How did you get in contact with Mads and Jacob as far as Swollen was concerned? Who were you playing with at that time?

Mads and I went to the same highschool together, back in early '90. We hung out, drank alot of cheap beers and listened to Cannibal Corpse's Butchered at Birth, the first Deicide album and Human Waste by Suffocation. Mads had a band called Ashes with a couple of other guys and I (sort of) auditioned for this band, but failed :) -  I had only played like 6 months at that time and Mads' technical skill on the 6-string was already substantial at that point. After highschool I joined a band called Dawnfall - Very muched influenced by Edge of Sanity and Carbonized. Mads had at that point disbanded Ashes and joined Iniquity, where Jacob played the drums. Mads was very much involved in the making of the tracks of the first Iniquity album "Serenadium", but left Iniquity just prior to the recording it. Mainly because of drug related trouble within Iniquity (Not Mads' or Jacobs' I must add). At a party Mads contacted me after hearing Dawnfalls demo and asked wether I was game for giving his material another shot. I also experienced work related difficulties in Dawnfall, so the decision wasn't hard to make. Bringing with us the Dawnfall drummer Anders Simmelkier, Mads and I formed Swollen, where the only rule was that everything should be as wacko as possible! Man, we spun Autopsy's Acts of the Unspeakable constantly at that time, so the general inspiration for Swollen goes to them amongst others.

How exactly were you and Mads put into Iniquity? Was it Jesper asking you or vice versa? Was there any difficulty with Jacob at the time as far as splitting up Swollen or had Swollen ended prior to you and Mads joining with Iniquity?

After doing some rehearsal tapes with Swollen, Mads and I decided to part with Anders and asked Jacob who had recently parted from Iniquity, to join up. We recorded "The Breathless Waiting" shortly thereafter and started to look for recordcompanies interested in releasing our stuff. After gigging alot in the local scene of DK we made the "Promo '99", which almost did'nt hit the street before Jesper asked us (Mads and I) to join Iniquity. For me it was a tough decision to leave Swollen, but eventually I signed the book of blood and joined Iniquity. For Mads I think the decision was alot easier, as he and Jacob did'nt get along too well. (You know: drummers and guitarrists.... Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em :)) So we both joined...


Tracks Surgical Orb, Random Bludgeon Battery and the bonus track Cocooned from Five Across the Eyes were originally from the final Swollen recording... but are any other songs from Five Across the Eyes originally Swollen material?

Can't really remember to be honest, But I know that Sidereal Seas and From Tarnished Soil are "Iniquity" tracks. Meaning they are the only tracks on "Five across the Eyes" that were already made as Mads and I joined. Moreover "Pyres of Atonement" was the only track we made after joining, so I guess the rest can be transcribed as being Swollen material...

With the aformentioned Five Across the Eyes release Iniquity become a much more well known band at least in the states, and it was almost simply by word of mouth. But how much more attention had the band gained in Europe at that time after being an already wel known name?

Iniquity was already an established name in Europe with the first full-lenght "Serenadium" – Also I think the demoes stirred up quite some attention.I've never talked to anybody into the extreme music, that haven't at some point stumbled upon Iniquity. Not that everybody likes it (Bastards J), but they know what the name stands for.

Brian Erikson left to consentrate more of his time to Corpus Mortale-correct? How did you come into contact with Kraen about joining Iniquity?

Well.... I guess you can put it that way with Brian, he, he... Actually I think quite some time passed before Brian entered the Corpus Mortale fold.If you ask me he left because of creative differences. "Five Across The eyes" was a friggin hard album to record, so when we got to the point of making new material, he cound'nt muster the drive to do an even harder album... To this I must add, that we parted as friends. He told us in due time, so there was no stress involved in him leaving. Kræn had just moved to Copenhagen at that time and we hung out with him, drinking beers and attending concerts, so when we needed a new guitarrist it was natural to ask him...

After the "growl kareoke" flash had hit the internet it seemed like Iniquity's popularity sky rocketed... whose idea was that exactly?

It was the guy who made the homepage that did it... He contacted us and asked if he could make some fun with one of our tracks and we were on to it right away! Despite alot of Death metal bands keeping up apperances as being all GRRRR, I think that the major drivingforce behind death metal is having fun pushing limits. I think Growl Karaoke was just our way of showing that.

At the high point of its popularity Iniquity quietly dissapeared... what exactly happened?

We moved on in seperate ways... As I said earlier: "Five..." was a hard album to do and "Grime" was twice as hard. We lived in a friggin shag while we recorded. And the process was a bit grating. After blasting away, partying on the Grime tours we came to the point where we had to make new material. I had it very much like Brian after "Five..." and I decided to call it quits with Iniquity. Mads and Jesper continued on for a spell, but then they both had kids (Don't worry: NOT with eachother!!!) so Iniquity more or less just passed on. It was first after a while I heard that we'd officially disbanded.

And just so everyone who reads this bombards you and other members with beggings of reforming-was there ANY material written but not recorded after the Grime recording sessions?

I'm not sure, but I think that alot of the material that Mads and Jesper worked on after I left was what became Mads' new band Strangler, The riffs that is. But I have to stres that I'm not sure about this.

I had read for the Grime photo sessions you were hungover and vomited constantly... that's great! Any other drunken stories to end this brief interview on a light note?

Oh yeah, fuckin' hell I was hung over!!! We'd been to a blast of a Vader concert the night before. We ended up at this horrible Goth party were everybody walked around trying to look as foreboding and "Mmmmm I actually a very intellectual Vampire, you know" as they could. BULLSHIT!!!! - Nothing for us to do, but empty the bar and  go bonkers. Which we did! He, he - The last thing I remember was scaling a huge fence because I got lost wanted to sleep. Woke up the day after under a bush in a park with Jesper on my cellphone yelling: "Where the hell are you????? -  The photographer is here already!!!!"  Sret of the story... I'll let the pictures talk for themselves... Lots of other drunken stories and definately more to come!!!! Again: thanks to you for doing this marvellous site! Check out DOWNLORD "Random Dictionary Of The damned" out November 2006. Won't be a new Iniquity album in terms of technique, but hey! It's all about having fun!!!!