The Metal Crypt - Blood Fire Death Interview

Interviews Blood Fire Death

Interview with bassist Frederick Melander
Interview conducted by Luxi Lahtinen

Date online: September 11, 2025

Live photos by PP Marila

Thanks to Heta Hyttinen of Ginger Vine Management PR for setting up the interview

In the shadowy annals of black metal history, few names carry the enigmatic weight of Bathory, a band widely regarded as one of the genre's true pioneers. While Quorthon remains the iconic figure behind the project, the early days of Bathory were shaped by a handful of collaborators who helped bring that raw, primal sound to life. Among them was Frederick Melander, the original bassist whose contributions laid the groundwork for what would become an enduring legacy in extreme music.

Decades after those formative sessions, Melander has resurfaced on stage, this time as part of Blood Fire Death, a Bathory tribute band that pays homage to the ferocity and spirit of the original recordings. On August 9th, Melander joined the headlining performance at the Hellsinki Metal Festival in Helsinki, delivering a powerful set that reignited the flames of the past for a new generation of fans.

I caught up with Frederick Melander to talk about the early Bathory days, the journey back to the stage, and what it meant to revisit those timeless anthems in front of a massive crowd in Helsinki.

First off, how did you get involved with this Bathory tribute band, Blood Fire Death?

Frederick: Well, I got involved because I was asked if I wanted to join this project by Torgrim Øyre, who manages the Beyond the Gates Festival. I think he's the one. I think he's done this before, several years ago. I think it was because it was the 40th-- What is it? I'm bad with numbers here, but I think it was like the 40th anniversary since the Bathory debut came out. It was also 20 years since Quorthon died, so it was a good thing to do, I think.

Torgrim got in contact with me and was wondering if I would like to do something, play a song or two. Yes, of course. I was humbled and pleased to be asked. I'm amazed how things have evolved from us just starting as a garage band that no one cared about at that time, and now it's like crazy. I was very happy to come on board and do whatever I could do.

EARLY DAYS EXPERIENCES WITH QUORTHON

How did you come to be part of Bathory in its earliest form, and how was Quorthon as a person?

Frederick: Let me think... He was very nice. I have to go say that. Of course, I've been thinking about this. I've been asked this question lots of times. I'm trying to remember. Time passes. I want to have good things to say. He was very nice. It was fun meeting him the first time. He was already dressed up as he wanted to be. Me and Jonas were just like regular teens, jeans, jackets, heavy metal freaks, but he came in with his long dark hair and leather jacket, spandex, bones hanging around, and just looking really evil. [*laughs*]

I bet he looked very different from other lads his age at that time, no doubt.

Frederick: Oh yes, he did. We played in a cellar in the middle of Stockholm, and we just started playing some cover songs. I think Kiss or Saxon and easy things.

Just like every teenager when they start playing in a band, cover songs are the ones that they try to learn first.

Frederick: Yes, exactly. We had a great time. We started playing a couple of times, and then he introduced us to some songs. He had written so many songs. They were already made. He told us how to play, "You do this, and you do this." We were really impressed by that because we didn't have any songs. I thought that we would maybe come up with one in a year or so. We were really impressed. Jonas and I just fell for that. We had a great time.

Back in the day, did Quorthon already have a vision of how he wanted to Bathory to be, both musically and visually?

Frederick: I think so, yes. I've been thinking about that. He didn't really discuss that. It's hard to have a vision, I think, when you're 16 or whatever we were, but he definitely did. He had his songs. I'm not sure he really had all the lyrics made up by that time because he didn't sing. He played guitar, I played bass, Jonas played drums, but the songs were ready, made for lyrics and choruses and all those things. He never sang in the beginning because we tested singers and even lead guitarists, but no one really knew what we were doing. We didn't sound like what you were supposed to sound like at that time. Most people just said, "Ah, this is not for me."

He had some lyrics, of course, but we tested singers. "Sacrifice" was the first song we ever played together, the first one we rehearsed. He had lyrics for that, and "The Return of Darkness and Evil," of course, because we recorded those songs later. They were already made. Then we played, "Die in Fire." There was some song called "Evil Woman." We played lots of those old songs. I'm not sure how ready-made they were because he didn't really sing so much, so I'm not sure about that.

MORE EXTREME THAN ANYTHING

In the early eighties, there was a really strong scene for punk bands and¬ there was a band called Venom who had already brought their own music to a very extreme level, sounding loud, noisy and even scary to some people. Cronos of Venom was quite a character and influence for many musicians in those days. Can you remember any of your earlier talks with Quorthon as to whether he wanted to push the band towards Venom's direction, saying something like, "We will be more extreme and more satanic than Venom someday."

