“For Maniac, it was that or dying. Getting kicked out of Mayhem was the necessary wake up call to get his shit together and live. Because if he had stayed in Mayhem, he would be dead now.”

Emotional and historic game against Argentina. Really well done.

“I think the biggest, at least most lasting, contribution was to bring De Mysteriis…to the black metal fans and artists of that day, because the riffs and general musical quality on that album was so highly influential to the rest of us, that it made us try harder as well. Not to mention that the guitar riffs on that record laid the foundation for a sound that a lot of other artists would be very influenced by. If you think Emperor was influential, where do you think we got it from?”

“Euro was driven. He was always there with diehard ideas. In times of much distraction, he was always there. He was always encouraging people to listen to anything extreme of any genre. I think it was sad to see all the people coming into black metal after he died. I think many of them thought that only black metal was real and didn’t have much perspective and shunned other styles. It was very bad for black metal, actually, that a lot of copy bands without any backbone came out of those people.”

“Me and Attila had a really exceptional connection, and for me that was the roughest thing, because I really, really admired his talent. But the others…we were not a unity anymore. When we were on tour, I was always drinking wine with the supports instead of sitting around talking to the other guys in the band. There was already a rift, something that separated us. There were some uncomfortable moments and I’m not really sure of what Hellhammer and Necro thought, but for sure it was a blow. But at the same time, we didn’t really get that well along, especially with Hellhammer in the end. When I look back at it, I feel like everybody kind of felt we had all this coming. The unity started to break already back in 2003 and never really got back. Too many things happened between people and we were not really respecting each other. I think it was a great feeling to have Attila in the band. Also, he motivated us, because there was not much motivation during the Chimera period. But for Ordo ad Chao me and Attila were on fire all the time. We had a lot of fun and a lot of serious talks. For me that was the saddest thing of leaving: my relationship with him and the chemistry we had. It could have gone really, really far because we had the same fucked up mentality. But the last tour I was drunk all the time, in a really miserable way, just partying with the support acts and creating a bigger space or vacuum between me and the band. And suddenly I just popped out. Everything was a bit strange. Even after the last show I didn’t shake anybody’s hand except for Attila. We got out of the plane and we separated.”