Øystein G. Brun (Borknagar): “My music should reflect me as a person. I’m not 20 years anymore, I’m a more matured person.”

With the imminent release of the outstanding Fall, twelfth studio album by the Norwegians Borknagar, we have met with the alma mater and founding guitarist of the band Øystein Garnes Brun to talk at length about the release of their new album and the future plans for Borknagar. A very friendly chat in which Øystein has delved into the concept behind Fall as well as the origin of the cover and other very interesting details that you can read below. We hope you find it as interesting as we found it.

We will skip the introduction so that it does not go on too long with unremarkable information and we will get to the heart of the matter. Øystein points out that there is a lot of snow outside and that it is a total winter day, something that many of us relate to the sound of Borknagar as a highlight of our presentation.

[AF] Hello guys, I hope you are all well, it is a pleasure to meet with you to talk about your new album, Fall. This is your twelfth studio album. What can you tell me about the album in general terms?

Wow, it’s a big question because It’s a huge album, you know? There are so many ideas in the album but we basically wanted to contine where True North kind of ended in essence, not to continue the same journey but to expand and move forward and find a new horizon, climb another mountain as I usually say. We always try to push musical borders and try to challenge ourselves musically and also challenge the audience as well a little bit.

We don’t want to play always the safe cards, we want to risk a little bit. To me this is the beauty part and interesting part of creating music to be honest, to push and to progress, to move forward musically speaking. Fall is a perfect continuation of our musical legacy, it’s maybe divorced but at the same time it’s still the same nerve to it in essence.

[AF] It’s been about five years since your previous album True North was released. How have you been living all this time since its release? With a pandemic in the middle and the rest of the projects that all the members of Borknagar have in hand, is there anything in particular that you have experienced during this time that could have influenced in some way the compositions of your new album?

Yes, definitely! We are all older guys in the band, we are grown up people now with kids and stuff like that. We worry about the world we are living wether it’s the war in Ukraine or the environmental crisis, pandemics and all of that. The kids had to pay the price for that in Norway because the schools closed, so it’s something that definitely that influenced us as persons even though I never wanted to make music in a political or religious way. In my opinion, your music should be above and beyond all those things but of course we are inspired by the situation we are living.

Those things changed a lot of things because we were supposed to head out on a world tour with the release of True North, we were supposed to go to USA with Rotting Christ and then come back to Europe and do a bunch of festivals. We had to headline an European tour and we were even talking about going to Australia and Japan but but it was all shut down all of sudden and we couldn’t do our things so I spent my days in my studio mastering, mixing all the time during the pandemic so I pretty much lived there then. But after the pandemic we wanted to finish all those plans with True North, we really felt that the fans deserved that before we start writing a new album. This time around it was all because of the corona thing.

[AF] Yeah, I know what you mean. This happened to a lot of bands back in the day and that must have been very difficult for when you have planned some things and you have to cancel it all and say “what’s next, then?”.

I was pretty shell shocked when we got to know that. I remember having everything booked, we spent shitloads of money on our flights tickets to the USA just to know that… It’s quite expensive for a European band to tour in the States, just to get there. We lost shitloads of money and we were supposed to fly out to the USA on Tuesday but everything was shut down three or four days before that and I was like “What the fuck, what’s next now? What can we do?“. Nobody really knew the big consequence of the pandemic: “Is it gonna last two weeks? How dangerous is this? You can be dying of this for real!“, all this questions came up and everything changed a lot for everybody in this planet, so they were definitely weird times but we survived, we have done a new album and we’re sitting here!

[AF] A pretty good album by the way! So let’s talk about Fall a little bit. Of the eight songs that the album contains, three of them have already been released. What can you tell us about the most recent of them, Moon? I think that from the entire album you have chosen very well the songs that you have released as singles and the reception has been very positive, especially with Nordic Anthem and Moon.

We just felt that it was the right thing to do, we wanted to show the different sides of the band. People know by now that we are not a streamline band and we do different things, especially on Fall. We used a lot of time to try to make each and every song on the album unique in essence but still have a connection through the whole album. I think that it was perfect to build up attention and do things that people wouldn’t expect, this is something we really enjoy doing. We enjoy doing things that kind of challenge people a little bit and bring people out of the comfort zone. This stuff is who we are basically and in that way I think that it worked pretty well because with the first song, Summits, the feedback was awesome and well, the rest of the album is… You tell me if you’ve heard it.