Frederick: Yes, we were going to be just worse than anyone. I think, with a lot of bands, that's how you start. You say, "We'll show them." Venom, of course, was extreme. Satanism was really all about extremities and it still is. It's the coolest or most evil thing you can come up with. That's what we were going to do. He originally wanted us to be called Countess Bathory. After a while we both thought that that name was just too long, and it's a rip-off from Venom. That was embarrassing, I thought. It was shortened to Bathory. Now everybody knows what that is. At that time, I thought people wouldn't know what that was, like battery, or some strange name. We played around with different names. We wanted to be called Satan, Natas, which is just Satan backwards. We were called Nosferatu at one time. It was always about that evil, satanic or occult image that we wanted to create. He made the decision in the end when we appeared on the Scandinavian Metal Attack album in 1984 with two of our songs ("Sacrifice" and "The Return of the Darkness and Evil").

I know he always pushed for it. I think that was part of his vision. He wanted his band to be called Bathory.

What was the atmosphere like during the early days in the Swedish scene when you did your first recordings (e.g., the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation)? I remember, even in the early days, you Swedes had a pretty strong scene for all kinds of heavy metal and hard rock...

Frederick: Yes, we did. I think I already mentioned that no one really liked us, though. Only a few people heard about us, only a few friends were there with us when we rehearsed sometimes. We recorded what we did and played for friends, and everyone just covered their ears and just told us, "Stop playing." No one liked what we were doing. Jonas and I were just basic heavy metal fans from the beginning. I think this was in 1983, in the spring when we met. It was very much just plain heavy metal, still influenced by the new wave of British heavy metal bands.

As for some hard rock and heavy metal bands in Sweden in the very early 1980s, I don't know. I think of a band like Red Baron. Also, Stitch was a hard rock/heavy metal band, but it was kind of very standard heavy metal. I'm not sure about thrash metal and all that stuff at that time. Maybe there were some Swedish thrash metal bands out there, but I didn't hang out with those guys. Mefisto started at the same time, but we didn't know them. We were just a basic garage band like all other bands when they start—and I think we were just living in our own universes.

It's easier now when you have social media and everything. You can just put it out there. At that time, you were just living in your little space, and no one really knew what everyone else was doing on the other side of town, really.

So you are saying you didn't have a supportive and united underground scene back then where like-minded people with similar interests gathered at each other's band rehearsals, underground club gigs and so on?

Frederick: Not, that had not happened. I know we would just go into the city and get drunk at the rock bars that we could barely get into because there was always this age limit thing at that time. It was very difficult to just go in somewhere. There was this place called Studion in Stockholm at that time and some places where like-minded people met. I got a false ID, so I managed to sneak in. At that pub, they played '70s rock and roll, and people drank beers and stuff. I wasn't involved in any community where you started to trade tapes and stuff. However, all that evolved very fast afterwards. We weren't involved in that at that time, though.

As a teenager, you just go with the flow. Obviously, it was fun for some teens to play extreme metal in Sweden back then.

Frederick: We had so much fun, and Quorthon was a great guy. We really became friends, and we did crazy things together. At the same time, he was a very private person, too. He was difficult to get to leave his apartment and do fun things. When we did, we really had a great time. What brought us together was that we wanted to be something other than what was considered normal back then. As I said earlier, heavy metal bands, I think they all pretty much sounded the same. They wanted to look the same. It all became very conformist, or how you would call it. Even the mid-80s heavy metal was kind of boring if you weren't into all these extreme genres that were popping up. It became very "Americanized" with all these new American glam rock bands like Warrant, Poison and bands like that. I really hated that stuff. We wanted to be one of those extreme bands out there back in those days, you know.

What brought us together were bands like Venom, Motörhead, and Sex Pistols. I know Quorthon loved The Exploited. He was an old punk rocker, so that extreme music and the extreme image just stood out for us back then.

Did you foresee where all this extremity with Bathory would lead you guys?

Frederick: No. None of us could ever, I believe, imagine any of what happened with the coming success of the band. What is it now, 40-plus years after? It's wonderful, but I don't think he (Quorthon) could have imagined it, even if he did have his vision. He was a very private person, as I said earlier. Even after we quit as a band, when he did his thing by himself, he was very undercover and not very much into the media, which, of course, added some extra mysticism on top of it all. I think that was his thing.

DID BATHORY EVER PLAY GIGS?

Did you have any conversations with him about getting Bathory on the road and playing some gigs?

Frederick: No, never. That never happened. There were some false rumors circling around, though.

Yes, some people have speculated that Bathory played at least a gig or two, secretly somewhere.

Frederick: Exactly. I know, I know. I've been reading about that. No, we never did any gigs, except having some old friends over when we rehearsed, but not playing any gigs for a real audience. No. But that's why you start a band in the first place, to play for people. Of course, obviously, we wanted to do gigs. We were always talking about it, "When we play, I'm going to do this and I'm going to blah, blah, blah...," as you do. It never happened. I know Jonas and I had done gigs with our shitty old bands we had before Bathory, at schools and stuff. Nothing major. That's why you want to play. You just want to get out there and do your thing.

