Finally, here’s our Band of the Month for this year’s February! I think there’s hardly anyone to find who hasn’t heard of this very likeable metal band called Extol yet. While their first release "Burial" has got more of the blackmetal sound and was released on Endtime Productions, the, in the meanwhile, third album "Synergy", which differs from the earlier stuff in many ways, was released on major giant Century Media at the end of 2003. This Interview originally took place through a translator, so don’t wonder if any questions are not answered directly...


BOF: Hey guys, welcome! For the people who don’t know you let’s start with a brief introduction. What’s your name, what’s your part in the band, marital status and what would be your all-time favorite band.
Peter: Ok, my name is Peter, I sing and I’m not married, I don’t have a girlfriend. My favorite all-time band is…uh…don’t know. :)
Ole: *shooting fastly with Norwegian words* j/k. My name is Ole and actually, tomorrow I’m 27 years old. And I play the guitar and sometimes I sing during a song *laughter*…harmony vocals and I’m married with a very beautiful girl (she’s back home now I just called her). She’s called Hilde. And um, I have many favorite bands, but it’s kind of hard to say, maybe I should say Steelway Dan?!? (how do you spell that?!?) Yeah, I like Steelway Dan, yeah, I do!
David: Hi, my name is David and next week I’ll turn 26 and I’m not married I’m still single. And yeah I’m the drummer in Extol and I’m Peter’s cousin and also Christer’s cousin (guitar), but Christer is not able to be here, because he didn’t feel well, he got the flu…My all-time favorite band well…It could be Believer and it could be Stryper.
Jon: My name is Jon, I play bass in Extol and I’m 26 today. Well, I’m still 26 ;). I don’t have a girlfriend and um, my all-time favorite band… I don’t have an all-time favorite band but the bands that have meant much to me, gave me inspiration through the years is the Norwegian A-ha, have you heard about them?!? Take on me and all that stuff :). And maybe British Anathema (how to spell that again?), I like them a lot!

BOF: Extol are the hardest band on Christmas Rock Night. What’s your statement to that?
David: Coooool :). *laugther* Well, I thought you said the hottest band.

BOF: Well, haha, this year it’s your second time at CRN. What happened since last year’s CRN. You’ve signed with a bigger label, Century Media, so there might have been a lot of things going on for you guys, right?
Peter: Yeah, since the last time we were here we signed to Century Media, from Germany, who have been very kind to us. Century Media, yeh! :) We’ve released an EP since that time, the “Paralysis EP” and a full-length this summer, "Synergy", and we’ve been on a US tour in the summer and on a Scandinavia tour with Opeth recently. Yeah, that’s about it I think. And also since last time we’ve got Ole back in the band! *applause*

BOF: Your album "Synergy" got a very good response from the press, from the fans, people really liked it. Can Ole be called the guilty person for the now more progessive Extol? :-) Maybe also the fact that Believer are one of your favorite bands?
David: Haha. That’s not very easy to answer, but I mean, we had written a lot of new material and when Ole was getting back in the band we got really inspired, really! Like, you know, we made a lot of material and it totally turned in a new direction, musically, and uh…I don’t know. I mean we just found out, you know, hey we haven’t played trash metal before so let’s do it!

BOF: Yeah. Well, you played together with bands with Christian as well as Non-Christian background. Have there been any differences for you?
Peter: I don’t think the difference is very big. I mean, when you are on tour with a band, you get to know them and you hang out with them, build friendships and stuff and touring is just fun anyway…Touring with Opeth e.g. was a little bit an experience for us because they’re quite a big band and supporting for a big band is not always that easy. As for Demon Hunter, who are not that big and we drew almost the same crowds, but Opeth definetly drew a bigger crowd than we did on that Scandinavian tour. So trying to win over the Opeth fans was kinda hard sometimes..That was kind a new experience to us. Basically touring is just fun anyways!

