If it wasn't for the band Celtic Frost, modern extreme metal/rock and roll. The seminal rock and roll is made up of Tom Gabriel Fischer and Martin Eric Ain. They have only put out a small number of albums but their second album, To Mega Therion, had a cover that was a painting by the legendary H.R. Giger. Their last album was released in 1992 and since then both Fischer and Ain have done many other projects. Now Celtic Frost has reunited and will be releasing Monotheist next month.
Pre-order Monotheist
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made Celtic Frost decide to do some new work?
Tom Gabriel Fischer: We started working on this project in 2001 and spent almost four years in the studio working on this album. But because of the difficulties we had in the 80's with our former record company there was a very awful feeling with the band that the history of Celtic Frost had not yet really been concluded. We were hindered so much by our former record company in the 80's that a lot of the ideas we had could never be realized. When the former record company reissued our albums in 1999 and 2000 it was the first time in ten years that the band worked together again. Between Martin and me there was such immense chemistry and such creativity that we knew it was far more than a reissue project. Then we started discussing a new Celtic Frost album. It was very tentative but we soon realized we had the same ideas, the same vision, so it was quite obvious that we would do another album together.
DRE: But there were no problems between you and Martin.
TGF: Well Martin and me had a very checkered history together. We've known each other in excess of 22 years and we are very much like family. Of course we have disputes but we always manage to resolve those eventually. Our friendship is so tight and we know each other so in and out that I think it is stronger than anything that could come between us.
DRE: Did the renewed popularity of Celtic Frost help you guys decide to come together again?
TGF: No, not at all. I know a lot of people probably won't believe this but it was really the friendship between Martin and me. No record company offered us money to come back together. We formed our own record company and Martin and me financed this album on our own. It became a very expensive album and it became far more expensive than any record company would have paid. This was really a personal thing that we needed and I think that's the only way Celtic Frost should function.
DRE: Did you guys just fall right back into your same writing process?
TGF: No, it was very difficult especially at first. We knew exactly what the new Celtic Frost album needed to sound like and we wanted it to be a true Celtic Frost album in the spirit of the first three albums. We didn't want to rehash the old sounds but we knew there is a certain sound that not only our audience but we ourselves identify with Celtic Frost. We certainly did not want to repeat ourselves. But having been apart and having then done completely utterly different projects for the past ten years, it was not possible for us to just go back into a room and switch on Celtic Frost mode. It was actually very challenging for us given these extended separate lives to find the common ground again. It took in excess of one or two years to get to the point where we actually started feeling that it was Celtic Frost. During all that time we wrote material and through the four years we recorded material for about three albums and we discarded two albums worth of material and just left the music that we felt was actually Celtic Frost.
DRE: Have you guys been influenced at all by all the bands that have cited Celtic Frost as an influence?
TGF: No. Celtic Frost has created its own musical style and we didn't come back and listen to bands thinking "Oh that would be really cool. We want to be back in the rock and roll mode." It was very much that we felt Celtic Frost within ourselves and we know very much what Celtic Frost needs to sound like and we equally know what Celtic Frost should not sound like. We are also quite aware of a lot of bands who we had a lot of influence on and it was very flattering. In fact some of those bands have become very close friends of ours. But I don't think it has any musical impact. We don't think our influence is that serious; it's a flattering comment by some bands when they tell us that, but I really feel very uncomfortable in basking in something like that. My life is not over yet, I still want to create new things.
DRE: Well you guys are still relatively young, right?
TGF: Early 40's, late 30's.
The album we've done is by far our heaviest, most intense and the darkest album. It actually surprises us, the intensity it has, given our age. But I guess it's a matter of personal attitude and personal approach. I'm kind of disappointed that a lot of my favorite bands that have aged over the years don't have the power they used to have. When we approached this project we didn't know whether we could cut it or not, it was an experiment for us as well. Now having done this album we realize it is possible to have the same attitudes and power we once did and I believe other bands could do that too if they have the right attitude. But if you're lured out of retirement for financial reasons or because some manager tells you to do it, then how can you be powerful? How can you be real? I'm afraid that's what happens very often.
DRE: Are you guys going to be doing a world tour for this?
TGF: We are going to do the biggest tour Celtic Frost has ever undertaken. We will have 50 plus shows in America alone starting in September. Then we'll start the tour with several festival appearances in Europe's biggest festivals. All of which we will headline. After America it's going to be Japan and Europe.
