With the release of ‘Reader of the Runes – Luna’, Elvenking closes the book on the trilogy of concept albums that brought their folky power metal sound to a new level. Singer Damna looks back on how the songs and the concept took shape, and forward on how creating the ‘Reader of the Runes’ albums will impact future albums of the Italian sextet.

“When we finally decided to create this concept story, we started to visualize the story in our minds”, Damna explains. “And we immediately understood that we couldn’t just do one album and be done with it. The story wasn’t structured that way; it was a bit complicated. Many things were happening over the course of the story, and we needed more albums to develop the story the way we wanted to.

Because of this, we were forced to plan ahead for these three albums. For the first one, we just focused on the first part, and didn’t pay too much attention to what would happen in the later chapters. But then, when we had to start writing songs for parts two and three, we had to take everything that was going to happen in those parts into account.

And then we had the Covid situation. That ‘helped’ us, in the sense that it simply gave us more time. That’s when we wrote all of the songs for part two and part three. We had the chance to really select which songs would work for which album, based on the mood that each album had to have. Every song had to have a specific mood in order to go with the story. It was a lot of hard work, but I’m happy with how it came out.”

On a Leash

The ‘Reader of the Runes’ albums offer some more flexibility than traditional concept albums, the concept itself being a relatively loose framework of interconnected stories. “The second part was more dramatic, more violent, with all the really bad things happening in that part of the story”, Damna says. “So musically, that album  had to be a bit heavier and darker.

We couldn’t just write part two and then think of part three, because when we write, it’s very difficult to say: okay, now we’re going to write some dark, heavy songs. It’s not that easy. At least not for us. We need to write and write an write until we find the right things. Usually, we can work a bit more intuitively when we’re writing songs, but we had to go on a leash a bit because of the story.

However, the fact that we had time to write twenty, twenty-five songs, and then having the luxury to choose between the tracks, and put each of them on the right albums: that was really a blessing. I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t have that, really.”

Another complicating factor is that many of the characters introduced on ‘Reader of the Runes – Divination’ (2019) have died by the end of ‘Reader of the Runes – Rapture’ (2023). “Part three focuses more on the past on one side, and also on the outcome of what has happened in part two”, Damna clarifies. “That’s why part three has a somewhat lighter mood, because we are talking about the past: all these terrible things didn’t happen yet, things were more light-hearted, the characters were younger, they were kids.

And the outcome is a bit more on the melancholic side. So there’s this duality on the new album: you have a lighter atmosphere combined with a lot of melancholy, a lot of sadness, because of everything that happened before.”

An Interesting Experiment

Damna wrote the story and the lyrics for the ‘Reader of the Runes’ album together with founding guitarist Aydan. “For these three albums, we divided everything half and half”, the singer explains. “Usually, he does the lyrics to one song, then I do the lyrics to the other. This time, we had to divide everything, because we needed to give our touch to the story, with both of us working on it.

That was a really interesting experiment, and I think it worked very well, because every song has a certain depth. The fact that there were two people working on them really gave them a lot more perspective.”

Of course, his writing method requires a lot of communication. “We spent hours and hours talking about the story”, Damna nods. “There will be a book in the special edition of the box set, and when we were writing the notes for that, we realized: this is the very last time that we are talking about this story, now we can’t wait to finally make a regular album, haha! But it was very exciting to work this way.

The songwriting is basically split between Aydan and me. Sometimes we write songs separately, but most of the time, we meet up and write things together. These last two albums, there were also a couple of songs written by our relatively new guitarist Mattia.

He is a very skilled guitarist, and that really gave us new options, especially live. But he also comes up with riffs and half-songs, and he goes: I have these things, do you want to use them? So we did. One of them is ‘The Hanging Tree’ from the ‘Rapture’ album, and the other one is ‘Luna’, our new single. Both of those were partially written by him.”

Focusing on Quality

Musically, the ‘Reader of the Runes’ albums show an amount of consistency that Elvenking’s discography used to lack. Damna points out that this is the result of a process that started a few years prior. “With time, we got rid of what we used to do a lot in the past”, he says. “Which was: not really thinking about anything while writing the songs and going: okay, these are the songs we are writing, they’re good songs, let’s just record them. We really didn’t care if they weren’t in line with what Elvenking was.

We were exploring things, and we would record and release them. Even if they were a bit more hard rock-ish. We just needed to get it out of our system. That’s how we ended up with albums like ‘Red Silent Tides’ (2010), or ‘The Scythe’ (2007), which was a bit heavier. We had to find our own way, our own path. And with ‘The Pagan Manifesto’ (2014), I think we did that. That’s where we really started focusing on our sound, on how the songs could really be 100 percent Elvenking.

