### Trident - Alex Friberg

#### 13/08/10 || Lord K Philipson

It’s fucken Friday the 13th today and what better way to start this special date off than with a great interview? Recently we had a piece with some shit band called Putrefy for this section, that was a lesson in how not to do interviews. Some people just take themselves too fucken seriously, and it makes for a shit read. I thought we needed to bring the A-game back and therefor I decided to do this one so we could get rid of the Putrefy coverage on the front page. They do not deserve the plug. Fuck’em. Let’s give some props to bands who can hang with the best of them (us). Bands like Immolation. Bands like… ehum… Immolation. And a bunch of others. Like… Immolation. Fuck. And yeah – Trident.

So, here we are. Hooray!

Trident’s a good fucken Stockholm based blackish death band (or deathish black band, whatever) with some cool people in it, bassist Alex (the interviewee) being one of them. Most of the others I haven’t fucken met, so hey… Sue me. Either way, I reviewed their debut album (out on Regain Records) at this location, so check that out for more info on their sound. And you can check this out if you wanna know how gay people smoke their dope.

Whatever. And yeah, you are correct, I stole all the pictures for this interview from various sites. I also cut away any eventual photo credits they had becoz I don’t fucken give a shit. Don’t like it? Sue me again. I will now hand you a great conversation between 2 excellent guys, so enjoy yourselves.

Global Domination: Welcome to muthafucken GD, bitch. You have released an album a few months ago and still you haven’t become rockstars so I thought we better cover you fuckos in an interview here at GD to speed things up a bit.

Alex: Thanks, man. Yeah we did, well things are not completely silent but good to be here on GD and at the same time I thought I would do this for you my friend so you can have some real rockstar-interview here…

You guys come across as somewhat Satanic with all those nasty tattoos and whatnot, not to mention the name of your band. You chose Trident for a fucken moniker. That’s like the Devil’s fork. Surely there must be a bunch of bands in the world called Trident, what gives you the right to claim exclusive ownership to it? You think you are better than any other Trident out there? Explain in 6000 words or less why anyone should even bother giving a fuck abut you guys. What do you have going for ya that sets you apart from the rest of the shit out there?

Of course there is a meaning behind the name Trident. As you said, it is the weapon of Lucifer. But not just Lucifer use that weapon, also Cali masters the spear. For us it’s also a symbol of strength, purity and wrath. We have all chose to walk the left hand path so we wanted a name who symbolized our belief and a name which is powerful. We are warriors allied with Lucifer and we are going to march with him and the legions of the black light into Armageddon and the war against Christianity!

The reason why we have the right to claim that name is simply because we are the only true Trident! There are some others, I know. But one of them are some disco shit and some are a very sleepy heavy metal from South America who sing about love and that kind of nonsense… We are going to march right over them in a very near future. And why people should pay attention to us is because we are pure blackened death metal, and when you see us live you will understand what Trident is all about. That’s why.

I reviewed your debut album here at GD and gave it a well-deserved 7,5 out of 10. We are friends and all that shit which means you prolly thought I’d automatically give it a 9 or so, right? You know me better than that. I can give you a 9 becoz you are cool as shit and so forth, but I am reviewing the music here – not the friendship nor coolness. Were you pissed that I didn’t cum all over the disc, praising you guys like you were the best thing since the invention of vagina? What are you guys going to do with the next album to make me more impressed? Put me in the “thank you” list perhaps? That shit would work. I’m easy like that.

Ha ha ha! Ok… Well… None of us expected that you were going to give us more than you thought the album was worth. Still 7,5 out of 10 is fucking good rate. And along with that you gave a good review as well so all good there… Minus some blubbers in your text, hehe…

You also play with Necrophobic, one of my fave bands in the more blackish of metal genres. How did that gig come about and were you a fan of the band before being asked to join?

Yes I do. It was when Tobias joined Trident and started playing with me, he felt very comfortable being just the front man so he talked things over with the guys in Necrophobic and after a quite insane audition with both hard liquor and some snow I got the job. I am very honored to play with those guys! Necrophobic belong in the old school scene and deserves a lot of respect and a lot of bands have a lot to thank Necrophobic for, without them the Stockholm scene would probably not have been the same.

What’s more fun, Necrophobic or Trident? I believe Trident is more of your baby where you can have more input music wise, correct?

Both bands are brotherhoods and close friends of mine. We have a hell of a time in both bands but in different ways. Yes, Trident is more my “baby” because it was myself and Johan who founded it. In Necrophobic I am more a member who is doing my job but with some input in the music. That suits me very well, I wouldn’t have time to put in equally amount of work in both bands.

