Pic courtesy of: Förnost "You write music in order to satisfied personal needs, never to satisfy market needs or audiences; if in this process the band manages to get some recognition then great, it is welcome. The band exists because we want to express our hatred for Christianity and to eradicate the Christian trash."

CR: Hey man first of all, thank you for the time; why don’t we begin by you introducing yourself?
Lord Demogorgon: Greetings! And thanks for the interest in the band.
Well Lord Demogorgon here, singer and founder member of Förnost.

CR: Basic question, the name Förnost is from the Lord of The Rings right? Since the release of the movies the name of J.R.R. Tolkien has risen one more time, and many metal bands, have started including names, characters even dressing as some characters do in the books and movies; how much inspiration did you take from the works of Tolkien, and how do you see his work reflected in black metal music?
Lord Demogorgon: Yes you are right the name Förnost comes from Tolkien’s work “Silmarillion” and it means Northern Fortress. We just added the Umlaut on the O because I found out that there was a German band with the name Fornost.
To Förnost and myself more than anything, since I write the letters, the inspiration from Tolkien is just designated to the name of the band and a song called “Fornost Erain”.
I don’t pretend to write more songs about his literature, but I wanted to have a song about the name of the band so it was impossible to do so without talking about what it means. Of course I a fan of his work, but I don’t see how a black metal band can only write about that topic. Förnost’s BM is crude, misanthropic, antichristian and nihilistic, topics that are very hard to find in Tolkien’s work.

CR: Förnost is a relatively young band in our scene, a little over a year if I’m not mistaken; what were some of the other projects that you and the other members of the band have been involved or is it Förnost you first project and the only one right now?
Lord Demogorgon: One year you are right. I was involved before Förnost in a death metal project that never really managed to surface; and right now besides Förnost I’m involved in a thrash metal cover band Braindeath and I play bass in Cold Grim.
Beleth our guitar player was part of what is now known as Belial Horde, when that band had a different name and style. He also plays in Mortigor, helped Corpus Necromanthum in the bass department and he has been in a couple of other “garage” projects. Well that’s speaking of the more active members, in the other hand we have Azhazel our live bass player, he is part of Mortigor.
Right now, and at least to me Förnost is my biggest priority.

CR: Why does Förnost exists?
Lord Demogorgon: Förnost was created for Förnost, and it will always be dedicated only to Förnost. You write music in order to satisfied personal needs, never to satisfy market needs or audiences; if in this process the band manages to get some recognition then great, it is welcome. The band exists because we want to express our hatred for Christianity and to eradicate the Christian trash.
The end… or goal is not to sell records, have fans or any of that bullshit. The idea is that our message reaches the people that want to hear it.

CR: In a scale from 1 to 10… just how satanic is Förnost (this is a question to make the guys from La Extra proud of our work jajajaja)
Lord Demogorgon: JAJAJAJA, and who are you supposed to be now… Ariel Chavez!!! JAJAJAJA
I think the word satanic is very abstract, at least for me. If been satanic to you means, praise Satan, said things like “fuck you Christ!” and just spread blasphemy because we play black metal, then Förnost is NOT a satanic band.
It is pretty obvious that we are an anti-Christian band, and we hate deities, but that was way before we started the band, so in that sense we are 666% satanic then!!! Jajajaja
To me there are no real demons, other that your own; those are the demons in our songs, that is the Satan that we invoke and worship

CR: What do you think is the single most important difference between Förnost and the rest of the Costarrican BM bands that we have right now?
Lord Demogorgon: I personally admire some of our BM bands, like Alastor S.E. and Mortigor just as an example. But I admire even more bands like Morbid Funeral and Paganus Doctrina; bands that never really depended on the “approval” of the local scene to continue working. Bands that want to reach further than just playing in local gigs and be recognized by some “posers” and “trendies” (I don’t mean that Alastor or Mortigor didn’t work as hard). There are local bands in this country that are recognized by an international underground scene but not recognize in this country.
Förnost will play live once in a while, where ever that could be, and on free or charged events, it doesn’t really matter, but we’ll play as long as the band feels comfortable doing so; and never looking for the approval of the local scene, since to me our scene is very poor or non existent to be honest. I think that is one of the things that differentiate us; another one could be our style of BM; if we compare it with other well know local bands, you’ll probably notice that our sound is crude and simple, more direct and with no compromises!

CR: Is it easy for a band in San José to find a place to rehearse? How often do you guys do it?
Lord Demogorgon: Not at all, it is extremely hard to find a decent place with good sound. We are almost ready to start rehearsing seriously again, since we have been on a sort of pause.

