APRIL 8th, 2023
THE MUSICAL JOURNEY
OF IHSAHN: GUITAR CLINIC

Review/Video Footage/Photos By: Polina Kulikovskikh
Ihsahn Guitar Clinic Video Coverage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO5tO4adImU&t=16s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGKik2ywx_w

From Black Metal Legend to innovating a genre

During the Inferno Music Conference, the renowned guitar player of Emperor, Ihsahn, took the stage to share his remarkable musical journey. The audience had the privilege of witnessing his captivating guitar techniques, while also engaging in an insightful Q&A session. Ihsahn's ability to express his thoughts in a structured and engaging manner is truly awe-inspiring. Instead of attempting to summarize his profound words, we are thrilled to present you with a comprehensive transcript of his talk, accompanied by an audio recording. With these resources, we invite you, our esteemed readers, to immerse yourselves in the presence of the great maestro Ihsahn, as if you were there, experiencing the magic first-hand.

01-Introduction - and how it all started

Ihsahn:  This is not entirely in my comfort zone, but I am a big fan of gear, music and all that. So, I am just hoping and guessing that that's your reason for being here as well.  I'll try to share my humble experience of having the privilege of working with this genre and stuff for over 30 years.
I remember I saw they asked me “do you want to do a guitar clinic?”. I've done some of them before, and I said "yeah, sure". Then I saw the description of what they wanted me to talk about and it was kind of more than I necessarily thought that I signed up for. …but I'll do my best and at the end of this session, I am open to any questions you might have. We'll do a round of that so we get to cover everything to hopefully get you to know what you came for. Sounds ok?

Audience: "Yeah" (cheering).

Ihsahn: I'll be doing some examples down the line. I'm guessing there are some guitar players in the house?

Audience: Yes (from around the room).

Ihsahn: All good. So, I might as well, [start] as it said in the description of this; The beginning, how it all started. At least for me and I guess many people can recognize the same scenario. I think just coincidentally, I was introduced to playing piano. I showed interest when I was like 5 or 6 and had some lessons on that. Just like children's lessons until I got an electric guitar when I was about ten. That kind of sealed the deal on my piano, hehe. That ended my piano career in a way, but I was really taken by hard rock [and] heavy metal. [I was an] early Twisted Sister fan and I think at that age I just immediately started playing in band. I had a friend playing drums and we would just get together and jam without absolutely no preconceptions [about] what we were doing, and those were the times.

I can see that some of you probably remember a time before the Internet. No offense. And, you know, [pretty much] everything was magic. Everything seemed unattainable and down the line, playing in bands, I remember a big revelation for me was to get a tablature book of Iron Maiden’s "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son". I went to see that tour, which was kind of life changing. I was super enthusiastic about playing music before seeing that show, but October 5th '88 when I saw Iron Maiden on the "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" tour, I think since that moment, I can't recall having any other plan with my life. You know, it was kind of life changing and every day after school I would just play 3-4 hours to the “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” record, trying to make out everything and that was kind of my guitar tutor growing up. And yeah, [this was] even at, I think I was 11 or 12. By some coincidence I also got hold of a four track tape machine recorder. Some of you guys know what that is (referring to the audience). It's like a four track [tape] recorder for recording demoes and stuff. And I had this electric organ where I could play bass parts with my feet. [There] were some built in rhythms and basically I, even at 11 or 12, I started recording and layering music and the whole magic of creating songs. So from very early, just by coincidence, really, [I] got into recording and studio work. Over thirty years later now, that's still what I do. It never changed. And [back then] I played in some local bands for two weeks at the time, but unfortunately, right where I lived, there was no one really as enthusiastic about it as I was. Not that I was any better than them. I guess I just wanted [it] more, hehe.

In Notodden where I come from, we have, I think it's the Nordic’s biggest blues festival. So, they started out in '88 and by 1989 they organized something called "for young musicians" in [like a] blues seminar where they would get old blues musicians [to] kind of teach young people how to play in bands and so. That was kind of gathering people from all around the county. And by [that] time I had  my Iron Maiden fandom, and I had a denim jacket with all Iron Maiden patches. It's kind of wearing your CD on the outside, you know. And I came to this [gathering] and I met some other guys there with some DIO patches and stuff and they needed a guitar player. One of these guys [was] Samoth and so I ended up joining his band. He was one year older than me and I was 13. The rest of his band, they were already grown ups, because they were like 16 and they had already been to a studio and recorded a demo. So, basically, I felt I was joining a professional band. I really had this immense pressure to grow which I thought was amazing. To really just be the rookie in that group and kind of suck in everything and learn. So, as it usually happens, there's band names change and there's some interchange of people in the groups and everything, you do projects, side stuff and, to cut that story a bit short, me and Samoth, we started in a band called Loud and Clear. Very, very heavy metal. And then we experimented with some more, you know, thrashy stuff and then more death metal oriented, we changed names several times.
The first demo we ever did was with a band called Embryonic when I was 14. Which, you know, later I've seen this tape that we did like, behind glass, like this is a legendary thing, and it, it's crazy. [In] the end we had this band called Thou Shalt Suffer, which was death metal, kind of technical death metal, death metal thing but also incorporated, actually, some keyboards.

And Emperor started as, kind of a side project to that. Just kind of dealing only with more raw Celtic Frost, Bathory type of influence. By the time we did this first demo, also on the four track recorder, by the way, in the rehearsal space, this “Wrath of the tyrant” demo, it kind of gradually just, everything that we had done kind of, was built into the Emperor name and that's why, even at the first EP, we also kind of incorporated the keyboards and all of that. Was that more or less chronologically… …it made sense, yeah? 

