Screams Of Abel: Interview with "Grave Declaration"

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Screams Of Abel Issue#34 Index

Hey, if you liked the Grave Declaration interview in this issue of Screams Of Abel Issue #34 please leave me feedback and let me know!

Grave Declaration

From the infamous sounds of Soniferous comes the work of Thor Georg Buer as he now progresses to some of the most beautiful symphonic black metal that I've heard since Vaakevandring. Behold the works of GRAVE DECLARATION!

http://www.myspace.com/gravedeclaration

SOA: Grave Declaration. Soniferous. Do you have time to eat?

Thor: Of course, gotta eat to work. Actually it's been a while since I was so sucked into music production that I forgot to eat. Grave Declaration is releasing it's debut EP any day now, and since it's kind of a one man band at the moment, there's not that much happening. It would be great to do a release concert, but I need some more band members to do so. I'm playing around with some new material, but these days are sadly more occupied with work than music. As for Soniferous, there's nothing happening at the moment. We want to record something some day, but right now, we live pretty far away from each other, and it's near impossible to get together to rehearse and write songs.

SOA: What goes through your mind when you come up with the creativity that makes Grave Declaration?

Thor: When I wrote the material for "The Nightshift Worshiper", I discovered that sticking close to God was of major importance for my creativity. I would perhaps get inspired by some bands, but it wasn't until I would spend time with God that my ideas and the creative flow was released. Some times I would try to force something out on my own, but most of the time I was stuck until I came under the presence of God.

SOA: Do you believe pure worship adds to music? If so, what do you think it adds?

Thor: Man, this is a hard one.. I think I'm gonna have to say no. I don't think worship adds anything to the music. (I'm skipping the pure part, 'cos otherwise I'm gonna have to try to define what pure worship is.) I think the music is the same
whether you use it to worship or not. A song doesn't get better or worse if you use it to worship. However, your experience of the music might be different in these two situations. In songs that include lyrics, it's kind of a given whether the song is a worship song or not, so to demonstrate my point, I'll have to look at instrumentals. Let's take a piece of classical music as an example. When you hear it, you probably just think of it as any song. If someone told you the composer wrote this piece of music as a worship instrumental, it wouldn't change the musical quality of the song. However, you might enjoy the song more because your focus is now turned towards God, and you feel like you're closer to him because you're listening to a "worship song". So like I said, I think worship adds something to the experience of hearing the music, but not to the music itself. Or, wait a second. Actually, I kinda wanna say that I think worship adds a distraction to the music. I find it kind of funny how we use music is a tool to worship God, but in church we're not supposed to care about the quality of the music, 'cos we're supposed to focus on God. I heard a preacher say something like this once: "You don't like the music? Well good, 'cos we're not singing it to you!" He does make a good point, as we don't go to church to see the band, but I'm still stirred inside by his comment. I've been one of those who can hardly live without music for many years, and I struggled with typical worship music for a long time, 'cos the distraction worked the other way around for me. When I was supposed to focus on God, I was distracted by the music. I thought it was horrible, at points unbearable, and I remember there were times when I would walk out on a service and come back when the worship was over. I've slowly been able to turn the distraction around again to the point where I can focus on God most of the time, and I'm still working on it.

But, let's go back to the picture of using music as a tool to worship for a second. I think there are some tools I enjoy working with more, in the same way that there are music genres I enjoy more than others. If I sharpen my tools, and use the ones I handle the best, I believe I get the best result. As for me, worshiping God using metal music is what works best. The fact that I'm in worship, doesn't add anything to the music, but using the music I'm the most comfortable with keeps the distractions to a minimum. (For those who didn't know, the idea of making worship within the metal genre was the birth of Grave Declaration.)

[Wow, I can't possibly add anything to that, he does raise up some very interesting points about music and worship that I think should be addressed,, --ed,]

SOA: Is Scandinavia still the center of metal creativity, or do you think we should be looking elsewhere?

Thor: I don't know. I can't deny that most of my personal favorites are from Scandinavia. It's not up to me where you look for metal, but I don't think you can ever completely ignore Scandinavia.

SOA: Future plans?

Thor: God willing, I wanna get a band together, make an album or 10 after the debut EP is out, go touring some day. Maybe some of these are more dreams than actual plans, but I guess that's where it all starts..

SOA: Anything else you'd like to add?

Thor: A big thanks to everyone who supported me so far, and to everyone who gave me encouraging feedback and comments. Hopefully I'll see you in a concert some day.

Screams Of Abel Issue#34 Index