CR: Let’s talk about the EP “Every Green Turns Grey and Cold”, what was the goal with this release, what kind of sound, atmospheres did you guys wanted to imprint in this your debut?
Lord Demogorgon: Like I said earlier, Förnost works only for Förnost; this EP only satisfied our taste. We just wanted to show all the feelings that we are putting into this project; to established what the band was all about and have something to show some international labels, which is what we are more interested in, when we talk about distribution of the material or a contract of course.

CR: How long did it took you guys to record it?
Lord Demogorgon: We record it at André Gutiérrez’s studio in Santa Ana; and it took us approximately, 8 hours for the guitars, 2 hours on the bass and about 8 hours also on the drums; 6 to 7 hours for the vocal work.

	Pic courtesy of: Förnost "I personally admire some of our BM bands, like Alastor S.E. and Mortigor just as an example. But I admire even more bands like Morbid Funeral and Paganus Doctrina; bands that never really depended on the “approval” of the local scene to continue working. Bands that want to reach further than just playing in local gigs and be recognized by some “posers” and “trendies””

CR: Without a doubt you EP manages to reflect perfectly the influences of the Norwegian BM scene from the early 90’s; just how important is or was for Förnost the influence of such a scene?
Lord Demogorgon: The Norwegian BM influence is impossible to deny; with out a doubt it is part of Förnost’s influences, but not the only one. We are not older than 20 years, so that pretty much means that when the Norwegian scene exploded we were just little kids.

CR: There is an obvious guitar line that resembles old school bands like Hellhammer and perhaps Celtic Frost… you know with a little thrash metal “vibe” on every turn in the song “Tale of Bastards”, what can you tell us about this song?
Lord Demogorgon: Well, what more do you want with an influences such as Hellhammer and Celtic Frost… of course both are huge influences for Förnost, and regarding your comment about the thrash metal lines, well it is an old school inspired track, aggressive, but never dependent on the blast beat at every moment. A band like Hellhammer I consider one of many of the roots that helped BM emerged, that is probably why you can hear some similar lines, but I don’t think we have particular segments in which we sound just as they did.
Tale of Bastards was the first song we compose for Förnost and to us, it is now an anthem of the band.

CR: Most if not all the songs on “Every Green Turns Grey and Cold” follow the same line of crude black metal, but there is a song that stands out from the rest “Fornost Erain”, it stands out because of the melodies, and the rhythms, and the almost doom influences on it; how many “influences” would you say conform the overall sound of Förnost?
Lord Demogorgon: Honestly, like I always say, Förnost plays Black metal, but never boxed in one subgenre… there are some people that say “if is not crude and loud is not black metal”… a comment I find really stupid. In Förnost you’ll find a lot of influences and sounds, from thrasy guitar lines to slow tempo songs just like the ones you can hear on “Fornost Erain”.
To us there are no boundaries when it comes to BM, of course you’ll never hear in our songs a lot of keyboards or female choruses; but you might find very catchy guitars and skull crushing riffs.

CR: How many copies of the album did you guys put out?
Lord Demogorgon: 100 copies. It was all paid for from my own pocket.

CR: Just how difficult is it in this country to distribute the material?
Lord Demogorgon: In the distribution it self is not that difficult really; shops like Legacy and Nightfall helped a lot by just receiving the material, Psicosis also helped us.
But that is just when talking about San José, I couldn’t really comment about the rest of the country.

CR: I was reading in your Myspace the following “FÖRNOST’s music is considered a vomit on the faces of those who think that black metal is a trend, and think that the sound needs to be clean in order to be “popular”, at the same time it shits on those who think that a shitty sound makes their band a “true” band” how can you define this concept, when so many BM bands apparently thing that a bad sound leads to a better more “honest” BM? Any example of this?
Lord Demogorgon: One thing is maintaining a crude, old school sound in your recordings and another is to record without any preparation or care.
BM by nature is crude, raw and dark, it doesn’t have to sound extremely clean. But that doesn’t mean you are not going to invest on the recordings; to accomplish that crude and dark sound you have to work as well.
A bad recording doesn’t delivers a good sound is just that a bad recording.
Let me give you an example, the latest album from Black Funeral, sounds crude and old, but it was recorded in 2007. Of course a band like that haves a lot of resources that made that sound possible, I mean they can sound as clear as an orchestra if they choose to, but that is not the essence of BM, like to sound like shit is not in the BM essence as well.
Regarding examples, I rather keep those comments for myself.

