Triumph of Death interview (Tom G. Warrior)

Interview by Davide Sciaky

Puoi leggere l’intervista in italiano qui.

Hello Tom, how are you doing? 

Well, it’s early morning in the middle of the night. It’s terrible, but I’m doing good. Are you wearing a Live at Pompeii t-shirt? 

Indeed. I was at the Nick Mason concert there a couple of months ago. 

The Pink Floyd film Live at Pompeii is one of the most important musical documents of my life. 

Wow. 

I don’t know if you know this, but when I formed Triptykon, I invited all the new members of Triptykon to my house and made them watch this concert film with me because I told them, if you haven’t seen this, you cannot play with me. 

I mean, yeah, it’s an amazing concert. And being there to see Nick Mason was absolutely amazing.

Absolutely. I saw David Gilmour at Circus Maximus in Rome a few years ago, and it was magical. 

Yeah. I think maybe it was the same tour. I saw him, I think, a few days earlier in Verona at the Roman Arena there. It was insane. It was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen.

Absolutely. I agree. 

So, I don’t know if you remember, we talked in 2020 when COVID had just started, and back then we also talked about Triumph of Death. You told me that you were going to release a live album that year and, of course, that didn’t happen. You’re finally now about to release one and the recordings are more recent, they are all from this year. So what happened back then? You weren’t happy with the recordings you had at the time? 

Yeah, there were a lot of things that just didn’t seem right at the time. We had some recordings that were quite good, but then we had some changes in the band and COVID came and so on. And it just didn’t make sense to release this because we knew we would be very active once COVID would be gone. And of course, I wanted to represent the band as it is now. Because I’m extremely happy with the lineup that I have now. Or that we have had now for four years, actually, in the meantime. So, yeah, we recorded a number of concerts the last two years. And we just decided that we listened to it. We decided Portugal sounds the best. And there’s also some really good moments in two other recordings. So that’s what we used for the album. It was simply based on the quality of the recordings. 

So I guess this, to some extent, answers my next question, which was, the album includes recordings from three different shows, and I wanted to ask you, why didn’t you just go for one full, complete show? But I guess it’s because it was the best bits of different recordings. 

Yeah, we just wanted to take the songs where you can really hear that the magic happens between us and the audience. And we just chose the best performances. But, you know, it’s not unusual. If you look at the famous live albums in our scene, like Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous, Motörhead’s No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith, Black Sabbath’s Past Lives and things like that. They’re all taken from different concerts. I guess if you do a live album, it’s a document and you want to make sure you get the best possible moments and assemble it. Even though we did this, the main body of the album is from Portugal. It’s only like one or two songs, I think, that we took from other concerts because there was simply a certain fire happening. But the main body of the concert is Portugal. Also, the set list and the order of the songs is exactly as we’re playing it every night. 

Yeah, I was comparing it yesterday with the last time I saw you, at Keep It True in Germany, and I was seeing how it’s exactly the same thing. So it feels very much like the proper live experience that one would witness coming to see you.

Keep It True was a very, very good audience. We really enjoyed that. 

Yeah, it was my first time there. And I loved how everyone was so involved with every single band from early in the day, smaller bands. 

Absolutely. It has a very special vibe, that festival. You feel like you’re part of a family. It’s not just like a normal concert. It’s very, very special. 

Yeah, definitely. So, I must admit that the first time I listened to Hellhammer’s music, I struggled a bit because of the rough quality of the recording. And when I finally saw you the first time, that was at Hellfest 2019, something clicked and I really got into this music. So I think that finally recording live today might have the same effect on other people, to give a sort of second youth, to some extent, to Hellhammer. To get a similar effect, sometimes some bands have re-recorded their albums, their older albums. So I was wondering if you ever considered something like that for Hellhammer. 

Not for a second, no. No, I don’t think you can improve on these documents of a very special time in our scene. That goes for Hellhammer and it also goes for early Celtic Frost. Of course, I could make a much more perfect version of it. But would it have the same spark, the same honesty, the same desperation, the same ambition, the same magic between the band members as we had back then? No, it wouldn’t. It would be a technically much better product, but it would be on a level of atmosphere and aura and authenticity. It would be the opposite of an improvement. That’s why I would never consider that. The closest I come to this is to a live album. But no, I don’t think you should touch these sacred albums. I’m not just talking about my own. The early 80s were a very special, magical time in our scene. And we are lucky that we have these documents from that time, as imperfect as they are. But that imperfectness even adds to the charm. So many albums that influence the entire world from Venom to Diamond Head and whatever you have are very imperfect. But that’s exactly why they work. They’re real. They’re honest. 

Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. Triumph of Death ended up being quite in demand and after the epidemic stopped you resumed to play quite a few shows here and there. Was it a surprise for you to see this band which once, when you first started in the 80s, a lot of people didn’t really understand, having today this kind of reaction, this kind of being so much in demand? 

It’s very much a surprise. 40 years ago, I played the exact same music. And people laughed at it and said, it’s noise and it won’t go anywhere. They told us we have to rehearse or we should stop playing, using all kinds of negative things. And now I’m playing the exact same songs, no changes in arrangement, nothing. I’m playing exactly the way we played it in Hellhammer and we’re a headliner in Las Vegas and Brazil and Australia. It’s mind blowing. But I think it simply reflects the development of the scene that things that once were too extreme have become normal. Because we are living in a time where an extreme metal scene has been established. And people are much more open to it. And that’s a good thing. But yeah, of course, I think back to the old days when I’m on stage and it’s very surprising. 

Absolutely. Changing topic a bit, I saw that a few months ago you had an artistic exhibition at the Time to Rock festival called Aesthetic of Mortality. Can you tell me more about it? What was it about? What did you exhibit?

Well, it was an exhibition of my death masks that I created for a number of years towards the end of Celtic Frost and in the first years of Triptykon. It started very small. I wanted to have a death mask of myself. And when I created the death mask, I thought maybe I should add the corpse paint and use my face like a canvas. And then I did a second one and a third one. And then some friends of mine visited me and saw the death mask and asked if they could buy one. So it became something much bigger than I actually intended. And over the years, there has been occasional interest in an exhibition of these. By now, this is a project I have long since abandoned. I no longer create death masks. But in recent years, some concert promoters have asked me to exhibit them. And of course, I’ll do that. But it really reflects part of my past by now. 

And how did this promoter get to know about this death mask? Is it just word of mouth between your friends and people who learn about this?

The promoter of the Time to Rock Festival is a very unusual, fascinating man who was previously involved with the Sweden Rock Festival. And he’s very familiar with my career and my music. And I think because he’s very, very much in the metal scene, he must have heard about the death mask. And that’s why he approached me. But he’s not just a concert promoter. He’s really a very knowledgeable person in heavy metal. Very, very interesting person. 

In our older interview that I mentioned before, at the time you said that you were working on Triptykon’s music, that you were planning to release a new EP that year and hopefully the new album the following year. And of course, it’s been a few years now, these EPs and albums haven’t come out yet. So what’s going on with that? Is any new music ready? Are you working on it? 

Yeah, it’s a bit overdue, isn’t it? [Smiles] It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. Once this promotional period for the Triumph of Death live album has been concluded, the next project, I mean, the only project that we’re working on is going to be the Triptykon album, to record and finish the Triptykon album. Everybody wants to do it in the band and we really, we have no other plans right now. We will think about other plans once the album is done, but we all want to now do the album. We know it’s overdue and we need to complete it. 

So, again, different topic. A few years ago, I almost forgot about this, but yesterday I came upon a news article about how a few years ago Metallica played in Zurich, they played a bit of a Celtic Frost song and you didn’t enjoy that and you said that they butchered it and it was humiliating. So I’m wondering, I guess for many bands it would be just publicity, any publicity is good publicity, but you actually didn’t enjoy that. So I was wondering, was it because of some previous feelings that you have about the band or was it specifically the performance you didn’t like? Like if they played better, you would have enjoyed it? 

No, I was a huge fan of Metallica. I was at their very first concert ever in Europe in 1984 [Ed. on the 3rd of February in Zurich]. I bought their album the day it came out, I had their demos. I began as a gargantuan fan of the band. Yeah, two times in recent years when they played in Switzerland, they covered a Celtic Frost song at two different locations. And I wasn’t the only one who said they butchered it. And you can see it on YouTube. Both of the times, both times they actually managed to fuck up the song. And if you go on stage in the country of a band and you say, we want to pay tribute to that band, at least rehearse the song, right? I mean, if I go on stage in Birmingham where Black Sabbath are from and I say I want to pay tribute to Black Sabbath because they’re an influence, I don’t fuck up the Black Sabbath song because that’s very disrespectful. But that’s just my opinion, you know? But I think if you become a millionaire for many years, you’re probably no longer so close to the actual heavy metal scene. You’re no longer the same hungry heavy metal fan that you were in 1982, 83, 84, when you began to create your legendary music. If you look at their documentary, Some Kind of Monster, you see people who go to therapy and go hunting animals and collect art, but heavy metal, authentic heavy metal is not their priority. And that’s just an observation from the outside. I don’t have any inside information, but it just seems to me that being a multimillionaire for many years doesn’t really make you an authentic heavy metal musician. God knows, you know? 

