intervviking

VIKING

RON ERIKSEN

Viking from Los Angeles California was formed by Ron Eriksen, Brett Eriksen, Matt Jordan and James Lareau. Viking first appeared on Metal Blade's legendary Metal Massacre compilation. Their first full-length titled Do or Die was released in 1988. It was fast and intense and people often compared Viking to bands like Slayer and Dark Angel. The following year Viking released their second, titled Man of Straw.

Things were going in the right direction for the band but the band members had other priorities, Ron Eriksen and Matt Jordan became christians and the band was put to rest. In 2011 Viking made a surprising comeback and a third album was announced. For the new album Viking has recruited the legendary drummer Gene 'The Atomic Clock' Hoglan of Dark Angel-fame to lay the drums. Bass player Mike Gonzalez from Dark Angel also joined Viking for the recordings of their third album titled No Child Left Behind. Now over to Viking's guitarist and vocalist Ron Eriksen.

Viking - From left to right: Matt Jordan, Ron Daniel Eriksen, Mike Gonzalez & Justin Zych.

You signed up to Metal Blade Records, Can you tell our readers how that happened?

I can only attribute this to a case of "right place, right time." There were so many great bands in the Orange County/Los Angeles area at the time. We had formed in early '86 and immediately started writing. Brett's dad passed away, leaving him a small amount of money which Brett said we should use to make a three-song demo tape. Once we had that demo in hand ("Do or Die," featuring the songs Hellbound, Prelude/Scavenger, and Do or Die), Brett and I started using it to book shows.

Our second show was at the Whiskey A Go Go in Hollywood opening for Dark Angel. Brian Slagel, the owner of Metal Blade Records, was at the show to check out another band, and was there early enough to see us. Later that night, he approached us and asked if we had a demo tape. Fortunately, we did! We were contacted by Metal Blade shortly thereafter to ask if we wanted to be on the upcoming Metal Massacre record. Since the first Metal Massacre was my first exposure to L.A. metal, I was more than happy to agree! Once it came out, they told us that based on fan reaction, they wanted to sign Viking and Sacred Reich to record contracts.

Your debut album Do or Die was released in 1988, what do you think of it in retrospect?

Our drummer Matt Jordan recently described the first album as "the biggest regret in my life." While I have had some bigger regrets than that, it was bad for all of us. We made every mistake possible, so what ended up happening was we took nine great thrash metal songs full of killer riffs and put them through a mud machine that made them nearly impossible to listen to.

It was not representative of what we were capable of, and even though it is now considered one of the classic thrash albums of the day, I do wish we could go back in time and make it listenable.

On Man of Straw you worked with top producer Bill Metoyer. How was it to work with him?

Bill was great to work with. He knows how to get the right sound, and when to have the band play something again. We should have hooked up with him for the first record. I firmly believe our career path would have been so much different.

And what do you think about the Man of Straw-album today?

I still love Man of Straw. The lyrics, the arrangements, the riffs, the production, were all light-years ahead of the first record. But our fan base is pretty evenly divided on which of the two records was better. My vote is definitely for Man of Straw.

Your song Hellhound was featured on Metal Blade's classic Metal Massacre-compilation (MM8). How important do you think it was for Viking to be a part of the album?

It was an honor to be part of the series that launched the careers of bands like Metallica and Slayer. Plus, it gave us a lot more exposure than the cult following we were getting from fanzines and tape traders.

Is it true that you broke up the band because of your newfound faith? Wasn't it a possible to be both a christian and be a member of a metal band?

It is absolutely possible to be a Christian and be in a metal band. But at the time, I knew I didn't have the self-discipline to live the life I wanted to live and also be on tour. I didn't set out to break up the band - I actively looked for a replacement for a couple months before dropping the bombshell on the guys, but couldn't find anyone. The first person I told was Matt. At first, he tried to talk me out of it, but then ultimately said he'd rather play music in my garage with me than to be in Viking without me. So at that point, the band pretty much had to break up.

Brett Eriksen, Gene Hoglan and Mike Gonzalez have all been members of both Viking and Dark Angel. You must be close friends with the guys in Dark Angel?

We made friends with Dark Angel from the first show we played. And we played 3 or 4 shows together in that 2 or 3 month period, so our friendships developed quickly. Probably the closest friendships that developed were Brett and Gene, me and Jim Durkin, and then later Gene and I. But I've hung out with Ron Rinehart and Mike Gonzalez quite a bit as well. We rarely saw Don Doty or Eric Meyer unless it was at a party or something.

Do or Die (1988)

Glenn Rogers formerly of Deliverance and Hirax also joined the band for a short time. How did you get in contact with him?

Glenn and I had kept contact over the years, and in the last five or ten years talked more frequently. He was definitely the one who prodded me the most about re-forming Viking, though I always said, "No way dude. Nobody is interested in that band anymore." When Matt and I decided that we did want to do that, we at first tried to get Brett and Jim on board. Neither of them were interested in returning calls or emails on the subject.

