Interview: Yusaf Parvez "Vicotnik" (DODHEIМSGARD)

Hello Yusaf, thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview with me.

No problem.

First, I have to apologize, as I’m feeling a little under the weather today. It’s flu season here in Bulgaria, so I’m staying at home for a couple of days with an awful cough and fever. I might have to mute myself at some point.

Okay, that’s fine. I feel a bit shit as well.

Well, you look good. Thank you very much again for joining anyway. Where am I catching you at the moment?

Thank you. Yeah. I’m at my apartment, just sitting at home with my cat. My daughter has gone to her friend’s house and is staying there, and my girlfriend has gone into the mountains. So I’m home alone.

So, Dødheimsgard are coming to Bulgaria for the first time. It was about time, since you guys have always skipped us and played in the countries around us. You have been to Greece many times, and as you said, you feel at home there, but you have always skipped Bulgaria. What does it take for a musician to feel at home somewhere far away?

He-he, I guess there are many factors. When it comes to Greece, it’s one of our strongest fan bases, so that helps a lot, you know. And another thing is that, for me personally, there is probably a stronger alignment between the general Greek person and my Indian heritage. So I always feel that, in some sense, when I’m in Greece, I’m closer to that Indian side of my heritage. I feel they are more similar to my Indian side than to my Norwegian side.

I can feel what you’re saying because I’m half Greek. But you’re half Indian. How do you think this affected you as a teenager? Because let’s face it, when you were a teenager in Oslo, it was already hard for you being a black metal fan in the ’90s. And then, being half Indian in the North — how did that affect you growing up?

Obviously, it wasn’t ideal when it comes to being a black metal guy in the early ’90s here in Norway, because it was very ethnocentric, and being Indian had no part in that. But I don’t think you’re that self-conscious about how things affect you when you’re 15 or 16 years old. You’re just experiencing things, you know. I started this when I was 13, with my first kind of death metal bands, and then slowly moved into black metal.

But, you know, where there is a will, there is a way. So I didn’t really care about all the trepidation and all the struggle in my personal case, because I felt like doing black metal was kind of a struggle in the first place. It wasn’t about seeking consent, right? So it didn’t matter to me if that non-consent was societal, or if it came from my own milieu or genre. It didn’t really matter to me.

But of course, as you get older, you also see that your background, where you’re from, how your upbringing was, and all of that does affect you in some way or another. And it does come out also in your music and in your art.

I see. Do you feel your time in India left any mark on your artistic sensibility, even if not in an obvious musical sense?

I think… I think it’s just naturally there, because you are a sum of your experiences, right? There is a cause and effect to everything, and my upbringing is part of those causes. And what I’ve done artistically is the effect, you know. So it does sit in there, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I don’t set out to make Indian music. I never think about that. But I think maybe this combination of my background isn’t that common here, at least not in the early days of the Norwegian black metal scene. I sort of imagine that this is one of the reasons why Dødheimsgard is slightly different from other bands.

So let me take you back again to your first time in Sofia. Beyond the show itself, are you the kind of person who likes to experience something from the local culture when traveling?

Yeah, absolutely, if we have the time, we do that. Some places where we play are in the middle of nowhere, and then there’s nothing except the festival and the hotel. But if we are in close proximity to something that would be worth taking a field trip to, we do it.

But we always need time. Sometimes time is short, and you don’t always have a say. There’s a monetary aspect to this. People want to fly you in and out at the cheapest possible times, and put you in hotels that are affordable, and maybe those are kind of far away from things.

But I do know that Bulgaria and Sofia have a lot of churches, and there is a cathedral as well. I think it’s the 15th biggest city in the EU, so it’s not the biggest, but it’s also certainly not one of the smallest cities in the European Union, or in Europe.

We have a lot of history combined here — Thracian, Byzantine, Roman, Ottoman as well. So there is pretty much a lot here, if you have the time. It would be great to do some sightseeing, and more or less the venue is in the center of the city, so there should be plenty of time to walk around. And I really hope you have the time for it. For many Bulgarian fans, this may be their first chance to experience Dødheimsgard live. What would you like them to feel when they leave the show?

I always like to try to render a personal experience to people at our shows. I kind of want them to leave — wherever we are, if it’s Bulgaria or Norway, whatever — feeling that they experienced something slightly different, and that it wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill kind of thing. Where you practice the set, and practice what to say between the songs and everything.

I want the interaction to be more personal. Like, we share this space together for a few hours. Let’s make the most of it.

And you know, we tried to come to Bulgaria several times, especially when we’ve been in Greece. We always tried to have the combination, to see if we could also book Sofia on the same run. But it never panned out until now. I don’t know specifically why. Maybe the promoters didn’t want to take the chance, maybe they were afraid we would not get enough people and stuff like that, you know.

And times are hard. It’s not a big, big, big enterprise. Of course, there’s money in this, but usually the money is there just to cover everything. That’s it.

Well, I think the time has come. It was probably not the right time back then?

Yeah, I guess.

Okay, so Dødheimsgard has long been associated with black metal — because it started as a side project and maybe as a need to play black metal — but through the years your work has constantly challenged the limits of that term. Do you still find that label useful, or has it become too small for what you want to do?