Audience: "Yeah"

Ihsahn: Don't know if I'm just ranting here, but... Looking back it seemed like a very long time. But that's how it is, you know, from when you are thirteen 'til you're 17, that's like a lifetime, you know, and it's kind of [strange] to look back and think that  it all happened so quickly, in sense of the span of a few years going from plain, more straight forward heavy metal to having black hair, spikes and being totally into Bathory and Morbid Angel and all these things. But for us it just like seemed like a very, very slow  and natural progression. It was really, again, pre-Internet and we didn't really have much to go on. In a sense that it's what made it magic as well. Because the only reference we had to Bathory was this one picture of Quorthon, like photocopied with him with a pentagram. And then you had to kind of imagine the rest. You didn't know what he had for dinner or stuff like that like you do these days, you know. It was all this kind of magic stuff and you just had to imagine how all this came to be.

And me and Samoth have been talking about this as well, that we didn't just play in a band in those days. We lived it 24/7. What we lacked in experience or skills, we really made up for in dedication. And from waking to going to sleep, everything was about this athmosphere. Wether we were at the reharsal room or listening to music or, just going out at night doing fire breathing or whatever, all the crazy stuff we were doing, it was all about trying to be in this kind of world of aethetics that we loved and that mixed in with it. We listened to a lot of, of course, death metal and black metal bands and old demos and all the tape trading and stuff that was going on at that moment, but also there was a lot of horror movie soundtracks. And if you are familiar with the early Emperor stuff, of course that was the inspiration for bringing in these kind of orchestral elements, even though it was super simplistic, and nowhere near the technology that we have today.

Still, I mean, this extreme form of music was all on tap. But then again, that kind of emotional build, that I at least associate with the black metal form, it may be just in my mind, but I've always kind of split the difference in my head  from say, American death metal [which] I feel was like very much testosterone and angry, and it's very, I won't say one-dimensional, but it's really just about the aggression. In my head, black metal, and when I listen to Quorthon singing, you know, sometimes he's got harsh vocals, which kind of break up into his normal voice. So in [my] experience, black metal as a form could be as aggressive as death metal, but could also have the depth and vulnerability of like a larger emotional space, I guess. That kind of went well together with the dynamics that you could build with orchestral sounds. You know, with all the soundtracks that we were listening to, like Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams or even John Carpenter. You know, that kind of built that emotional tension, so even though that, volume wise, everything was on ten and the blast beats and distorted guitars, we were still kind of simulating that emotional ebb and flow by bringing in and out these choirs, strings, horns and stuff.

So that was what formed our sound and early beginnings of what I've been doing since. And I guess… …I've often been asked why I've changed so much musically, and I can't see what people are talking about, because it's... …I just think I do variations on the same theme, which hasn't really changed that much. But we can get into that a bit later when I start doing examples. I think we should probably go over to more guitar oriented stuff right now. Is it ok?
Any particular questions at this point? No?


02-Guitar combination examples

Ihsahn: Yeah. I'll start a bit at the beginning, then. Because, again, growing up with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest. To me, it was a big thing, [with] the twin guitars, you know. I kind of liked AC/DC doing that kind of pentatonic thing, but the more traditional diatonic stuff of Iron Maiden and [Judas] Priest with the dueling guitars that you could play off each other, that became, even though I didn't know shit about theory or anything, but just that thing that "ok, if one guitar does one thing, why would the other one do the same thing?", you know. We should do something else and create a contrast, and I think that became very... ..it's a very simple recipe, but kind of [at the] very core to a lot of the music that we make.
I'll make a few examples. [Plugs in] Is this ok?

Audience: "Yes".

Ihsahn: I'll do this... I have some tracks that I could play to demonstrate, but you know the first example from the very early stuff, I think, we had this song called "I Am The Black Wizards", you know it, yeah? [spread cheerful laughter in the audience] But it's really, I think, descriptive of how we approach things, and I remember, this was the opening riff. It's Samoth, my colleague there, who came up with the riff. It was the beginning of the song. It was basically just two cords. E minor and F Major, basically. But then, of course, the Iron Maiden influence. How could we make that, you know, more melodic? And then I added this [plays] basically just a riff over the [chords]. Just trying to utilize what is there. Creating contrasts. We played it fast, we played it slow. Basically, there's nothing much to it. I think that separately it wouldn't be as meaningful, but, you know, combined, even for it's simplicity, [it] makes it more interesting, so I think that was part of developing our sound. Having the ebb and flow of synthesizers and stuff in there, we felt we were on to something.

So, moving forward, I guess I could to some other examples as well. By the time we did "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]"... ...I'll do another example, for example off " [In The Nightside] Eclipse" for "Burning shadows of Silence", we played that yesterday. This is also sort of combining techniques. In the middle it goes [plays arpeggio] playing at all the strings - moving it around, it's still very diminished [stops playing]. But that's all... …It becomes almost like a pad, because all the strings are ringing together, and then kind of, what can I say, punctuating that Samoth's guitar and the bass would go [plays Samoth's part], you know, it's the same thing.

