Satyricon: Twenty Years of Rebellious Extravagance

As the new millennium approached, the Norwegian black metal scene was undergoing something of a renaissance. The old certainties, which had come to define the second wave as a movement, were gone. This loss of a unifying set of artistic values followed in the wake of the absence of numerous second-wave progenitors. Dead was gone. Euronymous was murdered. Varg was imprisoned, as were Snorre and Faust. Those who remained were compelled to create a new set of artistic values for themselves, or else submit to stagnation and caricature – aligning themselves with their own imitators. A heady atmosphere of experimentation ensued, and thus a great divergence in style, resulting in albums as distinctive and divisive as ULVER, ARCTURUS and DØDHEIMSGARD. Alongside these second-wave heretics stood standard-bearers SATYRICON, armed with their latest opus Rebel Extravaganza.

By 1999, the duo – comprising vocalist and songwriter Satyr and one-man battery Frost – had made themselves infamous with a trio of second-wave albums: icy-cold debut Dark Medieval Times, bombastic and atmospheric follow-up The Shadowthrone, and the seminal Nemesis Divina. A pair of EPs followed, Megiddo and Intermezzo II, which document a period of concentrated experimentation in which the duo set about redefining their expression of darkness and intensity. This creative fervour culminated in Rebel Extravaganza, which was set upon the world on September 6, 1999 through Satyr’s own label, Moonfog Productions.

“With Rebel Extravaganza, we wanted to make something unconventional,” Frost explains. “We felt that we were done with the epic, folklore and medieval inspired themes and arrangements which we had done on the first three albums. On Nemesis Divina, we felt we had reached the end of that road and it was time to seek for something a bit different. It was time to turn the page.” Rebel Extravaganza is certainly unconventional, and not just by the standards of their first three albums, but the movement as a whole – showcasing a frenetic, almost progressive, approach to songcraft. There is almost no trace of conventional verse-chorus song structure; riffs come thick and fast, accompanied by the pummelling percussive fury of the drums, giving the listener sparse solid ground on which to stand. “Whereas most albums in the late 90s in the black metal world were rather grand and epic sounding and had lots of orchestrated elements, a lot of keyboard arrangements, and were beginning to sound pompous, melodic and gothic,” Frost observes, “we had made a very very hostile, cold and grim album and that was orientated around guitar riffs – tonnes of guitar riffs in one song, putting the guitar in the lead role again.”

Rebel Extravaganza is resplendent in musical ideas, incorporating a vast amount of material in its hour-long running time. “It was quite a challenge trying to make all of these elements work together,” remembers Frost, “and to make it sound and feel consistent. You want your albums to have a certain sense of totality to them, right? Some kind of wholeness. On EPs, the way we see it, you’re more at liberty to have songs that are very different from what you otherwise do. You can have four songs on an EP that all sound very different and have different productions on them – that can make sense there, but we wouldn’t do that on an album.”

The production of Rebel Extravaganza pitches itself towards clarity, with an eye towards presenting the complex arrangements and layered tracks as perspicuously as possible, while retaining enough grit and murk to create the uninviting, hostile atmosphere apposite to the music itself. The overall effect produces a sound which is more evocative of the modern metropolis than ancient woodland.

“We had decided to break with what we had already done, which was very much connected to nature to the forest, to folklore,” Frost remarks. “With Rebel Extravaganza, that was all gone. You can almost feel that there was a more urban, sterile, and cold kind of culture instead.” This change in aesthetic is reflected in the album’s distinctive cover, which could just as easily have adorned an industrial-techno release rather than SATYRICON’s defiant reimagining of the black metal sound. While portrait photos were not uncommonly used as album covers in the black metal scene – perhaps most notably by DARKTHRONE – these had traditionally depicted a lone inhuman figure in monochrome, donning hooded-robes and wielding candelabras or medieval weaponry. By contrast, Rebel Extravaganza’s artwork is relatively colourful, featuring Satyr and Frost as zombie-like creatures emerging from a scene of urban decay. “Since we did different and unconventional music, we needed a visual aspect that went hand in hand with that,” explains Frost. “Traditional corpse paint definitely wouldn’t cut it, right?”

In time-honoured fashion SATYRICON’s break with convention was met with punitive rebuke, as Frost recalls. “All in all, it was basically the opposite of what most other bands were doing at the time, and we were harshly criticised for that because it was so different from what people had expected it to be, because it was so unconventional in the era in which it was released. What happened was that quite a few music journalists took the album to heart, while fans were a bit more divided, just as we had expected.” Rebel Extravaganza initially charted in both Norway and Finland and has since developed an affinity with audiences beyond the conservative-minded extreme metal world for its cerebral celebration of deviance and devilry. As the album passes its twentieth anniversary it is widely remembered as a turning point in the genre, having forged a difficult path between progression and experimentation, whilst retaining the nihilistic hostility which brought listeners to the black metal style a decade prior.

The mid-to-late nineties in Norway seems to have been full of experimentation: DØDHEIMSGARD started incorporating industrial elements into their music, while Fenriz came out with his ambient project NEPTUNE TOWERS, and together with Satyr formed folk-metal band STORM, too. Was there a palpable sense that the traditional black metal sound had run its course?

