Ante Scriptum: Rapariga, lembra-te de que ir trabalhar depois de uma noite de absinto e tabaco é uma leviandade e tu já não tens idade para leviandades mas adiante, tenho de me abstrair e enquanto espero deseja-me sorte.

(…)  That’s Charles Baudelaire, that’s Charles Bukowski, that’s a Finnish writer called Timo K. Mukka (vai apontando para as tatuagens no braço) his stuff has never been translated but he is a guy who used to live in the middle of the woods in Lapland in Finland and ah… he ah… lived twenty- nine years and looked like sixty when he died.

I don’t know the stories about him being a crazy alcoholic, just downing bottles and bottles of vodka and just writing in a manic frenzy but ah… he also had a family and I heard that he was a great father, you know, and he wrote about life in little, tiny… towns and villages in Finland and they are extremely sexual and very depressing but he…

You know… very few writers… write down… ah… write down their thoughts as they really are.

You can tell when you read somebody, and you can actually tell he hasn’t been editing himself to be more appreciated in literary circles, in a way, I am not saying that it is dumb down, I am saying you can just instantly see the flow.

The brush strokes get heavier at the end of the sentence or they don’t… or lighter and that’s how he wrote and ah... he is one of my idols in a way of being a father, a good father, and the support of a family and then still living a very passionate life and being able to get so much out of himself that makes life worth living for I guess.

 I think one of the things… his stuff is so… is so very Finnish and not even Finnish it is more Lappish so the language is very hard to translate, there are lots of words that even I don’t get because it is old-school.

It is like lots of dialects that very few people use, so it is very, very hard to get the all vibe down and I think some of his work has been translated into German or Swedish but I don’t know how well it would do in English.

It is like those rural writers here in America, when you write about a very specific place and you have to write in a certain specific way to get the actual mood of living in there and nobody who’s ever been there can get the entire right feel out of it.

I actually spend a couple of weeks in Lapland to write Venus Doom…

So yeah, I rented a cabin in the middle on the woods and, and I just went there and ended up hooking up with all the local reindeer herders, listening to their stories  and taking helicopter rides over the mountains and wrote a few songs, I actually wrote the basic ideas for Sleepwalking Past Hope back in Lapland and for Cyanide Sun as well and I can hear the Lappish influence in those two tracks in Venus Doom because for me they sound, the right word for it would be… they sound really widescreen, like  really cinematic, there’s like a big landscape behind the music, it’s a very wide angle and I am really proud of those things, I can really hear the sound of the North.

So, I was thinking of maybe going back there for the next album.

You know people tend to be… keep very much to themselves, they are not very open, there’s not a lot of chit-chat going around and they are very honest, in a way, there’s no small talk, they don’t bullshit you.

So let’s say if I walk into a bar somebody, a guy, can walk up to me and say «are you a good guy?»

If I say «yeah, I consider myself a fairly good guy», «Ok, in that case, come along and sit down with us.» So it is that direct, there’s no bull whatsoever and I love the honesty in that because, you know you kill a lot of time by trying to please people, trying to, you know, having the mask on, and back in the North they don’t care about that. That’s the cool thing about it, something very unique.

But, nowadays, also because so many things had become so liberal kids have to  stretch further and further to make themselves noticed, if you know what I am saying, cultural and all that.

There are not so many taboos anymore and obviously kids are always searching for taboos.

You know, if we just think of, let’s say, intoxicants… you know, back in the day weed was like this cool illegal thing it is nothing nowadays, meth it’s nothing nowadays, cocaine is nothing nowadays and smacks are just not interesting for anybody, you’re just not off.

You know, so they are searching for something, they’re searching for, you know… what they call? Ahmm, how George Bataille said transgression literature.

Something that rips the reality around you apart and you can restructure it through the way you clothe yourself, through the way you live your life.

The search for individuality is becoming more obsessive at all times people want to be so different…

You know people rise to the barricades or stretch the boundaries and try to see if the grass is greener on the other side.

A lot of people don’t do that on a psychological or on an intellectual level, you can still get a lot by just reading… you know lots of thoughts and a lot of ideas.

A lot of people seem to, I am not saying everybody, seem to have the obsession that you have to show your individuality and your crazy identity through outer means… and It is not important I guess…

You know... it is better to shut up and say one good sentence once every ten years and you will be a God … ha ha ha I am not saying that you should do that.

(…) yeah especially in America if you are watching telly what’s going on there? It is getting ridiculous all the reality shows and everything.

Nothing is taboo anymore, so what are they looking for next?

What’s going to be the next kick, murder?

Or suicide is going to be the next kick or something and it has (…).

Post Scriptum: Parece tontice mas relembrar estas coisas ajuda-me a respirar, cá está um dos últimos góticos mas shiuu não digas a ninguém, é que as pessoas ainda se prendem ao eyeliner.

Voltar a esta entrevista deixa-me calma, como quando costuro ou arrumo a casa, já a sei de cor e às vezes partes dela vêm-me à cabeça em determinados momentos e confortam-me e lembram-me que ainda aqui estou depois de tudo, ainda aqui estou.