SKARDUS hail from Schleswig-Holstein and play heavy black death with catchy, angular riffs and an organic but very clear production. Where, you say? You’ve heard of ‘Holsten Pils’…but? What? Schleswig-Holstein is in the far north of Germany – it’s an important place for the Anglosphere, because in the fifth to seventh centuries a huge bunch of bastards from there decided they’d prefer to live in England, to farm pigs, cause trouble, give us crucial everyday English words ( like ‘ale’ ) and their reward….to become peasants for a millenia under an even bigger bastard, William of Normandy. The smart ones, then, perhaps stayed behind, and spent the next centuries trying as hard as possible to hide from all the Germans in the south with their lederhosen and yodelling, so they could just be left alone to play northern black metal with their Baltic allies. We talk to M.B, J.S and Herr Jürgensen about the band’s first CD release Stormriek, influences, obscure Germanic dialects, and moving away from the world of the underground cassette to a record deal.
Who plays in Skardus, and why do you do it?
MB: Greetings! Skardus consists of JS on drums, Herr Jürgensen on bass and lead vocals as well as me on guitars and additional vocals. Why does Skardus exist? Well, initially we decided to form Skardus as an interim band while Eldborg, the band JS, our former guitarist and singer Herr Sjögren and I were playing in was on hiatus. It then turned out that Eldborg would cease to exist and so Skardus became our main focus. We are friends who share their passion for music and decided to create songs together, that’s basically it.
Latest release Stormriek is a solid piece of work. It has a very natural production – almost like you just walked into a studio, recorded yourself playing, and then left an hour later to go and get drunk! But we all know, being in a band is never that simple. So, what was it like writing and recording Stormriek?
MB: Thanks, we appreciate that! We were going for a rather natural sound as we thought it fitting for the songs and their lyrical content. Plus, we as listeners do not enjoy over-produced and sterile productions. Even though half of the songs were written during the pandemic with its restrictions concerning how many people are allowed to meet at the same time, we stilll managed to create the final versions of the songs together in the rehearsal room. The vocals on the other hand were a very spontaneous thing, we had never rehearsed them before Herr Jürgensen recorded them. We had talked about where to put them and where to put in extra voices etc. but the actual recordings you hear on the album were done in a couple of hours with the help of a dark rehearsal room and one or two bottles of red wine.
Herr Jürgensen: After hearing the first songs mixed by Markus Skroch I was absolutely impressed and touched by the result of the whole sound feeling. I never would have expected the album and sound to turn out like this.
Are some of the lyrics written in old German or some old Frisian language? Is this something to do with the old stories you have used for inspiration? For example – what is Liekentog?
MB: We have one song written in the Frisian language of the island of Föhr (an island in the North Sea off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein) from where Herr Jürgensen’s family originates. And there are two songs written in Low German. Low German, like High German, is a language of its own and was spoken in the northern half of Germany from the Middle Ages onwards. Nowadays it is not spoken that much anymore. During the 20th century people began to consider Low German as a language of the farmers and country folk an not as elaborated or cultured as High German (which is not true, if you ask me). Thus many parents did not pass on the language to their children anymore. Yet, luckily, there are more and more people interested in the language again.
To come back to your question: we used local legends and myths as an inspiration for our lyrics, that’s why it felt natural to use the languages they had originally been written in. ‘Liekentog’ is the Low German word for ‘funeral procession’. The song tells the story of a man who is a ‘spökenkieker’ a person who sees death and disaster before it happens. In one story, the ‘spökenkieker’ always sees a funeral procession waiting in front of the houses where people are about to die. Soon after, someone in that household passes away.
In some ways, Stormriek sounds like Swedish death / black metal to me. It’s a very refreshing style to hear these days. I can almost taste the (not too salty) Baltic Sea….but maybe I’m mistaken. What bands / genres / countries are you associating with? Who would you like to go on tour with, if they asked?
MB: Herr Jürgensen and JS do enjoy some old school Swedish death metal whereas I have never really found my way into it. What has changed over the last couple of years is that the new songs have become much more riff-based and more structured like traditional metal songs, so to speak. I guess that’s something that can also be found in some Swedish black metal bands. This has happened naturally, though, and wasn’t anything we planned. And, that you can almost taste the sea – well, that is indeed a compliment!
The bands and genres we listen to are quite varied – the common denominator is early 90s Black Metal from Norway (Ulver, Emperor, Enslaved, Gorgoroth, Burzum, Mayhem etc.). Who to play with if asked…. well, you know how they say you should never meet your heroes?! One concert I’m looking forward to is when we are going to open for The Ruins of Beverast in our home town in June this year.
JS: The musical taste of some members has shifted towards traditional Heavy Metal and Thrash Metal over the last years. I guess, this change of personal taste found its way into our new songs. From a drummer’s perspective you can hear more varied drum patterns than only the typical blast beat. I reckon this creates an “old school“ or Swedish feeling since many of the great old bands grew up on traditional Heavy Metal. For example, think of “Storm of the light’s bane“ by Dissection which is full of classical Metal riffs and drum patterns.
Herr Jürgensen: As MB said, I am not really dreaming of a special tour package. There are so many old and new impressive artists, and I am just looking forward to whatever music and artists come on our way. But playing with Skyforger would be a true “Baltic“ thing ;-).
Until now, you have existed as a demo band, releasing cassettes only, right? What made you decide to push SKARDUS in a more professional direction, with a CD release and record deal with Einheit Produktionen?
MB: Well, we, all cherish the cassette as a medium for black metal. And it felt natural to release our songs on tape, especially since we did the whole recording and releasing business in a DIY manner. With the new songs, however, there has come a change in the music in the way that the new songs are more riff-based and rely less on atmosphere. Hence we thought a more professional production on cd (yet still not entirely clean and too smooth) would work better. We then send the final mix in a DIY-version of the layout to some labels and SCHATTENPFADE were the first to respond and teamed up with EINHEIT to release the album.
So, what now for Skardus? Are you going to do some gigs?
MB: Yes, six or seven gigs have already been booked for this year, let’s wait and see if there are more coming. We’ve started work on one new song and we’ve already thought about the concept of the next release. But it’s too early to spill any more details.
Thanks for the interview & the support! Cheers!
Old Man's Mettle 