And another example, "Inno A Satana". The verse [plays] plays big chords, you got all the strings [stops playing], sounded kind of jazzy, you know, but then you counter with [plays Ihsahn's part]. Still very diatonic, and 1-4-5, but... but creating that contrast and it was very much how we were trying to approach things. To always keep that contrast going. And I guess we developed this approach a bit over the years. For, say for example with "The Loss and Curse of Reverence", using more, expanding a bit on the sound, using more than just the power chords [plays] -we would just do that... ... we didn't know the chords names, we would just move them around. There's really no theory to it. It was like [plays] stuff like this, but also always then, the [plays the counter part melody] having these moving lines together with the big chords, like really, kind if in a simple way, like really orchestrating, making it, you know, have that point of interest.

I guess I could move on to an example, like moving on to were we got more and more familiar with how to build things. And also, this idea of creating meaningful melody in some sense on, really theoretically, things that doesn't go to together.

So, I'll play some tracks as well, because I usually use an example from "Curse You All Men!", you know the song and say something like the opening riff [plays]. This is also one of Samoth's riffs. The main riff. This was one of these situations where I said, "Ok, it's a great riff it has all these contrasts and movements", but I thought, "Ok, how can we... ...how can we expand on this and make it more interesting". I thought "ok, he's moving upwards maybe I can try harmonizing it by playing it the other way 'round, so where he's starting the tune on the down beat [shows example] I would do the opposite [plays example] so just thinking, "ok, he's doing one thing, let me do the opposite". It's a rather simple recipe, but if you work at it, it creates more tension and, I guess, makes it more exciting, we think.
And I think there are also some very good examples of that kind of collaboration between me and Samoth and we brought to the table in a sense, like this riff [plays] -I never play his parts [plays]. It's, basically… …All of this is just moving minor chords around [plays] and moving them chromatically, so theoretically it makes no sense, you know. But it's of course, we're a black metal band, we move minor chords around [plays]. But then, and it's really, to take that first sample he (Samoth) is playing this [plays] and then, you know in contrast, I'll do the opposite [plays]. It's really simple ideas. And also with this, ok, this same scenario, I guess a bit more advanced than the "[I am the Black] Wizards"-stuff and he goes like [plays Samoth's part] and I'm trying to find, "ok, let's find a melody that goes with that" [plays], which in itself sounds like a melody that makes sense, but it's really a melody that is trying to fit to four chromatic minor chords placed closely together. In a sense, it doesn't become this, to my mind at least, it doesn't become this thing that is just moved around statically, but you kind of bind the two together. Does it make sense, yeah (asks the audience)?

03-Rehearsal track combination samples

Ihsahn: So I thought with that in mind, maybe it's harder to kind of keep one idea in the mind, so I might as well just.. [Explains the backing track to come:] ..I muted the drum track, this is from my rehearsal rig, when rehearsing the songs, so there's some keyboards in there but no drums, I think there might be some bass, I'm not sure, but you will hear the guitar part. I will just play through it and you can keep the ideas in mind. Ok? Should we do that?

Audience: "yes"

Ihsahn: In the background: "some sound for myself so I don't mess up? I'll try not to mess up" [Plays along with the backing]...same riff again... [Playing ends].
I forgot to say that: Going through, on the slow part, it's still the same riff [demonstrates] and so on, and it's basically the same thing. But then, you know, doing a different harmony [demonstrates] Just trying to do, and even though there are several repetitions, sometimes it's just the guitar, you know, at the end the choir comes in, there are some with black metal vocals, some  harmony vocals, you know, using the same stuff over, but trying to add more elements and making it excitement for what it is. Makes sense?

Audience: Yes.

Ihsahn: So I hope in some strange way I managed to kind of tie a line, like from "I Am the Black Wizards" and that approach and developing that for...
I'll have to check my notes for where I'm at. I'm probably lost already :-)

04-Recording technology, inspiration and motivation

Ihsahn: I thought, I mean… …This is something that has obviously changed a lot over the years. Because when we recorded these songs, even, you know "[IX] Equilibrium" and "Prometheus [- The Discipline of Fire & Demise]", it was still on tape. The last two was still on digital tape, but I'm so old now, that I, yeah, I started on four track tape machines.

And then, when we played in Bergen for this special thing in Grieghallen, also the studio  where we recorded  "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]" and "[In the Nightside] Eclipse". [There] I talked to Pytten [Eirik "Pytten" Hundvin], the producer. Many of you know about him, of course, and his work, and he said, like when we were doing " Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]" he had to pull out everything he had. I didn't remember this, but we had like a sixteen-track analogue tape machine that he synced up with a digital ADAT that had 8 tracks, and he was syncing that to a very, very early version of Cubase, I think. And I think every time we reminded to [record] another pass of things you had to wait for 30 seconds, he said, for everything to sync up. [Audience laughter] And of course, ehm, me and the rest of the band had no experience with this when we went to record the EP [Wrath of The Tyrant] or when we went to record "In the Nightside Eclipse". So one of the biggest changes  from then 'til now is that it's almost like it's turned on the side. Because back in the day, and I think it goes even further back, because Black Sabbath or [Iron] Maiden or Metallica, basically, the preproduction, was [done in] the rehearsal space, and we would use regular cassette tapes [to record], that were known as rehearsal tapes. Stereo recordings of what happened in the rehearsal space and, you know, experience the difference, of, "ok", when you're there doing it we had the energy of all the sound that's in the room, you know, and "ok it was great to play this riff for 16 bars, and then you go back to your room and listen to the tape, and like, "let's make it 8". [Audience laughter]. I mean, this is too long, you know, and that was then the pre- …very simple pre-production we were doing. If we listen back to the rehearsal tapes for, you know "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]" and "[In the Nightside] Eclipse" and compare it to the album, the tempos [and] all the small details. It's already there. Because there was no time to experiment in the studio, [and because od that] you would have it pre planned.

