we did six records with them and at the end of the day we felt that we had to try something new. We just wanted to climb a different mountain, so to speak. We had to figure out a new record deal and we wanted to do it properly this time; in other words we didn’t want to jump at the first record deal that came our way. There was the money aspect, of course, but there were also the questions of artistic freedom and other possibilities. Also the fact that we wanted to be a part of something that felt dedicated and new and creative. The whole Century Media co-operation kind of stagnated because it just became a routine of releasing an album and then promoting it and then doing another album. We needed a different environment.”
“Kids are also in the picture now,” he laughs. “We’re all in out mid-30s now so we’ve got the wives and the kids and the houses and cars that need to be paid off. All that domestic stuff, so we needed time to take care of business at home, too. We also felt it was time to sit back and relax, take some time to consider what’s next. I’ve had a plan for the Universal album since 2005 but it was a matter of getting the mentality of the band on the same level so we could discuss the songs. What kind of approach did we want to have? What kind of vocals did we want? We wanted to make sure that we had something up our sleeves when we got into making a new album. Borknagar is an established name, so I think we were in a position to spend the time to make this album a good one.”

Often regarded in their early years as a solid albeit tame black metal band, Borknagar stepped away from the genre album to album to the point where the full-on acoustic Origin record didn’t really come as a surprise to die-hard fans. Universal is a head-check, however, although Brun sees it as the obvious next step for the band.

“We’ve always walked our own path, so I think Universal is a traditional Borknagar album,” he says. “I don’t mean that in the sense that we think we’re so incredibly original, but we try to cherish this and make our own musical universe. Movies like Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars, for example – and I’m not comparing Borknagar to them – those are great movies with their own approach and their own texture. That’s something I wanted to breathe into the band; we have own framework and something that is totally unique. When people put on the Universal record I want their reaction to be ‘Yes, this is Borknagar’. Still, I want to challenge the listeners, and the day I start copying myself is the day I quit making music.”

“It’s kind of a matter of survival, musically speaking” he adds. “Doing new things, trying to challenge myself. People never really get what they expect from us, and that’s something I really like. We could have made Universal and some of the previous albums much smoother, much more commercial and sold more records but that goes against our will. It sounds cheesy, but we tried to capture the magic in music on Universal. That’s not something you can necessarily put a finger on because it’s not just about the cool riff or the cool drum sound. It’s about giving the listener more than just some entertainment.”

The actual creative process in Borknagar featured Brun calling the shots, or at least that’s how it used to be. According to him the band is actually a band in the true sense of the word at this point in their career.

“I make the final framework for the songs but at the end of the day I’d say this is a team effort. When we enter the studio we’re on an equal level and everyone is doing their thing. It’s not everybody in the studio all the time because we have families and obligations, but we always have a very good dialogue about what’s going on. Making Universal was a very creative process for all of us.”
“I’m the guy that makes all the black and white scratches; the riffs, the basic arrangements, some simple drum programming. When I’m comfortable with the material and I decide that it’s good enough, I send it to the other guys. Then we start with the more crucial part of the whole process, and all the guys are involved in that. They help me colour this picture. It’s very much a case of sending material back and forth. It’s a very dynamic process, and that’s why we need that extra time sometimes. We really want things to sound good, and if they don’t we don’t do it. Simple as that.”
“That’s the beauty of this band. When I write music I do a lot of things with guitar and melodies, but it’s kind of complicated making those scratch tracks. Still, the pre-production is well done, but the guys come up with stuff I never even thought about. Lars, for example comes up with keyboard lines or arrangements and I’m sitting there going ‘What the fuck?’ (laughs). He comes up with things that I never could have done. I could twist my brain inside out and never come close to some of his ideas.”
“Same with the vocals. When Anders (Hedlund) comes in with some of his chorus ideas or clean vocal parts I’m saying ‘What the fuck did you just do?’ (laughs). Again, he does things I never considered, and that proves to me that we’re on that equal level in this band. The great aspect of doing music is being able to empower each other somehow. It’s very satisfying.”

With regards to comparing Universal to Pink Floyd, Brun gladly accepts the accolades. They’re well deserved.

“Pink Floyd is one of my favourite bands, and no matter what happens in music and what comes along, albums like stuff from Pink Floyd will remain the big albums of my life forever. I try to have that attitude when I make my own music, and I’m not in a position to say that we succeeded, but that’s my mentality.”

Discussion turns to the suggestion that a metal freshman in 2010 could very well be playing Universal 20 or 30 years from now with the same reverence Brun reserves for Pink Floyd.

“If that would happen it would be the greatest, even if we only sold one copy. But, this new iPod generation of music listeners has so much music to choose from that they only pick out the coolest ones and make their own playlists. Fair enough, I understand that, but for me music is about the whole experience of listening to an album from beginning to end. It makes no sense to me, for example, to only read a chapter in the middle of a book and the same thing goes for music. Okay, maybe one or two songs are weaker than the others but I don’t really care. It’s much more crucial to me that the whole album should have some kind of musical storyline. We at least try to achieve that , and hopefully we succeed (laughs).”