BOF: As a Christian band for some people still you’re kind of exotic or at least some kind of odd in the music scene you are playing in. What kind of response do you get from other people/bands. Is there anything that kinda challenges you?
David: I mean it’s always kind of difficult because people have so many reactions on us being Christians and the rumor about us being Christians have always coming in front of us. Getting on Century Media opened a lot of new doors for us and a lot of people especially from the secular scene kind of accepted us.

BOF: Do they listen to what you say, do they ask?
Ole: Well, I can say this…there have always been two different reactions, especially from Non-Christians. You have those who totally accept us the way we are, just because they mainly go for the music. Me meet quite a lot of those guys and they’re like totally supportive, they enjoy the music and actually do not bother too much with the fact that you guys are Christian. Then you have the typical stereotype people….they don’t wanna have anything to do with Christian bands and that’s period and you’ll always have those guys. You know, people being into other scenes and they just don’t accept Christian bands playing hardmusic and so on. And so you’ll always have that…bands and people like that. And then again you have those who totally go for the music.

BOF: Following up with the question we just asked, do you have something like a goal as a band, something like a creed or something that you wanna achieve with your band work. Especially speaking about your song "Trash Synergy" from the Synergy album. Is there any deeper meaning about it that might lead to your goal?
Ole: I can say as human beings, as persons, we have a goal with our lives. And of course we do have some sort of a goal with the band and we’ll definetly always be very clear as to where we stand with our faith, and that itself is a goal. And we are doing that and we’ll just continue doing that as this band. We’ll not shove anything underneath somewhere, you know, in order to please someone in that sense. However, we are a band and we do appreciate music and we have musical goals as well, so we have both in that sense.
David: About "Trash Synergy" and the lyrics to that song…It talks about how we as Christians, as people, as band, should stick together and focus on God together and to build relationships and that’s I think the way God wants us to do it. That’s one of our goals.

BOF: Do you have some kind of a home church you go to, some place you get some input from, or you relax from touring? Do you have time for that?
Peter: Yeah, we have time for that and we think it’s very important. All of us go to a church in Oslo called Subchurch that we started like 6/7 years ago and it’s a church with basically only youth…a lot of metal kids and punkers and artists and hiphoppers. A lot of people from the different subcultures in Oslo and we feel this very important to be a part of this church and that community. As David already told to stick to together and build fellowship with love as a foundation. Some other people founded the church together with us in Oslo.

BOF: Any kind of horror or terrifying experiences you’ve had on tour? Any kind of spectacular things?
Peter: Sleeping in a venue in Eastern Germany when it’s like 10minus degrees, on the stage. No warm, no nothing. Terrible ;-).
Ole: We also had a car breakdown actually twice in Finland on this most recent tour with Opeth,. We hired that van and yeah, it was very fun… :-)

BOF: What are your plans for next year, what can be expected from you? New record on Solid State Records and Century Media?
David: I think we’re planning to do a European tour actually in March or April hopefully here in Germany. And we also might do another US tour in May or June, but actually it’s nothing set yet and we’re just having a lot of thoughts. About a new album we haven’t started writing new material yet, we haven’t written material for ten months or so. I think we’ll hopefully go into the studio in about a year I guess.

BOF: What about the coorporation with Solid State Records? Is that something you’ll keep on doing. Are they interested?
David: Well, actually the good thing about Solid State Records is that they have a quite good distribution network in the states. We’ve always licensed our albums through Solid State because they have really good distribution deals on the Christian market basically. With "Synergy" we got signed on Century Media and they have a really good secular distribution, in Europe and in the states, and so we have both sides. I think Solid State Records will hopefully release our next album as well.

BOF: You probably remember the Trick or Treet thing from last year.You get some candy but you gotta do something for it, like a Swedish dance or Finnish rap song or…you come up with it.
Peter: You have a acoustic guitar?

BOF: No, unfortunately not.
Peter: Well, we wanna sing a song for you. It’s a Norwegian revival song! (listen!)

Interview by Tobias Reiss at Christmas Rocknight 2003