How did you progress from to the creation your first demo, Of Mists & Graves, and the launch of the band in 1998?

“After trying out a few ideas of songs, we recorded Of Mists & Graves. The name Old Forest, although taken from Tolkien, was more inspired by the dense forest that once covered Sussex; the Weald. We have one song inspired by Tolkien directly (‘Grond’, also known as ‘Hammer of the Underworld’) which is also the namesake nom-de-plume of our erstwhile and often-returning drummer. In terms of the inspiration for the whole band, it was twofold; the black metal of the era (non-commercial and underground, with no aspirations of success) and also the media’s portrayal of the black metal circle at the time (you can read this as “Kerrang!’s hyperbolic portrayal of the Norwegian scene”). The latter element shouldn’t be underestimated, in terms of its importance to every black metal band formed after ‘92.”

“By the time the demo was mixed – not that it took long­ – Beleth had moved to London for university, hence the misunderstanding that we were from London. The sound was pretty raw and the music basic, with an atmosphere that we liked. It is a shame we didn’t have time to record more songs at the time but, in the UK, money is an issue when it comes to being a teenage musician. In Scandinavia, there is a social provision by local government for the youth to be able to undertake such endeavours – free rehearsal rooms, subsidised recordings etc. – we didn’t even have our own equipment, let alone money to rehearse and record.”

The cold and uncompromising Of Mists & Graves was a very notable release, given the state of the UK black metal scene at the time, not least because the quality was undeniably high. How was the recording process for that first demo and what was the reception to it like? Was it this demo that got you a deal with Mordgrimm, who ultimately released your debut studio album, and how did that come about?

“The writing and recording happened concurrently. It was very much about capturing a moment, a feeling, the essence of what we felt it should be. You can’t really do that if you spend much time on clever composing etc., it was more off-the-cuff. I’d call it the ‘Darkthrone style of writing’, where clearly no time at all has been spent on writing the songs – they are almost literally composed spontaneously. In that respect, it was what we wanted.”

“The reception to the demo... hmm, well we didn’t really seek any reaction in terms of reviews in fanzines etc. We shared the demo tape with friends and tape traders mostly. We also sent one to Mordgrimm, and one to No Colours. Both immediately responded showing interest in an album. Although we were fans of some amazing No Colours releases (Forgotten Woods, Dimmu Borgir, Falkenbach), there was also some absolute crap which only gained attention due to flirting with politics (Graveland). For that reason, and the fact that Mordgrimm were UK-based, we went with Mordgrimm. However, in retrospect, we should have perhaps given No Colours more thought, as we were fans of their releases, and they were shared more widely.”

“Regarding the recording of the album, first we had to complete the writing process. For this, we put together another four-song demo which was copied for friends and the label. This was The Kingdom of Darkness. It is important to say at this point; clichés are a given in this style of music, and for metal as a whole. In fact, it is the very currency in which we trade.”

“We gave less attention to the sound, and I remember that the drums were recorded in the attic of my parents’ house on a small, borrowed, 60s jazz drum kit of questionable quality. The first two albums retained the same process; we recorded some very basic drum patterns, and immediately and spontaneously recorded some guitars and bass. Whilst that was being done, the lyrics were written and then recorded. The process is largely made by the unsaid elements of the recording; who we were, what we listened to, how we thought and felt. The music is the end result of these greater things.”

What were the main inspirations on early Old Forest back then, and has this changed since the demos and early albums in terms of your influences on more recent recordings?

“I would say that the musical inspirations for us were perhaps 20 or 30 albums. Off the top of my head, it included Emperor up to and including Nightside, Enslaved’s Frost, Satyricon’s Dark Medieval Times, Dimmu Borgir’s For All Tid, Darkthrone’s Ablaze & Under a Funeral Moon, Gehenna’s 1st & 2nd Spell, Forgotten Woods’ first two albums, In The Woods… Heart of the Ages, Burzum’s first three albums, Isengard’s Vinterskugge, Vond’s Selvmord, Summoning’s debut, the Abigor debut & EP, the Dodheimsgard debut, Immortal’s first two, Mayhem DMDS...”

“I would add the following; these are what we liked then and still hold as the best albums of the era. We drew inspiration from them yet sound not particularly like any of them. These are mostly Norwegian, but we are not Norgephiles.”

The two demos were ultimately rerecorded to create the aforementioned Into the Old Forest debut studio album, released in 1999. The end result is (in our opinion) arguably a somewhat less extreme and exciting, and perhaps more clean, accessible, and flat-sounding, listen. How did you feel the demos and the record compared overall, given that they included the same songs, and has that opinion changed over time at all?

