“I Skovens Rige” translates to “In the Realm of the Forest.” What themes and stories inspired this album, and how does nature influence your songwriting?

The theme is the forest. Every single track on the album has a reference of some sort to the forest. Either the story takes place there, a party there, an escaping troll seeks refuge there, springtime vibes from there, and so on. Nature is more of an imagined feeling when writing the music. We use the nature in the songwriting with audio of flowing water, wind in the trees and birds chirping  – all of it to set the stage for the listener. To lead them into the forest so to speak.

Your music blends folk, metal, and a playful, mythical atmosphere. How do you balance these elements to create your signature sound. Do you have a balanced composition method or is it all more dynamic and unpredictable?

Being a 5-year old band, we sort of have developed a signature sound I would say. But it’s not a full static thing, it evolves with us. We use a lot of different instruments, but some compliments each other better than others, so it’s a taste thing really, and it’s also a matter of the theme of the songs. Composition wise it’s balanced in a way that the folk stuff compliments the guitar, most oftently. And sometimes the folk instruments leads and sometimes the guitar leads. It all depends on the atmosphere we’re creating. Dynamics are very highly prioritized. The energy in the music is very important to us.

Your lyrics often draw from folklore and fantasy. Are there any specific Danish legends or fairy tales that shaped the songs on this album?

Yeah it’s all fairytales really. And some of it uprises from our personal lives, and is then written into a fairytale of some sort. This way the listeners can often relate to the stories, and who doesn’t like a good story? Specific legends has not been brought up, yet at least. But we’re definitely inspired by the works of H.C. Andersen and the brothers Grimm.

Compared to your previous work, how does “I Skovens Rige” evolve musically and thematically, in your views? Did you explore any new sounds or influences this time?

We definitely turned up the knob on this one. Musically its now in a place where we feel good about it, are proud of it and wants to play all of it live. We’re also a new team of trolls since last time. Besides having a greater set of skills now, we’re much more in balance with each other and it’s a lot of fun to be in TROLD, which is very important for us. Our energy affects the music we play.

Thematically we decided this time to revolve everything around the forest as mentioned previously. Last time we didn’t have a recurring theme, it was more straight from the hip without any main thought to it.

We always explore sounds for the music, and we used both new instruments as well as instruments we used on the last record. For example we borrowed my son’s wooden frog (a percussion toy) for the track ’Tudseleg’, all fun and games on that one.

Influences and inspiration is a vast subject. We get inspired from all sorts of things. Everything from jamming the guitar, watching a cartoon with the kids, partying in the night, good times, bad times…. ‘From life’ would be the short answer.

Folk metal thrives on energy, both in the studio and on stage. How do you translate the spirit of your recordings into your live performances?

We do a lot of interaction with the crowd to get the party going. We dress up, we set the stage with our artwork, and we play our hearts out. It’s the only way for us. Giving it everything we have. We are enjoying it, and it’s very contagious to the crowd. If we are having fun, they are having fun.

If you could take listeners on a journey through “I Skovens Rige”, what kind of adventure would they experience?

It starts off with an intriguing speak made by danish actor Lars Thiesgaard (voice dubber for Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks etc) and the first fairytale is about a troll that kidnaps a boy in a marketplace, and then the hunt for the troll starts, but he escapes to the forest. From there to the tale of a wizard, a merciful executioner, an epic party, a sad farewell and much much more…