“Descending Into Madness”: Exclusive interview with Zornheym’s Zorn on the creation of their sensational new album

When I reviewed Zornheym’s newest masterpiece, “Descending Into Madness”, I had no hesitation in awarding it a full 5 out of 5 points. The album is a sensational blend of Melodic Black Metal, orchestral grandeur, and deeply immersive horror storytelling. Serving as a prequel to the band’s previous works, it plunges listeners straight into the dark, origin-spanning history of Zornheim Asylum, Lake Sêlasee, and the tragic descent of Dr. Bettelheim. To explore how this majestic world was built and what goes into bringing the madness to life both musically and visually, mastermind Zorn himself answered our questions in great detail.

“Descending Into Madness” acts as a prequel to your first two albums, exploring the early days of Zornheim Asylum. What made you want to step back in time, and how did writing a prequel influence the way you built the world both lyrically and musically?

Zorn: At the end of “The Zornheim Sleep Experiment”, we hinted that something was latching onto Dr. Bettelheim. You can actually see this in the final frame of the graphic novel.
I wanted to explore that further! I was curious myself about what had happened to him and why he had become the evil man we know from the previous albums.
So we decided quite early on that the third album would be a prequel, and I started by writing a one-page synopsis of the story.

“What started as a simple document with character backstories had grown into an entire lore book.”

After that, Scucca and I created a lore document where we began developing the backstories of some of the characters.
While Scucca was busy writing the sheet music for the choir and strings, I returned to that document and started expanding it. I added more characters from “Descending Into Madness”, developed their histories and gradually started exploring the darker past of places like the Gallows Oak and Lake Sêlasee.
Before I knew it, things had gotten completely out of hand! Haha! What started as a simple document with character backstories had grown into an entire lore book.

And that’s how “The Zornheim Archives” came to life, which we’re planning to release later this year!
Musically, we’re constantly trying to evolve our sound. For this album, we wanted to make sure it had a really heavy foundation, with powerful vocals, guitars and drums driving the songs forward.
We also gave the choir more room in the arrangements, and this time we recorded the choir in the studio, which really helped bring those parts to life.
I think we managed to take another step forward with “Descending Into Madness”, both musically and in terms of storytelling!

Your debut “Where Hatred Dwells And Darkness Reigns” tells the stories of the inmates of Zornheim Asylum and the follow up “The Zornheim Sleep Experiment” is about a sadistic experiment that the inmates have to endure. Do you have a roughly complete story in mind that you want to tell over your albums or do the ideas come step by step?

Zorn: The Zornheim universe is very much alive and keeps evolving!
By the time we finished “Where Hatred Dwells and Darkness Reigns”, I already knew that the second album would revolve around “The Zornheim Sleep Experiment”. We even hinted at that in the final frame of the graphic novel.
Right now, I have a couple of ideas about where we should take the story next, and there are several things within the universe that I feel deserve to be explored further.

In the beginning, I had some fairly rough ideas about the overall story, but as we keep writing and developing the characters, the universe continues to grow and sometimes takes us in unexpected directions.
A lot of those early ideas have now been developed further and written down in “The Zornheim Archives”, where they’ve become part of the established lore.
So it’s really a bit of both! We have certain ideas and directions in mind, but we also allow the story to evolve naturally as we go along.

Where do you get the inspiration for the storylines and when did the idea of the Zornheim Asylum come to your mind?

Zorn: That was actually quite a long process! I’d had the idea of creating something centered around a mental asylum since I was in my twenties, but when I started writing the first songs for Zornheym, I wasn’t entirely sure where to begin.
I knew that I wanted the debut album to tell the stories of a few selected inmates, so I started researching tons of real-life cases and watching endless hours of documentaries.
Then I came across the urban legend of Edward Mordrake, and suddenly I knew exactly where to start! “The Opposed” was written fairly quickly after that, and once I had finished the first song, everything started falling into place.

