ERZFEYND

ERZFEYND is a one-man Black Metal band from southern Germany telling tales of the end of the world, pestilence, madness and opulent devil worship.

Thank you so much for the opportunity given. Erzfeynd is a recent project (2020). Can I ask you to tell us a little bit about how this idea came about? The logical step of a musician: new projects and adventures?

Hey. Well not really like that, before that (and to an extent even now) I wouldn’t call myself a musician, I pretty much picked up all instruments around late 2019/2020 as kind of a new approach to deal with depression and similar crap. I do have another project I started before with some friends but the pandemic paralyzed that for a bit, but we’re eager to get back into it.

In less than a year you have had 2 Splits (with Celestial Sword and Rraaumm) and a Single, if we can call it that ("Perchtentanz", 2020). Has the pandemic had any influence on the creative process? Did it encourage you to move on to something like Erzfeynd?

I wouldn’t call that Premix of Perchtentanz a single, I’m not very good at tech stuff and I didn’t wanna risk anything at the launch of the splits so I released that to get the Bandcamp thing going and familiarize myself a bit with how that works. Perchtentanz is one of the songs of the EP ‘MUSPILLI’ that will come out on Van early next year.
The pandemic didn’t really have a whole lot to do with that development, I work from home and am pretty non-social at the best of times anyways.

Being a project managed by a single musician, how is the creative process? Everything comes out of your head, out of your creative capacity; you have complete mastery of the path that your Art follows. That can be good and bad, can't it? How do you deal with this lonely process?

For me I think it only has advantages, I have no problem with being diplomatic or with compromises in a band context, but to completely being in control makes the whole process a whole lot easier. I know exactly what I like and I know that some of that is a bit over the top or what some people would call cheesy or anachronistic, but it’s what I want so there it is.

What is your perspective on Black Metal these days? Do you consider that, in general, musicians, fans and publishers, "live" the genre in a correct and honest way? Social networks show us a reality too... plastic, sometimes.

For the most I don’t really care. It’s one of the many curses of social media, mediocrity gets rewarded due to a mix of good marketing and good timing but it is what it is.
The real shit will always prevail. It’s like people scoffing at the real maniacs at concerts or festivals, you might think they look dorky or laugh at their elitism but it’s them keeping it all alive. If they hadn’t worn their Gladiators for years you wouldn’t be able to wear your Vans on bandpics now.
Social media CAN add to the experience if done correctly, enhance the vibe and mystery, after all it’s just another kind of zine- or booklet-experience in a way.
And as for the way to live it, I think there’s no such thing. If anything, I’d more often than not rather not see so much of the private stuff of some musicians or scene heroes, I know you can’t be grim 24/7 but I really don’t wanna know.

You think there is an opening of Black Metal musicians to an endless possibility of influences? Can we consider that the genre has grown, and gone from a musical elitism (in the 90s, perhaps) to a comprehensive window of influence?

Once you branch out a bit from the posterboys of Black Metal you’ll soon find that there’s always been more than one type of influence on the sound. As long as it’s a sincere effort and not a gimmick or under a layer of irony, any influence can work. There’s enough similar sounding stuff already, not that Black Metal has to reinvent the wheel necessarily but if at the core of it all is a creative process, sooner or later things will start to sound a bit differently, it’s just natural.

The German Black Metal scene is well known for its Past, but also for its Present. Is there any sort of weight, the moment you are creating, due to your scene’s heritage? Not in the sense of doing what others have done, but about being at the level of what has been done.

That’s not something I think about a lot if I’m being honest. I’m not even sure my sound is necessarily very German, if there’s even a thing like that. Maybe hints of MAYHEMIC TRUTH and here and there a pinch of MYSTIC CIRCLE (this band gets, most of the time rightfully so, shat on, but Drachenblut and Infernal Satanic Verses, at least musically, fucking rule). However, I truly believe there’s some weird cosmic serendipity to the inception of Black Metal that transcends the places it’s been played in.

How did you get in touch with Celestial Sword and Rraaumm? I suppose they are projects you identify with, musicians with you have things in common with.