Frost: Actually, there weren’t that many bands experimenting that much. There were very few, and that was mostly about black metal musicians involving themselves in non-black metal projects. Black metal itself was starting to have a more gothic influence, it was going in a gothic direction generally. That could be heard in the music, and it could be seen in the visuals and in the imagery as well. Most bands were starting to use the synthesiser almost as if it was the main instrument in the band, sometimes carrying whole songs; it got such a prominent role in so many bands. It was becoming almost standard to have female vocals and to have clear vocals – a very widespread use of soft and light melodies and harmonies.

Things were getting pompous and grand and, in my ears, quite a bit vulgar – and things started to look exactly like that too. We weren’t too happy about that direction at all. We had also realised at the point of making Rebel Extravaganza that we had to be aware of our position as the leading band in the genre, and to show some responsibility. Not only was Rebel Extravaganza the album we ourselves wanted to hear, but we also felt that we needed to put out an album that clearly went in another direction than the general one as far as black metal direction was concerned. We hoped that we could show a different path, perhaps one that would inspire others to do something else also and that’s what I think happened. As you might know and might remember, the extreme metal genre is rather conservative, and there are lots of standards and conventions that apply. We truly don’t subscribe to those, and that’s why it got a harsh reaction. It was a divider of opinions at the time, Rebel Extravaganza.

Were there any particular artists or pieces of music which inspired you and Satyr to adopt a more progressive approach for writing Rebel Extravaganza? Were you listening to anything beyond the more conventional influences for black metal musicians?

Frost: It has always been like that in SATYRICON. Satyr has always listened to all sorts of different music. He’s very orientated toward quality, and not so much towards genre or form. He has been an open-minded guy for as long as I have known him, and probably has been that way all his life, even in his childhood. That’s probably why he became a musician in the first place, and a composer too, not just an instrumentalist. I have been a little more narrow-minded myself, much more of a traditionalist in many ways. Rebel Extravaganza probably sounds the way it does partly because Satyr is open minded, and because he doesn’t have one particular set of influences – he has lots of them. And not only musically, by the way: things that he observes, and whatever he mentally possesses, could have an influence on the music. With Rebel Extravaganza, we wanted to make something unconventional. If that’s your starting point, you probably seek out more unconventional influences as well. That would be a natural part of the process.

Given that you were drawing upon such a wide range of influences, would you say that Rebel Extravaganza has any dominant themes or an overarching concept?

Frost: There aren’t any main themes, the way I see it. The album has a very apocalyptic feel to it. That goes for the music, and the atmosphere that you find on the album as a totality. The apocalyptic atmosphere and feeling is also reflected in the lyrics. Apocalyptic themes in various forms and shapes show up in the album, and I think of the lyrics as just a different way of projecting those ideas. They all come from the same place: Satyr composed the songs, and because he also wrote the lyrics, it all comes from the same creative brain, and I think he wanted to express lyrically what he also wanted to express musically, and to make them go together. That’s the way it has usually been in SATYRICON. There are a few exceptions, but that’s very much how it is. A very grim song will typically have grim lyrics too. They are just different projections of that creative mind. That’s how I experience it.

Rebel Extravaganza has a very distinctive cover, which arguably breaks with convention just as much as the music does. How would you say the artwork relates to the apocalyptic atmosphere of the album?

Frost: Well, of course we would like to have a visual style that was somehow reflective of the music on the album, and the feeling of the album. So, just as the lyrics could be said to complement the music and express what the music expresses – only in a different artform – then the visuals should also be connected to the music. In SATYRICON the music has always been the point around which everything else revolves. Nature could have been playing a role on earlier albums, but that didn’t feel natural anymore. You could almost feel that there was a more urban, sterile, and cold kind of culture instead.

Hence, we thought we could bring that into the picture somehow, and so we spoke to a photographer about it. We were just trying to come up with some ideas that made it possible to express that harshness and coldness. Something that was a bit more sick, perverted and twisted. So, we came up with travelling to London and to make use of the urban environment in the – well, should we say – filthier area of town? Somewhere that could really work for us. We wanted to have the kind of surroundings that would add to the cold, filthy, grim and disturbing feeling of the album, so we found some tunnel systems that had pretty much what we needed. It has the grittiness that was exactly what we were after. We ourselves used makeup that was different from corpse paint, but that preserved a grim and sinister and twisted black metal look: it has a really dead feeling to it, a bit zombie like, and that worked excellently for us – that was just what the music needed, the kind of imagery which connects to the musical universe of Rebel Extravaganza.

Can you recall what the song writing process for Rebel Extravaganza was like? As the main songwriter, did Satyr come to you with songs which you then added the drum track to – or was it much more collaborative than that?

Frost: I guess it was quite a bit more collaborative than that. As a composer its quite obvious that Satyr would have some opinions on the drum arrangements as well, because they’re meant to be part of the composition. Sometimes when he writes music on the guitar he understand how the vocals should be, and he understands how the drums should be – at least, the ballpark – and he would have a feeling of whether something should be very forward driven, or if it should sound a bit more heavy or whether it should be rhythmical,  or whether it should be floating and atmospheric. He’s the only guy who knows these things before the songs are ready. So, I listen to him carefully. I know that where I only hear a guitar part, he can hear quite a lot more through his inner ear because he knows where he wants to go with it.

