Ultha: "Black Metal is a mirror for society overall"

A comprehensive discussion with Ralph Schmidt, mastermind of the German post-black metallers shortly before their long-awaited concert in Athens

Από τον Αποστόλη Ζαμπάρα, 10/10/2024 @ 16:58

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 Each interview, is an opportunity to give space to a creator to unfold their vision and opinions on their own terms. Therefore, when it comes time for a conversation with artists who go into great depth in every aspect of their creation, then you hope that what they communicate to you is in harmony with the feelings and images that their works evoke in you. The news of Ultha's first appearance in Athens for a concert could not go unnoticed. The post-black metal form is one of the most interesting bands of the contemporary extreme metal underground, having with its discography a special weight that arouses interest, especially in the era of fast-track engagement with music and mass information.

Therefore, highly valuing Ultha's track record and broader perspective, reaching out for an interview was a one-way street. Ralph Schmidt, the band's mastermind, answered the questions with enthusiasm and honesty, introducing us to the human and unpretentious world of the band. The interview below is, in my humble opinion, an ideal opportunity to get in touch with and appreciate a special band. A creator's personal philosophy, reality and how it interferes with the compositional process, the value of influences, and of course the secrets of the band's special sound and great releases, are revealed and we count down to a much-awaited concert.

Ultha

Greetings, I am Apostolis and I welcome you to Rocking.gr! Ι feel like 2024 has been a heavy touring year for you. Where does this interview find you?

At home, between a lot of class tests to grade, haha. So a welcome distraction. And well, yeah, we've been playing a bunch of shows this year, but it's not that much compared to other years where we did two full tours plus weekenders. But our 10th anniversary year has been busy with a lot of great festivals we are super grateful for.

We leave our heart on stage and play like there is no tomorrow, so hopefully a furious and powerful show drenched in red lights and fog

You are about to visit Greece for the first time in a couple weeks. What should the curious Greek audience expect from you?

Well, probably a bunch of Germans who are completely giddy to visit Greece for the first time ever and then be able to play a show for people we never had the chance to meet. We usually leave our heart on stage and play like there is no tomorrow, so hopefully a furious and powerful show drenched in red lights and fog.

Your last album, "All That Has Never Been True", was met with total fan and critical acclaim around the world. Looking back to that record, how do you perceive it in relation to your total discography?

It's crazy how much love this record got and still gets, even two years after its release. It opened up so many doors for us, so that is something special, but it is also our consolidation in a way, as for a while we weren't sure if we had another record in us. But the love we put into this album and the love it got, even though it come from the most painful of places, really reignited the passion all five of us have for this band.

I was not satisfied with that album and thought I failed the band, the fans and myself

The gap between "All That Has Never Been True" and its predecessor, "The Inextricable Wandering", was the biggest in your discography. Was it due to the global pandemic situation?

It was primarily due to the aforementioned indecision if we should end this band. I was in a really bad place that led to "The Inextricable Wandering" and afterwards I was broken and burned out. I was not satisfied with that album and thought I failed the band, the fans and myself. Looking back at it that is too harsh a judgment. But it drove me to write the "Floors Of Heaven" and "Belong" Eps, which both were very well received. But after that I felt I had nothing left to say with this band and I wanted to end it. But the others opted to take a break. This break was planned for 2020 – lucky for us when the pandemic shit then hit the fan we had nothing major planned. But the pandemic gave me the time to recover, as I love being alone. In that time the first ideas and the fire to write an end to the trilogy I had intended came. We used the time to remotely work out all the fine details that make "All That Has Never Been True" so special. Noone expected us to do anything anymore – and then out of nothing this record dropped. It was a great way to bring this band back into full swing.

Ultha

I've always felt that there is a different identity in each of your records. Do, as a band, discuss the aesthetic direction of each record before you start composing it, or is it a more spontaneous thing?

It's an organic process. We use the EP and split releases as a way to try out new approaches, sounds etc. we then distill until we have the record. All of us have different influences we bring to the table. As soon as I have a broad idea about what this record will be about, should feel like and sound like I introduce this to the others. Then we take my riffs and song parts, try it out, reassess, reevaluate, mold, transform and work our magic until something fresh comes out. We never want to do the same record twice and we as people change, so naturally our art does too.

