sound of death
Morten Shax - Vocal / Malphas - Lead Guitar / Nihil - Rythm Guitar / Skriu - Drums / Aske - Bass
Leslava: What is Endezzma history? And what goals did you set yourself when you started the band?
Morten Shax: ENDEZZMA was founded in 2006 after I decided to reanimate my former music project DIM NAGEL. I had back then in the late 90’s released a couple of old classic demos with Dim Nagel together with band members of the legendary KVIST. But after some years focusing on my own record label and other project’s within the underground I felt it was time to work more directly with music again in order to express myself again as an artist. I decided to change the band name into ENDEZZMA and in one way start from the very beginning. I asked my close friend and allied, the URGEHAL frontman TRONDR NEFAS to join me as a creative force in ENDEZZMA and the rest is more well-known history. The very first line-up among other’s included RAGNAROK drummer JONTHO on drums and was also supposed to include TAAKE’s frontman Hoest on bass, but due to some reasons that did not happen.. When I started Endezzma I had a clear goal of making a serious band dealing with a strong felt darkness within myself, use my own inner darkness to present an eerie, atmospheric and utter dark expression. But also work out of the heart without label what we did or work inside a box…Endezzma very quick started to walk its own path carving its own destiny as entity on its own…
Leslava: Endezzma is a about death. What is death and darkness for you? The music itself for centuries played an important role in the sacralisation and ritualization of death, in its aestheticization and passion for society oblivion of death.
Morten Shax: The lyrics are a deep dive into the depths of our darker mind. It’s in one way our personal relationship to the dark side and how we relate to death. Our death and death in general is something that control how we live our lives, even we like to think that death is a topic that just arrive when an accident occur or we become old. Its strong feelings and strong emotions that is a driving force in our daily life. Like the track Morbus Divina, the master of disease. And a carrier of death. It’s all in wrapped into the world of Endezzma, creating an own philosophical saga about death. I always been fascinated by death and let myself go with its emotional contradiction, in one way the most beautiful and on the other it can be the most heart breaking. Such intense, vital and strong forces really possess me and thrill me. It is all around us, so it is no need to make up stupid stories when the real and most intense vibes is all around us to grab.
Leslava: How important are lyrics for you? Or music and atmosphere are matter more?
Morten Shax: The lyric’s is for me just as important as the music. It’s the written word that represent and gospel our thought’s and present what we are all about. For me and my band the lyric’s always payed huge part of the music, if an artist or band take easily on the lyric’s it’s not only that they end up with a catastrophe of a uncompleted and halfway end product, but it also manifest the fact that the artist or the band don’t have anything to preach, nothing to tell with their music. The world are just packed with such act’s, playing without any goal or clear idea what they want or what they want to tell with their music. I always was deeply into literature and poetry and philosophy since I was a very child. So for me the art of writing lyrics is synonym with writing the tunes.
Leslava: Tell us about the latest band works including Morbus Divina. What are you working on now?
Morten Shax: “Morbus Divina” is available 24th February and is a 7” vinyl EP that serves the purpose as an appetizer for the upcoming new album “The Arcane Abyss” that was out 31st March. The 7” vinyl contains an A-side with the track Morbus Divina taken from the upcoming new album, the B-side is a song called Black Tempest, this is a song written by Trondr Nefas, actually the very last composition or song Trondr Nefas ever wrote, only 3 weeks before his death. So it’s a special song for both me personally and the band. The album “The Arcane Abyss” was just completed before the end of last year. The album was recorded in Gravlund Studio at Hadeland Norway, mixed by Lars Froislie and mastered in Necromorbus studio Sweden by Tore Stjerna (Watain , repugnant etc) The band have a new bass player in ASKE and a new eminent drummer, namely Mr.SKRIU so we feel good about getting the album out and get to play with the new strong line up. Vomit our stellar darkness around the world….
Leslava: Are you planning to record a new video this year?
Morten Shax: Yes we will. We are in the deep planning of it now. It will be recorded and shoot in early summer. After we did our first video to the “junkyard Oblivion” we just knew that we will always make a video to support the new albums. Not only for the promotion value but also just because we love to express ourselves through a channel that the video platform present. We are a very visual band, with a strong expression and deep statements and we feel that a video is a good tool to get this point out to the fans…And hopefully it will be appreciated. We had very positive response on our first video, so we will see what we come up with this time. We have some pretty wild ideas, so now we are sitting down to figure out how we can execute it in a best way. Actually if everything goes after out will and plans , there will be more than one new video out from the upcoming album.
Leslava: Where can we see Endezzma on stage the coming months?
Morten Shax: We will do some gig’s in Norway in support of the release of the new album in March and April. And we will play festivals in Switzerland,Germany and England during the summer, before we head out on a full European tour in the autumn of 2017.
Leslava: Are you planning to perform in Ukraine in next few years?
Morten Shax: There have been some promoters trying to get us over to Ukraine for shows, but so far we have not manage to come to an agreement or figure it out. But I’ve heard you have some good festivals over there that it would be a mighty dark pleasure to cast out spells and dark fucking bloody energy over ! I hope we soon will be playing at a stage in Ukraine, lots of fans over there keep asking us if soon will come, so we’ll see what 2017 brings.
Leslava: Do you like horror movies? What are you afraid of?
Morten Shax: I grew up with horror movies, like Dario Argento and all the Italian obscure flicks. I am so old that I remember we traded VHS tapes with horror movies through snail mail. I had a contact in Holland that send me regularly packages with uncensored horror underground flicks. Before internet that was an own scene just like the tape music cassette trading scene was. An amazing time, when you every day got letters in the mail with new demos or VHS tapes with movies. Internet have totally ruined that old charm and scene, but again today everything you can possible think of is available on the net for anyone to grab so of course one can debate what is best, access or dedication.
Leslava: What do you think about religion and it influence on modern society?
Morten Shax: I have truly always kept music and politics separated ! For me music is an art form, a state of mind, a darker place where my mind , soul and spirit walk to. Politics is totally something different. Politics explain and reason, making society spin, while the music is an alternative world not ruled by law’s and order…Music is a wild west of darkness ! In one way you can say that music is a religion, but then it is a religion on its own, not the religion we know that is now based on solely politics…Endezzma deals with power, energy and strength but we have our own fundament, a own world..
Leslava: Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions!
Morten Shax: Thank you for asking. If there is anything you still would like to say to your fans? I hope we get the possibility to come to Ukraine and make our blood , darkness and wild energy manifest on a stage near you ! Hope to see you around and you are all invited into THE ARCANE ABYSS with us, walk into the flames with us…..Choose the sound of DEATH, because we are the hunters of the night!