He probably has a sense of exactly what it is he wants to express. Drums are very important in that respect. So, most of the time he will either give me some instructions or he will program some drums and show those to me, or he’ll give me just a few hints and guidelines, and I will start working on some solutions and present them to him. Then, he will comment on them and evaluate them, and give me further instructions and so on until we have something that works. As songs develop, we often change the drum arrangements because, when several themes are connected together, what could work for each theme individually doesn’t work when everything is compiled together – so, then we go over it again. It’s a pretty long process really. And there was quite a lot of that when we made Rebel Extravaganza. It’s even longer these days. There was a lot of going back and forth with various ideas, and we’ve always worked in a tight relationship when it comes to that.

Was the recording for Rebel Extravaganza a long and meticulous process as well, or did the album come together quickly once you entered the studio?

Frost: It has always been a challenge for me to be in the studio because I’m of the rather nervous type. I have a tendency to be a bit tense and neurotic – that’s just how I am as a person, and that’s not very beneficial when we’re in the studio. But, as with so many other things in life, you just have to find a way to work around things and get the work done. With Rebel Extravaganza, it was a mix of very extreme themes, and extreme drumming, and very intense intricate pieces that were to be mixed with progressive material – material that to me felt very different. I was a bit uncertain about where to go with them, and what I should express with them drums. So, it was a case of trying to find ways to work with the more unconventional elements and trying to make things groove a little which was very challenging. We started to make some groovier music on Rebel Extravaganza: we didn’t have much of that in early SATYRICON, but some of those elements did appear on Rebel Extravaganza.

Both Fenriz and Snorre play on the album, and I believe they contributed to song writing too – how did those collaborations come about? And what was it like working with them?

Frost: Satyr has known them for more than ten years, quite some time before Rebel Extravaganza. At that time, he was also running Moonfog Productions, and releasing albums that were done by Snorre and Fenriz, so he knew them very well both personally and professionally. He knew everything about their qualities and capabilities. With Snorre for instance, Satyr did more to help Snorre with his projects than the other way – but that doesn’t really matter in any case – as musicians, we all felt that we were part of a collective; it felt right and very meaningful to contribute to each other’s projects and to make us all sound better. Having these collaborations, especially in a smaller country such as Norway, made a lot of sense. It would have been weird not to do something like that. Different musicians always have something to learn from each other and something to teach the other. What benefits the one usually benefits the other. Mutual benefit is fantastic. We wanted THORNS, for instance to become an operational band – to actually release albums – but on the other hand, we also felt that being avid fans of the band ourselves, it was fantastic to get input from the guy who made these fantastic pieces of music., And sometimes, hearing the opinions of people you respect and trust a lot as a musician can take you in the right direction.

At the time of its release, the album seemed to have got a mixed reception – did Rebel Extravaganza’s reception surprise you in anyway, or were you expecting it to be somewhat divisive?

Frost: We expected that we would get a lot criticism for the album, given the nature of it, but we also expected that we would still do fairly well because at the time SATYRICON had become a fairly well-established band. We had done rather well with Nemesis Divina, and quite a lot of people probably had high expectations for Rebel Extravaganza. It was the type of album that would appeal to open-minded people who like things dark and extreme, and that turned out to be right. As for all those excellent reviews, they helped sales a lot – and that tells you a lot about the quality that Rebel Extravaganza possesses, because it was liked by quite a few people outside the black metal environment.

On reflection, do you have any favourite tracks from the album, and are there any songs which you especially enjoyed performing live again?

Frost: We have performed the album in its entirety live, and that was a rather fascinating project actually. We got back in touch with the old songs again, and actually performing them felt a bit different from what I had expected. It went a little beyond how I remembered it, but that’s how I suppose it goes with old songs and old arrangements and I remembered quite a lot of the intensity of it. I like all the songs on the album. The diversity is something that makes the album what it is and makes it as good as it is. Comparing songs on it is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, really. It’s very difficult because they’re meant to represent different musical worlds. Of course, the opening and ending songs – Tied in Bronze Chains and The Scorn Torrent – are iconic and there’s something extra special about those songs. Those really feel like something special. It’s really the whole idea and feeling of Rebel Extravaganza contained in those two songs.

Of course, SATYRICON has come a very long way since Rebel Extravaganza. You released your ninth studio album Deep Calleth Upon Deep back in 2017, and I understand you are in the process of preparing a covers album? Do you have any updates for us about it?

Frost: We aren’t working on it right now. We worked on it before Deep Calleth Upon Deep. We prepared quite a few songs, but then felt inspired to actually write our own music, and eventually to make a full studio album, and then that felt more important. Hence, we felt that we can return to the cover project later when it felt right. We’re not there yet, but it will happen – sooner or later.

Rebel Extravaganza Re-Issue is out now via Napalm Records.

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