Greetings to Thee…! First of all, let’s apply to your bio… If I’m not mistaken, BIFROST was found upon the ruins of several other bands, including such act as HORDES… I’d like to know more regarding the bands you’ve played in previosly…

- Hail to thee as well! Yes, BIFROST was founded from the ashes of several other bands. Hammerheart Moonchild was indeed a part of the now legendaric HORDES with which he recorded a 7” inch. At that time Jean, Sjoerd and Rob already were playing together in a band but have not succeeded in finding the right frontman for their band. After Hammerheart Moonchild’s split with HORDES he was asked to join the other three guys to make some metal with them and as you understand by now he accepted the offer and BIFROST was born. This happened 6 years ago and a lot has changed by now regarding the line-up, after Hammerheart Moonchild joined the band they decided to look for a second guitar player and so Roger Hermans was asked to play with them and finally the band had a steady line-up. In this line-up the band recorded several promo-tapes and 2 albums, after this the band decided to split-up due to several problems which could not be solved. After the split in 1996 Jean and Hammerheart Moonchild decided to start working together on a new project in early 1998 a new bass-player, drummer and second guitarist were found and so the band started to regain strenght again and new songs were made under a different name, this band was called CONQUERED MY FEARS. Pretty soon their new drummer was asked to leave and Sjoerd (old BIFROST drummer) was asked to join CONQUERED MY FEARS and he accepted, the band started to play a lot of old BIFROST songs again and also hit the stage again…so finally we decided to take the old name back… BIFROST was reborn. The line-up was completed and looked as followed: Hammerheart Moonchild – Vocals; Jean “Skuld” – Guitars; Kasper – Bass; Sjoerd – Drums; Danny – Guitars. The new members in the band played in several local metal bands before, Kasper played with CALLENISH CIRCLE, UNDER THE RUNES and several local metal “cover” bands and Danny played in several local metal bands aswell such as SOULS OF THE DEPARTED.

The Hammerheart’s promo sheet says that your image / lyrical concept  is based, among others, upon neo-Heathendom… Would you like to tell us what is “neo-Heathendom” to you and why did you add that prefix, ‘neo-’?

- As you propably know Heathendom is an old ancient religion and is not  practiced a lot anymore nowadays. We are a few of the true followers of this ancient religion in this modern time so that is why we decided to call this modern heathendom, ‘neo-Heathendom’. It was actually reinvented so that adds the prefix Neo (new) to the religion.

“Pagan Reality” was recorded at Studio “The Nick” Mheer, “The Wildest Fire” – at Tercel, while your latest effort, “Mythistory” has been spawned at Midas Studio-Lokeren… Can you tell me what is the reason for changing your recording place so often…? Moreover, as far as I know, “Mythistory” was originally planned to be recorded in Harrow Studios…

- BIFROST has never been satisfied with the results of the recording of the first 2 albums so when the time arrived to enter the studio for the “Mythistory” album we were searching for a suitable studio for the recordings. In the neighboorhood of where we live there are no decent studios for metal-bands to record so we searched for a studio which had better results in doing metal productions, we were hearing a lot of good results from both Harrow and Midas so we had to make a choice and that is how we ended up in the Midas-Studios. But also this turned not to be the best choice since the band has not been satisfied with the results again…so propably the next album will be recorded in yet another studio. It has always been very difficult for BIFROST to find a decent studio.

Why “Mythistory”? What sort of meaning did you put into that title? Does it have anything to do with “mythology” and “history”?

- You are absolutely right, the name is a mixture of the 2 words “myths” and “history” combined into one. The lyrical concept of this album deals with lots of Myths and a lot of History of the part of Holland were we live in called Limburg. Hammerheart Moonchild studied the history of Limburg for several years and was inspired by this a lot because Limburgian History is filled with Legends and stories of Ancient times.

Your third CD differs a lot from your former works, at least in my view. Hammerheart began to sing in a more hysteric, ‘black metallish’ voice, also plenty of keyboards were added… while f.ex. “The Wildest Fire” sounded more like a ‘pagan thrash metal’ lacking synths, featuring quite raw guitars and Guido sinding in rather different way… Any comments…?

- I agree with you on this one, but I still think that we make pure thrash pagan metal, we have only added some keyboard-parts and Hammerheart expierienced a lot with his vocals on this one but I think that it only turned out better. The keyboard player, Bram, joined the band 3 weeks before we entered the studio so I think that he did a great job, the keyboard parts only added a lot of energy to this album and were quit refreshing and original.

Speaking honestly, I was truly surprised to discover “The Dark Woodspirit” tune on “Mythistory”, especially after listening to “Pagan Reality” CD which had a song, entitled almost in a similar way: “My Ancestor, Now A Dark Woodspirit”…

- It is the same song but we rewrote it a little bit because as I mentioned earlier we were not happy with the way that it sounded on “Pagan Reality” and we believe that is a powerful song so that is the reason why we recorded it. In the future every new BIFROST release will feature an old song re-recorded, next up is “Children Of The Black Hill” which will be recorded live and put on a 7”inch together with a new song.

You had a so-called ‘goodbye-gig’ back in 1996, and shortly after BIFROST seemed to become nothing but a memory… What were the reasons which made you to quit? Everything looked like you had a bright future…

- Right after the release of “The Wildest Fire”, Roger left the band and the other 4 guys could not find a suitable replacement for him. So this led to lack of inspiration and motivation so the band decided to split-up. This was the main reason but of course there were other problems that could not be solved.

