Green Carnation is a progressive metal band from Kristiansand, Norway formed in 1990; both precede and are a natural successor of experimental/avant-garde group In the Woods….

You will have the opportunity to see the band on SoundArt Festival in Bucharest, this march and for more about their upcoming album pr their visit to Romania read the interview below.

Let me get the boring questions out of the way first. Can you tell me about the band name, Green Carnation? Where did it come from? 

Well, to be honest, I’m not the right person to answer this. As I came in for the second album. For me, Green Carnation was always about the flower. Pink carnations stand for remembrance of the deceased. White carnations symbolize untainted love and innocence. Green Carnation is the rarest one I believe. Suits us. (smiles) 

For how long now are you ‘writing’ on the album? It will be different from what are we used to ? When is the new material due to come out? 

We had so much music laying about, so much of the work was to figure out how we were going to put it together .Some of the music is of course new, but we worked a lot to get the arrangements and instrumentation right. Tempos and such. We sometimes switch tempos 3-5 bpm up or down, between riffs to get the feel we are after. This is nerd stuff, but important to us. Also, lyrically, I worked a lot to get the feel of the song and the words to flow together. It’s hard to write something meaningful and get the message out in a song. You have to choose your words carefully. I can work a month or more with just one song. We did have 12-15 different versions for most of the song on the new album. There is also so much music that get tossed, so in order to write something good, it usually means that you throw away 3 times more. At least me.

What can you tell us about the new album? Some teasers for the fans? 

The main thing about the new album is that it felt good as a band and as long time friends to work together again. We quit in 2006 after The Acoustic Verses album, and then to return in 2016 for the 15th anniversary for the Light of day, day of darkness album. We did some shows in Norway, Europe and the states. 

It came obvious to us that people had not forgotten us. It felt like we still mattered, and that gave us faith in trying out new stuff. After the last gig we did in Norway, Last day of darkness concert, we decided to work in the studio and try out new stuff. We are much older and hopefully wiser now, so we kept it pretty low key. Just trying one song after another. We thought it was to be an EP, but the song are pretty long on this album, so we decided to put a last song and it became more caller to us that it was over the usual albums out there today in playing time. The album specs will soon be released.Coverart, title, tracks and etc..

It will be the first time in Romania at SoundArt Festival which will take place in Bucharest, how do you feel about it? Fans over here are more than excited to finally see you live! 

This is absolutely amazing for us. We feel honored that we can come to Romania and play. Over the years, I’ve gotten so many mail some people from Romania with nothing but kind and worm words for Green Carnation. Who knows, maybe there is a link between our music and the Romanian metal/prog scene?! We are super excited about this!!!!!

Do you have a favorite song which you love to play live? We will listen to it in March  ? 

Good question. That actually varies from time to time. In the early days I loved to play, and still do, Into deep and Myron & Cole. Light of day is a special thing to play too, but now a day I found new love in the song Sweet leaf from the acoustic verses. We have modified the song into an “electric” version. I like the groove. Fun to play bass on it as it hammers down single and simple notes. I also get to sing a lot on it.

Few thoughts regarding the past year? Which bands do you listened and you can recommend to us? 

Personally, I just discovered Katatonia. Now, I know that they have been around for a long time, but I guess you are never too old to discover new music. I think they are great. Lighter stuff, I listen a lot to Bon Iver, Lord Huron and The war on drugs the past year. 

The band name was conceived by Tchort, aged 16, for a Death metal band, after he read in a dictionary that “carnation” can also mean “flesh”. Thus, Green Carnation was meant as “rotting flesh”.

Coming back to a more personal note…what does Green Carnation mean to you? 

It’s like a family now. We are 8 brothers in arms. 6 in the band, one sound engineer and one light engineer. We think as a unit, and we don’t want to do anything half-ass. We want our audience to get a great show when they come and see us. We want the sound to be great, the light to be great and the band in top shape. We want to make every concert to be a night to remember. We owe that to all the people that come and see us. Over the years, people have traveled half the earth for our concerts. Many times. It’s amazing!! We may not have the biggest crowd, but we got the fucking best crowd out there!!

Thank you for doing this, much appreciated! See you in less than 2 months. Any final words for our readers?

I can speak on behalf of the band when I say that Romania will be special for us. After so many years with tons of mail from Romanian fans, it almost feels like coming home.. Hope to see you on the show and of course  after the show. (smiles)

All photos are taken from Green Carnation‘s personal gallery.

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Miruna Vitriol

Enthusiast writer at CVLTARTES
I am trying to become a better person by embracing my own weirdness.