No, I’m quite happy with that label. It’s more cultural, culturally speaking. It’s like if somebody asked me, “So Yusaf, you’re half Indian, half Norwegian. Aren’t you tired of these labels? Wouldn’t you rather be half German and half Indonesian?” So this is how I look at the term black metal as well.

I think it’s kind of intrinsic to me, because this is the culture I’m part of. I did my first rehearsal demos and stuff like that in 1991, so I’m quite smack in the middle of the second generation output of artists and bands.

So, I’m happy with the label in that way, and it is connected to me historically and culturally. That’s why I don’t have any issue with it. But, you know, black metal is such a broad musical term now that people disagree all the time on what really goes into it. I’ve even heard people argue that Mercyful Fate is black metal because of the lyrics.

Or the corpse paint…

Yeah, the corpse paint and the lyrics. Musically, there is such a broad definition, and it’s hard to really say what matters anymore, right? Outside of what you think yourself.

And like I said, I connect my music to black metal because this is the generation I’m from. I’m part of it. There was black metal when I was around, but I also adopted it. And I think I also managed to supply it with something new, to broaden it. So that’s kind of my work and my position.

Yeah, you know, Lemmy always said that Motörhead play rock and roll, but everybody can have a totally different label for Motörhead.

Yes, because that’s where he came from.

Of course. But many listeners describe Dødheimsgard as demanding music — something that reveals itself slowly. Do you think about the listener’s experience while writing, or do you follow your own instincts completely?

It’s a compound question, because I don’t care much if people will like it or not. I have to find a motivation outside that. But your question is still relevant, though, because I do want people to experience what I’m experiencing when I’m writing.

The task at hand is: you have emotions and ideas, basically. And you try to mold these emotions and ideas so they can be placed on a piece of plastic, or on some vinyl, or in a digital format, where these thoughts and ideas are to be consumed and experienced by the listener.

So it gives me great pleasure to read, for example, a review of our latest album, “Black Medium Current”, and see that the journalist writing the review has written it slightly differently than the review he wrote before and the one he wrote after. So that means he is listening differently to this album, and that is why he is writing differently.

That kind of translation is some sort of success, right? It means you achieved something you were trying to do here, you know, because we rely on moods. We rely on not holding a seminar at a university. We are doing it artistically instead, and we are kind of trying to express things that are quite difficult to express in an academic form, or in written form, like in a book or something like that.

So we have to rely on our instincts, basically. And then seeing that some people catch on to those instincts, because they have those instincts themselves — in some sense, that feels universal.

Music has always been a mutual thing. It depends on the vibe you are sending, and if the person listening to it is vibing on the same frequency — magic happens.

Yeah! And there is something about music that is intrinsically very mystical. Look at babies. Look at toddlers. They can’t even walk yet. They’re holding themselves up on the table, and when they hear music, they start dancing. Nobody has taught them dancing. They can’t even stand yet. They can’t even walk yet. Yet, they can dance. They can move to music.

So there is something intrinsically magical about it. And I use the example for “Black Medium Current” of a woman in the forest 10,000 years ago. Her children are dead. She lost her children the day before, and now she’s singing melodies to herself to self-soothe.

We do that all the time as human beings. If we’re happy, we go ta-da-da-da. So there is some facticity to music, to the order of music, to how we order sound into music. It is very expressive of the emotional space.

I think it is safe to say that it is like a higher form of communication between people.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you feel people value music differently today than they did when Dødheimsgard first began? I mean, back in the day, you would go to the store, look at the covers, and buy an album. And then you would listen to it again and again. Now it is just a few clicks away, and still people are very picky and with low attention. Do you think that music in general has lost its value?

Yeah, welcome to the future.

How do you cope with these things?

You know, I can’t do anything about it. So I try not to worry myself, or destroy my brain’s function with things I can do nothing about. And I think this is true for every generation. You know, even the Roman Empire, and how powerful it was — it had to crumble at some point. Everything comes to an end, and maybe something new comes out of it.

What is very important, though, is that I managed to separate this from my own enjoyment, or from what I get out of making music. I think if I was done tomorrow, if there was no more need for me tomorrow, no more bookings, nothing — I would still make music, you know. So it is separate thing.

And when it comes to future endeavors, I have a 15-year-old daughter. They listen to 30-second videos, and then scroll on. And if this is their means of consumption, so be it. There’s nothing we can do, except try to play them nice records.

And, you know, there is a portion of people who are passionate in another way. Vinyl sales have picked up in the last few years. It will never come back to how it was 20 or 30 years ago, but it has still picked up. People are more interested in all the hardware. Retro gaming is really big right now. People are buying old Commodore 64s, so…

I see people buying cassette tapes nowadays.

Yeah, yeah. It is a nostalgia activity, and I think this is just how time works. Something is non-existent, then existent, then current, and then it slowly fades away into the past and gives way to new things.

There is a gap of some seven or eight years between Dødheimsgard’s last albums, and you have mentioned that you need a break after each album, and then again you need time to get yourself ready for a new record. How important is unpredictability to you as an artist? Do you actively avoid repeating yourself?

