DIMMU BORGIR guitarist Silenoz is featured in a new interview with Leja Siv Harju at Hails webzine. An excerpt is available below:

On spirituality and religion: "Spirituality is individual while as I see religion as not. It’s man made and there to enslave and control the insecure and those who for whatever reason don’t dare or have given up the fight. To have a religious belief, or a religious conviction to me means you give up that birth given right to be an individual, perhaps on more levels than just the spiritual one. And ‘satan’ or referring to the description ‘satanic’ for me is being that individual as Satan is a modern metaphor for breaking out and away from what’s considered the norm and what’s considered safe and controlling. I adhere to progress, not only in scientific terms but also on a personal level and everything that concerns my own being. We wouldn’t exist without a continuous ongoing evolution and so the 'Luciferian thought' is a way of always lighting the torch in the dark. Without being willing to bring in light we would still be stuck in the dark. To me it’s pretty simple if you break it down symbolically.

Being religious to me also means you leave your responsibilities by the door or over to something else, a higher deity. It doesn’t make sense to me. I have never been able to relate to it nor will I ever, it’s against common sense. For me, there’s no higher spiritual deity than myself and I take pride in taking responsibility, whether it’s a physical or a mental one. I don’t rule out anything other than the fact that I’m here now and solely in power of myself and my actions and reactions. That pretty much sums up the general idea, my lifecode, whatever you want to call it. There’s no one that can tell me to fear or worship any other god than myself."

On black metal: "From my non-judgmental and not so up to date point of view I think black metal has reached its peak in terms of rebellion and shock value, but it hasn’t died out artistically and musically. Far from it. It’s been watered down, sure, and obviously become more available for obvious reasons, but as there are several new genres born under the so called black metal banner the last few years I still see it relevant and as a pivotal addition to the music world. There’s still passion, dedication, honesty and authenticity in this form of art and as long as that is on the forefront it’ll still be life. But as real life is all about contradictions the term black metal is no exception. It has progressed, thank god – pardon the pun!"

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Pro-shot footage of Dimmu Borgir performing at Wacken Open Air 2012 in Wacken, Germany on the weekend of August 2nd - 4th is available below. Originally aired by the country's ZDF network on the Kultur program, it features live footage of the band performing with an orchestra and an interview with Silenoz.