Your second album, 2016's "Converging Sins", holds up to this day a special place in my heart. So, I've always wanted to ask you what is the inspiration behind the opening track "The Night Took Her Right Before My Eyes".

Thank you. That record is special, to us and to a lot of people. I'm glad it is special to you too. If you'll be at the Athens show chances are we'll play that song.

As far as inspiration goes: Given the lyrics it's quite obvious a broken-hearted love song. This is my primary source of inspiration for writing lyrics and music. Nothing with us is about the classic black metal tropes; we never felt that for us. We're closer to bands like The Cure, Nick Cave and Depeche Mode theme-wise and this particular song was about a person that had all of my heart and she left me, for we shared the same trauma and just couldn't be together. It's about a love unable to blossom because of a fear that others installed into our DNA.

My personal favorite records are Depeche Mode's "Violator" and The Cure's "Pornography". Mix those with Neurosis and Emperor and you get Ultha

I think that post-punk/gothic have always been a peripheral part of your music. Whenever you are about to channel that side of yours inside your compositions, do you aspire in a certain atmosphere or feeling? Would you like to share with us your favorite post-punk records?

This whole genre of music is as big of an inspiration to us as Black Metal. Probably more, we just talk in metal. I always felt a kinship in melancholy between Post Punk and Black Metal, so it was easy writing more post-punkish songs in a blackened metal sound. Atmosphere for is comes above all else. A song in itself must be an atmospheric microcosm and it must be a part of the bigger atmosphere of the album. It's like individual planets making up a solar system.

My personal favorite records of all time are Depeche Mode's "Violator" and The Cure's "Pornography". Mix those with Neurosis and Emperor and you get Ultha.

Ultha

Where does Ultha draw inspiration from in everyday life?

From so many things, and all of them different. Of course primarily from other art – movies, TV shows and books. But also from nature and observing life. I spend a lot of time observing life as it happens and often feel like and invisible observer. Like the figure in Poe's "The Man Of The Crowd". Solitude and a missing connection to others often brings me in this position that I observe life as it happens as a neutral third party and trying to understand life. The negative and heavy aspects of everyday life are the things that in the end trigger me writing music or lyrics.

It is important to us not just being an epigone or clone of what some Norwegians did in the 90s

Your lyrics, artworks, as with your overall aesthetic, leave a very distinct mark once someone dives into them. Would you like to name five non-musical influences that have shaped your band's identity?

Thank you. I'm happy you see it that way, as it is important to us not just being an epigone or clone of what some Norwegians did in the 90s.

As far as the five things go...let's see. These five are mine, I'm sure the others would say different things. But since I write the lyrics, bring the concepts to the band and write the basic song ideas it should be suitable:

1. The works of Thomas Ligotti, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P.Lovecraft

2. The shows "The Leftovers", "Bojack Horseman" and "Twin Peaks"

3. Black and white photography

4. Philosophy and the frustration about the willing abandonment of man's ability to reason and rationality.

5. Suffering from depression for more than 25 years and the resulting anhedonia.

How the fuck can someone really invest so much energy in slamming bands like Agriculture for "ruining their scene"?

Black metal, has always been an ever changing sub-genre. How different do you think that it's become in contrast to its first wave and second wave roots, and what are the elements that have stayed constant during that span of 30-40 years of its existence in one form or the other?

To me Black Metal is a mirror for society overall: in the last 30 years we took to many great steps forward in the evolution of a who and what we are, but in the last few years there seems to have been something pushing the developments so far in an open, better space that some people go "I was okay with it up until this point, but that's too far now" and then retrogress into conservative places. Maybe it's not even that people were okay with it, but just were in the minority and didn't dare to utter what they think and feel – but now they are super vocal about it, especially on the internet. Let me explain in a few examples:

Black Metal became stale in the mid-/late 90ies. Some bands started evolving. So far so good. But over the years bands came out including influences from genres that the gatekeepers couldn't fathom and tolerate. Bands like Deafheaven or Agriculture today really rubbed these people the wrong way and then they go off and use transphobic or homophobic slurs to bury them, accusing them of "ruining" their scene, whilst still being tolerant to racist or fascist bands with the excuse of being "apolitical".

