幻想中的自我 - 丹麦Progressive Metal 乐队Vola专访

Volcano Magazine
Jun 8
14 min read

今天采访到的是来自丹麦的前卫金属乐队VOLA。2006年，VOLA的主唱兼吉他手Asger Mygind在丹麦哥本哈根与朋友一起组建了VOLA并在2008年发行了第一张EP"Homesick Machinery"。之后数年，乐队进行了几次人员更替，逐渐组成现在稳定的阵容。2015年，乐队发行第一张全长专辑"Inmaze"，专辑一经发行便引起了前卫金属乐迷圈的广泛关注，VOLA独特的旋律和非传统的编曲让所有人眼前一亮。之后，乐队连续推出了两张质量极高的录音室专辑及一张现场专辑。2024年11月1日，VOLA发行了他们的最新录音室专辑"Friend of a Phantom"。乐队刚刚结束2025年上半年的北美巡演，杂志与VOLA的贝斯手Nicolai Mogensen取得了联系并进行了这次专访。

（V: 代表笔者 N: 代表Nicolai Mogensen）

Today's interview is with the avant-garde metal band VOLA from Denmark. In 2006, VOLA's lead singer and guitarist Asger Mygind formed VOLA with friends in Copenhagen, Denmark and released his first EP "Homestick Machinery" in 2008. In the following years, the band underwent several personnel changes and gradually formed its stable lineup. In 2015, the band released their first full-length album "Inmaze", which immediately attracted widespread attention from avant-garde metal fans. VOLA's unique melodies and non-traditional arrangements impressed everyone. Afterwards, the band released two high-quality studio albums and one live album consecutively. On November 1, 2024, VOLA released their latest studio album "Friend of a Phantom". The band has just finished their North American tour in the first half of 2025, and the magazine has contacted VOLA bassist Nicolai Mogensen for this interview.

(V: representing the author N: representing Nicolai Mogensen)

采访对象：Nicolai Mogensen（Vola乐队贝斯手）

采访时间：2025.06.08

V: Nicolai你好！首先感谢您抽出时间接受我们的采访，向乐队的所有成员问好！VOLA 一直是我最喜欢的乐队之一。你们刚刚结束了北美巡演，对这次巡演感觉如何？这次巡演达到你的期待了吗？

Hello Nicolai! First of all thank you for taking time for this interview, Say hello to the rest of the band. VOLA has always been one of my all time favourite bands. You just finished your North America tour, how do you feel about the tour? Has it met your expectation?

N: 很高兴听到你喜欢我们的音乐！这是我第一次接受中国观众的采访，感谢你们给我这个机会！这次巡演确实很成功！这是我们在北美地区的第三次巡演，但却是第一次以暖场嘉宾的身份参与。在经历了两次专场巡演后，我们希望通过为拥有更广泛粉丝群的乐队暖场，来拓展我们的观众群体，让更多新听众听到我们的音乐。暖场巡演与专场巡演有很大不同：演出歌单更短，压力更小，而且作为暖场嘉宾，白天会有更多放松的时间。

I’m happy to hear that you like our music! It’s my first interview with a Chinese audience so thank you for giving me that opportunity! The latest tour was a good tour indeed! It was our third tour in North America but the first one where we were a support act. After 2 headline tours we are trying to grow our audience by supporting an artist with a bigger following to play for some new ears. Support tours versus headline tours are quite different: Shorter set, less pressure, and more chill time during the day when you are support.

V: 在你们的演出歌单中，我看到了很多新专辑"Friend Of A Phantom"中的歌曲，也有一些上一张专辑中的歌曲，比如"These Black Claws"和"Head Mounted Sideways"，这真是一个很好的平衡。乐迷们对这份演出曲目的反响如何？你们在演奏新歌时感觉有挑战性吗？

In your setlist I saw there’s a lot songs form your new album “Friend Of A Phantom”, and there are some songs from your previous album like “These Black Claws” and “Head Mounted Sideways”, it’s a really good balance. How do the fans reacts to this setlist? Do you feel challenging playing the new songs?