You play with old man Jocke Sterner, the drummer of Necrophobic. Is it hard to keep up with him in the rehearsal room? I was a better drummer then him back in the day. He pisses on me now, for sure. I love Jocke, he’s old but he’s cool as shit.

Yeah, Sterner is awesome! No, he has a hard time to keep up with me, haha… You know Sterner has his style, not the most technical drummer out there but it doesn’t matter, he is the founder of Necrophobic and has been metal for at least 30 years and I love him too!

For the love of the world, and do not lie to me or the interview ends right here – have you sold even a 1000 copies worldwide of “World Destruction”? That’s a lot of “world” in one question.

I don’t know really, I haven’t received the report from our label yet but what I do know is on some download forum I was reading on, “World Destruction” has been downloaded over 35000 times, so there is some interest for us out there. At the same time I of course get very pissed off that the fucking assholes who download our album, and any other album for that matter, don’t fucking buy it instead!! Those fuckers destroy the music industry.

People who have no idea of you guys or what you do, give them some insight as for in what other bands everyone’s been involved with in the past (and present). And apart from the ones you are in (or have been in), what kind of bands are your faves, the ones people should check out in case they missed out on it?

Ok, myself is Alex Friberg – Bass (Necrophobic, Karneywar), Tobias Sidegård – Vocals (Necrophobic), Johan Norman – Rhythm Guitar (Soul Reaper, ex-Dissection), Ewo Solvelius – Lead Guitar and Jonas Blom – Drums (Grief of Emerald).

Bands I listen very much to are Behemoth, Dissection, Watain, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Grand Magus, Nifelheim, Torture Division, Vital Remains… Among a lot of other bands.

Talking about fave stuff… If people only had one chance to hear Trident, what single tune should they lend their ears to? You do realize that people who are reading this will head over to your MySpace or whatever and check it out, so choose carefully.

If I could only choose 1 I would go for “Jaws of Satan”. But you know when they are on our MySpace they will listen to the other tunes on there as well…

You are a huge MMA fan and so am I. I also have a Warrior Wear endorsement, so who is the cooler fucko here?

Hat’s off to you, Lord K.

If you could choose endorsement from one fighter wear company, what would you pick? I have seen you in some hideous Affliction shirts. That is not cool. Sonic Syndicate and the likes wear the brand of those traitors. Defend yourself.

Yeah, yeah, I know what they have done against the UFC, but they make very cool and good-looking shirts so I’m gonna still wear them. Warrior also makes awesome shirts so I like to wear them as well. But on the other hand almost all my favorite fighters (except Shane Carwin) are endorsed by Affliction so I like to wear their shirts. There! Defended!

Does it make sense to charge a 100 bucks, like Affliction does, for a fucken t-shirt? It’s a t-shirt – not a fucken rocket you can use to travel into space with. Fuck Affliction.

I agree on that point. Their prices are really over the top. But fuck it, I don’t care about the price! I always buy what I want to have.

You are engaged to Demonia who’s got a real cool blog going where she covers alot of metal happenings and whatnot. Usually her stuff ends up on Blabbermouth even, giving her some well-deserved credit. Do you force her to bring up Trident and Necrophobic in there or else you’ll go on a sex-strike? Is it metal to have a blog?

Yes I’m engaged to beautiful Demonia who runs demonia.webblogg.se. No, I don’t force her, haha! She write about what she wants. I understand that it could look like that sometimes but I play metal in 2 good bands and she writes about metal so naturally she every once in a while write about the bands I’m involved in. It is very metal to have a blog if the blog is a metalblog and you put down massive work to cover all that’s going on in the scene all around the world. Big kudos to those who have the strength to do it.

If you could throw a kick to the balls to one of the members of both Trident and Necrophobic and not get busted for it – who’d get the honors?

No one. I don’t kick at my brothers.

You look metal as fuck. Is appearance important?

Yeah well, you look like who you are right? And how you live. So I guess my appearance is based upon who I am, I don’t think so much about it really. “What to wear to today to look metal as fuck?”. I am metal 24/7, it’s not a costume.

Someone went apeshit on you with the tattoo gear it seems. Which ones are you most proud of respectively not so happy with? Who is working on your skin anyways and if you could choose one artist to work on your flesh – who would it be? I once tattooed a guy. I did an inverted cross and three 6’s. I can’t draw for shit and I had never held a tattoo machine before that. It looked like shit. If you want to I can do something neat on ya.

I have spent some time under the needle. The one I am most proud of is “First ten years – Eddie” I got on my right shoulder. Got it when I was 17 and its still bright in colors and good-looking as hell! I have some shit also made when I was a teen that I’m not so proud of. Gray things made by an razor machine… Well you can imagine… I am now endorsed by Black Shadows Tattoos in Uppsala so all my later tattoos are made by Carlos at Black Shadows. And no, I’m fine thanks. I don’t want a tattoo from you.

