This band belongs to the first wave of Swedish black metal. The debut album On the Demiurge was released back in 1996 by cult American label Full Moon Prod. together with ALGAION, ABRUPTUM, MYSTICUM, HADES and SWORDMASTER. The band consists of its only member Fredrik Soderlund. If you listen to industrial music then you know great industrial band PUISSANCE where Fredrik plays together with Henry Moller. In fact PUISSANCE just released its new album Mother of Disease on Polish label Flittering Dragon. OCTINOMOS plays very fast and aggressive black metal with a hell of keyboards and it has very unique sound which is quite different from typical Swedish black metal. This is totally exclusive interview because Fredrik doesn't answer interviews usually. And that's why I decided to put this interview with metal band on my industrial page.

As far as I know, OCTINOMOS is a one-man project, so I'd like you to tell me about yourself. Your age, education, interests, basic stuff people tell about themselves at first meeting.

Well, I'm 24 and have an esthetical education with main subject being drama, I also studied natural science for a while but it wasn't my things although; I must admit to being a great fan of math, it's the "key to the universe".

Most of people agree that making underground music is not a profitable business. Why did you decide to make music?

I enjoy writing music and I feel that I get to express myself more by working with both music and lyrics, for me personally its not enough just to do just one of the two. I think that my lyrics hold a few valid points and they are also a reflection of how I look at life. For as long as I can remember I have been involved in making music (I started when I was about six years old), and the styles I have covered so far is to say the least very varied. I feel that I can't limit myself to just one concept. I have a deeply rooted desire to express something but for the most part its to vague to put into words so the best description must be as stated earlier, how I see life and living.
I don't aim to make a lot of money, I have enough to keep me more or less content and I lead an endurable life just as most others. I'm not what one would describe as very social person (quite the contrary actually), not that I want to portrait myself as the ultimate misanthrope or anything, but I try to avoid human contact since I find that most people annoy the hell out of me.
Bottom line is however (before I start to drift into something utterly irrelevant to your question) that I create to justify my own existence for myself (it may sound pretty arty or even like complete bullshit, but I have a few mental disorders so guess that it can be excused) I feel it helps me to get to know myself and understand why I feel like I do.

You have a couple of musical projects. Why did you decided to begin a black metal one? Fashion, trend?

Nope, I wasn't really subjected to the trend stuff since I came across black metal through a few friends and I have never been active in the scene (tapes trades and writing to people, Henry has done all that). I became interested in BM after Henry played me a few tracks at his house back in 92 or so, and I really liked what I heard and we spoke briefly on the subject. He gave me some info on the BM scene, which was very small but pretty well organized back then, and ideology fit like a glove. I had been writing some metallish trax before but more in the vein of deathmetal, but my lyrics were as always about the shitty human existence.
Anyway, when I got home later that day I sat down and started playing around with my guitar and after a while I found myself playing riffs which slightly resembled Black metal, so I decided to use it. I recorded them. I think it was 3 or 4 trax on a foutrack and later that week Henry dropped by for a chat. We used to hang out a lot back then. But strangely enough, we never really discussed music. Probably because we didn't have anything in common (strange huh, now we've done a bunch of albums together). I had just gotten into death metal but was already getting tired of it, and he was just getting into the industrial scene (which I, by the way, abandoned when I was ten years old. My sister's boyfriend gave me some tapes back then with Neubaten, Dagcenterpobeln, SPK and similar. It was really emotional and scary, quite good to listen to, but I started having nightmares so I had to give it up, hehe, I guess it wasn't meant for ten-year-olds, huh). Anyway, we used to hang out, watch movies and talk about life the way that everyone does it in that age (16-17).

Anyway, I played him the trax I had written the days before and he was a bit reluctant, but he said he liked it. But one should keep in mind that black metal scene was a closed community back then and newcomers weren't very likely to be welcomed. Anyway, he wanted me to help out with his industrial ideas and out of that PUISSANCE was born. But I kept doing more metal tracks (although back then it wasn't really BM) and eventually (a year and a half later) Marten from ALGAION got to hear it. He liked it a lot apparently (he did a vocal recording for the second demo tape) and he even reformed pretty hardnecked Henry. In fact, he liked it much that he got it signed on split release by Infortnium and Full Moon records, and the product of that was the album On the Demiurge. Well, that's the story I guess.

The debut and the only one to this date album of OCTINOMOS was recorded in 1995. Now we have 1999. It's 4 years already. What took it so long to come out with the new album? Many bands release their new albums every 6 months.

I know, and the second OCTINOMOS have been ready for release for quite a while, but I doubt that it'll ever be released, four different labels have accepted the responsibility to release it and they are all now totally bankrupt. Not that they spent a single penny on the release, but somehow they crashed financially. I'm starting to get scared of this album, the ones who have heard the advance tape/ CDR like it a lot, but there must be something really wrong the way the labels have gone down on contact with it. I guess it's damned or something. If anyone have the guts to release it (immediately) they are welcome to contact Stratia, but don't blame me if you end up on the street.

