{"id":616505,"date":"2026-09-06T18:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T18:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616505\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T18:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T18:42:11","slug":"im-the-only-guy-who-wears-a-mask-but-still-has-a-face-from-black-metal-pioneer-to-dungeon-synths-resident-goblin-this-is-what-its-like-to-be-mortiis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/616505\/","title":{"rendered":"“I\u2019m the only guy who wears a mask but still has a face.” From black metal pioneer to dungeon synth’s resident goblin, this is what it’s like to be Mortiis"},"content":{"rendered":"

What the hell is Emperor\u2019s 1994 track I Am The Black Wizards all about?<\/p>\n

\u201cI came up with this sort of parallel universe, this dark dimension that was very Tolkien-esque. I wanted to use it for a concept record for Emperor<\/a>. One of the ideas was for it to have this massive tower with incredibly deep dungeons, housing, amongst other things\u2026 these strange wizards controlled by a hive mind. Everything is connected, and that\u2019s where the title comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Presumably there was a big Tolkien influence on the Mortiis mask\u2026<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\u201cYes and no. I knew that I wanted to do something beyond corpsepaint. I\u2019d grown up with Kiss and W.A.S.P. and M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce \u2013 these big-image American bands \u2013 so that was something I\u2019d always liked, but I was definitely into The Lord Of The Rings.<\/p>\n

The early version of Mortiis was just me finding things I could mould into noses and ears and all of that, and then putting make-up on top of it. To get the long nails, I would cut out the bendy ends of soda pop bottles, then paint them and glue them to my fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

How do you feel about this current crop of masked bands, like Ghost and Sleep Token, becoming some of the biggest names in metal? <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t pay a lot of attention to it, but Tobias [Forge] has done really cool stuff with Ghost<\/a>. I\u2019ve only met him once but he seemed like a very nice person. He was quiet. I\u2019m only aware of Sleep Token because people talk about them. I see a shitload of masked bands fly by on my algorithm. The weird thing is, I feel like I\u2019m the only guy who wears a mask but still has a face.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What are the masks like to travel with? How many airport security guards have you shocked over the years?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey pull my stuff out a lot. I usually carry weird electronics, and they think it\u2019s a bomb or something and scan it, like, three times. I\u2019ve half-expected sometimes for them to go, \u2018What\u2019s inside this box?\u2019 and then all of a sudden there\u2019s a face staring back at them. Ha ha! It\u2019s never happened, but, then again, these people, can you imagine all the weird shit they must see every day?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mortiis – Violent Silence [Official Music Video] – YouTube
\n\"Mortiis<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve travelled all over the world. Who\u2019s the weirdest person you\u2019ve ever met?<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

\u201cI met a guy in the 90s who was completely tattooed, top to toe, and he had 12 kids in 12 [US] states. This was back when I was still drinking, and I drank with him all night. He was like a living piece of art and he was super-nice, but I was thinking, \u2018How the hell do you even get to the point where you have 12 kids in 12 different states?!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Must\u2019ve been a bit of a vagabond type. <\/p>\n

\u201cI guess! Maybe he just travelled around and\u2026 he must have been a very charming person.\u201d<\/p>\n

You were charmed enough to drink with him all night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I didn\u2019t have kids with him, though. Ha ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been Mortiis for more than 30 years now. What keeps it fun?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a stubborn motherfucker, that\u2019s for sure! I love trying new things musically. Even as I was completing [new album] Ghosts Of Europa a few months ago, I already had a whole bunch of other, different-sounding music on my hard drive. There\u2019s, like, three more albums I\u2019ve started: some similar, some vastly different. It\u2019s the ability to explore new ideas and see where I can go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re not Mortiis, you\u2019re a healthcare worker. What do your colleagues think of the Mortiis music and presentation?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started that gig, early on, some of them probably didn\u2019t quite know what to make of me. I walked in there scruffy-looking, with long dreads. But I\u2019m gonna believe my boss when she tells me that I\u2019m a fairly well-liked employee. You try to have a good attitude and just be a fairly comfortable person to be around. That\u2019s a big part of the job. If you\u2019re an uncomfortable person to be around, you\u2019ve failed the first test! Ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most rewarding part of that job?<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting paid. Ha ha ha! But, in all seriousness, it\u2019s nice to be nice, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghosts Of Europa is out now via Prophecy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What the hell is Emperor\u2019s 1994 track I Am The Black Wizards all about? \u201cI came up with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-616505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}