N: 新歌总是要花些时间才能真正熟练地演奏！幸运的是，我们在去年11月的欧洲巡演中已经演奏了大部分歌曲，所以这次音乐已经掌握在我们的指尖里了。由于这是暖场巡演，演出时长比我们理想中要短一些，因此在众多歌曲中挑选歌单外困难！不过观众似乎很享受这套歌单，我们尽量从乐队不同时期的作品中挑选，同时也会演奏最受欢迎的歌曲。

New songs always take a while to feel really comfortable playing! Luckily we had played most of the songs on our European tour in November last year, so for this one music was already in our fingers. Since this was a support tour the setlength was a bit shorter than what we’d like, so it was extra hard to make a setlist since we have so many songs to choose from! The audience seemed to enjoy the setlist though, we try our best to mix a bit from the different eras of the band but also play the songs that are most popular.

V: 这应该是你第一次接受中国金属杂志的采访，可以请你简单介绍一下VOLA乐队吗？作为贝斯手，可以讲讲你是怎么加入乐队的吗？

This should be your first interview with Metal magazine from China, can you tell us a little bit about VOLA by a short introduction? As the bass player of the band, can you tell us how you joined VOLA?

N: 这是我第一次与中国观众交流！我非常希望能有机会去那里演出。我对中国的音乐场景非常好奇，希望未来能有机会亲身体验。VOLA是一支来自丹麦和瑞典的摇滚/金属乐队，通常被归类为前卫金属，但这支乐队的风格很难被明确界定。在音乐上，我们受到了Meshuggah、Porcupine Tree和Metallica等乐队的启发，但我们的声音与这些乐队有很大不同。我们已经发行了4张专辑，自首张专辑"Inmazes"于2015年发行以来，乐队的受众持续扩大。我个人于2009年加入乐队，当时乐队还处于初创阶段，正在探索自己的音乐风格。我偶然在论坛上看到他们招募贝斯手的帖子，他们的Demo让我非常感兴趣，于是决定申请，尽管当时我主要弹吉他。幸运的是，我成功加入了乐队:)

It's my first time talking to a Chinese audience indeed! Would love to come and play there one day. I'm very curious about what the music scene is like in China and hopefully we get to experience that in the future. VOLA is a rock/metal band from Denmark and Sweden that is most commonly put in the progressive metal category but it's a band where the genre can be hard to pin down. Musically we have been inspired by bands such as Meshuggah, Porcupine Tree and Metallica but our sound are quite different from those bands We have released 4 albums and have been growing in size ever since the debut album Inmazes came out in 2015. Personally I joined the band all the way back in 2009 when the band was still very young and searching for their sound. I accidentally saw a post in an online forum that they were looking for a bass player and their demos really intrigued me, so I decided to apply even though I mainly played guitar at the time. Luckily I got the gig:)

V: 让我们来谈谈你的最新专辑。2024年，你们发行了最新专辑“Friend Of A Phantom”。专辑中的第一首歌“Cannibal”由In Flames乐队的主唱Anders Fridén演唱，他的嘶吼极具代表性。对于VOLA的粉丝来说，这是一次梦幻合作。你能告诉我们这次合作是怎么发生的吗？

Let’s talk about your latest album. In 2024 you released your latest album “Friend Of A Phantom”. The first song in this album “Cannibal” has the lead singer Anders Fridén of In Flames singing with his iconic growls. Its a fantastic collabration for VOLA fans. Could you tell us how does it happened?

我对那首歌非常满意:) 几年前我们在洛杉矶演出时第一次遇到了Anders。他是个非常友善的人，也是一位出色的音乐家，所以当我们创作"Cannibal"时，觉得这首歌特别需要一些额外的力度和比 Asgers（我们的主唱）更激烈的嗓音，Anders Fridén立刻浮现在我们脑海中。我很自豪他愿意为我们的歌曲贡献嘶吼。

I’m very happy about that song:) We first met Anders when playing a show in Los Angeles a few years ago. He is a very friendly guy and an awesome musician, so when we wrote ‘Cannibal’ and felt that that song in particular could use some extra umph and a more harsh voice than Asgers (our lead singer), Anders Friden immediately came to mind. I’m very proud that he was up for growling on our song.