Glenn was our next logical choice, since he had been in the family from the beginning. He'd been Brett's best friend and Viking's stage manager during the entire history of the band. While I was writing the new record, the opportunity arose for Glenn to join Heretic, so everyone decided that was absolutely the best thing for him.

No Child Left Behind is the title of your comeback-album, Why was it delayed for so long?

It really WAS a long journey. We started in recording late 2011, and it came out in March 2015. It was a lot easier in the old days when everyone saw each other several times a week, we wrote together, practiced constantly, and then went into the studio for a set number of days to get an album out. Now, things have to be very different. I wrote all the songs, and then Gene and I collaborated on them via Facetime and texts. We recorded drums in three days, but then had to wait several months to get Mike Gonzalez out here to record bass tracks. After that, it became one thing after another. The biggest issue was my mom unexpectedly dying.

At that point, I was devastated and had no desire to work on the album for a long time. When we finally got back to it, we ran into several computer issues, the last one only eventually getting resolved by having a big-wig at Avid come to my studio and spend several hours tracking down the issue, which ultimately was an Apple computer issue, not a Pro Tools one. In the meantime, we had toured with Justin Zych as our full-time guitar player, and I decided I wanted him to do the solos on the record instead of me. We erased all of mine other than a few measures on a couple songs. If you've heard it, you'll know that was a very good decision.

Is it true that the band pretended that Ron and Brett were brothers as a marketing gimmick?

When we first got together as a band, we threw around a lot of names and ideas. One day, I had an epiphany. I called Brett and said, "We're just going to be called Viking. And since we both have red hair and look similar, let's be the Erickson brothers so that magazines have something to write about." Brett immediately agreed, but did insist that we go with the Danish spelling of Eriksen.

It probably helped in those early days, but now has become a point of confusion. In a lot of interviews, I get asked why I changed my last name to Daniel. It actually always was Daniel. You have to remember that my generation grew up with Chaim Weitz calling himself Gene Simmons, and Vincent Furnier naming himself Alice Cooper. So to us, stage names were just part of the deal.

Man of Straw (1989)

In the eighties you gigged with Forbidden, Megadeth, Sacred Reich, and Dark Angel amongst others. It must have been crazy times?

At the time, we didn't realize we were part of something that would later become looked at as "the glory days" of 80s thrash metal. I had come from the Hags, where we played crazy punk shows with audiences attacking us and having drunk and drug-influenced bandmates. Playing thrash shows with Viking - where we were treating it more professionally and being intensely focused - seemed much less crazy. Of course now, people are all, "You played with Megadeth?!? Dark Angel?!?! Forbidden?!?!" At the time, that didn't have the same impact as it does now.

What bands influenced your sound?

Matt's ad in the Recycler said he was a "drummer into Slayer and old Kiss." I don't think Kiss had any influence on our sound, but there's absolutely early Slayer and early Metallica flowing through our veins even to this day. I don't think we drew from anything else. I loved the vocals of Dickinson and Dio, but I didn't have the ability to do that. And we weren't good enough guitar players to be emulating Yngwie or Satriani or other stuff we listened to back then. All we knew was that we could write songs by putting together heavy riffs and brutal words.

Viking back in the days...

What's your plans for the near future?

We just returned from an East Coast tour with Possessor as our support act. Right now, we're working on making a West Coast tour happen in October. Don't know yet if we'll be support to a bigger band, or headline it. We're happy to do it either way. There's zero egos in this band. For example, Gonzo (Mike Gonzalez) has been just as happy to play for 60 people in Tennessee with Viking as he was to play for 60 thousand in France with Dark Angel. We just want to keep playing.

What's the highlight of your career?

Hopefully I haven't hit the highlight of my career yet. But the most impacting thing for me has been talking to guys who got Viking albums when they were 13 or 15 or 17, and went on to be in bands themselves. When I hear about someone's life taking direction based on something I started in my garage when I was 19 years old, that is super-humbling. Those are all highlights for me.

Have you got any funny story to tell, if anything weird has happened while touring or so?

Usually on tour, we're sleeping in the truck or at a cheap motel. But a couple years ago, we got hooked up to stay in a mansion one night. No joke - a full-on mansion. We were blown away. Three stories tall, a driveway that went forever into the woods, and a place you could easily get lost in. We felt pretty spoiled. But in the morning, the guys came downstairs with weird stories from the night. Doors opening and closing on their own and such. Justin said he heard someone open the bedroom door, walk in, close it behind them, and sit down on the bed next to him. He figured it must be one of us, but when he opened his eyes, no one was there. So now, we're just as happy to sleep at a Motel 6!

Any last words to our readers?

Yeah, an exhortation. I always hear about how great "the old days" were. But what I see as the major difference between then and now is that fans used to come out to shows. We lived and died by the calendar of gigs. Now, there is a lazy "I'll just catch it on YouTube tomorrow" attitude with a lot of fans. If you want a great metal scene in your city, you have to be a great part of it. Go to shows. It helps the venues, it helps the promoters, it helps the bands, and ultimately gives you a lifetime of memories.

By/Ruthless

(04-05-2015)