Interviewing Esko from Fejd for the Ideon Antron Online Magazine No 04

Esko, the drummer of Fejd kindly, answered to us to the below interview! We hope that you will find this interview interesting and find enough information that it might be helpful for you to solve the riddle of this wonderful Swedish Band!

Thank you Esko for giving us the chance to have an interview with you!

I will start with a usual question!

1. Please tell us a small biography of Fejd for those who do not know the band yet and a small background for the band’s members!

Esko; Fejd started in 2001 as a project for five childhood friends who wanted to play something just for the fun of it. In the beginning all our recordings were posted for free download at our web site, something that is not possible if you want to afford more expensive recordings and have a label to support you.

We all started up as Metal musicians in different, more or less successful constellations. In 1995 Patrik wanted to try something different from the electric guitar and metal music he was used to and started playing the bouzouki amongst other “older” instruments and got hooked with folk music and he soon invited his brother Niklas to join his ideas. Slowly it formed to Fejd and we count 2001 as the beginning.

We have released five recordings, two demos, one Ep and two full length albums. The two full length albums are released by Napalm Records.
“I en tid som var” 2002, “Huldran” 2004, “Eld” 2006, “Storm” 2009 & “Eifur” 2010

2. What does the name Fejd means and why did you chose this name for your band?

E; Fejd means feud, quarrel, struggle. It’s a name we thought fit our band, mostly because it always was a struggle to find the time to play together in the past.

3. What are the influences of your lyrics? Which is your inspiration?

E; inspiration can be found everywhere, books, myths and legends, nature, the everyday life we see every day and that surrounds us. Inspiration is a hard thing to describe as it never comes when you are looking for it, you can’t force it, it has to come naturally.

4. You choose to write lyrics in your mother language, by your opinion, they sound more poetic in this way? You think that this may prevent your band of having a wider worldwide crowd of fans?

E; Our lyrics are related to things around us and should be in our own language. We could never express ourselves in a convincing way if we tried to write in English for example.
I know we have fans all over the world and they choose to see beyond the barrier a language can set. Music reaches so much further than words, and it’s the same thing with emotions. We’re not trying to be the biggest band in the world so Swedish works just fine for us;) and, it’s a great way for people to learn our language.

5. Fejd uses original Folk instruments; this is something that we appreciate a lot of; could you please tell us which are they and a few words for the uncommon ones?

E; The most important and tone giving instruments in Fejd are Bouzouki and Mora-harpa. I guess you are quite familiar to the Bouzouki, even if the one we use is somewhat different from yours.

Moraharpa or Keyed fiddler is a older version of the Hurdy-Gurdy, it is a strained bow instrument but instead of playing it like a violin you place it like a guitar and push keyes to change notes. The oldest preserved model of the instrument in Sweden dates back to 1526 and is keept at the Zorn museum in Dalarna (Sweden)

Svensk säckpipa or bagpipe is a instrument that has been used used all over the world in different shapes since 4000 B.C. The Swedish type is with cylindrically drilled pipes and almost totally died out in Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century. You can find the same model in many countries Russia, Czech and Italy to name a few.

Mungiga or Jew's Harp is probably one of the oldest types of instruments and can be found all over the world. It came to the Nordic countries during the Viking Age and has been used since that mostly in Folk music. Hungary might be the countrie that is most famous for their strong folk music tradition with jew's harps.

We also use instruments as different kinds of flutes and horns, Hurdy-Gurdy & usual guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.

6. What are the musical influences of the band and why did you chose to bind metal with Swedish Folk music?

E; We count Hedningarna and Garmarna from Sweden as the most important folk influences for our band but there’s a bunch of other acts that has been important for us as well. Musically we are just as influenced by bands as Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate and Bathory. I guess it comes quite natural for us as we all started as metal musicians, it wasn’t anything we decided to it just sounded heavy when we started playing. Our foundation is quite metal like but the musical language is more folk.

7. Folk rock, Folk metal, Heathen rock. Many “labels” (genres) have been heard about your band! Where do you categorize your band and in the end you think that music can be “placed in a category”?

E; I guess it’s easier for the people if there are genres but in the end I believe there’s too many. I don’t even know how to categorize Fejd, Nordic medieval Folk sounds ok for me, but that’s just another genre. I use two genres, good or bad music and I listen to everything I think is good.

8. Offerrök (Offering smoke) is a song about the Rites, what is your connection with the Old Ways according to the Old Faith? Do you think that the Values and Virtues that our Ancestors had, can help us in now days?

E; Words of wisdom never turn old. It’s up to everyone to choose how to live their life. It’s important to cherish nature and embrace life, treat each other with respect. It’s common sense in my opinion and you don’t need a religion to understand it. Our ancestors knew how to live in harmony with nature better than we do today, all that matters in modern society is money, sad enough.


9. How important is Heritage for you?

E; Our heritage tells us who we are but not who we should become. We care to much about material stuff now adays and forget what’s important, nature, family and other things far more worth than money. We should honor each other and the world we live in cause we’re only here a short time.

10. I will do now a question that we do to every band that we interviewing, what would you say for Fejd to be a part by giving a live in a Pagan Festival here in Hellas? This would be interesting in you?

E; It would be very cool, we would love to come if it was possible.

11. What are the plans of the band for the main future?

E; As for now we are working with new songs for our third album, throwing in some gigs now and then. We really feel we can take some time this year to work with the songs in a harmonic pace, we improvice a lot and try to see where it leads us. It feels great.

12. Could you say any last but not least words to your Hellenic fans and in general to our readers? In case there is something that you wish to say and I didn’t ask you can just do it! Please close this interview as you wish!

Thank you very much for your precious time!



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