Until The Pipe Takes Us: Up In Smoke With Dimmu Bongir (Interview)

Humor and black metal simply do not mix, you say, arms crossed and looking rather grumpy. But–and imagine me saying this in my best Slavoj Žižek voice–what if the opposite was true?

Norwegian stoners Dimmu Bongir (yes, you read that right) walk a difficult tightrope. For all intents and purposes, their debut Hvis pipen tar oss (ha ha) is a great album. It sounds like the classic output by their namesake, with a few other early Norwegian and Greek influences thrown in for good measure, which is a good thing. You know the sound: lots of keyboards, very triumphant, a little spooky, very overwrought. The songs are catchy and true to style, filled with memorable riffs and the occasional ICS Vortex impression thrown in. Hvis pipen tar oss emulates all the perfect points found in early-to-mid-'90s black metal, except for one key part: it's… funny.

Blasphemy, you say.

Yes, this is an album about marijuana. Smoking it. Eating it. Getting the munchies. Being taken away by a giant pipe. This is all standard stuff–are you keeping up? God dammit, there's even an anthemic song called "Transylvanian Munchies" (which is in English, and yes, there is a lyric about ordering a Domino's pizza). Though drugs are definitely a part of the greater black metal story, such a humorous and playful representation of the consumption of illicit materials is… not very kvlt to most black metal listeners.

This begs a question: does being funny take away from what is actually an enjoyable, stylistically competent listen? Can black metal be funny? Well, let's take a look at a few things. Can you understand what's being said? Probably not, as vocalist Gahll (ha ha) has an indecipherable screech most of the time, and I severely doubt most of you actually speak nor read Norwegian. Does the music reveal that it's about weed? No, this sounds like castles and dorks in LARP gear, which means it rules. 

So, we're left with the superficial things: an obscured pot leaf in the sky and a silly name that references both one of the best black metal bands to ever record music and also a "water pipe." Yeah, sure, these can be big things, but are we really about to let superficialities define something so purportedly spiritually deep and super smart as black metal? Are we really going to let the profound and artistic genre of black metal be redefined and also defeated by funny weed joke ha ha? Most of you ignore blatant Nazi bullshit, anyway, so why not look into this band's music beyond their very intentional humor? Most importantly, they made me laugh. Checkmate, black metallers. Point: Dimmu Bongir.

We spoke with member Hashiah, who is credited with drums, guitars, bass, keys and backing vocals on Hvis pipen tar oss, in the band's first official interview. Tvrn on, tvne in, drop out.

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Black metal is known for its humorlessness. Though Dimmu Bongir musically exemplifies an older and highly revered type of black metal, why heavily focus on humor? 

Why try to have some fun indeed, a most brilliant question. In a world where pain heavily outweighs pleasure at every corner there should certainly be no need for such things as humor. However, even though we are cave dwelling, church burning, fun hating norwegian black metal artists, I guess we simply couldn't help ourselves to be so blasphemous and iconoclastic as to dedicate one of our many projects to simply having a bit of a laugh. Why in this style though one may ask. Another brilliant question I must admit. In this case the name came before the music. So since it was the debut of Dimmu Bongir, we thought it would be fitting to do so in the older and revered style that Dimmu Borgir was a large part of developing.

Why do you think black metal fans focus so heavily and negatively on humor when it is an element in black metal?

When it comes to why the fans have a rather negative focus on humor there could be a number of reasons I think. Some of these reasons could be explained by a group mentality fostered by some early developers of the style and still exercised by some fans, though for others the reason might be more personal. Perhaps some think it's not trve enough, perhaps some feel like it's making fun of something that is closely tied to their identity, perhaps some simply forgot that a lot of 90's black metal was actually pretty silly and maybe even some people simply love the theater surrounding the genre and thus feel like humor sort of breaks the illusion. The reasons could be many.

Though the pageantry is definitely silly to varying degrees, why break this illusion that partially defines black metal?

The only reason for breaking the illusion is plain and simple because it amuse us to play with the tropes and in the process make something unexpected. I find no other deeper meaning in music outside of amusement, and thus we find no genre or subject so holy as to keep it in higher regard than entertainment. There is never a reason why not to have fun white creating something, especially art. Also it is more fun to have fun when one is not allowed to have fun, like in black metal (in which most artists rarely take it as seriously as the fans).

Though drugs and drug use have played a big part in the black metal story, something as playful as "lol weed" hasn't necessarily been embraced by the greater black metal scene. Why approach this particular subject with such playfulness?

