Aites And Ewell Interview

FOF:  What inspired you to make a film on black metal? Are you fans?
 

Audrey: We were introduced to the genre by Andeee Connors, who runs Aquarius Records in San Francisco.  He knew we were into noise, experimental, rock, things like the Brainbombs, Dead C, Destroy All Monsters, so knew this would be up our alley.  We got obsessed pretty quickly, collected everything we could, and after a while looked around to see if there was a good doc on the subject.  There wasn't.  Being filmmakers, wwe decided to make one.  That may sound glib, but only because we've told this story so many times!  It was actually really exciting, the first year of discovering this new genre that we loved.  We researched extensively before we went to Norway.  Of course.  I mean we had to, or the guys would never have taken us seriously.

FOF:  You're obviously committed as I understand you moved to Norway for two years! Was it initially quite difficult to get into their inner circle so to speak?

Aaron: Well, Gylve was the first person we contacted and we got along very well straight away.  He ended up telling us "I'm never going to watch the film, film whatever you need to and put whatever you need to on the screen.  I'll do whatever you need me to do." You can't ask for more commitment than that.  Varg was much more difficult.  It took months of letter writing  with him saying no, no, no before I got a chance to meet with him.  But after meeting with me, he agreed to do the film.  It took 8 months to finally get him to agree to do it.  This was 8 months that we were over there, filming, and knowing that we were just going to pack up and go home if we couldn't get his participation.  You can't do a film about this topic without having BOTH Varg and Gylve.  They were the two most integral people.

FOF:  The ever nortorious Varg. was he everything you expected him to be?

Aaron: Oh, have you heard of him?  Ha ha.  Kidding.  Well, he's a very complex guy whose image is both larger than life and much more narrowly focused in the media than it is in reality.

FOF:  I think that he's the man who most people think of when they think of Black metal and this has contributed to it's notoriety.Having met alot of them do you think there's quite a bit of mythology attached to it?

Audrey: For sure.  The mythos is what draws many people to it.  It's very mysterious, set in this cold, dark, majestic place, and made by people who have cloaked themselves in secrecy.  It can be very appealing on that level alone.  Having said that...this film gets a bit behind all that.  Not that we will break the heart of anyone in love with the romance of it, but these are real people.  Real violence.  Real death.  Real art.  It's a tangled web, but at the heart of it, very real people.

FOF:  Romance? Sounds wrong when connecting it to such things. Ha ha. Obviously the church burnings and the murder are in the film did you find tha it's a subject the Norwegians still find difficult to talk about. Let's be honest people hate it when you destroy their place of worship?

Aaron:  The film has a very specific perspective.  It's told from the point of view of the musicians who were involved in the scene.  There is no narration, there are no voices from the outside.  The film brings you into their world.

FOF:  I think you've made a film that deserves an audience. It is real people and a a metal fan I've aways seen the black metal scene as a group of artists pushing to the limit what they believe is socially and morally acceptable. Like Ozzy and Cooper in years gone by. Did you feel that they were deeper than that and truely believed in this almost extreme existance?

Audrey: Thank you.  It's an uphill battle for us as filmmakers to have this film perceived not as a "rockumentary" but simply as a film about an extraordinary time and place and people.  And yes...these guys really do take it all much more seriously than their predecessors.  They actually thought they could change the world.  Of course, the world ended up changing them a lot more than they expected.  Faust told us a story about a troll who emerges into the daylight, and explodes.  That's sort of what happened in this scene, and it led to a lot of conflict within the scene.  Some people, like Fenriz, really just wanted to make their music and leave it at that.  Everything he had went into that.  But others wanted to have a different kind of impact.

FOF:  Fenriz is a legend as are Darkthrone. They're not the first to have that belief of changing the world and you're right about the conflict but I believe the media will always portray those who stray from the moral path as wrong. I know you guys are busy as fuck so I'll let you get on. Thanks for your time and I wish you luck with the film. Metal rules, you rock and when can our readers see this on general release or DVD?

Audrey: Ow wow, thank you.  Um, we're talking to several distributors in the UK right now, so hoping to have something worked out with that pretty soon.
Aaron: Thanks fortaking the time to interview us, and we hope to see you at Raindance and at the party at the Intrepid Fox!

FOF:Will you let us know when you do. We at FOF always promote independent films above all others. Good luck guys.

Audrey:  Will do.  Thanks so much. Bye!

FOF:  Take care and I will hopefully see you at the party

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