[AF] It has so many different songs, none of each other is the same as the previous song, there’s a lot of variey in the music and that’s what I like the most of Borknagar.

Yes, I think that some of the strongest songs we have on this album are still not out there yet. Some of my favorite songs are the two last songs on the album, The Wild Lingers and Northward which is a really huge beast of a song so it’s cool stuff I would say. If you like True North or Winter Thrice I’m pretty sure that you would like the new album as well in full context.

[AF] That’s for sure! Alright, although I really liked the lyrics of the album in general, the ones that caught me the most were those of Nordic Anthem and Stars Ablaze. I also think that they have a very similar theme that fits perfectly with the rest of the songs on the album and that they continue the line presented in your previous album True North. What do you usually draw inspiration from when writing the lyrics of your songs?

That one is quite complicated. As I said before I’m too old now and I don’t find direct influences from music, I have to be honest. I work a lot in my studio doing the mixing and the mastering for other bands as well so the main inspiration for me is life. My music should reflect me as a person. I’m not 20 years anymore, I’m 48 now and I’m a more matured person, I have seen more and experienced more of this world.

Inspiration comes from my life, my experience as a father or my experience walking in the forest, that is my way to find my source of inspiration in essence. I cannot point any single band or any song in particular that inspired me anymore but those things I mentioned before really inspired us. That being sad, we don’t want to go political or religious but we try to portay a contrast to all the craziness that is going on in this world. For us is also about mentality and our mentality as a foundation of this band is this very kind of free spirit, you should find your own way in this life. According to your terms you should make your best out of it.

Nordic Anthem for me is a freedom song, about loosing yourself from the chuckles that holds you back whetever if it’s religion, politics, conservatism or anything like that. It’s to loose yourself and to make your own path in life, to empower yourself and to take some space. That is also an important notion on True North that is also in Fall as well. Sometimes is pretty dark, brutal, it’s even fatalistic in essence but still there is an uplifting empowered spirit about music and we people tend to like this contast whether is cold, rainy or a sunny day. Life is a huge big contrast, digital world is even zeroes and ones, that’s all, this is a basic concept that I find kind of interesting to write lyrics about.

It’s a very classic theme, everybody’s done it, all philosofers and poets have written about it but it’s a very interesting and fundamental thing that I find so inspiring to portray the struggle of life because we are part of the nature, we are animals but we are also humans and nature does everything in its power to kill us. This struggle of survival is something very inspiring and you can use that in almost all sort of things in life such as a romantic relationship, wether it regards to business or whatever it is, there’s always this kind of tension between the good side and the bad side of things.

[AF] I totally understand. Let’s talk then about Unraveling which bears a certain resemblance to that of one of your most successful songs and one of my favorites, Up North. Has this been intentional or or has it been coincidental?

I’ve always done that in different ways, I allow myself to get inspired by what we’ve done before. In my bag I have a lot of music of what we’ve done along the years and it’s really cool to have some reference points back to our earlier songs. We have done that a lot through the years, we have a song called Universal and also an album called Universal. If you dig into the cover of Winter Thrice for example you will actually see a small detail from the cover of The Older Domain and I think this is very cool, I love to have this refereces on what we do.

Musically speaking, for me it’s like to open a door and invite people to our world and if you want to dig deep you will find some small treasures if you want to. But also for those who only want to listen to the music, do it and enjoy the music, drink some beer and have a good time, do it! But there’s also a potential for those who really want to dig into our stuff. There are some hidden small details out there that people might observe at some point and I love to keep that mystery around our albums.

[AF] Cool! That’s something very interesting that as a Borknagar fan I would definitely do. Also, one of the things I like most about Borknagar is how well the clean and harsh vocals are integrated into your songs. How do you manage to fit all of this into your music with such good results? It shouldn’t be easy.

My simple answer is: I simply really don’t know, to be honest! We always have some plans about our next album but we don’t really plan too much either because we want to capture the moment when we sit in the studio when we actually try out ideas. Maybe it doesn’t work as planned and we have to change some things but the whole creative process for us is to create it from the very start until the very end! I’m not done with the album until the master is delivered and I think that is very important to keep the perfect human imperfection in the music. As I always say to my guys, for me it all starts and ends with music, I always let the music lead the way. I write my songs but I don’t really know how a certain song will actually be at the end of the day.

