Forging a sound that mixes charging, mid-tempo metal with industrial and techno programming and gothic sensibilities, Kovenant are guaranteed to make plenty of new fans.  The surprisingly down-to-earth Lex (I mean, just look at the picture…) filled me in on the latest happenings for these Norwegian power mongers...

Was the song-writing process any different this time out?
Yeah, I think it changed pretty much, actually.  I think that's probably the thing that changed most, technically.  The last album and things we did before that was pretty much showing off on our instruments (laughs).  It was like technical guitar stuff and a lot of complicated drum things.  On the new one, we went in more of a power direction.  More like stomping metal beats.

Is the new material more challenging to play or not?
No, I think it's easier.  Certainly easier to do live, because you get to get more into it since you don't have to concentrate on what's coming next, you know.  I think the new music is more powerful.  It's based more on chords, so the whole atmosphere has changed.  Since we're also using a lot of electronic stuff, like computers and sequencers and stuff, and even Hellhammer (aka Von Blomberg) has started to play the drums more militant.

How will you utilize the sequencers and stuff live?
Well, we have a big black box that we jokingly call 'The Terminator.'  It's this huge box with sequencers and computers and everything.  We just push a button and hope… (laughs)  We fired half of the band, you know, and we have a new guitarist now.  He's from a totally different music scene - he's from the heavy metal / hard rock scene, like Van Halen and Whitesnake.  We didn't want a guy with his background in the black metal scene.  If you get someone from the black metal scene, then people will say, 'Oh, it's a project' again, you know.  Or he probably plays in forty different bands, so it was more interesting and more important to get someone with a totally different background.  So, we're four members now.  Actually five if you count the machine…

What's the guitarist's name?
Angel.

How do you split up the tasks of writing the lyrics and music?
It's always been me and Psy doing the music, and this time it's about 50/50 on the music and I did the lyrics.  We hardly rehearse at all, because amazingly we can rehearse once and then we can play it perfectly together, so we go very naturally together.  We just sit at home making music, sending tapes to each other, then we meet up, have some beers, and go through the stuff.

Who did the keyboards on the album and do have a permanent keyboardist lined up?
No, we don't have a permanent keyboard player anymore.  This time it was me and Psy who did it.  When we did the first album, we did everything ourselves, too.  When we did Nexus, we brought in all these people to hopefully form a band, but they had other priorities, so they're fired.

The production is excellent.  Who did you work with? 
It's the first time we actually used a producer, which was pretty interesting for us.  We used the same studio as last album and the producer is Siggi Bemm, the owner of Woodhouse Studio.  We really wanted to get it well done this time, you know, so we booked it for three months.  We spent a lot of time on it…for once…

Did he help out with any arrangements or anything or just with the sound?
It's more in terms of the sound, yeah.  I don't know, I think it would be wrong of us to get a producer like Trent Reznor, who probably alters the songs and creates he band.  We want to have the full, 100% creative input in the band.  So it was more of him helping us with programming the electronic stuff, finding the right guitar sounds, keyboards, etc.  Then he mixed the album.

I understand the album had a different working title.  What made you decide on Animatronic?
I think Prophecies of Fire [the working title] sounds too black metal and there's probably like ten different bands that have the same title. (laughs)  I also don't like it because we have a song called "Prophecies of Fire"
 and we really don't like to have the same album title as one of the songs.  Animatronic sounds more commercial. (laughs)  It's more magic.  Prophecies of Fire is something that anyone else in the extreme metal scene could come up with and I think Animatronic is just a little more magic and representative of what the album stands for.

Were you surprised by the success of the last album? 
Well, I wouldn't call it a success… (laughs)  But yeah, we were surprised when we found out that we'd charted in a lot of countries and by the amount of albums we sold, which I think is about 100,000 by now.  And that's only Europe.  A lot of people were calling us sell-outs, but if we really were, then we would have made Animatronic like Nexus Part 2, you know.  Not that we had such a big success, but it was enough of a success that it would have been the safe thing to do.  But we felt that we wanted to break away from a certain scene and start on our own, sort of create extreme music for the millennium generation.  You could probably call it Millennium Metal. (laughs)

What made you decide to commit full-time to Kovenant?
Both bands had become pretty big so I had to make a decision, because I obviously couldn't do both.  Kovenant is the band that I started back 1991, so it's kind of like my baby, so I chose Kovenant.  Of course, there are a lot of little details as to why I quit, but officially it was because I wanted to do Kovenant instead.