It’s not that I feel every repetition is detrimental. Of course, there are repetitions. But I also want, every time I make a record, to maybe be able to reach some new places, which I can add to the old places, and then connect all the albums like a story, in a sense.

Of course, all the chapters are connected, but they are different. I’m not just writing “Chapter 1” 20 times. So there will be intrinsic connections, like from A to Z, but all the letters are different letters, basically.

So I feel that every album that has been important for me should kind of have its own legs to stand on, and not only be a reenactment of what you have already done over and over again. Then it becomes theatre after a while. It becomes a play. You have the choreography, you have the script, and then you’re using that to recreate things over and over and over.

I have no interest in that. That doesn’t mean I look down on everybody who does, but that doesn’t concern me.

When you create new music, do you begin with a clear vision of where you want to go, or do you prefer discovering the direction as you work?

I think I have some simple entry points, and I have to use those entry points to see where they bring me. It’s a very organic process, because it’s unknown. I really don’t know what’s going to end up on the record.

I know which instruments, probably, you know — like, okay, the record is going to have drums, guitars, vocals and bass. But beyond that, the music can really go anywhere.

Maybe it’s helpful to have some entry points, conceptually, that might help. It is like: “Okay, what abyss do you want to go down this time?” And if you kind of figure that out — okay, this album is going to be for all the times you are separating from your own reality and being reborn into a new one. Maybe that’s your concept. Then you also have to make music that fits that concept, for the story to be complete.

Or an entry point can be a song. I remember when I did “A Umbra Omega”, there’s a song there called “Architect of Darkness”, and it’s the only slow song on that album. And that was the entrance for the next album. I thought, “Yes, this is where I want to explore next.”

So with the entry point, you don’t necessarily know 100% what the album is going to sound like, but at least you have somewhere to start working from.

After more than three decades of challenging both yourself and your audience this way, what still feels dangerous or unknown to you as an artist?

I think the danger aspect of it has worn off. And I think there are still bands out there that pretend they’re dangerous, but there is no danger. I think there are a lot of people actually acting dangerous in very, very, very safe spaces. And I think that’s a bit contradictory. So I kind of abandoned that notion that I’m living a dangerous life, or whatever. Maybe I did in the past, but that’s in the past, right?

So I think there are still places to explore within the black metal genre, or the extreme music genre, but maybe those are more atypical places. Like Black Medium Current explored kind of the bleakness and the blackness of your vulnerabilities, which is a contrast to black metal, where it is usually portrayed as the dark warrior that can achieve anything.

So maybe it was a more naturalistic and more philosophical approach to existence, rather than just making up a narrative.

Do you feel musicians have a responsibility to comment on social and political issues? And at the same time, what about the so-called cancel culture — banning bands only because of their heritage or political views? We see a lot of that in the black metal scene.

I think people have to make their own choices, and the causes and effects of said choices — they have to deal with them. And life isn’t always fair, right?

Yeah, of course.

So if you did something dangerous, and then you get a lot of shit for doing something dangerous, then, you know, it doesn’t look good if you’re crying about it. So it’s a double-edged sword, right?

And if you choose to be a black metal band and choose to be political in some way or another, then you have made that choice. And you have to be careful, I guess, because at some point, you’re not an artist anymore. Maybe you’re some kind of activist, because you’re blurring the lines there. So I think one should ask oneself: what is my main goal here? Is my main goal to make art, or to make my opinions be heard?

When it comes to me, I don’t think I even matter. I love the fact that some people have a relationship with my music, and I don’t think I matter in that relationship.

How do you look back on the Norwegian scene now, from the perspective of someone who has gone far beyond its original boundaries?

For the Norwegian black metal scene, I don’t really have a good overview of what’s going on in the garages and bedrooms right now, pertaining to young people starting to make music. So I don’t really know.

What I see is basically my generation still going about it, releasing albums and touring and doing festivals and stuff like that. Then there are the bands that are a bit younger than me, like Koldbrann and Tsjuder and those kinds of bands, and they seem to be very true to the original Norwegian recipe brought forth by Darkthrone.

So the current state of the Norwegian black metal scene? I don’t know… I think it’s like it has always been — some albums are good and some are bad.

I don’t think, culturally, black metal is as relevant anymore. It has kind of played itself out, in the sense that maybe it has even reached its apex when it comes to popularity and stuff like that. It has already been invited to play the big festivals and all that stuff.

And I think a lot of principles maybe pertaining to black metal were abandoned as soon as, like, a black metal band accepted taking money.

I see. I think these are some wise words to end this interview with, and we really don’t have much time left, because I know that you have another interview scheduled after me. Can you just say some final words for the Bulgarian fans who will see you here on the 13th of June?

Sofia, I’m really looking forward to getting to know you. It will be my first trip to Bulgaria, both as a performing artist and as a human being. So I’m really looking forward to what you’ve got to offer.

I think people around Europe have a different flavor to them. So I’m really, really curious to see from the stage how you act and interact with us, the band.

Thank you very much for your time. I will see you in Sofia.

Yes, See you! Bye

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Author: Nikola Petras
Pictures: Dodheimsgard
May 2026