In the wake of the tragic “bow and arrow attacks” that took place in Kongsberg Norway on 13 October 2021 news began to filter through several days later following the identity of the five victims being released. One of these, Andrea Haugen was a well-respected artist within the Norwegian music community and was known for her work In Aghast, Hagalaz’ Runedance and under the name of her adopted moniker Nebelhexë. A former model, writer and artist, she lived in London for some time and also worked early in her career with outfits such as Cradle Of Filth and Satyricon. Her music touched many as was quickly reflected by shocked tributes to her that spread via social media as news of her passing spread.

Having conducted an in depth and career spanning interview with her back in 2009 I wanted to share this as a celebration of her life here. It clearly shows what a free-spirited character she was as well as tell her fascinating story up to this point in time.

Following the arrest of the suspect who has been detained in a medical facility pending psychiatric evaluation our thoughts go out to Andrea and her daughter Alva from her former marriage to Emperor guitarist Tomas “Samoth” Haugen, the other victims, family and friends of this senseless act.

Andrea Haugen has worked under various names and guises but is now composing under the name of Nebelhexë and has just released album number three ‘Dead Waters’ under that moniker on Candlelight offprint Amber Autumn. According to Wiki the artist was once described by Terrorizer magazine “as one of the most intriguing personalities of the extreme music subculture,” something I would not disagree with in the slightest. Also there is a whole lot more about her than just music itself, something I was keen to explore further in the following interview. 

PW: Greetings and congratulations on the new album. Before we talk about that I wanted to go back in time to the early part of your career when you arrived in London in 1990. I heard that you were drawn here due to a love of our Gothic scene and subculture. Is this the case and what are your memories of this formative era? You even squatted for some time. Did London live up to your expectations?

AH: Well, I never really left London behind, not mentally at least, hehe. I’m still there a lot, and things definately have changed a lot. When I first lived there, there was this big sub-culture and musical underground scene, thus the reason I was so drawn to it. There were great infamous gothic clubs, fetish, movie and art scenes, occult scenes… all kind of underworld weird stuff that interested me and inspired my work. Oh, and the travelcard cost 2 pounds back then! Now it’s 7 pounds, what a loop! But of course my life is very different now than it was then obviously, now I just work on my projects, keep fit, live really healthy, never really go out to social events unless it’s related to my work and I definitely would never squat again, haha. These days I’m rarely in London and more in Dorset, as I have friends and relatives there and I also love the countryside down there, the sea etc. But I’m thinking of getting a second place in London soon again… I just love Britain in general.

PW: Possibly the first time that you were really noticed musically was due to your backing vocals on Cradle Of Filth’s groundbreaking debut ‘The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh.’ I believe you were a model at the time and am guessing that you may have been involved with Nigel Wingrove and Redemption. Is this the case, if not how did you end up getting involved on the album and what was it like working with the band at the time?

AH: Oh yes of course I knew Redemption. Back then I actually had this little occult magazine and we did reviews and interviews with Redemption. I actually got involved with Cradle through a weird coincidence. Some guy told Dani about me, back then being model, ‘erotic dancer’ and priestess of a secret left-hand path group. Dani asked if I could come to one of their shows and just come on stage with pvc stuff, high black boots and a whip and ‘enslave’ him… and I thought ‘oh boy, but yeah ok I can do that…’ For some reason the show became a big thing, it was videoed and talked about in Kerrang, and I was kinda embarrassed, hehe, because I liked to get known for my ideas and philosophies, not for sexy dancing… but a few months later Dani asked me to come to the studio. Yeah being around the Cradle guys was a lot of fun, we were joking all the time and laughing like hell. I just love it when people don’t take themselves so seriously. I particularly remember a photo session, we were smearing more and more false blood on us and looked more and more ridiculous and in the end we were just laughing and stopped the session. I particularly got on with Paul Ryan and his brother Ben.     

PW: In 1994 you released an album ‘Hexerei im Zwielicht der Finsternis’ under the name Aghast. I admit to not having heard this and should as I have seen it described as “some of the creepiest music you will ever hear.” This was described as an ambient project, why was it a one off and can you ever see yourself exploring these musical themes again in the future.

AH: you know the only reason it was a one off project was mainly because my then Aghast partner appeared to be more interested in hanging out with guys than working professionally with music. So it became like this, that I was doing all the hard work and she was just feeling important being in a band. I thought this was unfair, so I thought I might as well go my own way. So I thought I continue as Nebelhexe, doing more ambient stuff. But then I suddenly ‘discovered’ folk music and thought hey I wanna try this, so I started Hagalaz. I kind of wish I had stayed with ambient music back then, but, but… But yeah, I am actually working on a spoken word CD right now with dark ambient sounds, so I am doing this kind of music right now and I think this will appeal to Aghast fans. So yeah, it’s like 14 years later finally comes the 2nd Aghast release, haha…

PW: Hagalaz Runedance of course saw you releasing several albums and singles between 1996 and 2002. These were musically beguiling and eclectic with a wide array of instruments being utilised by both yourself and other collaborators such as Emperor drummer Trym and your ex-husband Samoth on a couple of occasions. This was a very interesting time I am sure and very different from the rest of the extreme side of Norwegian black metal, which was coming of age at the time. What are your memories and reflections on this era?

