Blodiga Skald Interview

Hi, it is nice to meet you. I am here with Blodiga Skald, an Italian Ork-Folk Metal band out of Rome with a Swedish name, lyrics in English and Russian language. A real nice combination. Can you please introduce yourself to our readers.
“Hi Juergen, nice to meet you! The band was founded 4 years ago, the Swedish name sounded cool to us and that’s why we choose it! About the lyrics, our singer (Axuruk) speaks Russian fluently, so it was easy for us to associate the Russian language to the orcish! The orcish concept and musical style, that is closer to death metal with orchestral and folk elements (thanks to the violin of Yindi and the keyboards of Tuyla), came out after the first rehearsals and, after one year, we left our first album “Ruhn”. We have been very satisfied with the result and we toured half of Europe to promote it. We have then spent the next two years between gigs and writing “The Undrunken Curse”, a very different album, but a 100% Blodiga one!”

Challenges

Congratulations to your new album “The Undrunken Curse”, which had been released in April 2020 via Soundage Productions. How was your album received so far by your fan base?
“Since it is a very different product than Ruhn, we expected some fans to be enthusiast about it and some other to be disappointed, but luckily for now the enthusiastic ones surpass the disappointed one by a long shot!”
In my opinion you made a huge development since your first album “Ruhn” in all aspects. Can you please tell us a little bit more about the concept and the history of the production of this new release?
“Compared to Ruhn, on The Undrunken Curse there has been an extreme attention to details. The concept on the album is a circular one, where the ending links to the beginning. To make this clear we had, other than explain it on the lyrics, to use an intro and an outro on the first and last track to give the listener a circular sensation. I’m not going to spoiler anything else about this. On the musical level, the work on the orchestral arrangements lasted 8 months, so you might understand how much attention we put into it.”

We are facing all right now big challenges because of the CoVid-19 crises. Especially Italy had been hit quite hard. As you are based in Rome, did you face any difficulties, when working on this album ? An additional question would be, is there any reason why you released this new album right now ? A lot of bands are currently postponing their releases, either due problems on the production side or due strategical issues. Did you want to set a sign in releasing during this pandemic crises?
“In this very moment only 4/6 of Blodiga are here in Rome. Axuruk lives in Aalborg, Denmark and Rukreb is currently in Stockholm, Sweden. Luckily the recordings and arrangements were over right before the beginning of the pandemic, so we had a finished product that we could not release physically. We had a European tour in September that has been canceled, a finished product and a lack of money, so we decided to release the album, both for us to relieve our expenses and for our quarantined fans all over the world. We hope to have gifted them 50 minutes of relief!”
For me it looks like that you put much more efforts on the symphonic, nearly orchestral accompaniment on “The Undrunken Curse”. Especially those parts and of course the folk metal elements with the accordion and the violin gives Blodiga Skald this very unique sound. Can you give us a little bit more insight into the song writing process of your band?
“The basic writing is always done by Ghash, our guitarists, who then gets helped by Yindi and Tuyla, but everyone in the band put something of their own in the writing. When it comes to the orchestrations, we have been helped by David Logan, an award winning composer who worked for Disney, Sony Computer Entertainment, Ubisoft and many more. We managed to create a fantastic musical connection with David resulting in those arrangements, we are very happy about it!”

Friends

Who is responsible for the lyrics. Basically you are writing your lyrics in English and Russian. How come ? Is there any deeper reason behind ? How did you choose which parts should be in English or in Russian?
“Axuruk writes all of the lyrics. We decided to use Russian when the orcs are talking (as if it was their native language) because Russian sounds good when you pair it together with orcs! We use English for all the other parts of the lyrics.”
On the track “Yo-Oh the Sail is low” you have a guest feature with the Celtic Folk Metal legends of Cruachan. What is the story behind the feature?
“We played with them in Bucharest. They were extremely kind, but we thought that they would have forgotten about us, you know as being one of the many bands that opened for them… Instead we met them again at the Malpaga Festival about two years ago, they remembered us and basically became friends! From there to ask for a featuring it was easy!”

As bonus track you decide to release the Techno song “TechnoBlodiga”, did you arrange a balcony concert with this song 🙂 Honestly what is behind this idea in adding a total different genre as a bonus?
“The idea to make a track that would include all the riffs of the album has been in our heads for a while. We wanted to do it with the piano and the violin but it would have come out too similar to the rest of the record, so after an UNdrunken evening we decided to make it as an electronic track!”

Promotion

Normally a new release is followed by either a local or international Tour in order to promote the new album live in front of the audience. Currently due the CoVid-19 situation all European countries are setting their own laws in respect of events. In the most of the countries it is currently not allowed to have indoor or outdoor performances and it seems that we have a long way in front of us. Do you already plan anything in 2021 in order to promote your new album live?
“We are waiting to understand when everything is going to start again. To organise a tour for February right now doesn’t make sense because of the uncertain future of the pandemic. We are just going to wait and see.”

Any shout outs to the Folk-Metal community?
“We would like to thank our fans for supporting us even in these hard times, we will see you on the stage soon!”

Thanks a lot for the interview! Keeping the fingers crossed that in Italy the CoVid situation is getting under control quickly. Keep orkish, Keep safe!
“Thanks to you! I hope we will meet in person someday!”

By: Juergen