Why did you leave Nazgul’s Eyrie Productions? Just because it was totally underground label…?? In my personal opinion, they’re one of the best, most respected and honest labels in the whole Europe, releasing highly impressive stuff only… so, actually, I can’t understand that move…

- Of course N.E.P. is a good label and they have released some ground-breaking releases in the past. But when BIFROST was ready to record their third opus the label was in big financial trouble so we decided to look for something else. It had nothing to do with the fact that N.E.P. is an underground label but we wanted to move on and see if there was an other label interested in releasing our new album with a better distribution. Thankfully the N.E.P. owner respect our choice and he even showed up at our CD release party for “Mythistory” so we don’t have any problems with him now.

This one is for Hammerheart… What roused you to form CONQUERED MY FEARS? Wasn’t it better to start all over again with BIFROST?

- There were to many problems with the other guys and it was actually meant to do something completely different with C. M. F. but it didn’t turn out that way as you all know by now. See question Nr. 1

You had few gigs with such bands as Japan’s SABBAT, OLD MAN’S CHILD, BARATHRUM, ROTTING CHRIST, COUNTESS and SACRAMENTUM… What are your impressions of that shows, as well as of the bands you’ve played with? By the way, what is your attitude to performing live?

- Bifrost did almost 150 gigs in 5 years so we played with lot’s of different bands. The gigs we did in the new line-up were propably the best ones ever because we had the chance to play with so called “bigger” bands and learn a lot from their view on playing live. We always try to ad something extra to our shows to make it look like a real metal-show using spikes, leather, backdrops, fire and flags. We have got quit a good reputation as a live band and we will do everything in the future to keep it that way. We have played gigs with bands such as: BENEDICTION, AMON AMARTH, AETERNUS, ROTTING CHRIST, ANCIENT RITES, GOD DETHRONED, SHADOWBREED, NIGHT IN GALES, COUNTESS, BARATHRUM, SABBAT (Jap), NOCTURNAL BREED, SOILWORK, OLD MAN’S CHILD, BORKNAGAR, BAL SAGOTH, SACRAMENTUM and lot’s of other bands. Most of the bands we played with were of course highly respected by BIFROST so it was an honor to play with them.

Do you have an official deal with Hammerheart Recs or they’re responsible only for distributing your creations?

- We have an official deal with Hammerheart Records. Of course everybody knows that Hammerheart Moonchild is the co-owner of this label but the offer to sign with them came actually from Peter, the other owner of Hammerheart Records. Hammerheart Records is still very satisfied with BIFROST and the same goes for us so the next release will be on Hammerheart as well. The vinyl-version of the “Mythistory” album will be released by a different label called Painkiller Records from Belgium so watch out for that in the future.

“Fimbulwinter: A Tale Of Hate”, “Battlelord Odinn (Father Of The Victories)”, “The Midgard Drama”, “Midwinter Celebration”… It strikes as you’re heavily inspired by the Northern mythological epos? Why didn’t you appeal to Dutch history instead?

- Of course we were and still are highly interested in the Northern Mythology but on the “Mythistory” album the lyrical concept deals with legends and myths from the Dutch History as well. An example is the song “We Dance ‘till Dawn”; it is based upon an old legend that used to go around in the part of Holland were we live. People back then believed that along side the river beautiful women appeared from the fog in white long dresses and invited the men to dance with them. Of course the men accepted this dance and started to dance with this women the whole night through. As soon as the men tried to get loose from the women they found out that that was impossible so they had dance the whole night. The morning after these men were found along side the river, totally exhausted and dead. Of course we know by now that these men were drunk and propably drowned but at that time the people had to blame someone………

What is view on National-Socialism? Judging by “Pagan Reality’s” booklet, I assume that you’re strictly against any kinds of Socialism and suchlike movements? May I wonder why? Don’t you think that soon all of the European nations will be just levelled, and the same lot awaits the culture of theirs? How can you, heathens, support the Internationalism???

- BIFROST is not a band who believes in Nationalism or Socialism, but we are not against it as well… we just don’t give a fuck. This kind of stuff has nothing to do with making metal, or believing in some kind of a religion, we leave everybody alone and hopefully they will do the same with us.

Have you ever heard of Norway’s BIFROST?

- No, is it any good? We don’t care, BIFROST is celebrating it’s sixth birthday this year so propably we were first.

Do you know anything concerning my nativeland? Any Russian bands you’ve heard lately…?

- I most honestly say that I don’t know any Russian bands but of course I’m interested, it is only very hard to get here. And i think that there are to much European bands that are quite good that I still haven’t heard. Too many releases nowadays so I don’t have time to check them all out but of course I’m interested in Russian metal.

Are you into reading? Whom would you mark out as your favorite authors or poets?

- My favorite writer is Tolkien, because I can get into his fantasy world just by reading his books. I don’t know what the others read but Hammerheart reads a lot of historical books.

Let’s develope this subject a bit… Do you read any underground editions? Whose writings appear as most impressive ones (regarding both, paper and web ‘zines)?

- I try to read as much magazines as I can get, I really like reading the underground magazines because they pay a lot of attention to the underground scene. I read Ablaze magazine, Aardschok, Spin City, Vae Solis, Rock Hard and tons of other magazines. I mostly get all the magazines at the Hammerheart office, so I definitely know what is going on.

… the end…

- Thanx a lot for doing this interview with BIFROST and keep on supporting us. Good luck with your magazine and keep the Dutch metal-scene in your mind because there are still a lot of good yet undiscovered metal bands out here which you will here from in the future.

BIFROST contact –
Email: ramaek@cobweb.nl