THREE DECADES IN THE MAKING

Thirty-two years after its inception, extreme metal legend Tom G. Warrior is finally ready to unveil his most ambitious vision yet

after 32 years, the circle will be complete. On April 12, 2019, at Holland’s Roadburn Festival, Tom Gabriel Warrior and his band Triptykon will be joined by the Metropole Orchestra for a one-off performance of Requiem, a three-part classical/rock piece that originated in the 1980s when Tom was leader of Celtic Frost. It is a hugely ambitious undertaking, of which he says: “It really messed with my mind.”

But this is only one of four projects that he has planned for 2019. He will be writing for a third Triptykon album; launching an entirely new band, Niryth; and digging deep into his past, to his legendary pre-Celtic Frost band Hellhammer, to perform that music live for the very first time, under the name of the classic Hellhammer song Triumph Of Death. As the multi-tasking Tom explains, “I’m a music fanatic – and still as manic as

I was as a teenager.”

It was in the first days of November 2018, at his home in Zurich, that Tom finished writing for Requiem. Now aged 55, he was just 23 when he wrote the first part, Rex Irae (Requiem), for Celtic Frost’s groundbreaking 1987 album Into The Pandemonium, in which he and bassist Martin Eric Ain pursued a radical artistic vision. “We had this insane idea to do an album that accepts no boundaries”, Tom says. “Requiem fit perfectly into it, along with the thrash metal, new wave, electronics...”

In Rex Irae (Requiem), the band’s heavy riffing mixed with the sounds of string and brass instruments, a female voice alongside Tom’s. “I loved collaborations between rock and classical”, Tom says. “Deep Purple playing with an orchestra or ELP using classical themes. And Celtic Frost being a very pompous band, of course it had to be a huge piece.”

The lyrics came from Tom and Martin’s mutual obsession with death. “Martin and I were intrigued by the subject”, he says, “and the Requiem was the most focused attempt to deal with it.”

That focus was lost in the years following Into The Pandemonium. The Requiem remained undeveloped due to changes in Celtic Frost’s personnel and music – most drastically when Tom led a new line-up, minus Martin, that sounded and looked like an LA glam band on the

1988 album Cold Lake, which Tom describes now as “an abomination”. After the band split in 1993, he vowed to finish Requiem – “with Celtic Frost or not”. But it was only after he and Martin resurrected Frost in the early 2000s that another part of this magnum opus was created. On what became the band’s final album, Monotheist, there was the sombre, beautiful and grandly titled Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three: Finale).

“Intuitively, I knew this was not part two”, Tom says.

“It was the closing section. That’s what I had inside of me. I had purchased a synthesiser for the first time in my life, and over a long time I wrote this music that grew and grew into something special.”

What happened soon after the release of Monotheist in 2006 was a familiar story. “Celtic Frost imploded again, as tradition has it,” Tom laughs. But within two years he had formed Triptykon, and with that, he says, “I had a much more stable band, so I knew I would finish the Requiem.”

Even so, it has taken more than 10 years for this to become a reality, and only then as a result of what Tom calls “an amazing coincidence” – a call out of the blue from Walter Hoeijmakers, founder of Roadburn. Tom explains: “I was wondering whether to do the missing part for the next Triptykon album. And then, in early 2018, Walter told me he was commissioning new music and wanted something classical. So I proposed to him that I complete the Requiem.”

It was, he says, “a huge challenge – musically, and emotionally”. He went through eight variations before the definitive version was in place. “I knew how long it needed to be”, he recalls. “35-40 minutes. So I couldn’t write completely freely. That was extremely difficult.” What made it complicated on an emotional level, profoundly so for Tom, was what came during the final stages of writing – on October 21, the first anniversary of the death of Martin Ain. “To compose a requiem around that anniversary, it was a constant thought in my mind”, he says. “How could it not be?” The finished piece is titled Grave Eternal (Requiem, Chapter Two: Transition), and was arranged by Florian Magnus Maier, a longtime collaborator of Tom’s.

The three-part Requiem will be performed in its entirety at Roadburn only, and never again. “It is a dedicated performance”, Tom says. “Exclusively the Requiem, with band and orchestra and a female singer.” This will be recorded for an album under the Triptykon name, but what Tom says in conclusion is a measure of what this project has taken out of him, intellectually and emotionally. “Once we’ve performed it, I don’t want to ever hear this thing again. I told all my friends that if I die, don’t get the idea to play this at my burial – I’ll come back out of the coffin!”

Moreover, he is keen to press on with his other projects. Work on a new Triptykon album will begin in earnest in the latter half of 2019. And before that, he will start on Niryth recordings and tour Europe with Triumph Of Death. Niryth is named after a female demon – “very appropriate”, Fischer says, given that co-founder Mia Wallace is one of two female bassists in the band. He describes the music as “somewhere between Sisters Of Mercy, Celtic Frost and Pink Floyd – psychedelic, dark, heavy, and it grooves”. And with Triumph Of Death, Tom is completing another circle, returning to the first music that he and Martin Ain made together.

Hellhammer’s sole commercial release, the 1984 EP Apocalyptic Raids, was so ridiculed by metal magazines that Tom and Martin split the band to form Celtic

Frost. But over time, Hellhammer was recognised as a seminal influence for extreme music, and black metal in particular. Triumph Of Death – newly added to the Hellfest bill, with a European club tour also mooted

– will feature Mia Wallace in Martin’s former role as bassist. Tom says proudly: “It has to be true to the original spirit of Hellhammer. Many times, Martin and I had discussed the idea to play Hellhammer music again. Now, finally, these songs will be performed live for the very first time.”

“ONCE WE’VE PERFORMED IT, I NEVER WANT TO HEAR IT AGAIN”

TOM GABRIEL WARRIOR

Requiem will be performed at roadburn on april 12. for more on triptykon and niryth, visit www.triptykon.net and www.facebook.com/niryth