DRE: Which places are you hitting that you haven't been to before?
TGF: There's just going to be tons. Half of the places we haven't ever been to before.
DRE: How are the two of you getting along at this point?
TGF: We get along fantastically. As I said, it's been quite a challenge at times but I can honestly say it was a healthy challenge. Even if we had some weird disagreements, eventually we managed to discuss those out and I believe that the consensus that always manages at the end of such events is very beneficial for the band and to our own friendship. Right now I'm here in New York with Martin, we are so close, we are really like brothers and we have known each other for almost all our lives and it's fantastic.
DRE: I was told Celtic Frost is finally going to be doing some merchandising with the famous H.R. Giger album cover.
TGF: We are deeply honored. As you probably know, Giger was a mentor to the band in the 80's and he made a lot of things possible for us. Now 20 years later, to celebrate that friendship, Giger, for the very first time has agreed to do merchandise. That he selected us is an honor that we're still working on digesting. It's amazing. We never approached Giger as a means to make more money for the band. We approached him as diehard fans. I mean, I had literally been a fan of Giger since I was a kid. My parents had five Giger paintings on the walls. The mere fact that he would work with us in the 80's was amazing and that this continues to this day is an incredible honor and I am still a diehard fan of his.
DRE: Back in the 80's, how did you convince him to give you guys a piece of artwork?
TGF: You got to realize we were teenagers bursting with energy and with the ambition to prove ourselves. With so much adrenaline you want to step out into the world and make a statement. We had like our first demos, which were horrible. At the time extreme metal didn't exist in the musical scene. We were like pioneers so we wrote him a detailed letter about who we were and we sent him a demo tape that was awful. We wrote that we felt that the aura of our music was similar to the aura of his paintings and apparently he felt the same way because he responded. He called me up, totally unexpectedly one day, and said he had read the letter and he had heard the music and he agreed. He said, "Look, I'm even going to give you these paintings for free." We were stunned, we were humbled, we were blown away.
DRE: I read that at one point some marketing guy approached you to do some stuff with the painting and that person said he could make it so Giger couldn't sue you.
TGF: Yeah, but that happens all the time. Not only in context of Celtic Frost but Giger's artwork is so influential that the best idea most people have is to rip him off, which is pathetic. Giger is a genius and they should treat him with respect. His artwork is so influential to today's world and the horror scene and everything. With the painting he gave us a lot of people took advantage with a flood of bootleg t-shirts and we had agreed with Giger that we would never run t-shirts. Other people weren't so honest and as hesitant as we were, they just went and did it, which was terrible.
DRE: Who did the artwork for the new album cover?
TGF: It's a combined effort between Martin and a very close personal friend of his, a graphic designer from Switzerland. They worked for two years on the artwork and it's very modern, very symbolic artwork; very contemporary and very representative of the album's music.
DRE: I read that Ron Marks was interested in doing something with you guys again.
TGF: Ron Marks has been pursuing us almost like a stalker over the years. Ron Marks was in the band for a few months and to this day continues to promote himself as an ex-Celtic Frost. He's an accomplished guitar player so it's beyond me why Ron Marks is stuck in a time warp and doesn't step out on his own. It's below him because he really has talent. The guy's a good musician and it's a shame. The thing is, when he was in the band, he turned down the offer to stay in the band. I think later on he realized the band was a special band and he was maybe a bit too quick to leave. But on the other hand we don't want to work with freeloaders. We don't want to work with a person who just wants to join us because we're famous and we're going to tour and all this stuff. We want somebody who is like us.
DRE: When did you start your blog?
TGF: I started a blog about one and a half years ago as a private thing, like many people have blogs. Then because the recording sessions took so long a lot of fans posted on the Celtic Frost discussion forum that they would like some kind of diary from the recording studio. So I decided to make the blog public and publish some band information on there and it just took off insanely. I never expected that. But a lot of magazines took news stories verbatim from my blog and when I'm on the street, people come up to me and quote entries from my blog. It's totally insane.
DRE: Did you have to take down the really personal information?
TGF: There have been two requests to take down things and I've done that even though I'm against censorship. But the blog is still extremely candid, painfully candid sometimes. So I think I've found a good path.
DRE: Was it old girlfriends that asked you to take those things down?
TGF: No, it was more like more in the music scene [laughs]. All my girlfriends will be dealt with in my next book.
