The last two years have been among the busiest in Gaahl’s career. On top of running an art gallery, Galleri Fjalar, in Bergen with his partner Robin Jakobsen, he’s about to release his fifth album within that timespan, …by the word… his second with Trelldom after they returned in 2024. He’s also completed records with Whispering Void, Gaahls Wyrd, and a double album with Kati Rán, venturing into folk, art rock, and whatever form of metal interests him these days. They’re all relatively young projects, unlike Trelldom, Gaahl’s longest-running outfit that debuted in 1995 as an archetypal Norwegian black metal band. Now, they’re anything but. In spite of the obvious schism between Trelldom’s early years and their current form, Gaahl claims the two are very much connected.
You’d have to be Horatio Caine to find the lineage between …by the shadows…, Trelldom’s 2024 record, and the one preceding it, 2007’s Til minne…, based on sound alone. The latter is as cut and dry as black metal can be, simple, mid-paced, and archaic, with only occasional nods to Gaahl’s future clean vocals while …by the shadows… saw a pivot to saxophone-fronted ghastly gothic metal (and that metal is more of an insinuation of heaviness than the presence of such). It was unexpected if you didn’t follow Gaahl over the past decade as he wound his way through paths outside heavy music, including Wardruna, taking acting roles, and opening Galleri Fjalar. His ambitions and skill set grew beyond what black metal could contain.
When Trelldom re-emerged in 2024, they did so as a manifold amalgamation of Gaahl’s side quests. It must be stated that they never disbanded in between releases. In fact, Gaahl was writing and planning the entire time, revealing in a 2013 interview that he still had six albums to release under the moniker. Trelldom’s latest suite comes from Gaahl’s shifting interests and development into a team player rather than a figurehead, pulling the best performances out of his bandmates and urging them to collaborate in songwriting, to the point that he comes across like a ghost on his own records.
Phantoms do not occupy a physical space, so they impose their identities through other means. Likewise, Gaahl performs conservatively on …by the word…, hushing and singing through cluttered sculptures. He occasionally commands the band, but oftentimes he operates as a companion and adversary to Kjetil Møster, whose saxophone is as much of a lead vocalist as Gaahl. The dynamic is rare in metal, focusing less on the texture and horsepower of the music and, instead, offering a subtle shift to standard rock roles. The disorientation is part of the appeal.
Ironically, Gaahl said that …by the shadows…, whose disorientation is like a blueprint for …by the word…, is among his favorite albums that he’s recorded because it’s comfortable. “I just feel that there is this openness in its expression and it has an energy that I can’t compare with anything else,” he said. While that open expression is evident in the performance–Trelldom are undeniably slick–the finished pieces are insular. Both albums hold secrets and have no interest in providing clues. Gaahl famously does not discuss the meanings behind his music, and in this instance, that benefits ..by the word…, which sounds like an incantation to seal one’s soul into bone marrow. You are not meant to untangle …by the word… as much as you are to melt into its mysteries.
Keep reading for our full conversation with Gaahl about Trelldom’s history, his songwriting practices, and more.
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Were you still working on Trelldom’s music in the time between Til minne… (2007)and …by the shadows…?
Yes, I have planned many albums ahead. Some things need to mature and you need to find the right energies to put together. So it’s something that will continue for many albums on. That is, unless we decide to pass away.
In 2013, you said you still had six Trelldom albums to release, and you’ve released two since then. It sounds as if you already had a big idea for what you wanted the rest of the albums to sound like.
They are on the way. We are already planning in the studio for the third in this round, and then we’ll take one thing at a time. But, we are still on the schedule. The albums are strongly connected, even though people might think of them as something very different. For me, there’s a lot of logic in how they connect and style-wise, too, and that includes the previous ones. I do understand that people don’t necessarily understand the sound difference, but it’s structural.
You and Stian (Trelldom’s guitarist) have been working together as Trelldom for 30 years, right?
Stian joined after I had recorded the first album, Til evighet…, and then I reassembled the band with new members. So Stian joined in right before we started the process of recording Til et annet…. I think he joined in 95.
How does your relationship with him now compare to what it was in 1995, in terms of how you two write music together?
We were fairly free around each other. But of course, back in ‘95, I had plenty of material that I had constructed either verbally or through keyboards. And then we started to translate things and then evolve elements, both with Stian and also Valgard, who joined us around that time. Stian constructs quite a bit of the core of the music now and I try to get everyone that’s part of the band to be involved in the process of creating. So everyone is contributing, arranging their own instruments, and then you start to just structure things from this.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like that’s common for a lot of the music you do–making it a group effort. I heard you say that for Braiding the Stories, the last Gaahls Wyrd album, you based your writing around Lust Killman’s (Ole Walaunet) interests and strengths as a guitarist.
I try to. Some bands or some members don’t want to be part of the creative structure, but in Gaahls Wyrd, it’s definitely Ole and I that are responsible for the structure. In Trelldom, everyone is involved and that’s how I prefer it as well. It builds a space where everyone contributes.
Do you find it makes you feel more creative when everyone’s contributing?
Yeah, you can also get fairly annoyed, but it helps to work with different perspectives. It’s important to separate the creative process into different bands so that we don’t become too much of a recognizable energy.
By recognizable energy, do you mean doing the same thing over and over?
Yeah, because we might not see our own patterns, but it’s easier for others to see your own repetitions even though you, yourself think that you are diving into something different. I always say there’s a strong signature in what you leave behind, and that’s why I try to work with different mediums so that I don’t get stuck in my same boring old self.
There was a time when you weren’t interested in metal at all. I believe it was right before you recorded with Godseed, right?
