In this latest in our Ask the Artist series we sat down with Frost and Satyr of extreme metallers SATYRICON and put the best of YOUR questions to the guys. Carry on reading to see what the guys had to say and if yours was one of the questions answered…

Jenny Sanchez, California USA
I really like Roadkill Extravaganza- will you be releasing another DVD?

Frost: Possibly, if we release another DVD it’s going to have a very different format to Roadkill Extravaganza – it’s not going to be a follow-on to that one. We have thought of making a live DVD. It is something that might happen and at a certain point it probably will happen. I cannot really tell how and when it’s going to be but it’s going to be different.

Kris Keen
Ten years ago you released Rebel Extravaganza, which compared to your latest release differs in sound and style. What do you think Satyricon will sound like in another ten years?

Frost: The good thing is that I cannot really tell! I think one of the greatest assets of Satyricon is that it’s unpredictable. Whenever we start working on an album we don’t really know where we’re going to end up. We might have some goals that we want to reach and we might put certain restrictions on our selves but basically we don’t really know where we’re going to end up before we get far in to the writing process. Then it starts to take shape and it’s almost as if the music leads us as much as we lead the music. At a certain point we realise what kind of an album this is going to be and how we can make it the best it can possibly be given the resources we have at our disposal. Especially this time when we feel that we’re going to leave the territory where we’ve been for a decade almost and enter something new, dark, challenging we can end up anywhere. We simply feel that we have a very fine instrument for expressing ourselves musically. It is almost as exciting for us to see where it can take us as for our fans.

CJ, New Hampshire USA
Are there any drummers past or present that you consider you influences?

Frost: Umm no, I can’t really say so. When I started drumming I didn’t really have any drummer idols at all. I paid much more attention to guitars when I was listening to music first so it’s a strange thing that I started playing the drums in the first place. Eventually I started to develop great respect for my own instrument and my own profession. I’ve started to listen more closely to how other drummers play in other styles of music. I try to see if there is anything I can learn or pick up that I can bring in to my own work or build upon.
These days I’ve found many drummers that I respect a lot and I acknowledge them and in a certain way also admire due to the uniqueness of their playing, their style or their skills. I have started to like Buddy Rich a lot and I think a lot of the hard rock drummers of the late sixties and seventies are fabulous. Mitch Mitchell the drummer with Jimi Hendrix was great, he has an extremely outrageous playing style and also John Bonham. Ian Paice from Deep Purple also had a fabulous drumming style, very different from Bonham’s for instance but equally inspiring.

Diana Chavdarova, Bulgaria
You describe passion as the underlying force in your life. Would you say this is a passion primarily invoked by music or in a broader sense for life?

Frost: It’s impossible to take it any further than saying it’s a passion for music that has bought me and us to devote our lives Satyricon. I mean, you can always try to analyse this further and see that music in a way is tied to life and vitality but I haven’t really bought the thought or analysis that far. I just know and I feel that there’s passion for music and I observe that music invokes very strong things and very strong feeling in me. It pulls strings and being a performer myself it feels like the only way I could go. I cannot really even think of my life as something detached from music now. Ten years ago perhaps I could but not any more and passion for music must be what does it. I cannot conceive of it differently.

Mark Hall, Viginia, USA
Who was an artist you admired growing up that directly influenced your style of playing and the way that you looked at music?

Frost: I think that I didn’t have any drummer idols when I was a kid. I had idols when I was young for sure, they were musical idols. It first hit me with Motorhead, later with Iron Maiden, Kiss and so on. At a certain point I had idols- I felt the people in these bands had something God-like to them, they belonged to a world that was larger and more exciting and more powerful than my own and in a way I guess that I worshipped that.
By the time that I discovered more extreme music I was 14 or 15 years old and then you understand more and as I started picking up an instrument myself I got closer to their world and it became de-mystified in a way and the idol aspect slowly disappeared

Andre Anda, Norway
Due to your collaboration Snorre Ruch from Thorns, is there a possibility that you will perform together live, as you did with Nocturno Culto at Wakken?

Frost: Never say never but I doubt it. I do not manage to see myself being on a stage with Snorre. He has been talking about performing Thorns material live for so many years and he actually does have a band now but still nothing has happened. I now the guy pretty well and he doesn’t really like to play and play songs for a long while. He prefers to do his bits and pieces and he prefers to create things and to work these masterful themes and eventually make songs out of it. Being on the stage isn’t really his thing and I really cannot picture him in a live setting and if he was to play live I think he would play with his band now and not with any of us. He has a full line up of people involved basically just with Thorns and nothing else.