With ‘The Reader of the Runes’, I believe we really got into a mood where we knew what we were doing. We knew what Elvenking stands for, and we focused on that. If we write something that’s not Elvenking, we just throw it in the bin. The story also helped us focus on the quality and the mood of the songs. They had to be the way they are. And we worked really hard on them. That’s probably what makes these three albums special.”

At Peace with Myself

Vocally, Damna went through a similar evolution. “Until a certain point in time, I think that I just didn’t care”, he laughs. “I just loved doing this, and I didn’t care about how exactly I sang. I just wanted to be performing on stage. Eventually, I had to start taking care of my voice. Once, I just went on stage, I sang one concert, and then I had no voice at all. Because of course, I didn’t know how to take care of it.

Around 2010, I realized I really needed to work a bit harder on the way that I sing, especially live. And I think that also helped me a lot when I record the albums. I worked on my tone a lot, and that helped me to finally find my way. When I really started to care, I understood where I could go with my voice. Now, I just know how I work. Not completely. I probably never will. But almost.

I think the most important thing for me was to work on my personal tone. On my personality. And on being a good performer on stage. Unlike a lot of other singers, I’m still not the kind of guy who will get too worried about my technique. But when I know that the tone is right, then I will be at peace with myself.”

The fact that Damna is one of the main songwriters in Elvenking is not as helpful for his vocals as one might think. “I always fuck that up”, he laughs. “When I wrote songs, I also never cared about that. These days, when I’m in the studio, I think: my god, next time, I have to take care of that. And that never happens, haha!

Next time, though, we have to take care of that. I really don’t want to have any super high notes on an album, because then you start thinking: we’re not going to play that live, because it’s too difficult. And I don’t want to have that kind of boundary anymore.”

Not on Their Radar

Back when Elvenking was just starting out in the late nineties, they were frequently compared to Skyclad. “Not so much anymore”, Damna assures. “I think that so many years have passed since young people were into that kind of music. Nowadays, Skyclad probably is not on their radar so much anymore. Unfortunately. But it’s always a big compliment when people say that we resemble Skyclad one way or another. They were one of our first influences when we started this band.

We will always love their albums so much. Especially their first ones, when they were a bit more thrashy, and they added this touch of folk music, whilst still being very metal. It was awesome. We loved those albums so much, that we said: we need to do something like that. We don’t want to copy them, but we needed to do some thing in that vein. And so we did.

The idea we started with was to mix power metal with the more folk-ish things that Skyclad did. That epic power metal, coming from bands like Blind Guardian, mixing it with a little bit of Skyclad, and adding a touch of the melodic death metal and the black metal of those years, which we were big fans of. That was kind of this unique sound that we were looking for.”

Focused on What’s Important

“Our first album (‘Heathenreel’, 2001) was one of a kind. It could have gone wrong on so many levels. And I don’t know how, but the album worked. Even if the ideas and the tempo changes were scattered all over the place, as young musicians trying to do something tend to do. We were very young; we were in our teens. But it still worked.

A lot of people still tell us that ‘Heathenreel’ is one of their super-influences from those years, and that they grew up listening to it. That is something that really gives us a lot of pride, of course, because in the end, it means that we made something that at least someone else really enjoyed.

Maybe we explored a little bit too much in the past. But it was part of our history, part of the journey. Usually, a band has its great phase, and then after almost thirty years, it starts to go down a bit. But many people say that we are having our best moments right now. Probably because of what I said: because we finally focused on what’s important for us as a band.”

Big Lessons

Our interview takes place on the Paganfest tour, of which the opening slot doesn’t give Elvenking much space to promote their new material. “Since we have forty minutes to an hour, it’s very difficult”, Damna nods. “Quite a lot of people are asking us: after the third part of ‘Reader of the Runes’, can you do something where you only play songs of the trilogy? It would be something that is interesting to do, but we’ll have to see if the opportunity presents itself.

It will be different again when we will start writing new material. It will be strange, because we’ve been doing this story for three albums now, and we won’t have to do that anymore, so we’ll have to think of other things for the songs. But I think that we learned some big lessons from the way of thinking we adapted for the ‘Reader of the Runes’ albums.

Like the dynamics of an album. To be fair, that was something we always thought about. You can’t do an album with only ten heavy, speedy songs. We love it when an album has certain moments, and certain dynamics. We will definitely keep that in mind again, even if it won’t have an overarching story next time.”