Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

How is it that you started playing music? Skirge: At one point music just clicked with me on an emotional level, and I knew I wanted to create. So I got a bass guitar and dabbled a bit in that. Soon after, I was too busy with other things, and only much later would I find my apparent talent for keys, composition, and lyrics and vocals. It is a shame that for the last decade or so I often had, for multiple reasons, not much time to train and find the discipline. So I have periods where I obsess and do nothing else, but also periods of months to even years where I am preoccupied with other priorities. Nimblkorg: it wasn't until I was an early teen that I got introduced to the sound of distorted guitars and I was so entranced my life was changed forever. I immediately knew it was what I wanted to devote my life to, so I asked my parents for an electric guitar that christmas. And thankfully, they complied. I'll never forget that.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Nimblkorg: I am Nimblkorg and I'm 29 years old. I am generally responsible for the instrumental and production side of things, though there is some overlap with my band mate. My main instrument is the guitar, but I also play bass, drums and synths. Skirge: I go by the alter ego of Skirge. My person and individual life is not a thing I feel is important to our music and what we would want to convey and create. I am 30 years old and my main role is vocals and lyrics. As of now, there is also an instrumental piano/keyboard song by my hand on at least the first album and very much likely this will remain a returning tradition. On future albums there are plans for me to write some full songs, but since we are unsure of what will be used where, this is not a thing that I can promise.

Have you had other previous members? Yes, but never for a very long time. We have experimented with several drummers, bassists and second guitarists. There was nothing wrong with them, but we ended up just liking it best to do things by the two of us, so that's what we've chosen to keep doing for now.

Did you make music even when you were young? Skirge: No, I started very late, and after that, I was often not able to make music for several reasons. So, in my development as a musician, there have been large gaps even after a fairly late start. Nimblkorg: I don't think so. I actually thought that I disliked music as a whole until I found out about rock/metal! As it turns out there are plenty of genres I like, but almost none of them get any coverage on the big radio stations. Makes me wonder how many great styles I've never heard of. Where are you from? We are from South-Limburg in the Netherlands.

What year did the band form? Hard to say, because the band was the outcome of our friendship, which for a large part revolves around the fascination with music. We just started jamming together and suddenly there was Shylmagoghnar. We do know it took roughly a decade from the moment we decided we wanted to create an album to the point where we felt it was worthy of being released. A lot of that time went into practicing instruments, production, and figuring out how to self-release your work properly.

What's your style of genre? We started out as an atmospheric black metal project, but we were never too concerned about staying within genre lines. Over time there were many more influences, some of which have become very prominent. To be honest, we're not sure what exactly to call the end result, but judging from what our listeners are saying it would be something like atmospheric/progressive melodic blackened death. 

What inspires you? Nimblkorg: The brain is a very powerful tool and I feel like the best ideas come when I have the least control over it. It often comes out of the blue after hearing, seeing or thinking something. Like a word or a picture, or random noises occurring in a certain interval. It is comparable to when you sometimes think you can hear someone calling your name when you are listening to music. You hear something between the lines that isn't really there, but to you it's as clear as day.  Another thing that is very powerful is sleep - especially the moment just after you wake up (hypnopompic state).  Skirge: Life, thoughts, feelings and experiences

How have you developed since you started with the music? On a technical level we're learned a lot about writing music, production, distribution and things related to that. When we started out we had no idea how long that road would be, but it was worth it. We definitely recommend it to fellow musicians who want to remain as autonomous as possible. It takes patience and discipline, but it's not impossible by any means. On a personal level, this project has been with us from when we were practically still kids, so I think we have just matured in our stance towards things in general. 

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Skirge: At age 30 I started a new study, and I have a ton of other hobbies and interests besides the band and even music. But I feel, again, that my personal life is not important to this project. Just rest assured that Shylmagoghnar is a top priority! Nimblkorg: I'm fascinated by audio, no matter if it's related to music or not. I used to be active in the medical field, but due to circumstances that is sadly no longer the case. I still am very interested in scientific developments of medicine though. Hobby-wise I like speedcubing casually (read: I suck at it) and computer/board games.