We have plans, of course, we have ideas but I always leave the door a little bit opened for the outcome. It’s part of the creative process and I think that this is something very important because in this digital era everybody can sit around making their music and mix it but this also is making music to sound more generic and get more perfect in a wrong way and for me music shouldn’t be perfect. I want to listen to music that has this human touch of imperfection. If you compress and pitch correct everything there’s nothing left in music.

[AF] I totally agree with you. And when relating to your music, can you tell me about how you integrate elements such as nature and landscapes into your music? It is something that I have always found very difficult to do and I think that one of the most important elements in Borknagar is precisely that way of unifying concepts as ethereal and at the same time mundane as in Northward, for example.

It may sound a little bit cocky but writing music for me is not a problem, I could do that 24-7. It took me about two weeks or maybe a month to write the lyrics on Fall but I spent a lot of time and money on the process afterward, to produce the songs and arrange them all, that is when I feel the magic happens. It may sound a little bit cheesy but I’ve always had this idea that music should resemble the essence of life, the humanity, the imperfection but also the approach to nature.

If you go to the forest you may have a route you know very well where you have walked by a lot of times before but each and every time you walk through the forest it might be a little different because of the weather, or the route itself changes. This is such an organic thing that I want to bring into the music so when you listen to Summits for example, one day you get some kind of experiences and emotions but maybe if you listen to the same song the next day it can give you a slight different experiences. I don’t really know how to pinpoint this and how you do it but that’s the way I really try to construct and make the music, to compose, arrange and produce the music in the way that it resembles life and a journey, actually a journey, all the different flavours of life. Sometimes is love in the air, other times is hate in the air, another day everything’s beautiful and the next day everything is terrible.

That imperfect duality of life, the paradoxes, all that stuff is something I try to push into the music and I always get a lot of scenery and shapes and forms or colors when listening to music as a music lover myself. It kind of engross that a little bit when I make my own songs, I spend a lot of time makings riffs to know which kind of song do I want to make, what kind of shape or colors do I want to make on that song. Then I try to find the right riffs and structure dynamics to make that work somehow. But the secret sauce I would say and I try to say it a lot it’s just work, a lot of work and sacrifice, at least on my end. I haven’t done anything but being in my studio for the last couple of years to be quite honest, I don’t have a private life almost anymore. I don’t have time to hang with friends and drink a beer, I don’t do stuff like that anymore because I don’t have the time for it, I have to sit here working but it’s my life commitment and that’s the way I’ve chosen to life my life.

[AF] And you’re fine with it!

Yeah, I’m fine with it! I’m easily sacrificing a beer or two with friends, I prefer making music so it’s a lot of hard work and that’s something that sometimes it’s a little bit underrated in the whole scene of music, you know? There is too many kind of analogies, stories about people telling you “yeah, I wrote this song when I got an idea…” and it’s almost like a magic moment. It doesn’t work like that. If I was a painter I had to probably spend shitloads of hours painting until I was satisfied and it’s the same thing with music. Have an idea, have a wish, have some riffs, have some notions about stuff and then I just have to sit down and work hard for hours and hours. That’s really the secret sauce on this.

[AF] (We both laugh). John Ryan collaborated with you on True North and appears again on Fall playing violin and cello. How did this collaboration come about and what do you think it has contributed to Borknagar’s sound since then? Are you good friends?

Not really close friends, I think we’ve met a couple of times. We have done some festivals, he plays in a band called Cruachan and I think we did a festival together at some point. We had a really good time drinking beer and getting drunk but we haven’t been really close friends. When we started working on True North I don’t remember if he contacted me or I contacted him but we talked about it because we use synth things, keyboards and all that stuff but what I think is cool with John Ryan is that he add these real strings. He plays the violin, he plays cello and he also plays this huge bass. Adding that to the texture makes this music more kind of rich and humane.

Playing violin perfectly is almost impossible for a human being so it’s given this additional perfect human imperfection as a flavour to the songs. And he is a really cool guy! We have been honest, I don’t want the violins to be a lead instrument or anything like that but I’d rather want violins and strings to be part of the forest. It’s not the path, not the guy walking on the path, but it should be part of the forest as a bird or whatever. That’s just beautiful and it does an awesome job doing it, just that.

