David Isberg (bloodofjupiter, Opeth): „Wrathful expression of my soul“

That’s what I call a fruitful chat with David Isberg, a man with many talents: musician, inventor, author and sommelier – for example, you really need to find out what bloodofjupiter Bleedgin Unholy Strength 66.6% is about…

When did you join Opeth, David? What was the idea for how the band should sound?
I never joined, I started the band April 7th 1990, meeting some guys at House of Kicks recordstore. We immediate went to practice, sharing rehearsal room with Tiamat at Runan in Täby Kyrkby North of Stockholm.
The idea was to sound like brutal death metal from the times around like Necrophagia, Obituary, Necrodeath, Vital Remains, Mortuary Drape, and Cannibal Corpse.
After the summer that year, I came in conflict with the others bringing Mikael Åkerfeldt into the band, so he and I continued without the others and then our ambition were to create the most evil and dark riffs the world ever saw. We were highly influenced by early Judas Priest, Mefisto, Possessed and the “Fatal Portrait” album by King Diamond.

Any favorite metal bands?
My big four: Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Venom

Why did you leave Opeth?
We were young and disagreed on things and I was intended to join another band, Liers In Wait, with ex-Grotesque members, but apart from a photo session that really never happened.

When was bloodofjupiter formed? Did you want this band to be different from Opeth?
bloodofjupiter is a complete different story. Formed 18 years after I left Opeth in 2010, but really did not start to play until 2011. I had many bands in between and sadly my intentions to play with Mynjun never got through. So I was mentally really far from Opeth and those days. I more or less travelled back to 1983 and picked-up “Born Again” by Black Sabbath, some demos by Hellhammer and Mantas, finalizing with a touch of Venom.
Finding myself in my own music and not just try to play with a band, this is more a wrathful expression of my soul.
Due to facts in life, the band really did not get in motion until late 2014, a large number of line-up changes (most of then because people play in other bands, too). Later, we finally started to play live 2018. 2020 saw the recording of our first album and we got to play outside of Stockholm and got our first international booking at Eindhoven Metal Meeting (cancelled due to pandemics). Another line-up ravage through the pandemics and we were back recording in 2021 for a 2022 EP-realease.

Changing subject a bit, but still relevant.
Last winter we got released in Nepal by Raw And Extreme Records on a compilation record with four other bands from U.S.A., Nepal, India and Argentina named “Doomed to Death”. A real cool record were we do have no less than four songs featured and it is fvkk ace with this world wide things.
We are at moment working on a future gig in Nepal. Also there has been interest from Finland as well as Chile. We’ll come anywhere where we get Visas, just send us the flight tickets…
We know at least, according to where we send the merch in the world, that we got a world wide fan base that grooves and we aim for world domination with our doomonic mad boogie of total destruction.

What is happening currently with bloodofjupiter?
Recently we played in Sweden and in The Netherlands, headlining a packed club show in Den Haag with dutch Ten Ton John and Typhus from Greece as support as well as co-headlining a festival outside of Arnhem. We released two new songs as digital singles and they will hopefully get us signed for our next record.
We try to get as many gigs as possible as we are a sure live experience.
Working on new material and as soon as we are signed, our ambition is to record our second full length album entitled “Thunderdoom”.

What inspires you to write? Are you interested in occult subjects?
Life, abnormal behaviour and weirdness I witness inspires me in general to write.
If it is occult? Well, it is up to the beholder to interpret their own visions of lyrics. For example, the song “Bleeding” is about dementia and my version of what goes on in the head of a demented person. It is often written from that perspective of what goes on in the head of the subject.
“Blood on the sun” is mirrorring the voices in the head, dragging the person down to eternal, severe depression.

“The Eagle’s Assassin” is about a murder that took place on my street, 100 yards from my window. It is not about the murder itself, it is about the people standing here for three days, be distespectful to the police working on the crime scenes, citizens like me having a problem entering our homes etc. It is a type of reality perspective that is typical me, but the subject is untypical. I realized now that it is a support song to the Haninge/Nynäshamn Police Force 🤣 …
“Curse of the damned” is about been beaten to the floor by society, but rise up and take it all back and win the war. It is a true story and I wrote it after having a beef with a ex-tv personality. This person actually opened up my mind looking over what happened then to what it is now.
When I was a kid, a few persons had their hobby to bully me at gigs as I was much younger than them, but I rose from the floor everytime. In this beef I created on purpose I realized that this ex-tv-personality and others with him still have not got further mentally in their lives.
Myself, I am a successful entrepreneur, creator and inventor and not just turn up at gigs for freebies or be paid to be the introducer.
I played mysic, organised gigs and helped bands with my own sweat and last few coins over all these years.
These guys provided nothing to the scene of value for over thirty years and have nothing, absolutely nothing behind their big mouths that can cover their attitude of today, still.
So a big win for me.
I also have songs about dark phantasies, withcraft and black magick too. Like “Hommage des Ténèbres”, “Eternal Damnation”, “Seeing the End” and “Storm Past Torture”, to name a few. So it is not around one single theme. It is still mostly inspired by the weirdness & abnormal behaviour in life.

Any future plans and projects?
As a inventor and creator I created a brand around the band with extreme merchandise. At the moment we have two versions of hand crafted artisan Gin with a different balance and taste than most other gin. The bloodofjupiter Bleedgin Heavy Strength 45% and the bloodofjupiter Bleedgin Unholy Strength 66.6%.

Of corpse, I also brought along a local brewer added the bloodofjupiter Doomonic Tonic to match the gin. All naturally hand crafted. There is also a cajun/voodoo influenced snaps named bloodofjupiter Liquid Damnation 45%, I do small batched crafted beers at Gamla Enskede Bryggeri, beeing served at some of the most prominent bars in Stockholm such as OT/Oliver Twist, Akkurat & Zum Franziskaner and now also a Hot Sauce added to the family.
The Gin is planned to be available in Europe later this year and hopefully also in the United States of America.
Beside creating weird bloodofjupiter merch, I also work on no less than three books, of which the first one is ready. It is a poetry book in Swedish. Right now I look for a publisher. I had an agreement with one publisher for this one, but they did not reply to any email for five months, so I decided to give up on them.

Then since 2009, I am a professional sommelier, so at this point it looks like my next job will be a Gin-tasting in Manchester, England. Apart from that, I am working on two new bloodofjupiter-records, will be featured as a guest vocalist on the next Mother Misery-record and go to see some Iron Maiden-shows…

Just Let Life Burn!

Portrait photo by Jonas Husbom

Interview: John Wisniewski

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