I had my doubts. He never really started a new band. He just kept going by himself. I don't know. He was a very shy person, very humble, very nice, but also very shy, I thought. Maybe he didn't really want to do gigs. He never really said that out loud, so I can't really say.

The first Bathory albums are considered classic black metal albums. What's your personal take on those albums when you look at them 40+ years later, compared to the times when they originally came out in 1984 and in 1985?

Frederick: Now they are, as you said, classics. I thought they were extreme, too, when they came out. I was a bit disappointed with the first album because the recordings we made for the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation album was exactly how we sounded. We went in the studio and recorded, just as we did when we rehearsed. That's how we sounded. I love those recordings because it's like a time capsule. Those songs are not mixed or anything. They sound raw and primal.

When the first album came out, I didn't really hear it until a bit later. I was really, at that time, very disappointed with the production because I couldn't really recognize what I was used to when I was in Bathory. Now, of course, there's so many bands and genres, and the sounds of everything is just so extreme, so now you're used to all that. At that time, I think it was at the forefront of wanting to sound just gruesome, raw, and make some really extreme music that was almost too hard to listen to.

He took metal up two notches with that first album. I had a hard time really embracing it at that time.

You mentioned the Swedish extreme metal band Mefisto a bit earlier, who started about the same time as Bathory did. Why do you think these guys were never connected with Quorthon, even if they also played extreme metal the same way Bathory did?

Frederick: They were from the same side of town as Quorthon. We were from West Stockholm. We had Mefisto, and we were from that area. We didn't know each other at that time. I've recently come to know the Mefisto guys, who are all wonderful people, but I really don't know too much about them. I really didn't want to speculate or say anything further about that. We didn't know about Mefisto. Maybe Quorthon did, but I don't think he did, as far as I know. I think that would have come up when we were talking music and stuff.

Okay, talking about the early days of Bathory, do you know if there are any very early, unreleased songs that Quorthon recorded but never published?

Frederick: No, I don't think so. We recorded at our rehearsal studio, with a chrome tape recorder, but studio-wise, we never went in as a band apart from what we did. He did his own recordings. Right before we quit, we had a breakup in the summer there.

We knew his dad (Börje "Boss" Forsberg) was the boss who had a record label. That was one of the first things he said when we met. "My dad has his own label. We can do an album," which never happened. The year dragged on, so we put that aside. That's, I think, when we finally did find a spot on the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation thing, which was his father's label.

Black Mark Production

Frederick: Yes, exactly. According to Quorthon, his father had never heard us before. He didn't take it seriously. I think he realized when we had recorded our songs for the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation, that, "Yay, this is actually pretty good stuff." He started getting responses from people, fan letters and stuff, all being very positive about Bathory. I think they quickly went to the studios and did all these so-called demos, different songs that came out later. I think he did that all by himself.

LEGACY AND DEPARTURE

You were only in the band briefly, what led to your departure from Bathory?

Frederick: I didn't really leave. We just split up. As I said, after we did the Scandinavian Metal Attack thing, nothing really happened after that. We did this in the spring of '84. Jonas and I were regulars, like school kids. We had school, summer came, and we went with our parents and had regular holidays. We didn't get any response from the songs we had recorded for the Scandinavian Metal Attack compilation album. That was a big thing for us. Two kids having a chance to record an album. We didn't hear anything, and that was very disappointing. I suspected, "This is too extreme. People don't understand. People don't like us," because that's all I'd heard before.

I think after the summer, Jonas moved to London to be with his father, who lived there. I was kind of lost in life because I had parents who were really pushy, "It's fun that you play music, but this isn't something you can do for a living." They wanted us to really do something. I didn't hear anything from Bathory. Things just dragged on. It just died out as a band. They never told us that they got these fan letters. That's why I said I think he went into the studio with his dad because his dad, I think, realized that because he could play all the instruments and he knew the songs, had everything in his head, why not just go in and record. It took him just a day to get everything done in the studio. I think that's how that first album came out. Just record it and then put it out. It was easy for him. Our band just died out really, basically.

Even if we sort of drifted apart, we were still friends, and continued to see each other a lot at concerts, parties, etc. all of the summer of 1985, and even into December 1985, we (me, Quorthon, Jonas and another friend) were on our way to jam together in a local school where we lived, but our other friend changed his plans so we never did. And I remember we rented a VHS movie, called "Windwalker," about Native Americans, where they use the phrase "Fine day to die," probably something that he picked up (maybe even the use of "corpse paints" by Native Americans). Kola Krauze reminded me of this film; I had forgotten it. He even brought me a copy of it! But I felt this is important¬ to me to make that clear that we remained good friends long after we as a band split up.