What made you decide to make this music? Nimblkorg: a desire for expression that I could not reach with words. I think that the arts in general are a great tool for communicating abstract thoughts and feelings. Music and in specific metal just happens to be the language I feel most comfortable with. And Shylmagoghnar is the main outlet for it. Skirge: A form of expression I could not reach musically - and my symbiosis with Nimblkorg. I could never express everything I wanted to within one project, but Shylmagoghnar is the closest I will ever get in this regard, I am sure. After emergence, the enjoyment and appreciation of our fans is also a big motivation to continue doing what we do!

Do you have any new material? Nimblkorg: Yes! While the writing never really stopped, the months after the release of Emergence were pretty chaotic and filled with new experiences for us, so it took some time and attention to get everything to sink in and find a balance in it all which felt natural to us. It was around the anniversary that we felt things stabilized and the time was right to shift our full focus towards writing the next album. We had already collected many ideas, riffs and lyrics to build from and the months since then have been very fruitful. We now feel like we are closing in on finishing the writing process.  The working (and possible final) title of the album is Transience. The album will have themes like life and death, visions, existential questions and fears related to that.  While it's hard to describe what something sounds like, we think that the album in its current form feels like a logical progression from Emergence. It contains something old and something new. Just like the first album, both instrumental and vocal enthusiasts won't be ignored. We love doing both, so it seems like that balance is here to stay.  Songs in general are a bit longer than on Emergence, the longest one currently being an instrumental about the passing of a lifetime. There are long tracks with vocals too though... and if I may say so about my colleague, I think they contain some of his best lyrics yet. We don't know for sure yet when writing will be completely done, but we are working hard on it. As soon as we start with the production we will write about it on our Facebook and website so stay tuned!

What are your songs about? Things that either amaze us or give us great grief. Themes we have gone through so far have been depression and hope, the apocalypse, humanity and nature. 

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Usually Skirge writes the lyrics and does the vocals, and Nimblkorg composes the music, but there is some overlap. For example, on the Emergence album the final track The Sun No Longer was composed and performed by Skirge. On the title track the vocals were written and performed by Nimblkorg.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Usually with the music, but the writing of lyrics often starts around the same time the music is being conceived, so the arrangement of the music is influenced by the lyrics.

Do you compose in a certain environment? Skirge: No, I do not work in a certain, set environment. It is very variable.  Nimblkorg: Pretty much any environment will do, as long as it's very quiet and there are few factors which may cause sudden disturbance. I usually write from my living room, with all windows and blinds shut, telephones disabled, that sort of thing.  Whenever something useful comes, it feels like I'm not really writing it myself. It just happens, like a cosmic radio station in the mind, and all I can do is capture it in notes as well and fast as I can. It's very unpredictable and sometimes frustrating.

What language do you sing in? So far we've only used English, but Skirge has developed a language of his own over the course of years, so we are considering to use that in some future works.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Shortly after the debut was released, people were starting to ask for T-shirts. We thought that was a cool idea, but because we are a small and self-funded project, creating a large batch of T-shirts of all sizes and forms was a big financial risk.  For that reason we have created a shop on Spreadshirt. It's a print-on-demand service that prints a design on a shirt (or other object) and sends it directly to the customer. The designer then gets a commission for every sold item and the company gets paid for the item itself. It's pretty ideal for bands like ours. We offer assorted shirts and sweaters for men and women, and also bags and buttons.