“The biggest difference was that the demos are the rough sketch, and the album is the finished and more refined product. That said, the album versions are still significantly below the expected quality of most albums ­– especially relative to today. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if all our albums had the same sound as the debut. Far, far too much effort is spent on production today. I would prefer bands present more of an honest sound than one where the bass drum sounds like a typewriter and the keyboards are like a film soundtrack. A noticeable difference in the demos and the album versions is that we had money to record the drums in a studio. They don’t sound quite as raw (but certainly not ‘polished’)”

“One thing that we never had was expensive keyboards. It was initially due to money restraints, but I have grown to personally love the cheap, low-fi sound of ‘80s / ‘90s budget keyboards. In fact, I am working on a new project of dark ambient music which is all played manually. I have a collection of six or seven synths which I will be using for this.”

“Our biggest irritation with the debut album is that the label failed to respond to multiple requests to release it on vinyl by a few labels. As a result, we fully support any and all bootlegs of the debut, and have also rerecorded the album to ensure that we own some album quality recordings ourselves. This is called Back into the Old Forest, and is available on streaming and CD. It largely retains the aura of the debut, albeit it with a cleaner sound ­– not by design, but as a result of the modern recording process.”

You have never played live as Old Forest ­– was there ever a temptation to?

“There is something to be said for playing live, as it is enjoyable and helps spread the word wider. But it also leads bands into compromising on what they are about. Some bands are happy to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I think if we ever did that then there would be no purpose in continuing. Ultimately, Old Forest are not too interested in the ego-fuelled live experience. We prefer to maintain the mythos of the band, and not disappoint people by confronting them with three or four 40-somethings wearing corpsepaint and playing blast beats, with synchronised headbanging and ‘raising the horns’. Personally, I find that pitiful and completely contrary to what black metal means to me.” 

Can you tell us about the third and final demo, 2001’s Sussex Hell Hound?

“After the debut in 1998, we wrote and recorded [the full-length] None More Black in 2000. This was a darker and more sincere album, retaining the low-fi aesthetic of the debut. It was around this time that the label seemingly dissolved and stopped any communications. We waited a year, and then decided we had to just carry on regardless. The hard drive with the studio session for None More Black was sacrificially buried in the New Forest, Hampshire, to be able to move on. It was eventually released in 2007 on 100 CD-Rs. In 2020, we tried to add the album to streaming services ­– the sound quality was rejected by these streaming services, so we rerecorded the album. Both versions of the album were compiled on a single CD and released properly via Death To Music productions in 2021.”

“The next step was to record the Sussex Hell Hound demo, in 2001. This was the first release to explore the mythology of our local area. For example, the song ‘Black Alchemist’ is about the book of the same name by author Andrew Collins. It is a ‘psychic questing’ adventure to track down a Sussex-based lone ritualistic Satanist who was setting up a network of negatively-charged objects to raise power for his rituals. Personally, this is my favourite of the demos, as we really found something original here. Unfortunately, this failed to get attention of labels at the time, as the commercialisation of black metal was in full force.”

“Shortly after this, and due to logistical reasons, we put Old Forest on hold for about six years. In 2007, we were in a situation to get things going again and wanted to further explore the ideas that were germinated on the Sussex Hell Hound demo. This was what became the Tales of the Sussex Weald trilogy. We didn’t use any of the songs, so this demo was largely unheard for 18 years.”

Listening to the three demos back to back, it is obvious that the recordings have aged impressively well, and they still sound noticeably icy and ‘extreme’, despite over two decades of newer bands having attempted to push a similar agenda. How do you look upon these recordings today and how would you say Old Forest has evolved in the years that followed those early albums?

“I think that the ethos of the band has remained the same since day one; we are fans of early-90s black metal, and this is the music that Old Forest draw 90% of our inspiration from. We have since ventured down slightly different aspects of it ­– for example, 2015’s Dagian was our own stylised long-form-4 tracker, inspired by Burzum’s Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, and 2019’s Black Forests of Eternal Doom was our attempt at infusing the death-doom of early-90s Paradise Lost into the contemporaneous black metal sound.”

“There is obviously lots of good music we like from before and after the early-90s, but this isn’t black metal. Much as the pop punk of the 2000s is alien to a fan of mid-70s punk, so contemporary black metal is to us. The more convincing stuff apes this era’s sound, and the less convincing ignores it. We have obviously become more proficient musicians in the last 25 years, but we wouldn’t want that to become a focal point of our music. We have just completed our next full-length album, which has been written between 2019 and 2021 (due for release 2023) and have mostly completed the one which will follow that. We can go for two years without doing anything and then feel the urge to record three albums. This is how it is. The good thing is, it isn’t dependent on trends, so we can release it now or in 20 year’s time…”