These days of course, it's the other way 'round. At least in my experience, we [now] build albums on our laptops basically, and then we have to learn how to play it after the fact which can be sometimes surprising and challenging, but it is a very different approach. And I guess aesthetically, you know. Just rehearsing something, going into the studio and if you listen to all those old records that we all love, you know, pre-digital, there was always this atmosphere to the recording. You kind of really depended on which room the band was in, the size of the studio, whatever equipment, the compromise of the little you had. I think I read somewhere that the first Black Sabbath album, they recorded it in a couple of days, you know. So things have changed a lot in that respect. And I guess I have been very fortunate to see both sides of that, and also learnig from, you know, the hard way to make a lot of mistakes
.
I remember, when we did "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]", and we knew that "[The] Loss and Curse [of Reverence]" was going to be a video and was going to be released as the first single, so we prioritized finishing that first, and getting that mixed, get all that into production. And this was right after, I actually got my first copy of Steinberg Cubase and started sequencing stuff. So, I remember doing all the arrangements for that album at home , just with a guitar with no sound. Just making the riffs and all these counter parts and for "[The] Loss and Curse [of Reverence]". I think I counted that I had seven parallel different lines of flutes and violin parts, and this or that. We came to Grieghallen to record it and I saw that 90 percent of this was a waste of time. Because, of course, you don't hear any of it. So underneath all of that there are all these small details that no one hears. But it was a good experience, because it gave me the perspective of always thinking in context. It needs to have a purpose for being there, so it's just as important as these, well it's a little boring to say, but it's also the notes you don't play, am I right? Ehm, so that was even, at the end of Emperor, it was still a lot of tape, a lot of the compromises for better or worse. I mean limitation definitively is very powerful stuff in regards to creativity. So, yeah. A strange note to end it on, but I thought, I mean...

05-Band blueprints and intensions behind the music

...moving along, so I guess, I've been personally very nerdy about that stuff. I recently saw a youtube video with the history of Steinberg, which make Cubase and Nuendo and all these programs and, I hate to admit it, but I remember the first version, yeah. You feel old yet? ...and this was basically lines on a computer screen. No [visual] audio, nothing like that. I won't bore you with all the different iterations of my studio setup, that I've had, I remember investing like 7000 € to get 6 tracks digital, you know. So a lot of things have changed, and [with it] our ability to experiment. These days, I think, with the technology we have, there's really no limit but your imagination. But at the cost of having, you know, being not limited and moving on from Emperor, to you know, through Peccatum and all the bands that I've been in there was always this driving force in me to try to keep that excitement going. Because when we were starting out with Emperor, of course. There was nothing, really... …Of course heavily inspired by [Impaled] Nazarene and Celtic Frost, but of course everybody wanted to push further. We wanted make this more extreme. We wanted to make this more to the point and kind of develop this and, by no comparison, really, but in a similar [fashion]; when you have a genre that is quite new, it's like you compare Mötley Crue and W.A.S.P. or any of the other, like LA based bands, you know, it's from the same era, you could tell they had the same influences and kind of the same format, but it's really easy to tell them apart, you know, and I would argue the same thing for the early Norwegian [Black Metal], if you take Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum or Immortal or any of those, you know, it's really easy to tell them apart 'cause there was really no blueprint. It was like a group of teenagers, basically, trying to push through. You know, like, let's make this even more extreme, more far out and everybody had a different take on how to do that. And I think it kind of cross pollinated, is that what you say? It became something very special.
And I think also very important point is that this was a very small group of people that had no intention of being successful. The whole motivation, you know, was like... I'm going to... Proudly... Thinking back, we got to make music that [level of] uncompromising. Because it was almost trying to make music people shouldn't like. It was really to be for the select few who really felt it. Everybody else was stupid. You know, they shouldn't like our music. They should hate it. That created an environment, like a mental space where you create purely for artistic reasons. And even when we recorded "In the Nightside Eclipse" or "Anthems [to the Welkins at Dusk]", the only motivation was that we had a record label that would release this on vinyl. Proper, like our heroes. Not that it would have any financial benefit or any career start. That was kind of out of the question. So that was, you know, to see this as work and something that became our livelihood was, even at that point, just non-existent. So very, very fortunately for me, it became my work, but that was never the intention. I can't believe my luck. We never even tried in a commercial sense.

And this is also something that, of course some of you have heard the stuff that I've been doing post-Emperor. You know, I've been releasing far more records outside of Emperor than I've done in Emperor. And people would come over and [ask] like, "how come you're doing all this experimental stuff, it's so strange" and "you're using saxophone with this guy over here" and all this kind of stuff. And for me it's the opposite. I saw all these teenagers at that time, really pushing the envelope of the music they knew of. Why would you stop that process at 16? To me, and with no disrespect to my contemporary colleagues from that time, but, to me it's really surprising that more of those people haven't branched out and done a lot more in that regards. Because when you do that, that's... You know, we were 16/17... And already in this environment where you were pushing things. Why would you stop that process?

In many ways I feel I'm doing the same things over and over, but just trying to get even closer to that kind of initial goal, and I've gone on record to say that for me black metal is not a type of guitar sound or a type of vocal style. To me Diamanda Galás, if someone's familiar, can be just as black metal as Bathory in my case. Because it takes me to the same kind of atmospheric place.

