1. Congratulations on your new work!! How does the band feel right now?

Hello Ioannis! Feeling pretty good at the moment, just spent three weeks myself,  tour managing for Swedish band IN SOLITUDE doing a tour of the United States for last 3-4 weeks. Time to get back to work on SOLITUDE AETURNUS songwriting now!

I started the band in 1987. After some debate I decided to come up with a name that didn’t necessarily sound “heavy metal” since I was going to try and incorporate many different styles and influences to our sound.  I’d say we always have been a metal band at the core but it was important for me to set ourselves apart from the pack with regards to our name.  Solitude invoked a feeling of melancholy and isolation and I felt it was perfect for the music I wanted to create. As a band we were all into most of the same things, early CANDLEMASS, MERCYFUL FATE, TROUBLE, PENTAGRAM, FATES WARNING, SAVATAGE, etc… and myself, I’ve been influenced by all those great early/mid 80’s greats and at an even younger age I was very much into 70’s hard and heavy bands like BLACK SABBATH, JUDAS PRIEST, URIAH HEEP, early SCORPIONS.  These are my primary influences as both a fan and musician. The early 80’s scene just added a bit more variety and power to the mix.

My work in ROTTING CORPSE before SOLITUDE AETURNUS is fairly well documented by now, so briefly I formed ROTTING CORPSE in mid/ 1985 and thrashed around Texas for 2 ½ years until forming SOLITUDE AETURNUS. Gabehart was the only other guy that had a band before SOLITUDE. His was the first black/death band from the States that I was aware of; DEATH TRIPPER. There’s a track on the Texas Metal Archives I released a few years ago and some clips up on YouTube as well. They were VERY extreme blackened thrash/death putting out the first demo in 1985 I believe. The sound was very much like SODOM demos and early BATHORY, but with a little bit of hardcore punk (circa ’84-’85) thrown in. Very chaotic and full of energy. Brad was never in any other bands, other than trying to form one with myself in 1983-84, before he moved back to San Fransisco. Tom and Chris had never played in bands before SOLITUDE. Of the later members, John Covington was in progressive band HYD, Edgar had the traditional metal of BATTALION, Lyle and Robert were in early punk band THE HOLY and then later made some doomy influenced stuff with GRAVEN IMAGE. The “Concept of God” CD released several years ago featured Robert, Steve, Covington, James Martin and was pretty close to SOLITUDE AETURNUS but without my input. And of course there’s my other stuff, I played with industrial S&M influenced band PUNCTURE for about 3 years in the early 90’s and I also still have my psychedelic side project LIQUID SOUND COMPANY with a new album out right now – “Acid Music for Acid People”.

I’ve seen some reviewers with no clue and/or missing the point but then again I expected that and ultimately don’t really care what anyone has to say about this release other than myself, bandmates and the true fans that want to complete their SOLITUDE AETURNUS collection properly. This release was strictly intended for the die hard SOLITUDE AETURNUS fan, not for the neophyte or casual listener. As a fan of bands myself I love to hear rare and unreleased tracks from the bands earliest of days. I put this “In Time of Solitude” out as a way of paying respect to the first members of the band and also as a way to get the old stuff available, officially for the first time on CD and give die hard SOLITUDE AETURNUS fans the earliest material in official remastered (well, mastered for the first time actually) form. Also the shitty sounding rehearsal tracks are there to document the only unreleased songs we had from that time period. Too bad we never recorded them and the only thing left are crappy sounding live or rehearsal takes of these songs, but oh well, I’d rather document them so you can at least get an idea of what we did outside of the demo. Overall the reaction to the new/old release is what I would expect, some reviewers and fans understanding that this is really old and before we perfected our sound, so it’s a document to the beginnings of the band and these reviewers have treated it as such. And a few have dismissed it for various reasons that, again I would expect from a certain faction of the press. Bottom line; I feel 100% great about making this available to the fans and to ourselves! It’s an important document of where we came from and what those times were like. Extensive liner notes written for this!  Read on!

I honestly like them all about equally, but if pushed I’d have to go with “Through the Darkest Hour” as it has such great memories attached to that time period and the material and sound of that album is just so heavy to my ears! Lots of mind expanding for myself during this time and I felt that we really came into our own sound during this period. 

I’ve got 5 songs in working state right now and we are slowly piecing together new material. I really can’t give a date when we’ll be finished since I’m always wrong! It’s never an issue of wanting to do it, but more of an issue getting everyone in one room together these days. I can write all the music myself but I prefer to have as much rehearsal and arrangment sessions with the other guys and right now everyone is very busy with their personal lives, jobs, kids, making a living etc...  We’ll eventually get it done but when, I don’t know.

