A Journey Into The Void- An Interview with Niklas Kvarforth of Shining (Swe)

Shining is the path to enlightenment, claims the unique and oddly charismatic front man, Niklas Kvarforth.  Yet, “enlightenment” is not discussed here in the usual form. Assume up was down, and right was wrong, and enlightenment still meant the right path. Hence, to do wrong and to create destruction would lead you to something that is , in a sickly way, considered better. With that philosophy in mind, and while busting out some of the better tunes in this side of the century, with albums that brought Shining to my personal top 5 bands, such as IV: The Eerie Cold, V: Halmstad, and even their new opus, VII- Född Förlorare , Shining slowly crept to be one of the largest bands in the modern Black Metal scene. I had the privilege of going on the phone with one of my favorite front men in modern Metal, Niklas Kvarforth, and these are the results-

M- Metalist

N- Niklas Kvarforth, vocalist, guitarist , keyboardist and founder of Shining

M- Hello Niklas, thank you for doing this interview, I’m a big fan. How are you these days?

N-  ah thanks for the kind words, don’t mention it.

M- So, I’m aware this question is asked in a ton of interviews, but, I’m not going to skip it. How did Shining start?

N- I needed an outlet when I was very young, and, I was always very interested in music, and that’s what happened. I just formed a band when I was 10 years old, I went to school, and we went to the music teacher, and said we wanted to pay music. The ideological side of it all appealed to me and that’s why I continue with music today.

M- Metal-Archives states Shining was formed in 1996, what brought you to create such dark music at the young age of , correct me if I’m wrong, 13? 

N-  I was attracted to the darkness, obviously, but yeah, I can say I felt the same back then, however in a much more childish way, so to put it. Of course, it grew for me, from each passing year, and Today, and all the so-called ideology, is something that takes my whole life. All the decisions I make and all the things that I do have something to do with the darkness.

M-  How much of the music and concepts of the band do you play into your own personal life? You openly declare that Shining promotes self harm and suicide in all it’s forms,  do you take in this message as well or is the music simply meant to affect the masses in a misanthropic way?

N-  Well, it’s a misanthropic agenda for sure, but you always must live as you preach. We had several case connected to Shining connected to self harm and suicide. I, myself, suffer from a mental disorder, I am bipolar and schizophrenic. I don’t think I could write so openly and honestly about these things if I hadn’t had them on my own. I find self-destruction to be a very good subject when it comes to force feeding the listener because it’s very easy to understand.  But yeah, to answer your question, I live a pretty destructive.

M- the live shows?

N- The live shows, the drinking, the drugs, the destruction of my own wellbeing, my malfunctioning friendships and relationships. There’s always a way to invite the darkness, whatever it may be. You just have to find the right methods to get it through. 

M- If the final goal really is suicide, do you think one day you yourself are going to commit suicide?  Are people who hurt themselves under the influence of Shining’s music a part of the fuel to carry on?

N- No, you shouldn’t shoot the messenger. I’m promoting self-destruction, suicide is just one of the things. It can be famine, it can be war, it can be death in all it’s form.s I guess that’s why people have misunderstood Shining. There’s a reason or two, one of the reasons I’m not very good in English. Another is that I emphasized too much on the self-destructive things in the past. People are caught up and thing Shining is just about one thing. I glorify all that is considered evil by the moral man in this world. Suicide is just a small part of it.

M- in the early past, you said you wouldn’t preform live, you today Shining is an established live act. How do you feel about the experience of seeing Shining live?  

N- There’s two sides of that coin. The first one that it’s very strange to feel gratification to preform your own art. Everything that I wrote since the beginning has to due with a personal nightmare of mine. Lets say 5 out of 6 songs on the album, I take examples from my life. Lets say I have 2 lyrics, out of those. The third lyric, I will sabotage my relationship with my girlfriend and write about it for the third. So when I go onstage I relieve ten nightmares. It’s strange to be on stage, I never thought I would in the beginning. It was when Hellhammer first came into the band, that we realized we could do this . It Felt good to be able to do play live, I never thought in the past it’d be possible. I also think a lot of the people who expected to see Shining onstage stage expected me to come out onstage in corpse paint and crying. I had an idea since the very beginning to smash the Mic stand into the first person I see. That’s why today, I have, you know, a very special and unique stage show. I mean, seriously, all the bands that we play with. All these support acts, all these black metal acts, I don’t really know what their doing. Their just sitting their and talking about death and Satan, and painting their face. Just talking about it, except for Watain. This whole Black Metal thing is ridiculous in my eyes. That is usually why most of the band we play with are afraid of us. There are only two people who know what Black Metal is, the guitarist and the drummer are more into poop and rock. And don’t even know who Darkthrone are.  