Coward. Trident is obviously heading over for a gig in the US of A? How the fuck did that happen and what kind of gig is it? Do you think it’ll be worth it to fly for a shitload of hours, have your ass in a too-small chair, eat shit food and then play a club with shit sound, shit catering, shit beer and 50 people in the crowd? That’s how the US is, I am sure of it. I read it on the Internetz.

Yes we are, it is our first US-gig and it is a headline-gig for us. I did an interview a while back with Greg of Archaic Darkness and he loves Trident, so he and his booking companions thought that they should bring us over there. It is what you make it to be, I have been in US before with Necrophobic and that was the single most awesome trip I ever done. And if you are so sure about it, have you been there yourself? Maybe you don’t attract more than 50 people but I can assure you that Trident will! To answer your question, yes – its absolutely worth it. Break new ground and show the people of New York true Nordic rage can never be wrong.

We covered the best tune on the album a few questions back so now I need to know which one is the weakest one on “World Destruction”? And don’t say “there are no weak tracks”. There are always at least one weak or semi-weak track on a recording (except for all recordings by The Project Hate MCMXCIX and Torture Division).

There are no weak tracks.

You guys seem to be close friends with Watain. Your girlfriend whores them in her blog more than I whore Warrior Wear and Ibanez (and that’s a lot). You think she likes Watain more than your bands? I know my chick likes pretty much everything else more than my bands. I think that’s cool. She’s not fucking with me becoz of my excellent skills obviously.

Yeah, I am good friends with the Watain guys. Watain is one of Demonia’s favorite bands so it comes natural that she writes a lot about them, and they do awesome music and hellish shows so why not? They deserve all attention they get. Of course I cannot expect her to have my bands as favorites, she had taste and listened to music before we met.

Who would win if there was a fistfight going down between Necrophobic, Trident and Watain?

I would win! Even though Johan from Necrophobic and Pelle from Watain would be hard stones to crack.

This is question number twenty-one. What legendary hockey player used to have this on his jersey? There is only one.

How the fuck would I know!? I’m not into hockey. But I would guess it’s Peter Forsberg.

I applaud you. You are obviously a huge, huge Iron Maiden fan. Seriously, shouldn’t they have kicked out that fucken Gers guy when (whoever it was) that other dude wanted back in? Isn’t it kind of a pussy move to let him stay even though everyone hates him and wonders what the fuck he is doing in the band anyways? And why didn’t anyone tell them to not bring Blaze Bayley into the band? They really managed to shit on their legacy quite a bit with those few moves.

Seriously, Janick Gers is a phenomenal guitarist and fills his place in Iron Maiden perfect like all the rest of the band does. I think it was an act of geniuses to keep him when Adrian wanted back and have 3 guitarists, makes it even more solid. Don’t you dare talk crap about Blaze Bayley! That guy is absolutely an awesome singer and the 2 albums he was on is extremely good. What would for instance the metal scene be without “The Clansman” or “Lord of the Flies” !?

What’s Iron Maiden’s:

Best album: All of them! Best song: Every single one! Best album cover: Every cover is the best! Best Eddie: Eddie in all shapes are the best!

If you got the chance to make out with one of the guys in Iron Maiden and no one would find out, who would it be? Eddie doesn’t count. He’s gay.

No one of course. I am metal and extremely hetero… haha…

Is Trident/Necrophobic vocalist Tobias Sidegård a magician? He looks like one in the booklet of the Trident album. “Lord of the rings” got nothing on that pose.

Yeah, Tobias is an extremely dark character who explores a lot of shadow dimensions. One of the darkest people I know actually.

By the way, why the fuck did he stop playing bass for? Or did he?

It’s because I came around and played the bass a little bit better than him and he could focus on just being a front man.

Caligula just quit Dark Funeral. Are you friends with those guys? Either way, when someone that connected to a band quits, should the band continue?

I know them but I can’t say I am friends with them. Well, I think now when Caligula quit that they should stop. Quit while they are ahead, you know.

I aimed for 30 questions but now I’m fucken bored shitless so I better end it before it gets ugly. See ya in a bit when we put shrimps on the barbie, ok mate? Feel free to whore all kinds of shit as we wrap this up. You can now thank me for this excellent interview.

You better come to Sthlm soon so we can be absolutely wasted and barbecue all kind of shit. All of you who read this can keep your eyes open at www.trident666.com or the Trident MySpace page for updates about the band. To book the band for a hell of a show, send your request to trident@live.se See you all on the road!

Up The Trident! 666

/Alex Impaler