On the Demiurge was pretty melodic, fast and quite monotonous. Henry says that the new one "is one of the harshest albums from the metal scene I've heard, no joke". Is it true? If so, why is so dramatic change in sound?

Well, there is still a lot of melodies in there but the sound is really violent, and it's really fast, I thought my arm was going to break off on a few of those tracks, but we made it, hehe�
It's a great production so you can hear all the nuances of the mangling guitars, machine-gunning drums and death-defying vocals. It'd damn good CD actually. (N: Boy, I'm dying to hear it! Are there any brave labels?)

Your first album had pretty ordinary for black metal lyrics: darkness, world destruction, shadows star of apocalypse� any changes in the new album?

Oh yes, all it is solely dedicated to the destruction of planet Earth, a lot of nuclear references and some drug relations but mainly pure violent ramblings about the upcoming Armageddon in true PUISSANCE fashion.

You and Henry expose your ideology through PUISSANCE. Do you use OCTINOMOS as an instrument to expose you ideology as well? And what kind of ideology you project by it?

Well, it's really very similar in ideology. I think that the only main difference is the musical approach even if that also affects the bluntness of the lyrics, the end product is the same though. It's all about mass destruction and how much I loathe the human race.

In PUISSANCE we are all too often associated with (not due to the actual lyrics, but solely through the ignorance of reporters or critics) extremists, but the truth is that I both in PUISSANCE and OCTINOMOS is a very liberal and open-minded person. We judge people solely on merit and never on origin. My contempt for the human race is based on my personal experiences and is not meant to be interpreted as a manifesto (in PUISSANCE however there is a difference, PUISSANCE provide the Ultimate manifesto of mass destruction and project hate for mankind that widely surpasses that of any of the nasty dictators we are often associated with). I try to provide a just and accurate picture of what mankind is all about. It's greedy and ugly species with only one ambition: to conquer and to own. The egoistic ways of humans is, in my opinion, very silly one. All the world leaders acting all high and mighty, but we all know that they all breath the same air, eat the same filth and have the same domestic problems as the rest of us. The concept of ownership has haunted the human race since the dawn of man and we never seem to learn that the world is not a linear place in the sense of relations (between countries or people). The world is always in motion and what I mean by that is that we can't control the future. No one really knows if anyone is going to steal their country, lover or money, and this is what leads me to believe that ownership and greed is just a way of wanting to control time. Which in itself is impossible but we try, and we try mainly by building weapons. It can be acted behavior to intimidate or physical weapons like guns but all kinds serve the same purpose � to hide our own insecurity. And as we lead our lives in constant fear of being exposed as the wimps we all are we act ever more secure and intimidating the older we get (I think you may at some point in your life have noticed how older people tend to treat you with less respect than younger ones). And as we get older we also gather more and more precious items (a house, dog or wife) which we have to protect from other greedy and insecure people who want to steal them, and by that kind of thinking we produce a tense relation between ourselves and the world thus producing a climate that is unendurable for anyone with a clean heart and good intentions (I don't claim to have neither). This is in my mind what make the human race fit for extinction. It's greedy species and cowardly species, and I sincerely feel that it should be wiped out.

Your album has a name "Welcome to my planet". My experience (from PUISSANCE interview) tells me that you don't like this planet Earth and such an invitation is a trap. Or you invite us to some other planet?

No, it's invitation to the planet I inhabit, Earth, and you are very right, it's not a nice place, but I guess I explained why in the last answer.

Your first album was released through Full Moon Prod. This label started as one of the most promising labels in BM scene but now it's silent. Do you know what happened to them?

I'm not really sure, so I won't claim to have any answer.

I know that you don't have a record deal for OCTINOMOS. Why? I thought it's not really hard to get a deal these days for a BM band.

Well, all the labels (as I stated earlier, four) that have agreed to release it has gone bankrupt, I still believe it's haunted or something, it's a little too much to be a coincidence.

The year 1999 just began so we can talk a bit about the year 1998. Was it good and successful one for you?

A lot of things went very wrong in 1998 but that's mainly personal stuff, but it did affect my musical work. But I'm back in shape now so things are slowly getting back to normal. I did a lot of intros for bands and of course the Back in Control and Mother of Disease with PUISSANCE. I also did some compilations, but some other stuff (OCTINOMOS for instance) was not released. Particularly difficult was the project (which I hold very dear and love very much) TRIPWIRE which is a Industrial dark Drum'n'Bass outfit that me and two friends are doing, I'm hoping to get it off the ground in 1999 and things are looking pretty good.

What are your plans for next 6-12 months?

I'm producing a few tracks for a Londonbased artist whom I met while I lived there; it's not that much of a work loads so far so I have plenty of time for PUISSANCE and TRIPWIRE. PUISSANCE is releasing yet another album shortly actually. It's called "Hail the Mushroom Cloud" and is taking PUISSANCE in a new direction, I'm hoping to get the OCTINOMOS out, or at least that it will bankrupt a few more labels. (N: Then I hope he will sign the band to Sony Music or Universal, he-he).