Although the band constantly struggled with the business side of things and eventually went their separate ways in the early 90s, the Frost legacy is as strong as ever.  Bands as diverse as Emperor, My Dying Bride and Nirvana(!) have claimed influences from the Swiss outfit.  Sadly, the band's label didn't put much thought into the initial CD releases of their classic efforts, but Tom (now Thomas Fischer of the band Apollyon Sun) has taken the time to collect all the original art, lyrics, proper mixes and release remastered versions of the first three albums.  He also took some time to talk about the releases and reflect on the majesty that was (is…?) Celtic Frost.

And are you pretty happy with the new versions?
We are necessarily happy because the band was 100% involved with it.  Noise simply provided us with the resources to do it, but it was the band who put this together.

Out of all the Frost releases, what has been the biggest seller so far?
I would say it was probably Into the Pandemonium.

Who was your favorite producer to work with? 
It is definitely Roli Mosimann because he has a vision and is very unconventional, just like the band.  He's not afraid of taking risks, sometimes absurd risks, and this is all totally in the vein of Celtic Frost as band themselves.

What kind of risks do you mean?
Well, to try out ideas that other people would say, 'They never sell,' or to try out ideas that are totally off-the-wall.  Risky stuff in that not every band does it and it is less than certain that it's going to work.  But for the benefit of creating new music, you still try it - you still have the integrity to stick behind it and you do it, even if it's maybe not a certain success.

Is there any more Frost or Hellhammer material in the vaults that might see the light of day someday?
Well, as far as Hellhammer, I really don't care.  As for Frost, there are demos from Vanity/Nemesis and there are two demos from the last album that was never released.  I'm really not quite sure if that will ever be released or not - I don't know if we should release every little fart the band ever did. (laughs)  But, perhaps.  We've been talking about it loosely, who knows.

Any chance for a live video or a live album from one of the classic tours? 
No, there are no official live recordings.  We never wanted to do a live album - we really didn't like live recordings.  There are some mixing desk tapes that are in the possession of the band, but I don't think they are fit for release and everything else is just bootlegs.

Is there any live footage on video maybe?
Again, it's just bootlegs.  We were going to do quite a big show in New York with an orchestra, where we would have played "Rex Irae (Requiem)" and some other tracks in classical arrangements, but that never came together.  That show was going to have been filmed and released as a home video, but it's one of many unreleased projects of the band.

Was that just a money-thing?
No, it was connected to other things.  For business reasons, it just never came together and then later on, we had other plans and so on.  It's a shame, though, because we really wanted to do that.

Do you have one particular frost show that really stands out as being a particularly memorable show?
Definitely when we played the Beacon Theater in New York City at the end of 1987, that was an outrageous show, just from the crowd reaction.  One of the most memorable shows was the Halloween show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, after Pandemonium.  That must have been one of the peak shows the band ever played.

Any contact with H.R. Giger since his involvement on To Mega Therion? 
No, we actually haven't.  Just recently, though, he gave an interview to a German music paper where they asked him about Frost and he had very kind words about us.  I will probably provide him with copies of the re-issues, though.

How did you come across the artist Les Edwards for the inner sleeve of Into the Pandemonium?
The first time I saw his work was in a book of fantasy paintings.  I had this period in the mid-80s where I was interested in fantasy for a while and I had this book of really great fantasy paintings, but out of all of them, Les Edwards' work stuck out because it was more serious than the other ones.  It had more depth to it.  So, we were very eager to secure his work for our album because we knew we needed an inside sleeve.

When you finally found Ron Marks to join as a second guitarist, it seemed like you had been searching for a long time. How long had you been looking for someone?
For perhaps one-and-a-half or two years, for a very long time.  It was just very difficult for us to find the perfect person.  We knew we could find somebody competent, but we didn't want just a hired gun - we wanted somebody who was original and who was as obsessed as we were, so we took a long time.  That's why we found Ron Marks very late in our career.  He had actually been to a show of ours in '86, but he didn't know we were looking for a guitar-player and we didn't know he was there. (laughs)

How did you actually hook up with him finally?
Well, we had an ad all over America because we had such a great experience with Reed.  Ron Marks was a Celtic Frost fan and he put together an amazing tape and sent it to our management.  It was literally the last tape we received, but our manager called us into the studio and he said, 'We found the guy!  He's exactly the guy you want.' 