And my, I guess, internally my driving force, the kind of space I feel I create from is constant. So every album and every song, is kind of just another attempt of trying to get closer to that kind of aesthetic ideal. That probably sounds very pretentious and strange, but it's more just a subjective experience of things. I guess, all over that is.. Having had that privilege, we didn't know it at the time, but having that privilege of creating so uncompromisingly, that's something that I don't want to give up. That's why I try to, at every time I set out to do another project, to do another album I try to put myself in the situation I try to give myself a scenario where I definitely have one foot in chaos, where I feel that I am on the edge, or  probably a bit over the edge of what I could possibly accomplish, but I think that is... That is the only way I can kind of... I want the same excitement and enthusiasm going in to make a new record as when I was 16. I don't want to be like "ok, I'll just do it the way it used to [be]". Because then, I think, in the essence, what you put in is what comes out. So if I'm not enthusiastic about making it, I can't really expect anyone to be excited about listening to it. It's a very simple, but I think, a good rule of thumb.

I think I jumped my notes totally now, on the ramble.

Ihsahn (in Norwegian): What do you say, Jørgen [Munkeby]? Is it acceptable?

Jørgen Munkeby (in Norwegian): It’s very good

Ihsahn (in Norwegian): Thank you.

Ihsahn (back to English): If anyone would tell me to shut up, it would be Jørgen Munkeby.

06-Solo albums and on extended range guitars

So, I guess, since I was asked to do a guitar clinic, I think I could move over to some more strings. Because into my solo records, I'd say and even earlier, at the end of the Emperor era, you know. Prometheus was the first album that I got a seven string guitar. And I heard a lot of bands doing seven string stuff, but it was basically doing the same thing, just a fifth lower. Which is kind of, in my opinion, besides the point. But it really, the reason for me, moving from 6 to 7 and later also to 8 and recently Aristides [Guitars] sent me a 9-string guitar, which is basically too much. Really, it's too much.
...but it was not really so much about just doing thing lower, but when you are in, especially with the 8-string, you end up in a tonal range that crosses over with the bass and everything, so can't really... You can't play chords at least not minor stuff. For it to make sense, you really have to treat the instrument in a different way. Write parts and you end up, on a standard tuned 8-string, you end up playing stuff like G# or F# and then you have open string stuff that you could do that resonates in a different way. And it opened up a new world of sound, really. And that's kind of the biggest challenge creatively, having had a privilege of doing, oh, sad to say, over 30 years, is to kind of skip the muscle memory part of things. So getting an instrument where you're kind of uncomfortable, and you don't feel like you're repeating yourself, but when I pick up a 6-string guitar I feel like I immediately repeat, and I think a lot of guitar players can relate. Your fingers just move to where you're used to and doing the same patterns and everything.

So a lot of the challenge in keeping the same enthusiasm alive over the years has been [about] trying to figure out ways to write music where the muscle memory doesn't dictate [the result]. And sometimes that has been writing an entire album just with a piano sound. I've done, I think on the solo album called Eremita, I wrote all of that just with a piano sound and then made it playable for the guitar after the fact. And I've actually just finished another record, that kind of pulled the same approach. And I've thrown the bass guitar out the window and used Moog synthesizers instead, trying to write music from exploring non-diatonic scales, all kinds of trying to adapt some new theory or some new approach every time. Not for the theoretical part of things, but all in an attempt to skip the muscle memory and the repetitive patterns that we often find ourselves in.

So getting back to the guitars, I'll get my 8-string, because that lends itself to some guitar sound colors that you really can't get with a 6-string in the same way and to try make it ugly and percussive. I can do some examples. [wire drops] "or not" - sets up and plays.

I think this was on my 3rd solo album [After], or after. It was my first experience with an 8-string guitar and I was really excited about all that. I feel my first two solo albums were kind of trying to recreate a new path to something new. I didn't want to kind of continue where Emperor left off, so I think my first solo record the emphasis was almost back to heavy metal based. A bit more progressive with “angL”, but after the third one. Before I started making the first record I decided I wanted to make 3 albums before I play anything live. Because I wanted to build a new foundation. I didn't want to do live shows with 50/50 Emperor covers and... I didn't want to be that guy. So I really I'm very proud of that, but this is also where I met Jørgen [Munkeby] and incorporated that saxophone, totally new sounds and just a whole different atmosphere, and one of the criterias for that album, since it's called After, was that it were to be no sign of life in any lyrics, in anything. It's a very desolate and strange album in many ways, but really exploring some dissonance and strange, but also melodic parts.

07-Examples 8-string - rehearsal backing

Ihsahn: So I thought that I'd do, maybe I'd do a couple of examples from that era. I really don't have to theorize too much about it, but give an example. You have to excuse that the mix is really strange, this is again from my personal rehearsal setup. So it sounds as it sounds, but I thought I'd do a couple of songs that I feel illustrates that era where I kind of found a bit of a new direction. So I'll something called "Frozen Lakes on Mars" first and I do a bit of "Grave Inversed" and after that, which is more extreme again, but utilize some synth. Really tight deep second chorus. Dissonant and more percussive than musical, really. -Sound ok?

Audience: Yes.

