​Can you explain what Ondfodt means for those that are new to your band? 

Ondfodt means "evil born". The meaning of the name has more to do with having dark visions and not necessarily with being a murderer or complete psychopath. The name is from very old-fashioned Swedish.

 What inspired the formation of your band? 
Ever since childhood I have been interested in rock music, I remember listening to Iron Maiden and Motorhead when I was young and finding heavier and heavier bands that way. In my teens I became more and more fascinated by black/death metal and already knew as a teenager that this is something I want to start playing myself and have since then dedicated my life to the music and the whole metal culture. I have been working for the past 10 years in my studio that I built in connection with starting Ondfodt.

Black metal has gone through many changes over the years. What positive or negative changes have you experienced as a black metal musician since the start of Ondfodt? 

The positive is definitely how easy and how accessible it is to get the music out. In the beginning it was very difficult to build up the band and get any kind of visuality. Now after 10 years as a band and 4 albums out, it feels much easier and there are many potential places to be hired to play concerts.
The negative could be that due to the availability, new bands appear every day so the competition only gets higher and higher. But I want to believe that if you do this a little more seriously than most, you will hopefully stand out from the crowd.
Another negative thing is that nowadays it feels like people who play black metal don't take the music very seriously, and see it more only as a kind of entertainment program. When I first got involved in this whole thing there was a seriousness that has decayed over the years. But I think that in today's society where people are more easily offended, I think that black metal will become more "dangerous" again and that people will possibly look at the genre with more disgust, which is a positive thing.

Ondfodt found success early in its career by acquiring a following and soon after a record deal with Immortal Frost Productions. How does a band get noticed among so many other talented musicians? 

This is a difficult question to answer as you yourself do not really understand how everything happened. I think it may have to do with good timing and a bit of luck as well. You also want to believe that maybe you wrote good enough music that people liked and they felt some form of recognition factor and appeal.
Recently, with the fourth album, we have also started to invest significantly more in staying ahead. We would like to start touring now with the line-up we have. The band has not been as strong before as we are right now. We hope we will get enough attention so that some booking company will pick us up.

Do you believe imagery in black metal is an important part of the music? If so, how does this imagery affect the artistic delivery of the music compared to other genres of metal? 

I definitely think it's important. After all, the visual part of the band is presented through the album artwork and the band photos. Artworks visually describe the feeling you should have in your body when you listen to the music. The music has its own life and the images their own, but if you combine them you have created a whole that creates magic.
I think this is important in most styles of music, but especially in black metal it is important to build a clear vision and have a clear goal.

Black metal has no shortage of satanic references. Do you believe satanism is a relevant response to an oppressive religious or governmental entity? 

Satanism is important in black metal and will not go anywhere for a very long time. But I think that the more the world moves forward and religion becomes less important in people's lives, the focus starts to shift. There will be other things that people feel offended by than just religion, many bands don't sing so much about the hatred of Christianity anymore. Like our band Ondfodt e.g. We sing about dark stories and bring out the dark sides of our society. Of course there are times for us too when we bring up all the evil that religion has caused here where we live, but the focus is on interesting stories. Like for example. the witch hunts and witch burnings we had here where we live a few hundred years ago.

Finland is known around the world for quality metal music. What is the scene like in the area that you reside? Any bands coming up you'd like to mention? 

We are from a small town in western Finland called "Jakobstad" or in Finnish "Pietarsaari" where there are around 20,000 people. There has been a punk and metal scene here periodically, but it goes in waves. We have some great bands from here that we are good friends with. Like for example. ...And Oceans, Festerday, W.D.M., Mygrain, etc. We don't have many places to play concerts in here so we usually end up traveling to a bigger city if we want to play, but we definitely have a metal scene here.

Despite it not being the traditional language of their home country, many bands choose to write in English. Why is it important for you to retain your own language on Ondfodt releases? 

Since we are Swedish speaking and there are only 5% in Finland with Swedish as their main language we though from the start that this is an interesting thing to do. But after the first album, I realized that it is also very convenient to write in one's mother tongue and it became a thing for the whole band to write in Swedish. And at the same time it is more difficult to write in your mother tongue as you hear everyone nuance the language in a completely different way, you become more self-critical of your texts. If I were to write in English, I don't hear what sounds good and bad to someone whose mother tongue is English. I think that many people choose to write in English because it is easier for them, although the texts can at the same time sound completely useless to those who speak English.


Ondfodt released a new album recently. I really enjoy the album artwork. Is there meaning behind the separation of the two areas in the artwork? 

​The album is entirely about you being here in Ostrobothnia and in our endless forest and wilderness. Here there are evil stories and many beings that our ancestors told us about and warned us about. The demons of the forests of Ostrobothnia constantly watch over you, you must choose your path carefully. If you accept them and respect them, you will be safe. But you never know when everything can turn around. At the same time, there is a spiritual battle within yourself. Everyone has their own demons to deal with and this album is contemporary about your journey as an individual and you have to find your own paths through the dark and dangerous in life. I think "René Thuys" did a phenomenal job with this image. He is incredibly good and has worked with us on 2 albums now as a visual artist.

Your new album has a very raw yet polished production. What was the recording process like for the album? Do you believe Ondfodt achieved everything it set out to do and the newest release? 

​I have my own studio "Wolfthrone Studios" which I started the same year as the band. So I have always been the one who wrote and produced, recorded and mixed / mastered all the material that Ondfodt has released. "Det Österbottniska Mörkret" I basically wrote throughout the spring and summer of 2022and started to get a sound in my head that I relly wanted to capture. We have never spent so much time in the studio as we did on this album but we really managed to capture the sounds we wanted and in the mixing process we got the sounds shaped exactly how we wanted it to be. So, with other words, Yes, we did achive pretty much everything we wanted for this album. We got the big and dirty sounds, yet polished enought for it to shine.

What are the next steps for the band? Do you have any tours or festival dates in the works? 

​We made a comeback to the live scene after almost 9 years away from it. We are very excited to start playing live again. We've been practicing like crazy and are basically ready to start touring and playing festivals. We are waiting for someone to book us at the moment, but because we have been away from the live scene for so long, it may take a while before gig bookers see us and note that we are back. But we hope to get gigs eventually, because that is definitely the next step for us. If anyone wants to see us, please recommend us to various festivals.