V: 新专辑有特定的概念或者主题吗？为什么会选择Friend Of A Phantom作为专辑的名字呢？

Is there a specific concept or theme for the new album? Why did you choose “Friend Of A Phantom” as the title of the album?

N: 在创作音乐时，在我们的脑海中通常不会有特定的概念，而是更倾向于寻找听起来眼前一亮且与以往作品略有不同的东西。Asger 是乐队里的作词人，因此歌曲标题和歌词概念是他考虑得比我更多的部分。

When writing our music we tend to not have a specific concept in mind, but more to try and search for something that sounds fresh to our ears and something that is slightly different to what we have done before. Asger is the lyric writer in the band so song titles and lyric concepts is something he is thinking more about than I am.

V: 这个问题是关于新专辑中的另一首歌曲"Hollow Kid"，许多粉丝都非常喜欢这首歌（包括我），这首歌的歌词非常有趣，像是在讲一个故事，可以讲讲这首歌背后有什么概念吗？

This question is about another song from the new album, ‘Hollow Kid’, many fans really like this song (including me), the lyrics of this song are very interesting, like it's telling a story, can you tell us a little bit about what's the concept behind this song?

N: 很高兴听到你喜欢那首歌！这首歌的灵感源自我创作的开头连复段。我当时想创作一个听起来有点像Meshuggah和Metallica混合风格的riff。Asger为所有歌曲创作歌词，所以我对这首歌的歌词背景并不了解。

Glad to hear that you enjoy the song! The song grew out from the intro riff that I had made. I was going for a riff that would sound a bit like a mix of Meshuggah and Metallica. Asger writes the lyrics for all songs so I don’t know much about whats the behind the song lyrically.

V: 下一个问题我想问问新专辑的视觉艺术，"Friend Of A Phantom"的视觉艺术让人过目难忘，我在艺术家Aykut Aydogdu的主页上看到了这幅画的帖子，评论区大家都在说“是VOLA！”我想请问为什么会选择这张艺术作品来作为新专辑的封面呢？这和专辑的内容有没有什么联系？

Next question I want to ask about the visual art for the new album, the visual art for ‘Friend Of A Phantom’ is really impressive, I saw a post about it on the artist Aykut Aydogdu's instagram and everyone in the comments section was like "it's VOLA!” Why was this artwork chosen for the cover of the new album? Does it have anything to do with the content of the album?

N: 寻找艺术作品一直是一个非常直觉化的过程，我们会建立一个庞大的艺术作品档案库，收录我们喜欢的艺术作品。当新专辑的歌曲创作完成后，我们会浏览这个档案库，寻找我们都感到共鸣的艺术作品。这些作品必须与音乐相契合，让人感觉“恰到好处”。接下来就是联系艺术家，并祈祷希望能够达成双方都满意的协议。

Looking for artwork has always been a very intuitive process where we make a huge archive of art we like. Once the songs for a new album has been written, we then browse the archive and look for artwork that we all resonate with. It has to feel ‘right’ to go along with the music.

Next part is then contacting the artist and crossing fingers that we can make an agreement that they are also happy with.

V: 这个问题的时间线要稍微早一些，在你们的2021年的专辑Witness中，你们有一首和美国说唱歌手SHAHMEN合作的歌曲叫做"These Black Claws"。很多的VOLA粉丝都非常喜欢这首歌，我也是。可以请你聊聊这次合作是如何展开的吗？这首歌的创作过程是怎样的，在一开始创作这首歌的时候，你们就决定要加入说唱的元素了吗？

The timeline for this question is a little bit earlier, on your 2021 album Witness you have a song with American rapper SHAHMEN called ‘These Black Claws’. A lot of VOLA fans really like this song, and so do I. Can you please talk about how this collaboration unfolded? What was the songwriting process like and did you guys decide to add a rap element to the song when you first started working on it?