Ihsahn: [plays along with the track]

Again, it doesn't sound the same without vocals and everything, but from the guitar perspective, it's much more percussive [demoes] and also variations on things use the same kind of pattern [demoes]. Yeah. Contrasting bits, and also trying to use this dissonance [demoes]. It's really more of a percussive way of approaching the writing which was very new for me and very inspirational at the time. And I think, just, I see... Time is running out and I wanted to have some time for questions. Should I do... I could do the beginning of |||grave imbursed||| because that has a very percussive part I think. Maybe there's some saxophone in there, can't remember.
[plays along with the track]

My point was that, of course. Since "I Am The Black Wizards", that kind of approach, but you see the approach is very similar. Trying to build contrast, there are some melodic parts in there but then I wanted to contrast that with these [plays the dissonant rhythm chords] with Jørgens beautiful melodies on top. Squeaking and squealing. But... how can I wrap this up, with my ramblings...

08-Musical passio, drive and gratitude

Going back to what I said before. This. For me... It's ironic [from] playing all this music about darkness, cold, depression and war and all these things. ...but I ended up 30 years later and I'm just full of gratitude for having had this life in music, to explore, to experience, to travel the world. And friends and colleagues, family, everything that's part of my life. I can't believe my luck and I like to think that some of the reason that I'm still so happy about doing what I do is that I've tried to honor that privilege that we started out with, without having to compromise. Doing it primarily for artistic reasons and not letting all these other factors influence the creative part. You all know Gene Simmons said that there's two words in music business. There's music and there's business. But on the creative side I think that the more we can all kind of try to keep that space clear of everything else. Not only for the people listening to it down the line, but I think to keep the same enthusiasm and fire alive doing what we do. Anything can become routine. Anything can become boring. But when you are as fortunate to play music and do that for a living I don't want to be in a position where I feel obliged or bored, kind of shrugging my shoulders with what I do. I want to be in a place where I have this passion for it.

09-Q&A Portion of the Clinic

Ok. I had some stuff about gear and stuff, but I think I'll leave it at that and make room for some questions if people have them.

Q1: I hope I don't get [stabbed] here, because...

Ihsahn: Oh yeah, sure [laughter in the room]

Q1: I was saying I hope I don't get [stabbed] here, because I want to ask you about drums. Everybody here is interested in guitars, so I want to ask you about the early days. Specifically. How do you came up with the drums, because nowadays we have all these digital tools where you can have some ideas when creating a song, as to how would you like to have the drums and... Just to make a point specifically; a couple of years ago I pretended to play the drums. I had a guy that came up and he was like "Hey, the guitars are ready, bass is ready, I have the drums, just check it out and learn the song and let me know" so I did [check it out] and I'm like, [those] are not real drums. "how do you know?" -Well, because you are playing at 120 BPM and your kick drums is going like 450. You have overlapping crashes you got rides and stuff like that... Anyway, my point is that at least you had a guideline, let's say I want a stop here, I want fills here, I want crashes here, so it's easier to kind of understand what's going on, but in those days, how did you do it? Did you... was it orchestrated?

Ihsahn: We did all that in the rehearsal space.

Q1: In the rehearsal space?

Ihsahn: Yes, and that's was what I said initially, like back in those days before computers, before drum programs and all that all that had to be done in the rehearsal space. And even when we did “Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]” that was written very much by mail. For reasons that I'm sure some of you know. That we were not in the same room together all the time. We were sending riffs on tapes and stuff like that. And I kind of... We had a few drummers in circulation before we found Trym [Torson] and that was also part of the thing, you know. A big part of that was finding the right drummer. And I guess...  We weren't as conscious about it back then because it had made sense, but it was more experimentational, like, lets try to make this, you know, blast beat, play it half time. It was more like letting the creativity dictate. And some of the riffs kind of dictate how it's going to be played initially. But also, having that background, even though I'm a horrible drummer, I can't play for the life of me, but I, of course, having spent all those years in the rehearsal space, I have a very clear perception of what a drummer can do.  So even when I program and do all these kind of sketches for my own albums now, I also use Superior Drummer and all this, but I try to program everything as playable [as possible]. You know, it needs to be real. I also heard some really, really bad examples of people making these kind of machine like things that doesn't make sense. And then, yeah. It was really just trial and error [back in the day]. We didn't know shit. We just worked on it until it sounded good, hehe.

Q2 (in Norwegian): "First and foremost very inspiring, and I have a gazillion questions"

Q2 (in English): I can speak in English of course which will make it easier for everyone. Uhm. Obviously from the beginning it was very self taught, you were very self taught, you learned the harmonies probably from listening to [Iron] Maiden and everything. There's a couple of things that I'm very curious about. One thing is where [does] the open tremolo picking thing come from in that style of music. Was that something that was invented from early on in your genre? Did you pick it up from other bands?

Ihsahn: I think I'll give credit to Samoth for a lot of that, because he, in the early days, he would make a lot of the riffs on his father's acoustic [guitar] and that lends itself really well to doing chords with open strings and I guess it just... ...in a way wanted to kind of simulate these soundtracks we were listening to, and also even that of Metallica, that dry sound, but getting some cheap reverb on there and just letting it ring out. It became... It's more like strings. It's more like a string section. 

Q2: Yeah it's very genre-defining, and I remember...

Ihsahn (interrupts): I think I'll just give an example because it's easier, if you don't mind.
Because this is also something that people often misunderstand, or kind of, because of course the production value is on those albums were very messy, so it's very hard to make out, but something that is very typical for what we did in Emperor would be to utilize open strings. Even from the opening of "[In the Nightside] Eclipse" [plays].

It sounds very floating, but it isn't straight forward. Of course on the second round, I would do something opposite [plays]. Then you would have these clashes of sound and also like [plays another riff and chord progressions] ...just using the open strings to get these kind of almost like peddle tones going through.