DRE: Are you serious?
TGF: Yeah, of course. I'm writing a sequel to my first book and it will be very explicit. When I'm dating a girl or something the first thing they say is "I don't want to be in your next book." But if you hang out with me and something extraordinary happens of course you will end up in the book.
DRE: How much computers were used on the new Celtic Frost album?
TGF: Hardly any. We recorded everything on the computer but the music is all organic. The music is all rock and roll. There's only one track that has an electronic background but everything else is heavy metal rock and roll and we didn't do any computer trickery or anything. The fact nowadays when you go to the studio there's no tape machines anymore, you record everything on the computer.
DRE: Did you guys produce the album yourselves as well?
TGF: That was the very purpose of forming our own record company. We wanted to have full control. For a certain time of the album we brought in Peter T\344gtgren of Hypocrisy as a producer. He's a very accomplished producer and we just felt it was also important to have somebody from today's scene. But in the end, the album has been produced by ourselves.
DRE: You said that people approach you on the street. Do you find that these people are of a similar age to you or are they younger?
TGF: It's astonishing; it's the whole bandwidth actually. It's astonishing because we aren't the youngest musicians anymore and we wondered how we were coming across with the younger generation. So far we've been welcomed in every age sector which is flattering and mind blowing. I certainly hope that it's going to continue like this. People realize that this is not some contrived corporate product but that this is really raw rock and roll. It's honest and it comes from deep within ourselves and I think you can feel that whether you're 40 or 17.
DRE: Do you see this album as a one time type thing?
TGF: No we definitely want to continue. Although the conditions of that is not in our hands but it's in the hands of you, the media and our audiences. If the album is not accepted then of course we're not going to be blindly continuing. But we have much more creativity than shown on this album and we would very much like to do further albums.
DRE: What were you doing right before you and Martin got back together?
TGF: I was in an electronic industrial project called Apollyon Sun in which I did two albums. It was quite interesting because it updated me as far as recording technology and computer technology is concerned. I was able to really update my knowledge and work at the forefront of electronic music and that was very satisfactory. We also played some fantastic shows in England. I'm also writing a book about Hellhammer which is my first band where I met Martin. That book will be very candid. It will feature lots of unreleased information and unreleased photographic material. I hope to publish that within a year or so.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Pre-order Monotheist
Daniel Robert Epstein: What made Celtic Frost decide to do some new work?
Tom Gabriel Fischer: We started working on this project in 2001 and spent almost four years in the studio working on this album. But because of the difficulties we had in the 80's with our former record company there was a very awful feeling with the band that the history of Celtic Frost had not yet really been concluded. We were hindered so much by our former record company in the 80's that a lot of the ideas we had could never be realized. When the former record company reissued our albums in 1999 and 2000 it was the first time in ten years that the band worked together again. Between Martin and me there was such immense chemistry and such creativity that we knew it was far more than a reissue project. Then we started discussing a new Celtic Frost album. It was very tentative but we soon realized we had the same ideas, the same vision, so it was quite obvious that we would do another album together.
DRE: But there were no problems between you and Martin.
TGF: Well Martin and me had a very checkered history together. We've known each other in excess of 22 years and we are very much like family. Of course we have disputes but we always manage to resolve those eventually. Our friendship is so tight and we know each other so in and out that I think it is stronger than anything that could come between us.
DRE: Did the renewed popularity of Celtic Frost help you guys decide to come together again?
TGF: No, not at all. I know a lot of people probably won't believe this but it was really the friendship between Martin and me. No record company offered us money to come back together. We formed our own record company and Martin and me financed this album on our own. It became a very expensive album and it became far more expensive than any record company would have paid. This was really a personal thing that we needed and I think that's the only way Celtic Frost should function.
DRE: Did you guys just fall right back into your same writing process?
TGF: No, it was very difficult especially at first. We knew exactly what the new Celtic Frost album needed to sound like and we wanted it to be a true Celtic Frost album in the spirit of the first three albums. We didn't want to rehash the old sounds but we knew there is a certain sound that not only our audience but we ourselves identify with Celtic Frost. We certainly did not want to repeat ourselves. But having been apart and having then done completely utterly different projects for the past ten years, it was not possible for us to just go back into a room and switch on Celtic Frost mode. It was actually very challenging for us given these extended separate lives to find the common ground again. It took in excess of one or two years to get to the point where we actually started feeling that it was Celtic Frost. During all that time we wrote material and through the four years we recorded material for about three albums and we discarded two albums worth of material and just left the music that we felt was actually Celtic Frost.