[AF] It also adds an extra layer to Borknagar’s music as well! Let’s move on. Fall is your first album to have the art design of Eliran Kantor as the cover, a very wise decision that in my opinion manages to capture the essence of the album in all aspects. I thought that it was very difficult to equalize what you’ve achieved with True North’s album cover but Kantor’s artwork in Fall is just astonishing. What led you to work with him for this new album and how did this came about?

It was a beautiful cooperation with Eliran, he is a true artist I would say. I had a good long talk with him when we talked about our cooperation, we talked about Fall for three hours or something and we kind of get to know each other. We talked a lot about life and also about music and how we appreciate and approach music. Of course I sent him the demos that we had recorded and the lyrics with a working title on it because we doesn’t really know that we would have finally called the album Fall. He know the band from before of course and enjoyed the music from before so he knew a little bit about the band but I told him “I want something that portraits the wilderness of nature, these untamed imperfect and the brutallity of nature“. That’s one thing, the other thing I told him was that I wanted to have some kind of notion about human presence but I didn’t want a human body, a face or whatever, I want something to remind about the humanity in essence.

We didn’t talk for one month basically and I got this back and I was blown the shit out of me. It’s so brilliant in my opinion, is very expressive and so cool and I really loved the angle of it because you kind of feel this power coming. It feels massive, striking, it feels wild and uncompromising innocence, and I love it! When I got this cover, when I saw it, I said: “We have to name this album Fall“, so it’s a kind of interesting detailed that we decided to name the album after the cover. It was kind of a dynamic creative process and I think it was awesome.

[AF] That’s an interesting story! You also have several concerts confirmed during 2024, the first of them at the Inferno Festival where you will be presenting your new album.

Yeah! I actually think we have one more before at a festival in Viborg (Denmark). I’m not sure if it’s in Viborg actually but at least we’re going there in a couple of weeks and then we have Inferno at the end of March.

[AF] Oh, I missed that! What can attendees in Denmark or Norway expect expect from your performance? Did you already choose which song will you guys be playing or you still have to discuss that?

I can’t say too much but there would be a couple of new songs definitely. We would have an updated setlist but to be honest I can’t deal with everything anymore because Borkanagar is a too big machinery now so I delegate all things regarded to live to our drummer Bjørn. He is the guy who is in charge now for all the live shows, riders and technical details, but we have a bunch of festivals coming in Europe this summer and then we are also planning an European tour in the end of the summer with a quite famous band, co-headliners as far as I know. Hopefully we would be all over Europe during 2025 but I can’t say anymore about the tour because it has not been announced yet and it’s not official.

[AF] Cool! We’ll meet at Inferno anyway! Before we leave, let me ask you one last thing because I’ve read something about the band’s name on the Internet but I’d like to know the true origin of the band and what it means, something that many of our readers probably still don’t know. Is it something related to a divine entity or anything related to religion?

That’s part of what I planned back in the days. I wanted to have a name that doesn’t really mean anything except the music that we are playing. My kind of thinking behind it was that I wanted to be musically independant and be able to do the kind of music I wanted to do without being nailed to the word like “20 years after I can’t do that kind of music because that band name”, you know? There is something about this musical autonomy which is very important to me.

That being said, it’s a fully constructed name that doesn’ mean anything. Is not a name or anything besides the band. It’s inspired by actually two fairytales from my childhood that I was very fond of as a kid back in the days. One of them is a Swedish fairytale which is also very famous in Norway called Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (Ronja Rövardotter) which is about a young girl who is a daughter of the good king living in a castle who is one day splitted in two because of a lightning and then she got to know the daughter of the bad king who was living on the other side of the castle and that evil king’s name was Borka (laughs).

That was one inspiration, and on the other side of it there is a very old fairytale from England that is called The Old Man of Lochnagar which is about a guy walking all over a mountain and that mountain is walked over, and the mountain is called Lochnagar. So I combined both things combining my favorite childhood fairytales basically.

[AF] That’s a nice story and a pretty cool name! By the way, I think that we can end the interview here, I don’t want to disturb yoy more (laugh). Hope to see you at Inferno!

Sure, let’s team up for a beer or two!

[AF] Thank you, Øystein. Have a nice day!

See you soon!

More about Borknagar:

Want to know more about Fall? Read our review here! Borknagar will soon be performing at Viborg Metal Festival in Denmark and Inferno Festival in Norway where they will be presenting the new songs that are part of his 12th studio album, Fall. You can buy your tickets on the festival’s respective websites.