M- yeah, sometimes I find it utterly ridiculous when people sing in their music about things they have very little tangible connection with

That’s one of the problems, which stop them from reaching the same level as we have. We reached the level where we are becoming one of the biggest in the genre. One of the reasons for that is that I’ve been true to myself. I’ll never write a song about something I don’t believe in 210% percent. It has to be true even if I suffer from it myself. It resulted in the fact I’ve destroyed everything in my life. But now looking back, it was fucking worth it.

M- also, why do you cut yourself on stage? Do you feel a deeper bond with the audience via providing a visual to the music?

N- There was two different reasons for that. First, I need to to point out, I  never cut myself in front of the audience.. I do this turned away from the audience. It’s for me, I feel the negative side of me, which is supposed to be represented on stage.  If I feel it’s not represented onstage, it can help , to see my own blood from my head. Also, I would really like the younger people  to see me on the stage, they look and say “oh he cuts himself that looks cool” Then, 5 years later, they fucked  up their life, they can’t get a job, thus I contributed to their unwell being. As absurd as it might sound, that gives me pleasure. Yet cutting myself does not give me pleasure.  If, I would enjoy pain, then, it wouldn’t be an urge for me to inflict myself with pain. I want to, when I stand onstage, I want to provide the audience with darkness and negativity. Not with, you know, some kind, of bullshit like masochism. I am not a masochist, not at all.

M- is there any plans on releasing any live Shining material? I read in your interview for globaldomination.se in 2007 you had plans on releasing a long double DVD with hours upon hours of material why didn’t that come to fruition?

N- Yeah, the problem is Shining is cursed. You know, whatever we do there’s always parts of the cosmos that works against it. Such a thing is the DVD. Yes, we have a lot of material but now the hard disk is gone. We have back ups, but those belong to an old bassist of ours, who threw them away. So right, what we do, we said that one day we’ll make a live DVD, that’s for sure. But yeah, we have material. Now, for example, when we release a new album, we will release a limited version with a bonus DVD  with all the people who guest on this album alongside an hour documentary about the making of this album.

M-  Another obvious question is about the whole  Feburary 3^rd 2007 violent concert, what happened? I know that was the concert Shining unveiled to the fans that you were, in fact, “Ghoul” and the razorblades were handed to the audience, but how did the concert become so violent?

N-( laughs) um, it was nothing really. The only thing that happened is that it became a story for big Swedish media, like evening news channels, the morning papers and everything. After that we saw a lot of reviews from these concerts and magazines whom weren’t’ from the show. Basically wrote reviews from message boards. Was a normal show, not many people, and I had some guests onstage. Was fucked up! And the band was a bit angry, you know I came back from the dead (Niklas was presumed dead before-Ed)

M-  (laughs) I can imagine

N- The people in the band were angry with me, but in the same time I’m like, be glad instead! Be glad to be in one of the few bands that does these things. What does it matter if you thought I was dead, you weren’t crying?

M- Also, How would you describe your music?  I can definitely see why you wouldn’t say you are a straight up Black Metal band, what would you say makes Shining unique?

N- Well, like I said before, it’s like I take it from the depths of my heart, all these bands in the 60’s and 70’s, from the reason in a day and age like 2012. It’s something that is honest. Describing the music I’d just say it’s not BM like you said, but some really dark shit.

M- Should put that in metal archives under genre, “some really dark shit”

N- (laughs) Yeah, some really dark shit, that’s enough

M- what music do you find inspiring? 

N- I find everything that I listen to inspiring. Not just music, but movies as well. Everything that happens around you is inspiring. Giving certain names in music, every thing from Kemt and Placebo to Burzum to Strid.

M- What bands currently in Metal do you think are worthwhile?

N-  Well, Watain for one, is the best and only real black metal band I think. Mayhem, I really enjoyed their new album, and what more? Teitanblood and of course Ghost.

M- ah I fucking love Ghost…

N- yeah man, it’s like Mercyful Fate in the 70’s

M- In addition, what do you think of the whole DSBM scene that is now springing up? Do you like what they’re producing?

Ah Our children! (chuckles) well I started the whole thing in 1996 with shining. And uh, I think it’s gone too far. Well I can’t say that, because when you take things to far, is when things become interesting. Well these bands, thse Shining wannabe bands, they misunderstood my goal with this suicidal Black Metal thing. They only thing about how bad they feel and how many pills they’re taking. I am also eating pills and feel bad as well, I sing about it, but I don’t brag about it. I want people to feel equally bad about it or worse. When they hear Shining and feel a negative atmosphere. Or a positive atmosphere. I think the whole subgenre went away from what I meant when I originally started it.