DRE: Have you guys been influenced at all by all the bands that have cited Celtic Frost as an influence?
TGF: No. Celtic Frost has created its own musical style and we didn't come back and listen to bands thinking "Oh that would be really cool. We want to be back in the rock and roll mode." It was very much that we felt Celtic Frost within ourselves and we know very much what Celtic Frost needs to sound like and we equally know what Celtic Frost should not sound like. We are also quite aware of a lot of bands who we had a lot of influence on and it was very flattering. In fact some of those bands have become very close friends of ours. But I don't think it has any musical impact. We don't think our influence is that serious; it's a flattering comment by some bands when they tell us that, but I really feel very uncomfortable in basking in something like that. My life is not over yet, I still want to create new things.
DRE: Well you guys are still relatively young, right?
TGF: Early 40's, late 30's.
The album we've done is by far our heaviest, most intense and the darkest album. It actually surprises us, the intensity it has, given our age. But I guess it's a matter of personal attitude and personal approach. I'm kind of disappointed that a lot of my favorite bands that have aged over the years don't have the power they used to have. When we approached this project we didn't know whether we could cut it or not, it was an experiment for us as well. Now having done this album we realize it is possible to have the same attitudes and power we once did and I believe other bands could do that too if they have the right attitude. But if you're lured out of retirement for financial reasons or because some manager tells you to do it, then how can you be powerful? How can you be real? I'm afraid that's what happens very often.
DRE: Are you guys going to be doing a world tour for this?
TGF: We are going to do the biggest tour Celtic Frost has ever undertaken. We will have 50 plus shows in America alone starting in September. Then we'll start the tour with several festival appearances in Europe's biggest festivals. All of which we will headline. After America it's going to be Japan and Europe.
DRE: Which places are you hitting that you haven't been to before?
TGF: There's just going to be tons. Half of the places we haven't ever been to before.
DRE: How are the two of you getting along at this point?
TGF: We get along fantastically. As I said, it's been quite a challenge at times but I can honestly say it was a healthy challenge. Even if we had some weird disagreements, eventually we managed to discuss those out and I believe that the consensus that always manages at the end of such events is very beneficial for the band and to our own friendship. Right now I'm here in New York with Martin, we are so close, we are really like brothers and we have known each other for almost all our lives and it's fantastic.
DRE: I was told Celtic Frost is finally going to be doing some merchandising with the famous H.R. Giger album cover.
TGF: We are deeply honored. As you probably know, Giger was a mentor to the band in the 80's and he made a lot of things possible for us. Now 20 years later, to celebrate that friendship, Giger, for the very first time has agreed to do merchandise. That he selected us is an honor that we're still working on digesting. It's amazing. We never approached Giger as a means to make more money for the band. We approached him as diehard fans. I mean, I had literally been a fan of Giger since I was a kid. My parents had five Giger paintings on the walls. The mere fact that he would work with us in the 80's was amazing and that this continues to this day is an incredible honor and I am still a diehard fan of his.
DRE: Back in the 80's, how did you convince him to give you guys a piece of artwork?
TGF: You got to realize we were teenagers bursting with energy and with the ambition to prove ourselves. With so much adrenaline you want to step out into the world and make a statement. We had like our first demos, which were horrible. At the time extreme metal didn't exist in the musical scene. We were like pioneers so we wrote him a detailed letter about who we were and we sent him a demo tape that was awful. We wrote that we felt that the aura of our music was similar to the aura of his paintings and apparently he felt the same way because he responded. He called me up, totally unexpectedly one day, and said he had read the letter and he had heard the music and he agreed. He said, "Look, I'm even going to give you these paintings for free." We were stunned, we were humbled, we were blown away.
DRE: I read that at one point some marketing guy approached you to do some stuff with the painting and that person said he could make it so Giger couldn't sue you.
TGF: Yeah, but that happens all the time. Not only in context of Celtic Frost but Giger's artwork is so influential that the best idea most people have is to rip him off, which is pathetic. Giger is a genius and they should treat him with respect. His artwork is so influential to today's world and the horror scene and everything. With the painting he gave us a lot of people took advantage with a flood of bootleg t-shirts and we had agreed with Giger that we would never run t-shirts. Other people weren't so honest and as hesitant as we were, they just went and did it, which was terrible.
