Engaging the Fomorian Horde?
Interview with Rådarna
A few weeks ago we reached out to Rådarna whose debut release The Fomorian Horde was received exceedingly well by our staff. It was chosen the Best Debut Album of 2021. Here follows an interview with the band about the rumors of butchering magical creatures surrounding the band and some relevant band history which our eager readers might also find interesting. We managed to isolate a creature known as Rikard Falk from the other bunch, so we could bring our questions to him in a clear way without being distracted by the noisy rest of the bunch. It almost feels wrong to speak about these creatures in this lovely way, but they seem to be quite pleased with this achievement.
The Horde
For readers unfamiliar with you could you introduce your band and members to our readers.
“We’re a collaboration group and live in different countries. But I’ll submit to the band term since it’s sort of like the Frankenstein monster, he was just the monster but since everyone called him Frankenstein you eventually have to give in and be like, yes that’s Frankenstein! I and Jose Miguel Matinez write the music. Alexander VanTrue, Felipe Gruber, Salpien & Hector Ruano does the recording under my supervision.”
Your first effort after formation was a very erratic tour across Metal’s favorite countries, please describe The Fomorian Horde and tell us how many trolls had to die in the process of making it.
“Let me clarify no magical creatures were ever harmed in the production of our music! Only people and animals had to suffer.”
Is there a concept or a broad theme behind The Fomorian Horde?
“The first album was jumping around various events and time periods. The main focus is human and fairy/råd relations. You know simple slice of life stuff that everyone can relate to like what do you do when a bloodthirsty goblin threatens you to sing about a tourist destination? If you think your boss is bad wait until you have a scythe at your throat as you’re working. It also has a subtle theme of environmentalism with the magical creatures of nature waging war against mankind and trying to fix the challenges of today by butchering everyone and pilling their bodies up to the sky. It sure would suck if all the trolls and goblins in the politics picked this up so we’ll apologize in advance just in case.”
The Curse
Many readers who have listened to your work will most likely recognize the Finntroll influences, considering the various other faerie monsters you bring up in your album one has to ask what other mascots you harvested parts from influenced your sound?
“There are many influences of course but I have one secret influence that every songs foundation starts with. But he’s best not mentioned, you see there’s a curse attached to it and everyone who have mentioned his influence like that have become part of this curse. I mean off the top of my head I recall spit ups, band member’s being shot and all other sort of bad things. I am not even joking! It’s top secret bad mojo stuff. My first ever musical involvement fixing lyrics with Svartby was released on August 9th a date fatefully related to this influence. It was also the day the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, so conspiracy theorists get to work!”
I don’t mean to change the tone so abruptly but your band released its debut during a very difficult time for musicians, so I have to ask what challenges did the pandemic pose to the development of this album and your band as a whole and how did you overcome them?
“I was without income for 3 months and I ate out of cans to afford to finish the album. But yeah since we aren’t touring I guess we’re in pandemic mode 24/7 all year around, social distancing and everything.”
Contribution
What was Rikard Falk’s role in the band?
“I started it all because I wanted to contribute something to the folk metal genre. I write the start of the song Jose finishes it then I produce everything and oversee the recording of all the instruments.”
Since your formation at least one member left, could you briefly explain what happened with Felipe Gruber?
“I think this is a misunderstanding, Felipe Gruber is still with us. But one member has left, that’s Hector Ruano the bassist. His reason for leaving are that his bass style was more suited for the first album with more groovy sounds, in the EP we’re currently working on as a prototype for the second album we’re going in a more harsh direction which his style didn’t suit with. We might still work with him in the future using another instrument but we’re on good terms and have recruited a new bassist to play for us up ahead.”
Do you have any plans on touring, and if so, what are the odds that your first tour will imitate the journey The Fomorian Horde takes listeners on?
“If we did touring it’d be a must to take that trip. But we don’t have the money so if someone is willing to pay us money to travel to Scotland three separate times in one tour I’m all game. The hardest destination to reach would be the fairy land as they don’t let just anyone in and I’m not sure just how much LSD each member would be willing to take to make that journey successfully. I will tell you this though if we do perform in fairy land it’ll be the bestest show in history!”
Do you have any plans for the future?
“We have an EP that’s almost done, and that EP will be a preview for our next album which we plan to make 13 tracks long, so it’s a much larger undertaking then our first release not only size wise but also in terms of experimentation.”
No Mercy
And now that we have already lured you in, and have a captive audience, why does your bandcamp page beg forgiveness of the dwarves, trolls, and other quarrelsome beasties? And will you maintain your previous position on the body count of trolls during the album’s production?
“Is this a hit piece? We just want to apologize in advance in case their feelings were hurt because we want them to understand that our music is only about having fun and that we’re not making fun of them. Do you have any idea what trolls will do to you if they are offended? I’ll go on the record and say I am 100% a troll ally. No one ever talks about making the first troll president happen, the first troll miss universe, trolls in the working place or trolls in the movies. Trolls in movies aren’t even portrayed by real trolls and they rarely have any lines! They are always portrayed as evil and stupid while in truth they just want respect and a yearly sacrifice at the yule festival. Is that really too much to ask?”
Do you have any last words to our readers before the mountain folk comes to protest your studio?
“I will urge if we could just live in harmony and make that sacrifice of blood and flesh at next yule we’d all be a lot happier. Our music is only based on myths, folk tales and legends with a slice of fun. On a different note I note how grateful I am that we made 1st place among the debut albums this year. And I wanna give a shoutout to the other contenders that they made an amazing job and would hope we all continue make more folk metal in the future as the genre desperately need more music and releases.You can listen to The Fomorian Horde on spotify and other streaming platforms, or you can support the band by purchasing their album on bandcamp directly.”
By: Jano