Yeah, I took a break for almost three years. I continued with Wardruna at that point, but I worked as an actor in that period just to get away from the self.
Your new albums with Gaahls Wyrd and Trelldom are still metal, but a non-traditional, artsy take on it. Do you think that your relationship with metal and what you want to do with it has changed after you came back from acting?
I don’t think the acting in itself had anything to say about the music choice. But I’m absolutely not into metal, in general. So it’s just a strange coincidence that we have ended up there at one point. I just think of music as music. I don’t consider things to be metal even if I understand that it’s put in that category. I hope to be completely loose of the genres.
…by the shadows…and …by the word… feel loose, both with your voice and the songs themselves. Do you think that working with Kjetil Møster (Trelldom’s saxophonist) opened your mind to all these new things that Trelldom could do?
Kjetil is a most fantastic musician. When we brought him in, we originally picked out a few songs where we thought we wanted a saxophone. Then, when he first came back with one of the tracks, I immediately knew that we needed to bring him in on all the tracks. I think the original idea with him was to distract from the vocal elements, because the saxophone and vocals do have a lot of the same potential frequencies. It was more about having something to spar with. And I’ve really enjoyed distancing myself from the more extreme use of the voice because I feel that the saxophone managed to fill that space, and sometimes merge into one thing with my voice, ending up not knowing really what is what, and that’s a really interesting thing, I find.
So, in a way, it definitely loosened up my perspective. On both these albums, I’ve done half before the saxophone is added, and then waited for him to contribute on the other tracks. We do this so we can work without necessarily doing it at the same time. It is not easy to hear, but I think we have managed to find a really good balance in our collaboration.
It sounds like …by the shadows… is the prototype and …by the word… one is a refinement.
I saw a concert Kjetil performed in. I was accidentally in Oslo and his band Møster! was performing at a tiny jazz venue. Stian and I went to that show and Kenneth Kapstad, our drummer, also played in that band. Because we were in the process of …by the word…, I told Kjetil, “Think of your perspective as a lead or a soloist.”
When you’re invited into something, you might be a bit more restricted in what you contribute because you don’t want to disturb the founding idea. But I want everything to disturb, in the sense of there being no limits to the contribution. When you bring someone into a band, you want them to be their full selves. You want as much of them in the project as possible.
Has that always been your philosophy for music or did that change over time?
Usually, I’ve ended up working just with one other member in the sense of the creative foundation. Of course it’s varied a bit, but quite a lot of the albums have ended up the same way. Same with when King joined Gorgoroth, and it ended up with Tormentor and I doing the creative part. Usually, it’s always one other person and then the rest of the band follows suit. But I do prefer when we can bring the spirit of everyone in. There’s more room for involvement. Of course, it can be difficult to juggle five characters, because that’s a lot of people you have to make sure are okay.
The reason why it works so well in Trelldom is that none of us have egos. We work around each other, try to give everyone space rather than trying to assert our spot. It’s a very solvable puzzle. I feel that there is no one who has this stubbornness where they don’t understand the vision of someone else.
That formula gives the record a different feel. It lacks a lot of the dominant riffs or obvious vocal lines that you would find in other metal bands. It has its own identity.
I feel that all of these tracks have their own identities. I think of them as different rooms; the music is the room, and I walk around in this space and communicate within my own head. That was the idea for this album–I don’t communicate to anyone on the outside. I only communicate with being in this closed up space.
I’ve heard you speak about finding the character of the voice when you’re recording. How do you do that?
In many ways, you need to. It is a bit like thinking as an actor, as in, what do the different voices represent and who are they? But on this album, I’m very much just in my own stripped-down work process. It’s very easy vocals, like mumbling to one’s own thoughts and ideas and jumping from a lot of these distractions that I often struggle with, in the sense of maintaining focus. You aim in that direction for the focus that you want to have, but you can suddenly think of something else. And I’ve included all these disturbances. It’s the same as it is in a conversation. You digress, you go into a different direction, you forget what you were talking about, basically, and then you return to it at a later point. So all the songs are braided into each other without having a musical connection. But the lyrics and the chords are just distractions of the self.
Was that the same approach you did for …by the shadows…?
No, I had a different perspective and a different concept on that album.
How was it different finding the character for …by the shadows… versus …by the word…?
…by the shadows…, when I did that, I think I worked on two other albums simultaneously in the same studio. And all of the projects had tons of deadlines. So I tried to dive into this liquid of music, and it’s more logical music. Music flows from one emotion to another. Meanwhile, on …by the word…, everything is separated. And even though lyrically, I jump in and out, it’s very fragmented. Also, it does not have a linear storyline and that’s by design, while …by the shadows… has a storyline as an album in itself.
What’s the process for finding the character? Was it different when you were working with Godseed or Gorgoroth?
There were a lot of frustrations then, so it was easier to find. But, there were a lot of disturbances in that process because we were touring quite a lot and I can’t stand being interrupted during recording sessions because when you tour, you need to reset your whole structure. When you go into a studio after you’ve been on tour, the energies are so different, so you’re constantly interrupted. That recording process added to the frustration of the old albums.
Also. I’m very private, so when you’re on the road for two months and you live with people and other people’s energy constantly around you, it’s a lot. A lot of frustration for the rest of the band members as well, having to wait for me to get ready to do the studio process. Probably also for the labels that are trying to find a schedule to release the albums, and I’ve just hidden myself away. I’m better at it now, but I still feel that the people I work around now are more at ease with it. They don’t have the same impatience as my previous colleagues.
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…by the word… releases May 29 via Prophecy Productions.
