Ahead of their first U.S. tour, the self-described “cyber pagan” duo talks mythology, creative freedom, emotional catharsis, Skyrim, Viking synthesizers, and the pursuit of absolute chaos.
By Drew Latshaw
There are bands that borrow from the past, bands that attempt to recreate it, and bands that seem determined to tear pieces from several different centuries, throw them into a cauldron, electrify the whole thing, and see what crawls out.
Then there is EIHWAR.
The duo of Asrunn and Mark occupies a strange intersection of Nordic and pagan imagery, pounding percussion, throat singing, electronic music, ritual, mythology, and an almost gleeful disregard for where one genre is supposed to end and another begin.
Ask Asrunn to categorize it, and she offers a wonderfully appropriate description: “cyber pagan.”
But EIHWAR isn’t particularly interested in historical reenactment. In their mythology, Asrunn and Mark are spirits from Hugrheim, the hidden tenth world of Yggdrasil, inhabiting human hosts whose real identities are deliberately irrelevant.
Their mission here on Midgard?
According to Asrunn, it is to create “the most gloriously joyful chaos possible on stage.”
With EIHWAR preparing to bring that chaos across the Atlantic for their first U.S. tour, including a September 19 stop at A&R Music Bar in Columbus, Ohio, I spoke with Asrunn and Mark about the world they’ve created, the collision of ancient imagery and modern technology, the emotional purpose beneath the spectacle, and whether Vikings would have appreciated a truly filthy synthesizer bassline.
Entering the World of EIHWAR
Drew Latshaw: For someone encountering EIHWAR for the first time, who is EIHWAR, and what do you want that person to understand before they enter your world?
Asrunn: Eihwar is an electro-folk duo that could probably be filed under the completely made-up genre of “cyber pagan.”
The two musicians are called Asrunn and Mark. They are spirits from Hugrheim, the hidden tenth world of Yggdrasil, who have taken possession of two humans whose identities shall remain undisclosed, because they are of absolutely no interest whatsoever.
Their mission is to create the most gloriously joyful chaos possible on stage, giving everyone at their concerts permission to do exactly the same. To let go of whatever stiffness they brought with them, whether moral, physical, or psychological, and remember that dancing like a possessed maniac is, in fact, a perfectly respectable life choice.
If all goes according to plan, some people may even end up reaching a state of trance. Which, as it turns out, is surprisingly good for you on just about every level.
Drew: EIHWAR combines Nordic and pagan imagery, traditional sounds, throat singing, percussion and modern electronic music. How did you arrive at that combination rather than pursuing a more traditional folk or metal sound?
Asrunn: The truth is, we’re not trying to achieve anything in particular. We simply do what we deeply love.
When we compose, Mark and I are in constant dialogue. It’s an endless game of creative ping-pong where every idea sparks another, and together we end up discovering things that neither of us would ever have found alone.
We just let everything that genuinely moves us coexist until, at some point, we look at each other and say:
“Wow… that’s it.”
Drew: Where does the mythology end and EIHWAR itself begin? Are Asrunn and Mark characters you step into for the project, extensions of yourselves, or something somewhere between the two?
Asrunn: We coexist with the spirits of our human hosts, sharing the same bodies. Which, admittedly, hasn’t been the easiest experience for them. There was a point when they were fairly convinced they had developed schizophrenia. Understandable, really.
The funny part is watching what happens when I take full control of my human host, right before we go on stage, for example. All it takes is for her to put that wolf skull on her head, and everything changes. Her posture shifts. Her voice changes. The rather solitary, almost autistic person she usually is suddenly disappears… and turns into me.
A glorious walking catastrophe.
Ancient Inspiration, Modern World
Drew: There has been an enormous international appetite for Nordic, Viking and pagan-inspired music over the last decade. Why do you think these ancient stories and sounds are connecting so strongly with modern audiences?
Asrunn: It’s the path every civilization on the verge of collapse seems to take: a return to spirituality, to nature, to its roots, to a deeper need for human connection, precisely when everything around it appears to be suffering from accelerating dehumanization.
That’s why our concerts are meant to be moments of communion. Moments to be together. To celebrate joy, movement, surrender, and the raw energy of being alive.
To me, it makes perfect sense that this growing hunger for meaning goes hand in hand with the darkness the human world seems to be sinking into.
Drew: With that popularity also comes the danger of reducing an incredibly complicated history and culture to Vikings, axes and aesthetics. How important is authenticity to EIHWAR, and how do you separate genuine inspiration from theatrical mythology?
Mark: If I may, sometimes there is some confusion between the idea of authenticity and that of historical and ethnomusicological research. Eihwar is the most authentic and sincere project we have ever done, and yet its purpose is in no way academic research.
Trying to discover ancient Nordic music through Eihwar would be like trying to learn about the life cycle of the red-eared slider by watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
We are artists, and above all, we want to create new music, using the technological means of the era in which we are incarnated. And we do it with all our heart and all our guts.
I would also add that if our songs speak of an ancient world, they are not about the Earth you know, but about Hugrheim.
Drew: Your performances are extremely visual. When you’re designing an EIHWAR show, how much consideration goes into costumes, movement, lighting and staging compared with the music itself?
Asrunn: We’re only two people on stage, so filling the space is naturally much more challenging than it is for a four- or five-piece band with a drummer. In fact, for the first three years, we were completely “naked” on stage. It took our lighting designer, Yann, creating what he calls “our house” to give our live shows a more defined visual identity and frame everything that happens on stage.