• You can do the same thing with diets. I've been vegetarian from my 18th birthday on and started living vegan over 15 years ago. I was mocked and made fun of by people telling me that it's "natural" to eat animals. I was never the preaching type but they still felt the urge to educate me. Well, throughout the years the topic became more present and popular. What do these people do? Start running campaigns that vegan sausage or burgers should not be allowed to be called burger or sausage. There is 100 pages full-color print magazine you can buy here called "Beef", about where to get the best meat and how to slaughter animals in the best way. Surreal.

Bands like Deafheaven, Liturgy or Agriculture aren't even a drop of water in their lake of "trvness

I could go on about the rise in tolerance to fascism and racism in the world thanks to populism and lack of education, culture wars, etc. It's all so fucked up.

But bringing it back to Black Metal: how the fuck can someone really invest so much energy in slamming bands like Agriculture for "ruining their scene"? There is a sheer million bands who are in uniform and cloning what happened in Norway in the early 90ies. These narrow-minded trolls have bands by the dozen, festivals that exclusively cater to them, millions of people they can reminisce about "the good old days". Bands like Deafheaven, Liturgy or Agriculture aren't even a drop of water in their lake of "trvness" - yet they go out of their way to let everybody know how these bands ruin "their" scene – it would be funny if it weren't so fucking sad.

Ultha

Do you feel part of the current underground black metal scene? Are there any bands that you would like to suggest to our readers?

We feel as being an accepted part of the general metal scene. People came up to us saying we weren't a black metal band because of the way we look or sound, and boy couldn't we care less. What is important to me is that there is a huge pile of people who have been supporting us through thick and thin and there are always new people joining the ranks. Some people tell me "I really don't like extreme metal, but you guys just have something that really touches me" and that means more to us than a guy in a Mayhem shirt telling us we're not this or that because of our haircuts.

As far as bands in this subgenre that share our sentiment towards this music and are excellent bands with excellent people: Yellow Eyes (US), Sun Worship (GER), Unru (GER), Fluisetraars (NL), Verwoed (NL), Oerheks (BE), Oranssi Pazuzu (FIN).

If you could collaborate with any artist that you wished, who would they be and why?

Jóhann Jóhannsson, but that won't happen as he's dead. Score music to me is the biggest influence to my writing and Jóhann, may he rest in peace, just ALWAYS hit the exact right notes in the right combination. His music is unbelievably important to me. I think a collaboration with a string ensemble conducted by him would make for the most grandiose and saddest piece of music ever.

Being an active recording and touring artist for 10 years now, was there ever a point that you felt like the existence of Ultha had become a really challenging task?

It always is. Life gets in the way so easily. We're all in our 40ies now with much on our plates. Keeping this band alive is important to us, but it's still just a hobby and oftentimes has to fall behind our life-stabilizing columns like jobs, family etc. But I spoke about it before that in 2019 I thought I couldn't go on. But I'm glad the others changed my fatalistic mind from break up to just break, as the craziest thing seem to be ahead of us – given the chance to be flown out to Greece and play Athens being one of them.

We're super grateful for being able to touch some people in a cosmos of million other acts

Final question, and I would like to thank you for your time! How do you imagine yourselves and the band in 10 years from now? The final words are yours!

It would be crazy if we'd still be around in 10 years. But if we ever had a band that might make it to 20, it's this, as there is a special bond between the five of us. If we'd still be here in 10 years I hope we still play challenging and authentic music that brings something to the table. The world of music evolves so fast, so being still of interest to us and others in 10 years would be crazy!

Thank you very much for these interesting questions and you interest in us. We're super grateful for being able to touch some people in a cosmos of million other acts. That you and others take the time out of your busy lives to commit to our music or what we have to say is incredibly precious to us. We will never take this for granted! And we are super stoked to be seeing some of you in a few weeks in Athens. Please stay after the show and come hang out. We want to get to know you! 

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