I’m still very much a fan of hard rock and metal bands, new and old. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of older material, maybe I’m at that age where I dream of the “old” days, I don’t know. There are several great new releases out that I’ve listened to lately like the new JAG PANZER and new SATAN’S HOST CD’s – Harry Conklin is a godly vocalist! Both of these are getting heavy spins in my player right now. Also just picked up the new BLACK OATH CD, some really great doom metal with obscure influences creeping in. New INQUISITION CD is classic as usual, the last PICTURE album, “Old Dogs New Tricks” was constantly spinning this year at my house. Also, the latest album from IN SOLITUDE is some awesome old school inspired Heavy Metal meltdown! 

The logo was originally created by Larry Moses when we were just called SOLITUDE. We re-designed it (I think it was Lyle actually) and made the banner with the AETURNUS hanging from it since we couldn’t figure out how to make the logo look “right” with AETURNUS added. Lyrics have always been a big part of our sound, Lyle was more obscure with his references and very poetic with lyrics about dreams, nightmares, end of times, warnings of doom, man’s transgressions against the world and himself. Robert more or less writes lyrics from a personal standpoint, questioning religion, inner turmoil,  mental madness and despair. I like both approaches equally and they fit the sound of the band perfectly. The album covers are ideas that we have filtered through artists visions. We try to capture the mood and feel of the songs and lyrics within each album cover.  I like them all as well! “Alone” and “Darkest Hour” are my favorites but maybe “Depths of Sorrow” is the classic cover.

100%. Massacre has been very supportive of SOLITUDE AETURNUS even though we don’t release that much material for them. I’m very happy with them and nothing but positive things to say about such a great and long running metal label!

Greece was one of the highlights in our career thus far. You guys treated us like Gods and we were very grateful for our warm welcome and over the top response when we played there a few years ago. It was what I expected, over the top support, everyone knew our lyrics and the energy was through the roof! I really enjoy meeting die hard heavy metal fans from all over the world and Greece has some of the most devoted! We all loved those shows and definitely want to come back. I’m sure it will happen someday, maybe after a new album I hope. The Thessolinki gig was awesome! A pure heavy metal experience for all of us!

This is a difficult question and one that I don’t know the answer to. I still like to hear a band’s full length efforts in VINYL form. I think this is more of an artistic approach to presenting material to the public. But on the other hand less people like to have their music this way, only the die hards like myself, so more and more people are downloading or sharing recorded music for free. I don’t mind people hearing our stuff for free at all really, music should be a shared experience for the love and joy of what the music brings to you. But on the other hand, it’s not cheap to make recordings like we and other bands do and when you don’t have any money coming back in to make up for studio costs and time spent on the recording, writing and mixing of records, then you will have less high quality material coming out. For instance we’ll have less money on the next record simply because CD sales are much less than they were even when we released “Alone” a few years ago. So we’ll have to figure out how to “cut corners” and do the recording faster and cheaper but still putting out the same results. Tough to do, but I’m sure we’ll overcome. 

It would be too long to fill in this interview! Mainly it’s about having the money to do certain things and having the time off from “real” jobs to be able to invest more time and effort into the band. We’ve had the usual problems, gear getting stolen, shitty gigs, never making money from playing gigs (unbelievable but basically true), wrecking vans on the way to shows, equipment problems (mostly me hahah!), but overall I’m going to say that we’ve made our own destiny and I’m pretty well satisfied with the way things have gone over the years. 

I’ve been doing this since 1995 and continue to do so at this time. I’ve just reissued the almighty SORCERER release we did (first release from ’95) and also a new album of psychedelic acid rock from my LIQUID SOUND COMPANY.  Also the latest from ELLIOTT’S KEEP in which I contribute a manic solo in one of the songs! I’m still into the idea of making music available for everyone to hear but I’m in the same position as a lot of labels, not enough CD sales over the last few years and making it difficult to continue onward. But – we’re still here for as long as possible. 

I always thought that SORCERER were truly one of the best undiscovered metal bands in the late 80’s early 90’s. The material is so good and the debut CD has been out of print for some time now so I thought it was time to make it available again. I remastered the sound, as it wasn’t done properly in the beginning and added a song that wasn’t on the original. Also some killer liner notes and lyrics printed for the first time. This is an epic release one of the best ever in doom metal history. I thought SORCERER were the best band at Hammer of Doom festival last year when we played with them, Anders sound better than ever on vocals! Truly world class.

Thanks for the interview and continued interest in SOLITUDE AETURNUS! I’m sorry it’s taking so long for new material but please be patient, I only want to deliver the best possible in the end and I’d rather let it come naturally and with time to make sure that it is the HEAVIEST possible!