And the same answer goes for why approaching the subject with such playfulness. The concept that is Dimmu Bongir is probably about ten years old, and I originally came up with it as a black metal version of Cannabis Corpse. Through the years we've had many a sensible chuckle discussing this project, so when it came time to make reality of ancient threats we saw no reason to make the subject less playful than it in reality is. 

People have been surprised by the dichotomy of quality vs self-awareness when it comes to Dimmu Bongir. I think people expect humorous projects to not be as high of a caliber as opposed to hyper serious, LARP-y ones. Why do you think humorous silliness and LARP-y silliness are viewed differently?

Interesting question. I think perhaps in some cases one uses the entertainment one surrounds one self with as a means of building an identity or character. As most metal contributes to a power fantasy of sorts I guess silliness sort of ruins the entire facade whereas LARP-y silliness does not. In one way or another it has to come down to people taking it perhaps a bit too seriously and feeling attacked when what they take very seriously is apparently in some form ridiculed, intentionally or not. That's my best guess at least.

Black metal fans definitely preoccupy themselves with their music taste as a means of identity in totality, and I feel that Dimmu Bongir challenges that with what is simultaneously a quality album and a total piss take. Even so, what would you say to someone who completely writes off Hvis pipen tar oss without giving it a fair chance?

Like you've mentioned, we produce proper music. If someone is so uptight as to dismiss something because it tries to be somewhat funny, then they will live poorer lives as a result. Humor is a large part of the human experience, to deny oneself this will only make the temporary experience that is our lives less interesting. As for the music, they probably will miss a potentially classic old school sounding record. We're not the only ones doing this though, so if having fun makes you sad then you should probably check out a more serious project. Perhaps For All Tid by Dimmu Borgir. We would of course stress the fact that we're not trying to force anyone into liking our stuff, but it's a good sounding record that includes a lot of Norwegian tracks that most people will have no predisposition to understand any way, so there's no need to even pay attention to the humorous aspect of it. Of course the best thing would be to listen to what one would like to listen to, so we would recommend everyone doing that.

Moving to the music itself, I was very impressed with the super convincing ICS Vortex clean voice impression which can be found on a few songs. Many have certainly tried to sound like him, but this is the first truly persuasive impression I've heard. How did you discover you could do this?

Well. It's a rather boring story honestly. Our vocalist, who has a talent for impressions and vocal gymnastics in general, simply thought of a melody for the chorus of "Hunnerkongens sorgsvarte skrap i pipen sin." He then sang it as convincingly he could in that style, and I laughed. That's how we found out that it could and would be done. We are however both educated musicians, and Gahll (the vocalist) is even to a degree classically trained vocally. So writing and phrasing a melody is not an issue at all.

It works to your advantage, though it does also meld two different Dimmu Borgir eras at the same time (which isn't a bad thing). Emulation is definitely the name of the game when it comes to this album, where I hear influences like the obvious Dimmu Borgir, but also First Spell-era Gehenna, old Varathron, and other seminal black metal acts. Though the concept was to make something akin to a black metal Cannabis Corpse, what was it about this older school sound in particular (lots of keyboards, mid-paced, triumphant) that appealed so much to the Dimmu Bongir development?

Since you ask I'm going to give you the full story. Like mentioned this was a name and a concept I (Hashiah) have been joking around with for over ten years. However, it was only when introducing the idea to Gahll that the style of the project really developed. He was at a younger age a huge fan of this particular style and had always wanted to make something along those lines. When introduced to this idea he found it a wonderful opportunity to pay homage to this style that, after all, was a large part of his adolescent years. Thus, he convinced me with very little effort that this was the way to go. I have, myself, dabbled in the esoteric art that is dungeon synth, so we had all the tools needed for completing such a project. It was also important for us to do something different with this project. We have many projects that play very serious black metal in styles more akin to Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, or Thorns, and there was certainly no need to repeat ourselves musically. Also, since the name was a parody of a band that started out in this style, it also seemed even more fitting.

Do you see Dimmu Bongir making further material?

Oh why yes, indeed. We are going to make some more albums–of that there should be no doubt at all. We don't know when we will start creating our next album, but I do feel like there will be a blaze in the northern skies sometime during the winter season. And when the day has come, there will be more keyboards, more clean vocals, more triumphant riffs and probably even more illegal substances. So everyone should definitely keep their eye out for that.

Blazing it in the Northern Sky sounds like a great time. Count me in. Any final thoughts?

Final thoughts, let's see. Follow your dreams, eat your vegetables, contemplate the inevitability of mortality, hail Satan, and say no to drugs kids.

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Hvis pipen tar oss is out now on Bad Noise Records.