Around that time, I was also playing The Evil Within on Xbox, a game that inspired me quite a bit. After finishing it, I moved on to Alan Wake, which became another major influence, especially when it comes to creating dark and mysterious atmospheres.
I think Zornheim has grown out of a combination of all these influences: real-life cases, urban legends, horror stories, movies and video games. But whenever we bring something into the Zornheim universe, we always give it our own twist! That goes for both the storytelling and the music. Whatever inspires us, we always try to turn it into something that feels uniquely Zornheym!

“Since the entity sees itself as a god-king, we decided to represent it through a massive choir, giving it an almost divine presence”

As I said in the review of “Descending Into Madness” you excel at translating written words into musical notes. When you sit down to write, does the narrative beat dictate the riff and orchestration, or do you fit the storyline into existing musical ideas?

Zorn: This tends to come very naturally to me!
For this album, as I mentioned earlier, I had already written a one-page synopsis of the story. When it was time to start writing the songs, I simply divided the story into different sections and decided which events each song would cover.
For “Deus Rex”, we knew it would tell the origin story of the Gallows Oak and Lake Sêlasee. We also wanted to introduce the entity living in the lake in its legion-like form. Since the entity sees itself as a god-king, we decided to represent it through a massive choir, giving it an almost divine presence.

“Somewhere Far Beyond” takes place during a happier time in Bettelheim’s life, and I think the uplifting, folk-inspired melody captures that feeling quite well.
“Deep Below” tells the story of the first encounter between Anneliese and the entity. It’s probably the most complex song on the album, both musically and in terms of storytelling. The music follows the different events almost like a film soundtrack, and I’m especially happy with how that one turned out!

Then there’s “The Funeral March”. When I reached the part of the story where Anneliese was about to be buried and started envisioning her funeral procession, I immediately knew that I wanted to incorporate Chopin’s famous Funeral March. It just made perfect sense for that scene!
So I would say that the story definitely plays a major role in shaping the music. But sometimes I also have musical ideas that I feel would fit a particular scene, so it’s not always a completely straightforward process.

Focusing on the classical elements of your music, since day one you work with your “own” choir Chorus Tenebris. But what about the classical instrumental parts? Do you have a fixed lineup of musicians for that, too?

Zorn: The lineup of Chorus Tenebris usually changes with each album, and on “Descending Into Madness”, we really hit the jackpot with the members. They were absolutely fantastic!
Scucca asked his friend Ayla to select a few singers from a local choir in Stockholm called Hårdrockskören. They were just outstanding singers and really lovely people to work with!

For our debut album, we worked with a different string ensemble, but on both “The Zornheim Sleep Experiment” and “Descending Into Madness”, we’ve used a string quartet led by Karin Liljenberg.
Karin has brought in musicians from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra to record with us in the studio. The lineup hasn’t been exactly the same on both albums, but Karin has been our main contact and the leader of the quartet.

We always prefer working with the same people whenever possible. It makes everything so much easier when you’re working with musicians who already understand what Zornheym is all about!

In “Deep Below” there is a short part with an impressive female singer. Can you reveal who provided those vocals, and what made her the right voice for that pivotal moment in the story?

Zorn: That’s actually a fun story! We had been discussing whether we should bring in a guest singer from another band for that particular part, but we hadn’t really decided what to do.

During the choir recordings, one of the female singers really stood out. She had an exceptional voice with this incredibly powerful, almost epic soprano range. That was Nayla!
So, on the last day of recording, we asked her if she wanted to give that section a try.
We already had a melody written for that part, but we encouraged her to play around with it and experiment in the studio. She came up with this incredible, soaring operatic performance, and the result was absolutely fucking mind-blowing! It sounded so good that we decided to double the vocal part!
It made perfect sense to have her portray Anneliese in the song.

“Deep Below” tells the story of Anneliese’s first encounter with the entity living in Lake Sêlasee. The entity tries to seduce her and lure her into the water, where it attempts to drown her.
But Anneliese manages to break free and escape, and Nayla’s vocals capture her thoughts and emotions during that struggle.
I’m really happy with how it turned out!

As of today, you just announced a few live dates in Sweden. Do you have any tour plans yet?