I knew both guys before. And to be honest, I think neither musically nor thematically there’s a whole lot of common ground, but I think that makes it interesting.
THE common factor is all of us being one-man-operations and roughly the same age. I respect dedication and a sincere approach to creation, that’s what is more important to me than anything else when it comes to cooperations like this.

Congratulations on the Split with Celestial Sword: superb! What is the concept of this work? Is there a concept? Was there an intention that the idea of a musician fit into the other musician's idea, or are they two distinct and independent concepts?

The concept roughly is the mirror-image of my other split but from another angle. While my part the split Rraaumm is in a way about depression, sadness and struggles with being a creative from a spiritual point of view, the CS split is about anger and aggression, at least for the first and the last song.
There’s no common concept on neither of the splits among the bands tho, but there WILL be for a four way split that is in the works at the moment.

If there is a music that I cannot get tired of, is the one you contributed with for the Split with Rraaumm. That reference to the Pixie, so well-integrated into the rest of the song, fantastic. This only shows the openness to other genres, the fusion of Black Metal with other musical lines, in my opinion. I suppose you are, more than anything, a music fan, right?

That is correct, although as I’ve said before, the so-called Pixies reference wasn’t at all planned like this. I’m not a good enough musician to do something like that intentionally I think. But I guess being more or less self-taught with all that stuff, sooner or later the vibes of the other stuff you listen to starts to creep in if you want it or not and I think that’s completely fine. I listen to a lot of Epic Metal and old Doom stuff when I’m not listening to Black Metal, but also old german Depri-Punk from the 80s and 90s, Wave/Post-Punk/Pop from the 80s (when often even the upbeat/mainstream stuff had kind of an angsty, sad streak to it) as well as the ambient soundscape shit from Lynch/Cronenberg/Carpenter/etc. movies.

What are those albums, those artists, that you consider essential, striking, milestones in the history of music? Not that they are a direct influence on the Art you do, of course, but that have marked you in some way. Those that you still have in great esteem today.

That’s a great questions but there are so many, and I’m really bad at committing to only a bunch, but I’ll try and will pick some stuff that is with some exceptions not really Black or Extreme Metal. ICON by PARADISE LOST was an early favorite in my childhood and I still love it a lot. DOL GULDUR and LET MORTAL HEROES… by SUMMONING are very important to me. THE STARS WE ARE by MARC ALMOND I’ve also had for an eternity and I still listen to it regularly. THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL 1&2 + INVICTUS by VIRGIN STEELE are up there too, as is FLOATING INTO THE NIGHT by JULEE CRUISE. SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR by TEARS FOR FEARS is full of great stuff.  And a bunch of COCTEAU TWINS, STEELEYE SPAN, SUEDE, TOXOPLASMA, HANK WILLIAMS, KLAUS SCHULZE, MAGNUM, TSOL, DANZIG, MIDGE URE, SPANDAU BALLET, DIAMANDA GALÀS, SCOTT WALKER, PIL, IRON MAIDEN...

At the level of influences, what is a reference to you, as an Artist? Listening to your Music, we easily realize that you do not limit yourself to the obvious, to the immediate.

That’s tougher, because as I said, I don’t think I’m musician enough to even try to aspire to one of the bands I like. But there’s obviously some (Black) Metal bands that play a bigger role, if only subconsciously, when it comes to ‘my’ sound.
For example OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT, SUMMONING, WALLACHIA, MIDVINTER, early DIMMU BORGIR, KVIST, late BATHORY, VIRGIN STEELE, HELHEIM, TROLL, LORD BELIAL, BLIND GUARDIAN, PAUL CHAIN, WINDIR, EVOL etc.

What can we expect to expect from Erzfeynd for the near future?

So at the moment I’m finishing a new EP (with some of my favorite material so far on it) that should come out next year as a collaboration of an American and a European label on 12”, CD and tape. I’m still putting the finishing touches on my full-length but I’m taking my time here. As a first, I’ll have a handful of features on their I’m very excited about and a lot of killer art from some of my favorite underground artists.
There’ll also be a new song featured on a sampler that should be released later this or early next year. 2 splits are also coming sometime early next year, one with another great band and one with 3 other projects, 2 Dungeon Synth/Ambient bands KATAPHALLIKUM and STILLES GRAB) and another Black Metal band.

Erzfeynd Official Bandcamp