Tyr – 03-04-2008

Interview with: Heri Joensen
By: Elvira Visser

At Paganfest in Tilburg (Netherlands) Heri Joensen answered some questions.

It has been quiet around Týr after the Ragnarok CD for two years now, how is everything with Týr?
“After Ragnarock we were touring. Ragnarok was was released in September 2006, I think, and we were touring until the end of September and beginning of 2007 also and did loads of touring this summer and this fall. So most of the time was only with that. And when we had time, we have been recording and writing music. And in December last year the new album was recorded. So now we are on tour again and the album will be released on 30th of May. so we have been extremely busy as a matter of fact.”

Your touring now with Paganfest, with bands that are similar…is the atmosphere different than when you are playing at for example a rock/metal festival where you have different types/genres of music?
“I haven’t really thought about that as being much different. At a festival there are always more people. If there is a festival with many stages and many bands. People will come to the bands they like and everyone in front of the stage will most likely like you. At a concert where there is a stage with many bands somebody standing at the front waiting for another band., they don’t like….They don’t want to hear you and that is annoying. Think I like festivals better.”

Do you think that the Scandinavian fans understand/relate to the stories in the music better because it is part of their culture?
“We don’t play that much in Scandinavia. So I really don’t uh…I don’t know. I think in Germany they get it quite well, but when we play in Scandinavia there is always a more diverse crowd listening, you know. If you play in Germany there are only people between 16 and 35 and everyone is wearing black and everyone looks the same and like they belong there and have long hair, but in Scandinavia you have small children and all people. Even people in pink clothes, you know…So it, I don’t know exactly how but I think it probably appeals to Scandinavian people differently than it does in the mainland Europe. But as I said we don’t play that much in Scandinavia, it has been a long time ago when we played in Scandinavia. And it was only a concert or two. So I don’t really have much experience with that. ”

How is Týr different compared to those other similar bands, what makes Týr unique?
“I think it is the traditional Scandinavian and Faroe-ish special folk music.
you can have a band like, or I won’t mention any band…..Most bands they play some melody that sounds medieval or sounds old. That is fine in it self, but we have you know the real, true old melodies in the Faroe Islands and we use those and also use the old myths and the texts themselves, we use traditional texts and ballads. I think that is enough to put us apart from the folk/pagan liking bands. I don’t know any band that does it the way we do. ”

Týr means the God of War and also the God of Justice, if I am right, but which would represent the new CD better?
“I did not think about it like that. In any case I would always emphasise more on the justice and strategic values of the god Týr. We don’t speak in favour of war at all, so the other would be as reluctance …”

The new CD is called Land, is there a meaning behind the name?
“Yes, firstly it’s… it is a strange little word, very simple and it is the same in all Scandinavian languages including Icelandic and Faroe-ish. and it means exactly the same also in German and English and probably in Dutch also. There are not very much words that have that ability.
And …I was originally going to make “land” a concept album but in the end there were so many traditional ballads on it that …and ballads have their own lyrics so you can’t make them about what you like, so it could not be a concept album. But there are two or three songs that are about that one subject and it is about the migration of the Vikings from Norway to the Faroe Islands, Iceland Greenland and to Finland also. In the beginning of the 800 it was, 700’s and the question was why they left. It is an interesting topic and even people who…historians, you know, they don’t have a good answer for it. And archaeologists either, but there are some theories, they wanted more land apparently.
So it is very simple *laughs*
At the same time there is a parallel to the Finnish independently movement, we are apart of the Kingdom of Denmark and there are many people who want to make the Faroe Islands an independent nation. And I think that both things are easily connected to the Faroese. So it is also a national statement. ”

How was the recording process? Same studio/producer as last time?
“Everything was the same as with the last two albums. It was recorded at Jacob Hansen studio in Denmark and mastered by Lenhert Kjeldsen in Copenhagen, Denmark. So there is no change there but still the sound has improved definitely because the guys who we worked with have better expertise now and better equipment. So no change there no. ”

What can we expect on the new album?
“More traditional than ever before, more Faroese lyrics than before. And the songs that …they are not as complicated as on Ragnarock. I think actually they are more like the songs on the first album “How Far to Asgaard” than on “Eric the Red”. But we tried to make it a little more easy listening, then on “How Far to Asgaard”, which is a very heavy album to listen to, I think. So we tried to make it a bit more, not commercial but you know, think about people have to listen to it and like it. So uhm, I think this is our best album so far. In my opinion not very much better than Ragnarock but a little, so yeah that is what you can expect. ”

Isn’t it difficult to write about this subject (Scandinavian mythology, battles and Vikings) more bands are using?
“Not as difficult as you might think, I think you can write about two things at the same time when writing about myth there is a story in the myth and a message that it gives, that could be anything.
There is always parallels to present day situation. I always have those in my lyrics because, there is no point in my opinion to just recite history in a text like Iron Maidens “Alexander the Great”, you know. Fine you learn that and memorise that song you know, to know something about Alexander the Great but if you look it up in the history book you get much more better details. So a rock song can’t contain, it is not a good transfer of history teachings. So I always put in the present days parallels. And to give something of message that I would like to give about the subject. Uhm it’s uhm, they can be really about everything although they sound like they are only about the Vikings and the Faroe Islands.”