CR: Just how important is it for you the nicknames, artistic names, alter egos, or however you like to call them within Förnost? What does your “nickname” means?
Lord Demogorgon: Demogorgon is a demon mention on Greek and Christian mythology, is a god or pagan demon.
Regarding your first question, there is no real importance to those names. It doesn’t bring more than character and atmosphere to the band, very common in BM. In my case the name has a direction connection with the concept of the band and my personal beliefs; it embraces that antichristian ideology that I have, but no the “nickname” is not crucial for Förnost.
We can also see names like that on death and thrash metal bands it is not entirely exclusive to BM, but it is very common I have to admit.

CR: There is an almost “automatic” relationship that I made when it comes to BM, some musicians are always, just some, are always trying very hard to present themselves as… for the lack of a better Word “assholes” you know to put up this evil, isolationist, rude façade in order to look or sound more “true”; do you think this sort of attitude is necessary for a BM band to present their music more accurately?
Lord Demogorgon: Is not just unnecessary but ridiculous, let me give you an example… I work on a regular company, with regular people (to put it somehow), I live with my mother, I have a dress code at work, I use the bus like everybody else, I take a shit like everybody else, I fuck and do a lot of other things like other people. If I had that attitude, of “satanic”, negative, or like you said an asshole, I will probably be out of a job and a place to live.
I don’t think is necessary to hear by boots, spikes and to have a “mean face” or any of those dumb ass things in order to play on a “true BM band”, out there in the street, people don’t know that I play in a BM band and I want to keep it that way. BM is more than and a satanic anti-social attitude.
All the people that I consider true followers of metal, are people with families, work, people that doesn’t have the time to be pretending to be “bad” in some park.

		Pic courtesy of: Förnost "BM by nature is crude, raw and dark, it doesn’t have to sound extremely clean. But that doesn’t mean you are not going to invest on the recordings; to accomplish that crude and dark sound you have to work as well. "

CR: There are for some reason words that are sort of a cliché within BM bands and labels, words like: hordes, hail, opus, blasphemous; at the same time we have a certain line of imagery that prevails from band to band; how can we conclude that there are no BM bands that only do this as a trend when so many aspects of the music are used and reused by so many bands within the genre?
Lord Demogorgon: Well in regards to your question, no we cant.
There is always going to be some idiot that starts a BM band just because he saw how cool Abbath looked in some pictures. Or because they loved a band so much that they will copy it without any conscious perception of the copycats that they are.
There is always going to be a certain “lingo” associated with BM, just as there will always be someone that doesn’t really care about been “original” or honest with himself and the band.

CR: Do you think we have a Costarrican BM identity or we just copy Norwegian and Swedish “looks” and sounds?
Lord Demogorgon: Sadly there is a problem, and you made it clear with the question… many think that the only “schools” of BM are either Norway or Sweden… when there are actually cult bands and scenes in Brazil, Finland, Canada, just to mention a few.
With respect to a Costarrican identity, no I don’t think there is, but that is not a reason to be a conformist and not look for a more “personal” sound; it is true that we have to let something else influence us, but just that… influences!

CR: Do you think that perhaps we, in Latin America can start writing a bit more about our folklore, like the Europeans do with paganism, and their ancient gods in order to create a more “authentic” sound and philosophy for our BM, or this genre works better just with European folk?
Lord Demogorgon: Off course is possible, just listen to bands like Mythological Cold Towers from Brazil, or Ars Oculta from Mexico; as a matter of fact I have been always very interested in our ancient culture, like the Mayas, they have always capture my attention.
Is all about understanding and getting deeper into those cultures.

CR: What has been in your opinion the Costarrican band that has influenced the scene the most?
Lord Demogorgon: Well, in my case I will have to say Paganus Doctrina and Morbid Funeral, but that is just in my case.
And talking about which band do I believe has impacted or influenced our entire scene I will have to say Alastor S.E. since it’s one of the bands in this country that has always been very well welcomed by the fans.

CR: What elements do you believe should never be included in BM, what rhythms, or beliefs do you think can destroy what BM means?
Lord Demogorgon: In regards to beliefs… Christianity NEVER!!! Is sort of an antithesis to what BM is; BM was borne as an anti-Christian idea, blasphemy in its purest essence.
And about elements, I don’t think there are boundaries, as long as you don’t abuse a certain element. The abuse of keyboards have degenerated BM in some cases, also the exaggerated use of female vocals.
Instead of a blend you can always do some sort of small contribution of elements. I really enjoy Andean sounds or any other folk inspired sound applied to BM, but of course there are bands that know how to do it.

CR: All right man thank you for your time, when can we expect a live shows from you guys?
Lord Demogorgon: It will take some time, but it will happen, thank you for the space.