Where can people buy your merchandise? Europe: http://shylmagoghnar.spreadshirt.net/ United States: http://shylmagoghnar.spreadshirt.com/ Countries outside of those areas are probably best off going with the US shop, as their base item pricing is a bit lower.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? Do you mean buying digital downloads or piracy? I think that people buying digital downloads are very important for keeping especially small projects alive. Many musicians create great music but just don't have the financial freedom, connections or knowledge to have large amounts of CD's created professionally. By selling their work digitally they can get the support they need for future expansions and it costs them practically nothing (on many platforms -some of which are free to use, like Bandcamp- you get to keep 80-90% of the sales revenue). From the perspective of the supporter it's great as well. I guess that many people buy music at least in some part because they want to support the artist behind it. When buying a CD, a sizable chunk of the money goes to the creation of the CD and transport costs, so the amount that can be effectively used for the continuation of the project is similar to a digital download. In other words: if you want to support your favourite artists but you are on a lower budget or just don't care about having a physical disc in your hands, you can help them out just as much at a much lower cost by buying digitally. About piracy: while we of course don't think it's the greatest thing ever, we don't think things are as black and white as they are often portrayed - in particular for small projects. There are multiple types of pirates and their attitude is very important in how damaging they can be. For example, when our album was released, it got leaked to mostly Russian sites almost instantly. Instinctively, we wanted to be upset about that. However, a large amount of those sites gave very clear information about the band and most importantly, they included a link to where you can buy the music if you want to. We can often see in statistics where people (roughly) came from before they ended up on our sites, and approximately 30% of our daily visitors come through there. I've also spoken to people who admitted to pirating the album at first, but then liking it so much they wanted to hear more, so they still bought a CD.  To add to that, the underground metal sharing scene is BIG. If people download your work and like it, they will talk about it to friends and on forums. So even if they don't buy it themselves, others may end up doing so because of them. Those others might have never heard about you if it wasn't for the pirate groups. In the end I think it's fair to say that not a small part of our initial spread was because of those groups.

A final point I'd like to mention is that we think it's wrong to consider downloads as lost sales. We think they are just 2 different groups of people. People who like to buy and collect music will continue to do so, even if it is easy to find a download, because they have their own personal reasons to do so. Vice versa for downloaders.  The only group one should be concerned about is the group that likes your work and wants to be supportive but simply doesn't have the financial means to do so. This is why we have uploaded our album completely on Youtube/Spotify and allow infinite listening on Bandcamp. We want to give people the option to share what they love with their friends, without being forced to resort to piracy. People should buy music because they want to - not because they have to. We think the best way to stop piracy is to make it unnecessary.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? It probably depends on personal tastes. Most albums we really like are from the 90's to the early 00's. But to say that they were flat out better than newer works is nostalgia talking. People like what they are used to, and we  just happened to grow up with those bands so we feel a stronger connection to their style (which is probably noticeable in our own style).  There are definitely exceptions though. Just look at what bands like Insomnium are currently doing. They may have been founded in the years we've just mentioned, but their latest works are definitely a modern interpretation of metal I would like to hear more of. And that's just a single example that comes to mind.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Learning to do everything by ourselves and maintaining the discipline to not give up halfway through. Like mentioned earlier, we had absolutely no idea what was awaiting us when we decided to start working on an album. There is so incredibly much to learn about this trade, and I'm convinced we've only seen the tip of the iceberg yet. Another very hard thing was trying to stop ourselves from running in infinite circles. I'm sure this is familiar to anyone who has ever worked on a project without a time limit. It is never ever done. At a certain point you just have to say enough.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Believe in your potential, keep working on your skills and don't accept excuses from yourself. Those big artists you look up to don't have some innate magical ability you don't have. They just refused to give up until they reached that point.  Start out with a vision, and try to stick to it whenever possible. Eliminate traps and distractions that can keep you from achieving your vision. This includes having too many options. When you are faced with a hard decision, pick one option and stick to it. There is no best decision.  Please don't hide your hard work from the world. Someone out there may be greatly helped by it. Spread it over all platforms! Make sure you use the best tags and descriptions you can come up with everywhere. Creating the greatest masterpiece in the world has no use if nobody will be able to find you! 

What are your web sites? Main site: http://www.shylmagoghnar.com Main sales site: http://shylmagoghnar.bandcamp.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shylmagoghnar/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/shylmagoghnar

How can people reach you? Just send us a message on any of the platforms or e-mail us on shylmagoghnar at gmail dot com , it's always welcome!

What are your plans for the future? To keep making more albums and to keep growing in our skills. This project is very personal and important to us so we expect it to remain so for many years to come.

Do you have something to add? Yes, thank you for having us and thanks to the readers for their interest! We hope you enjoyed this interview and got some useful information out of it. Moreover, we are looking forward to bringing you the next album. Have a great day!