With the last CD, you said you have refined your trademark/music on that CD, how did you continue with the new CD “Land”?
“Musical wise …not lyrical wise, that has not changed a lot. The Ragnarock album was very progressive and the songs are very difficult to play live, and people don’t like the album first time they hear it. So that, I think that was kind of a dead end, developing direction.
So we wanted to take it back and go in another direction. Just make it a little more simple a little more, it is still not simple but more simple than Ragnarock, but Ragnarock is extremely complex.
so that is what we did, so that did not become our future trademark even though there are still the myths and the texts and the style of music…we just made it…I think this album is a bit more brutal and a bit more heavy…and more simple, but still the same style. ”

On the new CD there are songs from 10 and 16 min. Is it not hard to make them, or even scary? Like that people lose their interest?
“Yes, I am, that is what I am.. Al the other songs are around 5 or 6 min. But it is much easier to make a long song. Because always we have these songs that are five minutes there is a long process of taking out things, and saying okay maybe playing half of this and maybe taking this and this piece out. So to make a long song it is much easier than a short song in this style of music. Also if you try to make an epic impression it is difficult for a five minutes song you need some lengthy passages to musically convey/come up with an epic message, I think.”

While we were talking about “Hail to the Hammer” Heri told the following:
“Hail to the hammer, is from the first album. “How Far to Asgaard”, It is the first song on that album. That album does not have very good sound quality so we re-recorded it. Particularly because people want to hear it live so we wanted to have a good recording of it. So it is going to be on the on the bonus edition, not on the standard edition.”

Can you introduce Amon Djurhuus Ellingsgaard to us, the drummer for the European part of the Paganfest tour?
“I know him long time, you don’t find people in the Faroe Islands, they are just there. We know all of the young musicians there, it is not very hard.
He is related to the drummer, he is his cousin he is only 20 now and Kári Streymoy (drummer) was teaching the drums and he was one of the students. And Kári told us he was very good. And he is and also very nervous. He was never on tour before. He was extremely nervous. he told me the night before we left the F. he couldn’t sleep. He was just staring at the ceilings.”

When are you satisfied on stage, during a gig. When do you get to that point where you think this is a good performance?
“You know if you are on stage and you are satisfied with the gig, you are. But it lasts until far afterwards also, if you make a really good concert. There are two things if the the people like you that is good, and that for example when we played at Wacken Open Air 2007, last summer. The people clearly liked us very much, but we were not satisfied with our own performance because there was so much stress surrounding the concert and right before so we did not have enough time to set everything up properly. So that is always a little irritating. When people like you so much and you know you can play a lot better, and it is not a completely satisfying feeling. But it is better that they don’t like you. The best thing is if they really like you and you also, yourself think you played well. Which was not the case at Wacken. But still, it was the best concert, at least regarding the audience that we played yet. Yeah, we were completely speechless.”

Do you have any dreams with the band for the future?
“Yeah, of course we have. That is why we are working on the new CD. And there will be a lot more touring and festivals this summer. If it is just going to keep on going as the way it is now…and that will be fine.
It would be nice to be just as popular in America as we are in Germany now. And… we are going there now yes with the Paganfest. Of course we like to go to Asia and Australia as well but that is not really dreams that we have. If we keep up doing what we are doing right now, it might happen. ”

Do you have any funny back stage story to share with us?
“There is always some funnies stories, not from this tour yet. It was only one day.
*thinks hard*
There is a long time ago when we played in Iceland. And we were playing I don’t know, six or seven gigs, and on the first day we were there, we were supposed to play on TV because it’s uhm. It was a promotional thing for the tour and we were supposed to.., we couldn’t bring our own stuff because they could not fit them in. They said they had their own back line, drums and amplifiers so just bring the guitars and then when we came there it was in the same room the reporter was reading the morning news. And we had to make a sound check right beside him. Without making a sound.
The technician went to this pile of crap and dragged out the drums one of the time. They couldn’t put them together properly because they were old. And the amplifiers were complete crap. And there was no monitor, and we had to try to adjust the sound without making a sound. And so she presented us, here this morning we have….on the TV. And then the camera was aimed at us and we just had to start playing. And it was completely disastrous but nobody noticed. That was one of the cases that we knew we played absolutely terrible and people keep came to us and telling us that was so good. It was on television and we felt… like you just want to dig yourself a hole and not come out again. But that was a long time ago, 2002. So all the respect to Icelandic TV, but that was not well arranged.”