Probably it distorts your perspective a bit. 

But I’m, of course, aware of their importance. And as I said, their music for a very long time meant a lot to me, too. I’m just maybe a bit surprised where they’ve been going lately. 

Yeah, it was a bit weird. I remember I saw them on that tour in Stockholm and they played an ABBA song. To some extent it was funny because you’d never expect to see Metallica play ABBA. But on the other hand, I mean, it was just Kirk and Robert Trujillo playing it, so it was already half a song. They weren’t even singing. So it was like, what’s the point? I mean, I get it’s a tribute to the city, but it was a bit weird, the whole thing. 

I was wondering about that, too. Why it’s only two of them? 

If you want to do a tribute and you got that far, at that point you could do the whole thing. 

Of course. To me, that would be fun, you know? And I’m not talking about my own music, but just to see them do a tribute as a band would be amazing. But I don’t know. Strange decisions. 

With Hellhammer first and later with Celtic Frost, you pioneered a certain style of extreme metal. And I guess that some people would expect a black metal musician to be somehow extreme also in their personal life, whether it’s only listening to extreme metal, or to maybe partake in excesses or some stuff like that. And by following you, I know you are not like that. I know you don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, don’t do drugs. So I’m wondering if you think there is anything in your personal life that actually reflects that extreme image? 

Well, that’s a good question. Just if you take drugs or smoke or drink, to me, that’s not really extremity. Extremity is something far deeper. Extremity is your approach to life, your own life philosophy, your personality. And yes, I do think I’m quite a fanatical extreme person. I’ve had my excesses in my life in the past on one level or another. I enjoyed it at the time, but I’m glad I left it behind. But my extremity is on a completely different level. I’ve chosen a life the past 42 years, and even before that, in my youth, that is completely outside of normal society. I’ve always been going against the flow of the river. And I pursued that all my life. And if anything, I’m more radical now than I’ve ever been in this approach. And that to me is true extremity, the way you live your entire life, if you have the courage to live your entire life in accordance to your fanaticism and your extremity. My extremity is not an image. 

That’s very insightful. Thank you. I only have one final question and to end this interview I wanted to ask you some sort of silly curiosity. Ever since the first recordings of Hellhammer, you use that sort of “Uh!” exclamation in your songs that today has become a sort of trademark for you. And I was listening to the new live the other day and at the end of Maniac, the audience was screaming “Uh! Uh! Uh!”. It’s amazing how it’s become so associated with you. Do you remember where that came from? Was there like a specific idea behind that or was it just something that happened when you were recording? 

Well, I heard it all the time in the 1970s and early 80s. A lot of soul and funk bands that I listened to did it. And all of a sudden, I was like, oh, I’m going to do this. And a lot of the new wave of british heavy metal bands that I liked did it. You know, you can hear the “Uh!” in Tygers of Pan Tang and Diamond Head and so on. There’s a whole list of bands who have done this. Iron Maiden, the early Iron Maiden did that too, Paul Di’Anno. And we always loved that in Hellhammer. And so we also did it like many others. And myself, I listened to so much funk music. I still do, actually. And you can find it there very often because it enhances the rhythm. And I don’t know why out of all these musicians I was associated with it. There was an article in the English magazine Kerrang! in the first half of the 80s where they basically only wrote about that. And maybe that was the start why people started saying, ok, Tom Warrior does this. But I’m not the inventor of it. I have to be honest and fair. I’m not the inventor of it. It existed maybe 15 years before I even created music. Listen to James Brown, for example. But yeah, here I am. And when I’m dead, I’ll be remembered like that [laughs]. 

Your tombstone: Tom Warrior – Uh!

[Laughs] That’s true. 

Well, that was a very interesting chat, thank you very much for that. And I hope to see you sometime soon. 

I would love that. Thank you very, very much for your time and your interest.