How did you develop the singing style that you used on songs like "Mesmerized" and "Sorrows of the Moon"?  The first time I listened to that album (Into the Pandemonium), I thought you were sharing vocal duties with someone else!
It's a bit complex to explain that.  On the first U.S. tour in '86, Reed and me were very disappointed by the hardcore faction in our audience, the people who came just for the most primitive elements in our music.  These fans were so violent, they started riots and fights in the audience, they came on-stage and destroyed part of the equipment, they made it almost impossible for the other fans to enjoy the show.  So the band made a conscious decision to alter our musical output.  We wanted to make it more accessible, we wanted to make it more melodic, in order to separate ourselves from that hardcore element.  And a very important part of that was to find a different vocal style, but since I didn't have any formal training, we resorted to experiments.  We were trying to determine what else there was in vocal styles that would match with our music, and these experiments are very reflected on Pandemonium.

Where did you get the title for Cold Lake?
Well, it's very much a manifestation of our frame of mind at that time, meaning our extreme frustration with the recording industry.  After fighting for fourteen months in the most radical and extreme way possible against the record company, and them fighting us the same way, just because of Pandemonium, and the resulting destruction of the line-up of Pandemonium and the financial problems and the canceled video clips and everything…  We were just in a totally distraught frame of mind at that time and I think the title reflects that.

I'm wondering who some of your influences were in the earlier days that led to the more experimental tracks like "Danse Macabre" and "Tears in a Prophet's Dream."
It was simply an attempt of painting a picture without the visual aid, like a movie without the pictures or a theater play without the actors - we just delivered a soundtrack that gives you a picture.

Did you ever think about doing a whole album along those lines?
No, actually the second track "Tears in a Prophet's Dream" went almost too far for us.  We kind of had exhausted that concept and we were already starving for new stuff.

Are you surprised by the enduring influence and interest in Celtic Frost?
Very much so.  It is something that we hoped for, though maybe not on that scale.  We always hoped the band wouldn't be forgotten when we would finally dissolve.  We always knew it was unavoidable that the band would end prematurely, but we always hoped that at least some elements of our music would stick around.  What has happened since then has totally surpassed any of our hopes or expectations.  It's unbelievable and we are extremely humbled by it.

What do you make of the scenes that have been clearly influenced by Frost, such as the black metal and death metal scenes?
I don't care for the black metal scene, that has nothing to do with Celtic Frost.  We took a clear stance from the very first day against black metal and we really don't understand what black metal bands say when they claim they were influenced by us.  We feel that is very absurd.  We feel you have some responsibility when you are a musician and you release lyrics and stuff to an audience that is largely in their puberty and that is why already on Morbid Tales we took a strict stance against Satanism and everything.  So, this is really none of our concern and we don't associate with that.  The other bands that are claiming to be influenced by us…at times it is interesting and at times it's frustrating.  Some of those bands simply copy us and that's not really an influence.  Celtic Frost was all about innovation and trying new things and, to me, a band is satisfying when they do the same thing, when they try to explore new things.

Do you feel like the Celtic Frost story is still unfinished?
At first, I felt so, but by now, I think it had to end like this.  On the other hand, we are all very close friends, we see each other as often as possible and because of that, we of course often talk about playing music together.  By now, within a year or two, it seems that it might actually happen, that we are going to do something else.  So perhaps, the last chapter hasn't been written yet, or perhaps there are several chapters - nobody knows right now.  I'm pretty undecided right now.  I think we could still do something, but it has to be modern and it has to be contemporary, otherwise we won't do it.

It seems like every release has been so radically different from the previous ones that, if you made a new album that wasn't innovative and different, it wouldn't be Celtic Frost.
It would destroy the reputation of the band and we don't want to do that.  You're totally right, though.  The new album would have to be like Frost, it would have to be dark and heavy, but it would have to be radically different at the same time.

What are your immediate plans for Apollyon Sun?
Well, we finished the full-length album three weeks ago, and now we're determining what label it's going to be on.  The release date is set for February or March of next year.  It's a very dark album.  It's a very modern album, but also dark and as experimental at times as Celtic Frost, so I'm very excited about it.  So that is the immediate plan - to get this album out on the market and to tour on the strength of it.

How does the album compare with the earlier EP?
It is more integrated.  It's more of a true unit between modern instruments and traditional heavy instruments.  Even though we use drum loops and bass loops, we also use live drums and live bass, and we don't sample all the guitars, we have live guitars.  All of that makes it much much warmer than the material on the EP or just regular industrial material.  It is just a much more integrated mixture and this really the way we want to go.  We want to have a certain warmth and groove in our music.  We don't want to be somebody who presses a button and has a cool computer playing.

Did you produce the album?
We produced it with Roli Mosimann and did a number of remixes with other people, like John Fryer, and we did some of our own remixes, just to explore different avenues.  But most of the material is produced by Roli Mosimann again, who did Vanity/Nemesis for Frost.

Cool, he's an awesome producer.
Yeah, I like him very much, too.  He's a close friend, too, even though it's not always that easy to work with him. (laughs)  But I guess the same goes for us. (laughs)