Q2: I think that was, you know, the first time I heard that was when I was stepping in to fulfill Samoth's duties for the recording of Arcturus on "Aspera Hiems Symfonia" and I heard the demoes, and I had never heard anyone play guitar like that, because I came from, like a typical metal shred guitar progressive background and I heard [the demoes] and I didn't know what the fuck was going on. So it was... I think it was invented more or less at that point.

Ihsahn: I don't know, but the reason I'm kind of conscious about this is because that's just how we've always played it, but I remember, Matt Heafy, from Trivium was at my place, and he said like, he wanted to play some of those kind of things, and he's like really technically proficient and want to do everything correctly. So when the [tablatures] he read had all the big chords [demonstrates flat chords as in the tablatures]. ...but it's not like that. We would often do these strumming things, like an acoustic [guitar] so like that riff from "[The] Burning shadows of silence" [demonstrates]. And I did an example from "[The] Loss and Curse [of Reverence]" earlier. Some people thing it's like [plays flat chords], but it's [plays the chords with a emphasized triplet feel] ...so it's almost jazzy [demonstrates some more]. And I think this is also something, when I, as a provocation almost, I have some guitar students come to me and want to play Emperor songs, and they found tablature online, and it was so horribly wrong, so I didn't know anything of this, but I bought [Avid] Sibelius and basically wrote a score-book 126 pages to get it right. And then I got the opportunity to kind of analyze what we were doing. And it was really fun to see how many 8th note triplets is at the core of the Emperor sound [demonstrates]. Yeah, so it's all waltzy, you know. Really kind of strange. But also quite interesting. And this is also same with this this really super fast riff from "[The] Loss and Curse [of Reverence]" [plays] With all the distortion it sort of blends together, but I think it feels... You kind of have to exaggerate those dynamic differences because if you just [plays un-emphasized] you just lose the "1". So you when it's this distorted and this kind of on 10 and 11. You have to kind of exaggerate the dynamic differences to really make it flow, because no one can headbang in 520 BPM. You need to kind of keep this kind of subdivision underneath to make it groove, basically. Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, but I think a lot of the new stuff that I've heard, that is like typically programmed drums and the dynamics are just gone, you know, it's just a wall of sound it doesn't really have that kind of rhythmic element to it, but yeah.

Q2: I have one more question if you would.

Ihsahn: Yeah, please.

Q2: Obviously at some point you did dig more into the theoretical stuff, or at least it sounds like it [from] the way you're arranging new stuff vs the old. Did you study music and theory, did you read up on your own?

Ihsahn: Just on my own.

Q2: On your own?

Ihsahn: Yeah, and this was just because. Yeah, I love music, and then I heard a lot of soundtracks and I heard these are not the chords that I use. How do they come up with this stuff. And then I started learning basic theory and then just when you come across something, I still remember, from playing a lot of Iron Maiden, so I was playing and "ok, they are playing E minor riffs". E minor, A minor, that's kind of what they do. It's kind of diatonic in a way that. 

I remember I was kind of pissed off with Janick Gers when he started in [Iron] Maiden because instead of doing like [plays minor chord] and then [plays progression] like C major and D-major he would just transpose [demonstrates] ...you know, and this was not Iron Maiden. That was one thing, and then I also discovered; I was learning the harmonies, and you know, Iron Maiden always harmonized their lead lines in their parallel, major surge, you know, but I didn't know what that was. When I found out "wow, if I play E minor, I could a play a G major scale on the top of it and it works”. That became like one of these key things I remember, "Aah, every time if I play this A minor I can could do the C major",  you know, parallels to that and make chords with that and that was like huge things for me. And I...

Q2 (interrupts): ...at what point in your career did you dig into that?

Ihsahn: It's just been a gradual thing. I thought that this is interesting, I need to learn this, so I bought the Bjørn Kruse "Musikkteori" (eng: Music Theory) and I couldn't understand shit, because he really put up all the diatonic modes on different styles. I said, "I can't go around remembering all this stuff" and then, as a coincidence, same way as I discovered that you could use a G major on an E-minor, that they there were, of course I discovered that all the diatonic modes are just like, starting from the next note. And I thought "Why the fuck didn't someone tell me this". A facepalm moment. But then again it's interesting, you know, you build modes on the harmonic minor scale and then I was kind of just loosely picking on some synthetic scales, you know, from "median modes", you know, modes of limited transposition, and that's a beautiful thing of being non-scholar. It's like with literature. I never read all the classics, so if I wanted to read a book, I can read the best. And seeing as I didn't go to music school and learn all this stuff and jazz theory and everything, basically if I find a new kind of scale or something that I find interesting like that I've been doing a lot of octotonic half, whole, half whole thing. And it's really limited but it adds a kind of color. This is what Danny Elfman uses. This is the sound. And for me, I can just pick top shelf of all these wonderful techniques and perspectives that probably for someone like Jørgen [Munkeby] who studied jazz is like kindergarten stuff, but for me is like. I get super excited and then I'm in a good place to create.

Q2: [...]the sound that you had on the first Emperor album would probably never [have] been like that [if] you had experience with theory at that time, because it can also be kind of limiting.

Ihsahn: Yeah, if you theorize too much about it, but it's also about finding musical colors. You discover a new palette, or you're choosing a different instrument like the extended range guitar and something like that. Something that triggers inspiration.

Q2: Like the half tone moving minor chord. Would probably never happen if...

Ihsahn: Yeah, it would feel wrong.

Q2: Last question: Is that a Quad Cortex?

Ihsahn: Yes.

Q2: Ok. Sounds great.

