Vreid have recently completed their special Sognametal tour, which saw the band perform Vreid material as well as music from their Windir and Ulcus days – Hváll, Steingrim, Sture & Strom (who now make up Vreid) have all played and been composers in all 3 bands. We caught up with Hváll ahead of the show in London (our review of which can be read here) to talk Sognametal, LFC and cider.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a bit about the band?
My name is Hváll and I am the bass player of Vreid. We are here to play a show in Camden tonight!
So, you’re currently on your very special Sognametal tour with Posthum, how’s it all been going?
It has been a very good tour. We have done ten shows now and we’re coming to the end of it now. Finally! (laughs) But it has been really good. We’ve had some amazing shows – especially yesterday in Paris. It was the best one on the tour and we had a great night.
How has it been playing some of the older Windir and Ulcus material? Nostalgic?
It’s been very strange playing everything from old demo songs that are 20 years old and everything else in our career, so it’s great to go back and do these old songs, some of which have never been played live before.
Any interesting tour stories to report so far?
Nope.
So it’s all been pretty boring?
Yeah! (laughs)
We don’t believe that.
One time we forgot to put milk in the coffee…the horror! The tour was almost cancelled because of that.
I can imagine the mayhem.
Yeah, we were kicking each other, a few people had to go to hospital…
What made you decide to embark on this tour after a handful of dates earlier in the year? Were you testing the waters with the festival dates to see if it would be feasible to take it on the road?
Actually, we started booking for festivals and then several people in this band started to procreate, so we couldn’t do that many festivals! So then we decided we would have to tour it instead! (everyone in the room laughs) Which was a good thing because if that hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t have done the tour. We decided three festivals wasn’t enough and we wanted to play more places.
Well I’m glad – I couldn’t get to any of the festivals! Would you say the reaction to the Vreid, Windir and Ulcus material on this tour has been fairly equal, or has there been one band whose material has been more popular live than the others?
Definitely some of the old Windir classics that people have never heard before. Songs like Svartasmeden and Journey To The End see the crowd going completely crazy and it’s such a fantastic feeling to see that people have been waiting for so long to hear these songs and the way they react is incredible.
Have there been any songs heavily requested by fans for you to play?
Yeah, but I think that Svartasmeden is the one that people are most excited about, everyone sings along to that one. It’s not that often that more extreme metal people actually sing the melodies but we’ve noticed that’s quite a popular one.
Is there anywhere you’d like to take this tour that you haven’t already been to, yet?
Liverpool!
Why Liverpool?
Because they have the best football team in the world.
Liverpool or Everton?
Liverpool, of course. We actually have a Scouser as our bus driver this time, so that is a good thing for me and we talk about football all the time!
Heading more onto the subject of Vreid itself, last year you released your album Welcome Farewell. Are there any plans for some new material in 2015 or are you going to be focusing on maybe touring that album for a little longer?
We won’t be doing any more shows after this tour – once this is done we’ll just be focusing on the next album. We’ve started writing some material and then during the Winter we’re going to start recording the album so it will probably be out next autumn.
So you can come and play Liverpool in 2015!
Absolutely.
And to finish – if Vreid could put their name to a product, what would you choose?
That would be Bulmers! Or just some cider.
Any particular sort of cider?
Apple cider. Actually we can just change the logo of the bottle…just put Vreid there instead! Yeah, we’d put our name to cider. Cider and socks.
You could do a double pack – sell the cider and socks together! With a special glass as well?
Yeah, that’s perfect! We could sell it as a package on tour. We’d put it with the shirts on the merch table!