Zorn: We’ve just signed with a new booking agency, CMG, here in Sweden, and we’re really excited about what the future holds! We believe they can help us take Zornheym to the next level.
And we would absolutely LOVE to come to Finland and play!
We can see that we have a lot of listeners in Finland, and Helsinki has actually been our most-streamed city in the world on several occasions!
I’m also half Finnish myself, so it would mean a lot to me personally to come over and play a couple of proper Zornheym shows with the full stage production!

So, if you know anyone who might be interested in booking us, please let us know! We would absolutely love to bring the madness to your beautiful country! We also have a special connection with Finland since our graphic novel illustrator is from Finland, Anu Saari.
We’re really looking forward to taking this whole spectacle on the road and showing people what Zornheym is all about! 

Your stage show is always impressive with actors taking the roles of either inmates or doctors of the Asylum. I think I recognize most of the actors from the live footage in your video clips. So do you have a fixed ensemble of actors that work with you like with the Chorus Tenebris?

Zorn: Yes, absolutely! We try to keep a consistent ensemble of actors as well. We really like the idea of people recognizing the characters and the actors portraying them, both in our music videos and on stage.
It helps create a sense of continuity and makes the whole Zornheym universe feel more alive.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to expand the ensemble in the future and bring even more characters from the asylum to life!

“‘Somewhere Far Beyond’ is by far our most ambitious music video to date”

You released an impressive video for „Somewhere Far Beyond“. Which doesn’t mean that your earlier videos are not impressive, thinking of „Keep The Devil Away“ for example. But „Somewhere Far Beyond“ is the most short-movie-like video you ever did. Is this a promise for future videos?

Zorn: Since day one, we’ve always aimed to make our music videos feel more like short films rather than traditional music videos. The only real exception is “None for All”, which actually features some performance footage of the band.

“Somewhere Far Beyond” is by far our most ambitious music video to date, and it actually cost more to produce than all our previous music videos combined!
I mean, we went completely crazy with this one! We rented an entire railway museum and even brought in a real horse and carriage for the video. No AI-generated stuff here, that’s the real deal! Haha!
Thanks to our amazing Patreon supporters, we were able to make it happen, and we’re incredibly grateful for that!

Of course, we’d love to take things even further with our next production. The ultimate dream would be to create a music video for every song on an album, with each video telling a different part of the story. Then, when you put them all together, you’d have one complete short film!
Unfortunately, we don’t have the budget to pull something like that off just yet. But the more people who join our Patreon and support what we’re doing, the closer we get to making that dream a reality.

So yes, you could definitely say that “Somewhere Far Beyond” is a taste of what we’d love to achieve in the future! Haha! 

Now let us play with some thoughts. Imagine you don’t have to care about the costs of stage production and things like that. How would the perfect Zornheym show look? What would you like to bring on stage?

Zorn: Oh, I love this question! Haha!

Imagine a small choir on one side of the stage, half male and half female, all dressed in asylum inmate clothing. On the other side, we’d have a string quartet and a couple of brass players, bringing the orchestral elements of our music to life.
Qual’s drum kit would be surrounded by the gates of Zornheim, with the words “SUBMISSION IS KEY” written across them!

The stage itself would have multiple levels, ramps, and different cell doors that the actors could use throughout the performance. And, of course, we’d have spectacular lighting, smoke, and all kinds of theatrical effects!
But here’s where I’d really love to take things to another level. The entire stage would transform depending on which album we’re performing songs from!

When we play songs from “The Zornheim Sleep Experiment”, the stage would become “The Chamber”, where the horrifying sleep experiments take place.
For songs from “Where Hatred Dwells and Darkness Reigns”, the stage would transform into the dark corridors and cells of the Zornheim asylum.
And when we perform songs from Descending Into Madness, we’d bring Lake Sêlasee and the Gallows Oak to life on stage, recreating the eerie atmosphere of the album’s story.

We’d also have an ensemble of actors portraying the different characters, but finding the right balance between the theatrical elements and the actual metal performance would be really important. I wouldn’t want the acting to overshadow the music. Instead, everything should work together to create one massive, immersive experience!
I think something like that would be incredibly unique, both for the audience and for us as performers.

Man, I would LOVE to bring that show to life someday! Haha!