Ihsahn: I told someone here that I wouldn't talk too much about gear, but I could make a point of that. That often, since I was talking about the early days, and touring with rental gear and no lighting rigs and stuff like that, they were different times. And I guess I've never been very nostalgic about stuff like that I always just wanted stuff that works and makes my journey from idea to finished result as smooth as possible. So even in guitar playing I was never good at doing all the scales and all that, so I've never become like a technical player, so everything that I've learned on the guitar is basically a necessity to write the music that I wanted to make. And I played amps since forever. I have a bunch of tube amps at home and I love them, but for all practical purposes. I used a Kemper for a while and now I just switched over to the Quad Cortex from Neural DSP. I started with the plug-ins for demoing and it sounds... ...you know, technology these days is just amazing. And this ticks so many boxes for me. When I'm traveling it's a sound card there are mic preamps in there, so I can actually [sing]. And I can even do my own inner mixing on this unit. For my solo set, my keyboard player comes on. He does four or five songs on the bass, and I just use this. I programmed different ins and outs for him to do bass, and I don't even have to bring anything else. And all of us who are touring musicians know how it is on airports [with overweight] and you don't just have to have a practical rig, you have to have a practical rig that weighs less than 23 kg, so it's a practical aspect, and also for my guitars.

I was with Ibanez for many years. They were very kind to me, but Mark Holcomb of Periphery introduced me to Aristides Guitars and I've been working with them for many years. And they look kind of special. They have this almost like Ferrari style things to them and, for those of you who don't know. These are entirely composite. There's not one shred of wood in these guitars. The core is a patented thing they call "Arium" which is meant to simulate the resonance of perfect wood. And there are no dead spots on the necks. All the guitars I have, I have ten Aristides guitars now and as I said. Regular guitars, [fan-fretted] guitars like the [8-string] one, two headless guitars and even a 9-string, but I feel so at home. I've never played guitars that have this attention to details and the quality check is just insane. And because it's composite material, I've flown to Japan with these and they're still in tune when I get them out of the bag, because they don't react to humidity. They don't react to temperature. It's just like. ...I know they did experiments, of course you can destroy the hardware, but basically they've been throwing these guitars out of the fourth floor and  you just can't break them, so it's not like a Gibson SG, you know. And for me, having tools like that for all of us who have played gigs abroad, you know. Rental rigs, rental gear. You can get a [Peavy/EVH] 5150, but how old are the tubes. A rental [Sure SM57] a rental Marshall [cabinet]. You never get the same thing. But for something like this, and especially since we play to a time code and I have the computer do all my tap-dancing for me so I can really [focus]. Some people say they like the challenge the tube amp, the feedback and the energy, but I'm on [in ear monitoring] basically. And I found with technology like this, especially playing a lot of festivals, like I do. For more intimate club gigs I would often bring an amp, because then the stage sound needs to correlate with what you see. Then you need some amp-sound from the stage. You can't just hear cymbals and everything else coming from the sides, from the PA. But for festival stages I would argue that Kemper or [Line6 Helix] or Quad Cortex 99% of the time, unless you are Joe Bonamassa, have three guitar techs, and your own plexi[-glass] walls and everything and all the vintage amps with you, something like this would sound, for the audience and for yourself on in-ears, better than the rental rig with the rental mic with the rental [preamp]. So it's just consistency and piece of mind that makes me... ...from my personal experience, not having to worry about all that, I just focus all my energy into performing the stuff that I'm supposed to do, and not being worried about the tech part. - That's the technical bit, yeah.

Q3: You touched a bit on it with the chord voicings when you started writing for "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk] ". What kind of pushed you into going that direction, because when you listen to "[In the Nightside] Eclipse" and "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk] " it's different chord voicings. What sort of pushed you into going that direction, and how did you come up with all that stuff?

Ihsahn: It's just trial and error and wanting to do something different than we did before, and arguably in my head. "[In the Nightside] Eclipse" is kind of a collage of some new songs, some previously recorded songs, so it's kind of a mash-up of old and new, whereas [with] "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]", we had some more experience. We had recorded an album, and having done that it was easier to kind of imagine what the new record could be. So thing that "Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]" was written based on the experience of doing that sort of experimental "[In the Nightside] Eclipse" and I think we found our platform and then we built something proper on that platform with “Anthems [to the Welkin at Dusk]” and then you want to explore, and still without any theory knowledge, but adding the seventh [string] [demonstrates] sounded more exciting than just [demonstrates on E tuning]. And also this thing with [plays] playing small melodies and it's all. A lot of this, I can't believe how we came up with some of it. "Thus Spake the Night Spirit" [plays] I regretted writing that and having to sing at the same time. But it's more tactile. It works to play it like that. Really just experimenting, like I'm here what can I do. Then you built the riffs like that. So again, trying to push the envelope and making it sound different and more exciting.

Ihsahn: I saw someone in the back had a question?

Management: Can you take it afterwords with him, because we...

Ihsahn: Oh, we're out of time. Ok.

Audience: "no"

Ihsahn: I was so worried that I wouldn't make it [last] 1,5 hours, but yeah.

Management: We could stay here for three hours, but somebody's going to come knocking on the door.

Ihsahn: Ok. I'm sorry we didn't have time. If someone wants to have some questions afterwards or someone asked me to have something signed, I'm sure we can manage that, but I thank you so much for hearing me out and I hope, at least, everybody got some parts that were interesting in some way, I don't know. I was kind of winging it, hehe, but thank you so much for [this].