THOMAS GABRIEL FISHER

I won't reconcile to the world

Because of complicated and very introverted personality of CELTIC FROST’s leader the idea of X-raying him, although I was dreaming about it for a long time, seemed to be an exceptionally hard task at the same time. However, the circumstances (reviving of HELLHAMMER’s old demos) made Tom again appear within reach so I decided to try. Hereby I would like to introduce you the darkest person living on the planet Earth

- How is it going in CELTIC FROST? Everything’s fine?
As always – lots of discussions, quarrels and many varied theories...

- Well… sounds alarming…
You don’t have to bother, we’ve already got used. It’s something natural for us. Tensions in this band always were and will always be. This makes us alive.

- Just today I’ve read information on Blabbermouth that your session guitarist Anders Odden is said to have made a scene with some racist texts towards the Germans. Is it the reason that he’s not with you anymore?
It’s a misunderstanding. Anders doesn’t play gigs with us indeed but we’re on friendly terms. He goes with his business now, among other things with the band MAGENTA in which he plays together with his wife. He lives in Norway and is very busy which made our further work impossible for some time. We’re now supported by V. Santura from DARK FORTRESS on the second guitar but Anders will come back to us when he settles his matters.

- I know… I realize that I’ll ask you the same question again but some time has left now and I probably should. The comeback of CELTIC FROST appeared to be a real bomb. The album is selling like hot cakes, people flock on concerts. Damn, I guess that no one in his right senses expected that much…
I didn’t expect anything, we didn’t… but for a different reason. It was a reunion not for the public, not for the label but for us. We did it first of all for ourselves, we recorded an album for ourselves and we play gigs mainly for ourselves. It’s nice that the feedback is so great but we’re not doing it for feedback. I don’t care if someone likes CELTIC FROST or not. We felt that we want to do something, that we have something which could become our next artistic manifestation. That’s why we returned. I wanted to record an album like “Monotheist”, I’ve been waiting for many years for this album to become fact. I’m totally proud of it and it’s the only thing I feel now. Every single human living on this planet is different from me, that’s why I couldn’t satisfy all at once with what I’m doing. In fact I don’t want and don’t need to do it. I do only what I like to do, what I’m sure about. If somebody likes it, that’s ok.

- Now, from the present perspective it’s clearly visible how well-considered comeback it was. You haven’t done a single mistake, everything was carefully planned. You know, it’s not only about music, promotion, etc. I get the feeling that your every move is conscious. Let’s take for instance a video to „A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh”. It’s one of the best pictures in the history of metal and actually they hardly ever keep even the average level…
As for me, this video is an excellent visual presentation of CELTIC FROST. The supplement to the rest. Incidental actions are out of question, the same for anything which would stand out of the whole. As I’ve said, I’m sure of every step I make and that’s why everything what I do is completely conscious. It’s not the time for mistakes today and present CELTIC FROST doesn’t have weak points. I’ve never been so sure about what I do. I’m proud of it. CELTIC FROST has a special place in my life. I didn’t set up this band to guzzle vodka on tours and chase chicks. This band was created in a certain purpose – to be the vent for my creativity, let me create… The video to „A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh” is very important for us as it shows the other form of our expression, not only in sound version this time. Every scene is well-considered, there is no mess so popular in other videos. It’s thanks to Jessie Fisher as well, the director, without her we couldn’t make such remarkable and expressive image. Before we started our work we’d been talking about it for months. She urged us to her ideas and you know the effect. I’m really grateful to her for this.

- Do you start to think about the next album? Are there any fresh ideas?
Of course. Despite the promotional campaign of „Monotheist” being in progress I’m already thinking about next challenges. CELTIC FROST is a continuing history for me and I’m not going to content myself with what I’ve done. There are some drafts of new tracks and I can assure that these are very dark, heavy and insane things. I’m also going to take a few experiments as well. My aim is to make the following album heavier and darker than “Monotheist”.

- Well, I can’t mistrust you. Ok, let’s talk about other things. You’ve recently wrote a book about HELLHAMMER and the beginnings of CELTIC FROST entitled „Only Death is Real - An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost” which will appear soon. What persuaded you to tell the story?
The book will come out in the spring. It tells about the beginnings of HELLHAMMER, about me, my youth and how I began to play. The idea came up long ago. As I’ve been working on “Monotheist” for 5 years it had to wait until I find time to realize it. If it weren’t for this album, the book would be published long ago. During recent years I’ve been gathering materials which would compose it. I started to write the manuscript in 2005 and finished 2 weeks ago or so. It’s very intensive and radical in its form history. I’m its author so it’s hard to be objective but I’m almost sure that its content would interest many people. It’s the history different from others, very extreme and first of all true.

- How is it written? Did you focus on music, the concept of your first band or can we expect something which would be called outrageous and unpredictable?
It’s a book full of details, a comprehensive story about what was going on. It tells about the band which I had before HELLHAMMER, it fully presents the story of HELLHAMMER itself, explains passing from HELLHAMMER to CELTIC FROST and stops on releasing the first album “Morbid Tales”. You’ll find there loads of information about which no one - apart from us - knew. Besides, there’ll appear some comments of other HELLHAMMER members between my texts, so - Martin Ain’s, Steve Warrior’s, Bruce Day’s and Steve Priestley’s. Their own point of view on the band’s matters is very important as thanks to it the picture of the whole is maximally clear. As you can see it’s not subjective book, it shows things as they really were.