DRE: Who did the artwork for the new album cover?
TGF: It's a combined effort between Martin and a very close personal friend of his, a graphic designer from Switzerland. They worked for two years on the artwork and it's very modern, very symbolic artwork; very contemporary and very representative of the album's music.
DRE: I read that Ron Marks was interested in doing something with you guys again.
TGF: Ron Marks has been pursuing us almost like a stalker over the years. Ron Marks was in the band for a few months and to this day continues to promote himself as an ex-Celtic Frost. He's an accomplished guitar player so it's beyond me why Ron Marks is stuck in a time warp and doesn't step out on his own. It's below him because he really has talent. The guy's a good musician and it's a shame. The thing is, when he was in the band, he turned down the offer to stay in the band. I think later on he realized the band was a special band and he was maybe a bit too quick to leave. But on the other hand we don't want to work with freeloaders. We don't want to work with a person who just wants to join us because we're famous and we're going to tour and all this stuff. We want somebody who is like us.
DRE: When did you start your blog?
TGF: I started a blog about one and a half years ago as a private thing, like many people have blogs. Then because the recording sessions took so long a lot of fans posted on the Celtic Frost discussion forum that they would like some kind of diary from the recording studio. So I decided to make the blog public and publish some band information on there and it just took off insanely. I never expected that. But a lot of magazines took news stories verbatim from my blog and when I'm on the street, people come up to me and quote entries from my blog. It's totally insane.
DRE: Did you have to take down the really personal information?
TGF: There have been two requests to take down things and I've done that even though I'm against censorship. But the blog is still extremely candid, painfully candid sometimes. So I think I've found a good path.
DRE: Was it old girlfriends that asked you to take those things down?
TGF: No, it was more like more in the music scene [laughs]. All my girlfriends will be dealt with in my next book.
DRE: Are you serious?
TGF: Yeah, of course. I'm writing a sequel to my first book and it will be very explicit. When I'm dating a girl or something the first thing they say is "I don't want to be in your next book." But if you hang out with me and something extraordinary happens of course you will end up in the book.
DRE: How much computers were used on the new Celtic Frost album?
TGF: Hardly any. We recorded everything on the computer but the music is all organic. The music is all rock and roll. There's only one track that has an electronic background but everything else is heavy metal rock and roll and we didn't do any computer trickery or anything. The fact nowadays when you go to the studio there's no tape machines anymore, you record everything on the computer.
DRE: Did you guys produce the album yourselves as well?
TGF: That was the very purpose of forming our own record company. We wanted to have full control. For a certain time of the album we brought in Peter T\344gtgren of Hypocrisy as a producer. He's a very accomplished producer and we just felt it was also important to have somebody from today's scene. But in the end, the album has been produced by ourselves.
DRE: You said that people approach you on the street. Do you find that these people are of a similar age to you or are they younger?
TGF: It's astonishing; it's the whole bandwidth actually. It's astonishing because we aren't the youngest musicians anymore and we wondered how we were coming across with the younger generation. So far we've been welcomed in every age sector which is flattering and mind blowing. I certainly hope that it's going to continue like this. People realize that this is not some contrived corporate product but that this is really raw rock and roll. It's honest and it comes from deep within ourselves and I think you can feel that whether you're 40 or 17.
DRE: Do you see this album as a one time type thing?
TGF: No we definitely want to continue. Although the conditions of that is not in our hands but it's in the hands of you, the media and our audiences. If the album is not accepted then of course we're not going to be blindly continuing. But we have much more creativity than shown on this album and we would very much like to do further albums.
DRE: What were you doing right before you and Martin got back together?
TGF: I was in an electronic industrial project called Apollyon Sun in which I did two albums. It was quite interesting because it updated me as far as recording technology and computer technology is concerned. I was able to really update my knowledge and work at the forefront of electronic music and that was very satisfactory. We also played some fantastic shows in England. I'm also writing a book about Hellhammer which is my first band where I met Martin. That book will be very candid. It will feature lots of unreleased information and unreleased photographic material. I hope to publish that within a year or so.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 23 of 23 COMMENTS
1) Including electronics in death metal
2) Including orchestral elements in death metal
3) Having a philosophy as well as music
4) Having the balls to put out "Cherry Moon"