Interview with Nesmoth(vocals) conducted by AJ Blisten in 2002

The words elements of metal have a twofold meaning to ARCH NEMESIS. This fine band from Sandefjord here in Norway is definitely a band with elements of metal, large doses actually, in their music. But they are also the driving force behind the Elements Of Metal festival in their hometown. The band's singer and spokesman, Niclas "Nesmoth" Thomsen is a dedicated metaller, no doubt about that. He even wrote a piece for Beat the Blizzard a while back and he took some time off from all his other metal duties to do so. Now that his band is out with their debut album what was more natural than getting in touch with him again and let him shed some light on the new situation in the ARCH NENESIS lair:

This is my first serious interview, he says, calling from his cellular phone. Well, I don't know about the seriousness, but nevertheless an interview it is... It's expensive to make phone calls from a cellular phone and I told him that I could call him instead to make the conversation less expensive for him.

Doesn't matter, the band will cover the cost, he says and he's ready for a "serious" interview. What's more serious is that ARCH NEMESIS is finally out with their first full-length album on a new Norwegian label called Edgerunner Records. At least that was what I thought...:

Well, we don't exactly have a contract with them... For the time being we have a distribution deal with Edgerunner and not a regular contract. They came down to our festival last year to sign a deal with Absolute Steel and when they heard that we were planning to put out a self financed album they asked if they could distribute it. Even though it's an independent release the label obviously permitted the band to put the label's logo on the cover.
To make the whole thing look more serious, says Nesmoth before I ask him how it feels to finally have the album out.

I don't know exactly, he says and I can hear that he takes a long drag of his cigarette before he goes on:
In a way it feels like it is someone else we're talking about, because we've been doing this so long ... But, you know, it was incredibly fun finally to pick up your own CD.

The album also got great reviews and Nesmoth recalls that he didn't get down to earth again the first hour after he got a call from the Egderunner guys that told him that album got 5 out of 6 pts review in SCREAM magazine.

And that's not the only one. We have received more reviews like that. Then a very enthusiastic distribution company in Chile got in touch with us and Edgerunner told us about lots of phone calls from Germany and Portugal from people saying that this is gonna be something big. So everything points in the direction that ARCH NEMESIS is going to be something that Edgerunner want to go for, but Nesmoth won't speculate too much about the future. No one knows what the future holds, but everything have a past and the past of ARCH NEMESIS goes back to the fall in 1998.

A demo and a song contribution on the Edgerunner sampler "Northern Light" and four years later, Nesmoth still remember very well why they started the band:

The answer to that is plain and simple. A former band mate of mine and me was tired of just sitting at home playing with our guitars without having a band any more.
They found a rehearsal room in their hometown and Nesmoth asked his brother Jesper AKA "Jaz" to join them on keyboards even though he didn't have too much experience...

Yeah, that's right, but despite the lack of experience he started to play and right before our eyes he surprised us all by coming up with an intro and there and then it struck me that vi had something going. Ok, so "Jaz" knew how to use the keys. He's alias has, by the way, nothing to do with musical preferences. Jazz as musical style doesn't have anything to with ARCH NEMESIS, but they had a pretty good idea of what they wanted to do already from the start:

It was the same then, as it is now; we wanted to play something with fuzz. So that's how the whole thing started and since we thought it sounded good it was no reason not to continue.

More members came onboard and now they are all involved in the creative processes in the band. Kenneth "Motvind" Hansen comes up with most of the riffs. "Motvind" is the Norwegian word for headwind and a metaphorically meaning of the word could be "an person that works or fight against others". Is that the reason for his alias, Mr. Nesmoth?

He-he-he... No, no, but it could suit him well, actually, because he's the only one in the band that's totally into black metal. No, the reason we call him "Motvind" is that we use big fans on stage, he says without any more specific explanation. Let's just say it's another reason for not to miss the chance to see this band live if they come to a place near your town...

Nesmoth is the singer in ARCH NEMESIS and the man behind all the lyrics. The first song on the new album is is called "Forever" and the final song is "After Forever". Does this mean that "Shadows In The Mirror" is a kind of a concept album?

Well, I was actually dreaming about making a concept out of it. And I spent a lot time on the lyrics to integrate them into each other. The album didn't come out as a concept and there's another reason for Nesmoth to call the song "After Forever" which has something to do with love involving the band After Forever. There's no reason to go deeper into what that is, other than it has something to do with the opposite sex... Anyway, ARCH NEMESIS have stepped out of from the shadows and into the spotlight when the new album came out and what do they think they can add to the Norwegian metal scene?

I think it's fair to say that there are two answers to that questions. For one, we have this little festival down here called Elements Of Metal, where we try our best to put focus on other good bands around here in Norway than just black metal bands, says Nesmoth. In the same breath he adds that he's not only positive to the extreme metal focused Inferno festival that's been arranged in the Easter week in Oslo the past few years.

When it comes to the band and what we as a band can contribute with it's almost impossible to answer what that would be. We are doing our own thing and that's what we've been doing since we started out as a band. And "their own thing", as Nesmoth puts it, is a musical style combined by many different elements and genres. It's actually hard to find another Norwegian band with the same musical features and Nesmoth agrees:

That's exactly what we've heard quite a few times already, he confirms.
People have compared us with a lot of strange stuff based on a few of our songs that have some similarities with stuff from other bands. Evergrey is one of them, but as for myself I don't really see to many musical relations to them... We never plan to put in some black metal, a little power or whatever when we write new material. If that happens it's quite coincidental. A little weird fantasy based on the riffs "Motvind" comes up with and ideas on keyboard by "Jaz" is pretty much the things that bring our music to life.

Ok, so what kind of musical feeling or experience do you want to give your listeners?

I can only speak for myself. To me personally it's always been a dream to create an album that makes the listeners relax while they close their eyes dreaming for a while without analyzing the music too much.

What bands and musicians have meant a lot to you in the process of making the album?

Hm... that's a hard one... You know, we are all so different in this band, so again I can only speak for myself. Our bass player, André "Chain" Trevland grew up with punk and my brother, "Jaz" is a fanatic fan of soundtrack music and me, I grew up with Elvis, Pavarotti and a lot of other strange stuff. Our drummer Hjaran "Pukk" Berge is pretty much like me... You could say that we have never thought much about this at all. I think it's fair to say that we all have brought into the band the music we've been interested in many years before we became ARCH NEMESIS.

What kind of relation do you have to, let's say, the typical melodic metal from Germany...?

I have to admit that both my brother and I are big Helloween, Gamma Ray and Freedom Call fans. No doubt about that, states Nesmoth and gets an input from one of the other members; you could say, just in case...:

Not that much into Hammerfall, I'm being told to say by the others in the background here, he adds and I must admit that I started to laugh, relieved I might add, when he said that...

ARCH NEMESIS will most likely never follow the same path as the Swedes. Musically they are a lot more interesting on several levels and one dimension they tried in their music is female vocals. Unfortunately, it didn't work out too good...:

But I have serious plans to get back to it, though, Nesmoth says.

I have, in fact, been fortunate enough to meet a girl from Sweden and she has an incredible voice. So I'm hoping to do something together with her in the future, maybe already on the next album.

He brought up the next album and he confirms that the band is already working on new material:

Even though we're not the most productive band around we still have several new songs in the works. But we have been extremely busy with our festival and we haven't practiced as much as we use to lately, he says in closing and promised to play at least two new songs at the next festival they are going to play, namely 1001 Watt in the small Norwegian town Skien in November 28 - 30.