Emperor (page 2)

  Pit: Tell us about the lyrics to "Thus Spake The Nightspirit" and "With Strength I Burn". What or who do you burn?

   Samoth: Obviuosly you didn't understand the title. "With Strength I burn" is a poetic way to say that 'I' have a lot of strength burning inside of 'me'. It's not a question of who or what we set on fire. Both "With Strength I Burn" and "Thus Spake the Night Spirit" are written by Ihsahn, as are all the lyrics on the new album. He would explain them better. Anyway, the basis in the lyrics is anger and frustration, and a longing for something else. You'll find these themes in most of the Anthems... lyrics. The lyrics deal with emotional aspects that are portrayed in a symbolic and visual way.

   Pit: Do you think popularity and record sales means selling out or being not true to yourselves?

   Samoth: Being popular and successful for what you truly believe in is definately not selling- out. If you prostitue yourself just to get more fame, more money, more girls, or whatever, then you're a sell- out. I mean, if we can actually earn money doing exactly what we want to do, then nothing is better.

   Pit: With all of your legal trouble, and now the release of your second full- length, you seem to be unstoppable. Does darkness prevail?

   Samoth: Yeah, we'll march on for another triumph! So far this year we have mainly focused on rehearsing the live set and playing concerts. After our European tour in October We'll seriously start to work on new material for the next album.

   Pit: Tell us about the video for "The Loss and Curse of Reverence". What do you think about the CD-ROM? Is this a new beginning?

   Samoth: To me, the video is not unique in any way. It's more or less a straight forward metal video. We had greater ideas than what's shown on the screen. It turned out that this Palser guy wasn't as competent as he had expressed. Anyway, the video is okay, and the response has been great. But i tell you, with a larger budget and  a better film- crew, we could have done something much greater. It was Candlelight's idea of putting the video on CD- ROM. It was cool enough, but a retail video would be just as cool. We're not going all cyber or anything.