HONORING BATHORY'S LEGACY: BLOOD FIRE DEATH

Let's get go to Blood Fire Death for a couple of questions. How did you approach the sound of recreating Bathory in a live situation?

Frederick: I just played the songs as I did back in the day. I quit music after Bathory. I played with some other bands, but nothing ever happened. I got tired of everything, so I just moved to America and studied graphic design and did completely different things. Then I came back to Sweden, and my friend had a wedding, and he wanted me to play a Bathory song with Erik from Watain and the Nifelheim guys. I still had my bass, but I hadn't touched it in years, and they wanted me to play "Sacrifice," so I started to rehearse. I remembered how to play it. It just sat there somehow, very strange.

Once you learn to ride a bicycle, that skill never goes away, right?

Frederick: Exactly, and I was amazed about the whole feeling of it, as it sort of all came back. I remembered our rehearsal place and everything, the lights up in the sky, and it was a wonderful feeling. Now when we play these Bathory songs, just the early ones that I played with Quorthon, it felt really...how do you say it? Easy or just as a part of me to still do that. It's a beautiful experience, really, and it's just a great honor to finally play these songs live.

Were there any challenges for you to capture the energy and the essence of the classic Bathory songs that you have now played live with Blood Fire Death?

Frederick: No. It's all in my heart and soul. Hey, we love our music, and we love what we do, and still, I am the teenager who always wanted to play live. As I said, that's what we want to do and now I get to do that when I'm almost 60 years old, which is crazy. But I've never felt younger in my life. This is wonderful, I must say. I'm humbly honored to have had the opportunity to be there when Bathory was created.

As I said, we couldn't really know that this would be such a great thing. I'm having the time of my life playing these songs. I'm really happy that, since Quorthon isn't with us anymore, all these wonderful people want to put this music out there in front of an audience. If I can be a part of that, that's just the best thing I can do for me. It's wonderful.

Maybe it's a bit cliché, but when you go on stage and start playing these Bathory together, do you feel the spirit of Quorthon is there on stage?

Frederick: Yes, absolutely. Of course, it's his work that we play, that he's done, he created all these things. Playing those early songs is wonderful. I would never play songs that are from his later albums, like his "Viking-era" albums. That's not my thing at all. I didn't do the earlier songs either, but we did play them together in our rehearsal studio. I can do that. That's just great to be able to do that.

How long are you going to keep Blood Fire Death going? Do you think that as long as you get some good gig offers, you're going to bring Blood Fire Death to all places in the world?

Frederick: Well, I can't speak for the rest of the guys in Blood Fire Death. It's not my project. As long as they want to continue, as long as people want to see it, and if I can be a part of it, I'll be a part of it, of course. I've heard we're going to continue now, at least until next year. Hey, as long as people like it, I love it.

I bet all the gigs you have done so far have been really overwhelming for you guys, seeing all the fans, not just Bathory fans, who can truly enjoy those shows when they get to hear some Bathory songs played live for the very first time.

Frederick: Yes, exactly. We want to at least put something out there for them. We all love Bathory, don't we? At least this is something for people who like Bathory.

Bathory never played live back in the day but now there's something for the audience who can imagine this is how Bathory might have sounded like live...

Frederick: Yes. I think so. The idea of the whole project is to try to play the songs as we think or believe Quorthon wanted to make them for an audience. We're trying to do them as realistically as they are on the albums and not do our own versions or anything. Just trying to keep it realistic or as real as it was.

OF THE EPIC BOOK OF QUORTHON AND BATHORY

Now there's even a Bathory book in the works. I don't know if it's already out or not. Do you have any specific up-to-date info about it when it's supposed to be out? I guess you have been interviewed for at least one of those.

Frederick: You mean that upcoming, thick Bathory bible by Kola Krauze and Professor Black?

Yes. That was what I meant. What was it like to give your recollections about Quorthon and Bathory for that book?

Frederick: That was great. I love Kola Krause. I think he's a wonderful person, really just fun to be with and talk about music and everything. I'm really excited about that project. I don't know how it's going with the book. I just know it's an ongoing project and he's traveling here and there and interviewing people and fact-checking and double-checking, triple-checking, etc. It's a very serious work, which is wonderful because there's so many strange stories everywhere. Maybe that's a cool thing as well, of course.

Getting facts straight about Bathory for that book as well...

Frederick: Yes. I like it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything. This is how it was and how it is. I think that's even better because he was a genius with what he did. I think it's just going to be a very good and informative book after all.

Alright, that's all on my part, so I sincerely want to thank you, Frederick, for sitting down and having this interesting conversation with me about all things related to Quorthon and Bathory.

Frederick: Hey, thanks for having me. It was a very interesting talk.