Interview with Narhemoth
14 November 2004

You had some lineup changes between the demos and this album, which is the reason for drummachine. Did these lineup changes alter the way you sound ? How is the lineup now?

Hails to you. At first I want to thank you for your Interest and your support for The Martyrium. So and now to your question. Yes we had some lineup changes since we started with the band. Of course this had influenced our music. Some of the guys we started with can’t even handle their instruments in that time. But since the very beginning of the band the songs were written by Vigor and me. At present time our lineup is Narhemoth (Vox), Vigor (bass, programming, Guit) and Saruman (guit). Now everyone of us can play different instruments and everyone of us are writing some songs. This makes our musik more manifold. A new drummer would be a great enrichment for us but in our area of Germany there aren’t enough good guys. There are some good drummers but they don’t have the right feeling for the Black Metal way of live. The ideology that stands behind our musik is more important to us than everything else.

I believe the title "Westfälischer Black Metal" refers to an area in the German Empire of Prussia. Is this correct? Does this history and culture appear in the lyrics and messages of the album? What is the ideology with this album, and the band?

No, Westfalen is area in the present of germany. That is the area were we live. The nature and the history of our home country is very important to us. Everyone in The Martyrium is a German Heathen and that reflects in our lyrics. We hate the modern society and this hate we put in our music.

Do you think you have a "German BM" sound? Are you influenced by your country more than other BM nations?

I think we have “German BM” sound. Most of the BM stuff that we are listening to, comes from Germany. Here are so much great true BM bands like Nachtfalke, Magog, Absurd, Odal, Waffenweihe, Nargaroth, Totenburg etc. But we are also listening to the music of the old gods like Burzum, old Gorgoroth and so on.

Sturmböen was released by your own Label, its first release. Do you plan other releases from other bands, a distro?

Yes we’re planning to release more stuff from others too. In the next spring we do an tape with The eternal Pain. Infos you can find on http://www.the-eternal-pain.de. And we will release the first CD of Heimdalls Wacht in the next year. Thats a project from Saruman and me. We’re also working in building a distro for Runenzauber Prod. News you can find on our Band Hp www.the-martyrium.net

THE MARTYRIUM - STURMBÖEN
Great debut album! Westfälischer Black Metal