As for the costumes, I make them myself. I’m constantly creating something. If I’m not drawing or making music, I’m sewing, working with leather, or crocheting. It’s an obsession. So it felt only natural for me to take charge of Eihwar’s overall artistic direction, with Mark’s kind but uncompromising eye making sure everything holds together.
Drew: There is something fascinating about combining sounds associated with the ancient world with synthesizers, electronics and modern production. Do you see that contradiction as part of EIHWAR’s identity?
Asrunn: For us, there is neither anything unusual nor any contradiction in what we do. We simply listen to what’s in our heads and in our guts.
I’m always surprised by how many people insist on saying that we divide opinion. As Oscar Wilde once said, “When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.” I can’t think of a better way to sum it up.
EIHWAR Comes to America
Drew: This is EIHWAR’s first American tour. What are you most curious to discover about American audiences?
Asrunn: I’ve been told it’s the wildest, most fired-up crowd in the world. I can’t wait to see for myself.
Drew: American audiences sometimes experience Nordic and European folk traditions primarily through movies, television, games and popular culture. Are you curious how Americans will interpret EIHWAR compared with European audiences who may have a different relationship with that history?
Asrunn: Very honestly, I don’t really care about those considerations (no offense). I just hope people have a great time, that they experience the moment wholeheartedly, with as much joy and emotion as possible.
Questions of historical authenticity and tradition don’t really concern me. It’s 2026, we use Instagram and play on synths. We might as well live in the present.
Drew: When someone walks into one of these American shows knowing absolutely nothing about EIHWAR, what do you hope they’re telling their friends when they walk out afterward?
Asrunn: “It was SO MUCH FUN! I had an absolute blast. You HAVE to come with me next time!!”
Beneath the Spectacle
Drew: Beneath the spectacle, percussion and intensity, what emotions are you actually trying to explore through EIHWAR?
Asrunn: All of them.
I have a body on Midgard. I don’t have one in Hugrheim. So through this body, I get to experience joy, anger, love, sadness, gratitude, irritation, excitement, heartbreak… everything.
No emotion is meant to be suppressed. They’re all here to warn us, guide us, and start a conversation with us.
I wish humans would treat every one of their emotions with the same attention and the same importance.
Drew: As EIHWAR becomes larger internationally, how do you protect the strange, experimental qualities that made the project interesting in the first place?
Asrunn: I’ll probably sound repetitive, but it’s the truest and most honest answer I can give: we never set out to achieve anything, and we never planned any of it.
The Forge, the track we uploaded to YouTube on February 15, 2023, has exactly the same DNA as Omenotharena, from our latest album.
As long as we’re driven by that same childlike excitement, I don’t think there’s anything to preserve. Everything simply flows out of us, naturally and without effort.
Mark: Our arrangement with our record label, Season of Mist, is that they give us complete freedom over our music and visuals. We have always made the music and videos we wanted to make, and the fact that the band is growing won’t change that.
We sometimes get advice: some people would like us to bring in acoustic musicians, others would like us to have dancers, etc. We never take that advice into account.
We’ll keep doing exactly what we’ve always wanted to do: being a duo with an electronic setup, mixing the underground sound of EBM with pagan music.
Drew: You’ve now played places and stages that presumably seemed very distant when EIHWAR began. What is something you still want to accomplish that would make the two of you look at each other and say, “How the hell did this happen?”
Asrunn: Hahaha! That’s actually exactly what we say to each other every time we reach a new milestone.
Hellfest, Wacken, our first European headline tour on a nightliner, that was almost sold out everywhere, millions of views on YouTube, recently reaching 100K on Facebook and Instagram… all of it already feels so absurdly extraordinary that if everything were to end tomorrow, we’d still have enough joy to last our human hosts for the rest of their lives. 🙂
The Important Questions
Of course, no conversation involving Viking spirits, pagan electronics and possession should be allowed to end entirely seriously.
Drew: You are allowed to summon one figure from Norse mythology to join EIHWAR onstage for one song. Who are you summoning, and what instrument are you giving them?
Asrunn: Ahah, Odin obviously, He’d join Mark for an epic percussion battle on a pair of giant drums!
Drew: If archaeologists discover EIHWAR’s music 1,000 years from now with absolutely no context, what completely incorrect conclusion do you hope they reach about our civilization?
Asrunn: Hahaha, I love this question! That Skyrim was a history textbook in school. HAHA! There you go, that’s exactly the kind of wonderfully stupid answer I enjoy. XD
Drew: And finally, perhaps the most important question of the interview: Do you think the Vikings would have approved of synthesizers?
Asrunn: Of course they would! They were bold, endlessly curious, always eager to embrace anything that could enrich, improve, or simply make life easier.
And honestly… imagine a filthy, earth-shaking bassline blasting while a crew of Vikings rows a longship in perfect rhythm. Tell me that wouldn’t look absolutely badass.
On that mental image, there really isn’t much left to add.
EIHWAR’s first encounter with American audiences is approaching, and if Asrunn and Mark get what they’re hoping for, those audiences won’t leave debating the historical accuracy of what they witnessed.
They’ll leave sweaty, exhausted, possibly slightly bewildered, and telling somebody else that next time, they need to come along.