我们制作了这首歌的Demo版本，很快便觉得第二段歌词搭配一段深沉而阴森的说唱部分会非常出色。我们在网上进行了大量搜索后才找到了Shahmen，当我们听到他的音乐时，立刻就能感觉到他与这首歌完美契合。

We had made a demo of the song where we quickly felt that the 2nd verse would sound awesome with a deep and sinister sounding rap part. We did quite a bit of searching around online before finding Shahmen and when we found his music, we could immediately hear that he would fit the song perfectly.

V: 你们有了一位新成员——来自瑞典的鼓手Adam Janzi，作为节奏组的另一半，在你看来他的风格和之前的鼓手有哪些不同？你们之间的相处如何？

You have a new member - Adam Janzi, a drummer from Sweden, as the other half of the rhythm section, how does his style differ from previous drummers in your opinion? How do you guys get along with each other?

N: Adam有着自己独特的风格，就像我们以前的鼓手Felix Ewert一样，他也以一种非常独特的方式演奏。Adam的节奏往往融入了大量的镲片的声音，这在过去的几年里给我们带来了很大的灵感。他的节奏直接启发了歌曲"24 Light-Years"，这是我们的作品里我最喜欢的歌曲之一。在个人层面，Adam已经完全融入了乐队，并且长期以来一直是乐队中的关键成员。

Adam has his own style just like our old drummer Felix Ewert who also played in a very unique way. Adam’s grooves tend to incorporate a lot of cymbals which has been very inspiring to work with for the last couple of years. His grooves directly inspired the song 24 Light-Years which is one of my favorites from our catalogue.. On the personal front Adam has really integrated himself in the band and for a long time he has been a key member in the band.

V: VOLA和许多传统的金属乐队非常不同，你们的音乐中除了传统金属元素还有Djent，流行，电子，说唱等等非常多元的元素。作为贝斯手，你会如何定义VOLA的风格？

VOLA is very different from many traditional metal bands in that your music has elements of Djent, Pop, Electronica, Rap, etc. In addition to the traditional metal elements, your music is also very diverse. How would you define VOLA's style as a bass player?

N: 我们是一支难以归类的乐队。我们从未刻意尝试融入某种特定的风格或流派，而且在创作音乐时，流派也不是我们通常会考虑的因素。我想，目前而言，前卫金属（Progressive Metal）这个流派足够宽泛，或许正是最适合归属我们的地方。

We are a band that can be a bit hard to categorize. We have never really tried to fit in a certain style or genre and genre is not something we tend to think about when writing music.. I guess the genre progressive metal genre is broad enough that that might be the place where we belong the most as of now.

V: 在VOLA未来的创作中，你们有非常希望合作的艺术家吗？在为一首歌选择合作的艺术家时，你们会从哪些方面出发去选择你们想合作的人？

Are there any artists you would really like to work with in the future of VOLA’s albums? When choosing an artist to work with for a song, what are some of the things you look for to choose who you want to work with?

N: 在歌曲创作的初期阶段，我们通常不会考虑邀请嘉宾。我们两次尝试过这种做法（在"Cannibal"和"These Black Claws"中），都是非常自然地发生在我们写了一些部分后，发现这些部分缺少了我们自己无法赋予的元素。Shahmen和Anders Friden拥有与Asger截然不同的嗓音！未来，我认为在我们的歌曲中融入女声会非常有趣。

In the beginning of the songwriting process we usually don’t have a guest in mind. The two times we have done it (on ‘Cannibal’ and ‘These Black Claws’) it has happened very naturally where we had written some parts that just missed something we couldn’t give it ourselves. Both Shahmen and Anders Friden have very different voices than Asger! For the future I think it could be very interesting to incorporate a female voice in our song.