M- Well, recently Shining began working on a new album, VIII, what can you tell us about the album so far?

N- It’s actually, sound wise, is more Black Metal than we ever did. But at the same time, the pop and rock elements are much more present but,  it’s also,  I’m gonna use this word-  cheesy.  We basically combined the most dark and most sinister, with the most cheesy, sad, pop music and Pop arrangements. I don’t know, it’s, once again, some people will turn their faces. On the other hand, we’ll also get a much bigger fan base. I also started to work with clean vocals again, so there’s a lot of clean vocals and harmonies, which we have never used before. Which is interesting although hard to do. Yeah, I guess it’s way darker than I thought it’ was gonna be. I think it’s going to be the darkest album yet. And also, were recording an EP at the same time. We just finished all the drum recordings, we recorded six covers

M- ah, now there’s a guessing game! Any leads on what you are covering? Any names?

N- I can just say, that it’s not metal. Were going to release the EP in May. Also, around then, we will put a song from the new album on there as well, and let people what kinds of direction were taking with the new album.

M-  You also for the first time, started posting a blog about the creative process online, what brought on this decision?

N- Well, it was our manager’s idea…well I don’t know if I am too happy with it but, you know, if this is what we have to do. In a way I think it’s good, people can see how it is to be in the studio with a band like Shining and some people might think that Shining consists of normal people. But the further we will come into this blog thing, people will started to realize why the music sounds like it does (laughs slightly)

M- hehehe, you’re quite difficult to wake up… ( in part III of the online video blog, there’s a long scene where they try to wake up Niklas several times until he finally decides to awaken from slumber)

N- Yes I am, you know I want to show the people. There’s a lot of questions and rumors about Shining, with this blog , were’ also setting up a new website in March. In which we will answer questions people have, there’s a lot of rumers. About this band, considering it’s been going on for 15 years, I feel now that it’s a bit annoying. That people think that, certain things have happened when they haven’t.  

M- how do you feel this album is different from the last few Shining albums like VII: Född Förlorare and VI: Klagopsalmer?

 Well , It’s darker and the for the first time in our 15 year old career, I went to Finland together with our new bassist. And we basically co-wrote the album. Because after 7 albums, you run out of a lot of ideas, you don’t have many left. So bringing him, he’s a very young guy as well, supplies some fresh blood to the band. Now I get what Motörhead have been doing all these years.  It’s been very inspiring and much darker than I anticipated.

M- also,  in 2011, except for  Född Förlorare,  you released a compilation album entitled “Fifteen Years of Absolute Darkness,” how do you feel about it? what brought on it’s release?

Well, you know, I’ve been recording with other artists all over the years. A lot of unreleased materials with both known and unknown artists, and I felt that I’ve been working with this for so many years and I wanted to put an end to this era of my life. So I was sitting down a couple of years ago with all these songs and started writing liner notes about it, and when interest came from other artists and record companies I released it. It was a good thing, but on the other hand, people can now understand where I come from musically in a different sense. It’s not just Black Metal songs I’ve recorded. It feels strange to see it out, it feels very strange to see a cd with your face on the cover.

M -Especially without corpse paint (laughs)

M- So, except for VIII, what do you see in the near future for Shining? Any plans?

N- Yeah, the thing is, were gonna tour as much as we can, and hopefully start building our name in America and Japan. But right now, we’re kind of waiting for the right moment, and seeing the right kind of tours. For us there’s no interest in going on a tour with Dark Funeral, we rather tour with Alice Cooper or something like that. Because all the Black Metal people already have our CDs, we want to start spreading the evangelion (to spread the good word, not the Behemoth album-ED) to other people. For example, if we go on tour with Opeth, we could get a lot of the Opeth fans to like Shining, but they are not interested in taking us out, because of the rumors. But maybe if we play with a band they like they can hear our music and sell their souls to the devil.

M-  anything you would like to add? Any last words to the fans?

N- just that, be sure to check out the new album, attend live shows, and whichever way you might turn and to whomever you might pray to, there’s a darkness coming and you will not able to escape it

M- thanks so much for doing this interview!

N- thank you for taking interest…

Shining’s official facebook (as of now, they have no official website since 2005)- https://www.facebook.com/shiningofficial

Shining’s progress blog on VIII-
http://shiningviii.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-2-witt.html

and soon enough...i'll post here an interview with Martin Van Drunen + a review of Deathhammer, Asphyx's newest opus!