I understand you're looking to tour the States sometime soon.  Any concrete plans yet?
Yeah, we have plans.  We just signed a deal with an American management, World Management.  Same guys who do Morbid Angel and Genitorturers.  So we were lucky enough to get a big management straight away.  He's arranging some tours now.  We're probably touring all of next year.  We're coming to the States in February.  Hopefully, we're going to go with some big bands, but I think we also have something lined up with Genitorturers.

You won a music award earlier this year.  Was that a shock?
The Grammy award, yeah.  It was pretty strange, since we're like the first extreme metal band that ever won a Grammy award.  But I think it ended up like a big joke.  They are sort of like taking the edge off of it, like, 'Okay, now you guys can go in that corner and look stupid and let the professional people handle everything.'  They were joking about Dimmu Borgir just after they played and then we won the thing and it felt like a bitter victory.  But, still, we won the fucking thing, so now they have to take us seriously.  I just found out today that we entered the Norwegian charts, which is pretty strange.  It only consists of bands like Shania Twain and stuff like that.  The album has been out for about ten days and I think we've sold about 80,000 so far, so that's pretty cool.

Do you think people will always link you with black metal due to the band's history?
Some probably will.  That's probably why we changed our names and the band name, because we wanted to get away from the whole thing surround it.  We're kind of fed up with everything that's going on.  It's not like we had to revolutionize anything, it's just we wanted to get a fresh start.  We wanted to put some of the magic back into the extreme metal scene, at least in Europe.  I really don't care anymore about the whole scene thing.  It's basically about what we want to do and not listening to anyone else, not being dictated to by so-called 'elite' listeners, you know.  Of course, we wouldn't be where we are if it hadn't been for all those people, but at the same time we wouldn't even be where we are if it hadn't been for ourselves. (laughs)  A lot of people are doing the safe thing.  When they get as far as they can go, they go back in time.  A lot of bands are going back to old thrash metal, heavy metal now.  At least they could do something new with it, but no…  They always choose the easy way out.  That's kind of what Animatronic is about lyrically.  This album has got a lot of black humor in it, a very sarcastic, ironic album.  So, we're like the spiritual deaths of the human spirit.  For the new millennium, the end of the world…

What do you think will happen in the year 2000?
Well, what I think is that we're all going to die. (laughs)  Going up in a big bang, you know.  Part of me doesn't believe it, but then another part of me believes we're going to die, all of us.  Die a horrible, horrible death.  I mean, the album is about that - the whole apocalyptic end of the world, fascism is everywhere, bombs and shit, atomic wars and stuff like that.  I think there's a lot of misconceptions about the year 2000, too.  When people wake up on January 1st, there's going to be a lot of confused people, you know, by not seeing aliens and robots and spaceships flying past their windows.  But it's a very sarcastic album.  It's very much like a prophetic, Nostradamus album, but I don't think we're prophets or anything.  Just a theory of what could happen…

How did you come up with the new names?
We wanted something that sounded more magical and also something that wouldn't categorize us in a certain scene.  I mean, Lex Icon and Psy Coma, it sounds like Axl Rose or something like that. (laughs)

What do you make of the current metal scene?  Are you a metal fan?
Well, I think it's generally pretty good.  It's probably like any other scene, like the rap scene, the funk scene, the thrash scene - there's always some good bands, some shitty bands, and the majority are talking crap about everybody else.  I haven't actually noticed a change, you know, in any music scene.  It's always been the same, with the exception of a few bands coming out like Manson or Rammstein or the occasional band who can change something, but then they are pulled down again by the majority of music fans and people.

What do you enjoy doing outside of music?
Conspiring to kill religious icons… (laughs)  Not really.  I do a lot of things:  sports, hunting, fishing…not really, I hate fishing (laughs)..  Just stupid things, normal things.  It's not like I'm sitting around in the basement at my grandmother's, plotting to take over the world. (laughs)  Basically, walking around, having sex, doing drugs, drinking, whatever.

Rock 'n' roll…
Rock 'n' roll all the way!  (laughs)

What are your plans for the immediate future?
Vacation. (laughs)  It's my first vacation in five years and it just started last week.

And you got stuck doing interviews…
Yeah.  I guess it starts next week then. (laughs)  Vacation until January the 1st, then all hell breaks loose…