V: 可不可以请你选出你最喜欢的VOLA专辑还有最喜欢的五首VOLA歌曲？

Could you please pick your favorite VOLA album and your five favorite VOLA songs?

N: 选出一张最喜欢的专辑对我来说可太难了，但目前我最喜欢的5首歌是：

24 Lightyears

Cannibal

Ruby Pool

Bleed Out

Head Mounted sideways

Choosing a favorite album is too difficult for me but my favorite 5 songs at the moment are:

24 Lightyears

Cannibal

Ruby Pool

Bleed Out

Head Mounted sideways

V: 接下来这个问题想问问乐队成员们平时会听哪些金属乐队？你觉得对VOLA影响最大的有哪些乐队？在巡演的路上你们会一起分享各自喜欢的音乐吗？除了金属，你听的最多的是哪些音乐？

This next question would like to ask you what metal bands do you usually listen to? What bands do you feel that have the biggest influences on VOLA? Do you share your favorite music together on tour? Besides metal, what music do you listen to the most?

N: 在乐队中，我们对音乐的品味各不相同，但也有一些共同的影响。对我来说，金属乐对我的主要影响是Metallica和Meshuggah，而对整个乐队来说，我们可以加上Textures、Opeth、Katatonia和Korn等等。我们有一个名为 “VOLA 听过的音乐”的 spotify 歌单，在这个歌单中，我们会与彼此和乐迷们分享当前最喜欢的音乐，我建议去听一听。除了金属乐，我们还听不同的音乐。对我来说，可能是独立摇滚，如The National、Bon Iver或 mew，但在一年中会有变化。

In the band we all have quite different taste in music but also a few influences that we all share. For me my main influences in metal have been Metallica and Meshuggah, and for the band as a whole we could add Textures, Opeth, Katatonia and Korn and more. We have a spotify playlist called “VOLA listens to” where we share our current favorites with each other and our fans that I recommend checking out. Besides metal we all listen to different stuff. For me it could be indie rock such as The National, Bon Iver or mew but it changes throughout the year.

V: 在下半年你们要参加很多的音乐节，包括法国的Hellfest音乐节和Alcatraz Festival。九月份你们将要前往北美再次开启美国巡演。大量的演出会让你感到疲惫吗，在密集的巡演日程中，你们是怎么保持状态的？

You have a lot of festivals coming up in the second half of the year, including Hellfest in France and Alcatraz Festival, and in September you'll be heading to North America to kick off another U.S. tour. Does the sheer volume of shows wear you down and how do you stay on top of your intense touring schedule?

N: 我和乐队其他成员都非常享受巡演生活。至少现在是这样:) 我们试图找到一个不错的平衡点，即巡演是我们期待的事情，所以我们尽量不过多的巡演。同样重要的是，观众会对再次见到我们感到兴奋，所以如果我们反复在同一个地方巡演，就可能会出现在某个市场过度演出的情况。巡演最困难的部分是如何兼顾家庭生活。因为留在家里的人付出的代价是最大的。我们乐队大多数人都有孩子了，所以巡演的成功和价值就显得格外重要。

I really enjoy the touring life and so do the other band members. At least for now:) We try to find a good balance where touring is something we look forward to, so we try to not overdo it. It’s also important that the audience is excited to see us again so if we toured the same places again and again it can happen that you overplay a certain market., The hardest part about touring is making it work with family life. Its the people at home who pays the highest price. Most of us have kids at this point so it's extra important that the tours we do are successful and worthwhile.

V: Nicolai谢谢你在百忙中抽出时间接受这次采访。VOLA是一支非常独特的乐队，我会继续支持你们。希望有一天能在中国欣赏到你们优秀的演出！

Nicolai, thank you for taking the time with us to do this interview, VOLA is a very unique band and I will continue to support you. I really hope to see your concerts in China one day!

N: 我的荣幸！希望某一天可以在中国的演出里和你们见面！

My Pleasure! Hope to see you all at a show in China one day.