AH: Yes, I got interested in the whole folk thing because I liked Neo-folk and then my black metal friends at the time, like Satyr, and Fenris got into this Nordic folk theme, so we all explored it. I have always had an interest in tribal music and tribal atmospheres, so I started to put these elements in to my music, plus blending it with folk music elements. But I somehow suddenly took off and took a wrong turn, got more out of the alternative and metal scene and created music that attracted an ordinary kind of people, people into folk music, Viking, medieval stuff and whatever that I didn’t have much in common with. After all I have always been a more ‘left hand path’ person, knowing ‘celebrity’ occult people and suddenly I was part of a scene of non-artistic, conventional and often narrow-minded individuals, that didn’t understand where I was coming from and I even felt often that I had to hide my ‘dark past’, so I stopped the Hagalaz thing to explore my personal art again.   

PW:  I read you got fed up that Hagalaz Runedance was not properly reflecting personal ideologies and I guess it got stifling in the end for you. Is this the reason that you decided to adopt the name Nebelhexë at this point?

AH: Yes like I said, the reason why I started Hagalaz and also wrote a book about Germanic myths and magic, was because our own culture has been destroyed by early Christians and was further demonised because of the Nazis. I wanted to enlighten people, inspire them to free thinking and make them understand that our own culture is our birthright to practice. I never said, hey, let’s believe in the old Northern Pagan religion, live in the forest, wear Viking clothes, drink mead, stop thinking and restrict ourselves to only this religion. But this is what happened over the past years. More and more people got now into the Germanic ‘religion’ and practice this as a proper restrictive religion, which I think is scary and not better than being ‘all-Christian’ really. So it was time for me to move on to other esoteric areas. But it’s like this with all scenes really, they are started by a few creative and innovative individuals who inspire others to get into it, then the innovative individuals get bored off course and seek out new challenges, leaving the scene to the more sheep mentality people. Don’t get me wrong, if people find comfort in religious belief and restrictions, great for them. I however am a more occult and artistic person, an explorer and I enjoy mental challenge…   

So yes, both spiritually and artistically, I thought it was time to get back to my original dark elements of interest and create individual art again.

PW: I read that Nebelhexë loosely translates as ‘fog witch’ and I am guessing that touches upon representing your spiritual beliefs. I am aware this is obviously very important to you and a complex subject, could you expand on things a bit though please?

AH: Nebelhexe is just the name I adopted back in ’94 with Aghast, so it kind of stayed with me. It refers to the dancing fog, an image I always have been fascinated by. With it I like to say that nothing is clearly what it seems to be. And I don’t really like people to try to stereotype me and try to find out who or what I really am. I have my very own spiritual and esoteric ideas.

PW: Did this rebirth as such lead to the fresh creativity which we saw come to fruition with the enchanting ‘Laguz – Within the Lake’ in 2004? How would you describe your musical and indeed lyrical evolvement between the two projects and did you at last feel like you were truly reflecting your own ideas?

AH: Yes I definitely felt more free, I felt like an artist again, an artist who creates freely. And in general, my artistic creations are often of a surreal and strange nature. I like to point out that my ideas, visions and emotions are ever changing, as I believe a living spirit always grows and changes and seeks out new perspectives and impulses. So I always can see things from different angles thus I never know what I might focus on in the future ….  But as I grew older I certainly found out one thing. When you are young, you want to belong to one theme, and then you change and you want to belong to another thing. So when you get older you lose more and more of that need to belong, and you find out more and more that different things and ideas are connected and that life is more complicated and that there is more than one way of looking at things.

PW: Looking back at my review of this I described it as “an album for the dreamtime state. One that you will find yourself bewitched by and carried off to a world reverting back to a time without the trappings of modern life.” There is certainly a lot of magic about it and the current album and they strike as being very much at one with nature. Was this the intention and was this the sort of way that you hoped your work might be interpreted perhaps?

AH: Dreamy, yes for sure. But when I talk about nature I talk more about inner nature, our true essence and animalistic impulses, not ‘hanging out in the forest’ or something… But I often use places in nature as a metaphor, like now ‘Dead Waters’, or ‘Within the Lake’, which all describe certain emotions. But I obviously am very drawn to the sea. Oh, and I do prefer living in the countryside with animals, but I always visit the cities. My expressions have a lot of magic and surrealism, because these aspects surround me. But many of my expressions are also quite urban and modern, as I describe dirty streets or empty rooms, again often as metaphors for feelings. 

PW: I was going to describe ‘Essensual’ as being perhaps airier and lighter and even more playful than Laguz but a quick listen and look at it again has me thinking maybe not. The electronic sounds had really been laid to rest here and musically this is much more ‘organic’. At times I would even say that on this and the latest album the music is minimalist and incidental, the main focus is on both vocals and the all important lyrics. Musically it flows with a real natural feel to it, would you agree with that?

AH: I don’t know, hehe. To be honest during the Essensual period I was in a quite negative mood, I got so upset about all the shit in the world, sometimes it just gets to me, humans can be so ridiculously cruel. Plus I was quite frustrated about a stupid love affair I had and thus I was quite distracted in the studio, also I suddenly wanted to do a very new sound that I didn’t do before… so I just feel that if I had taken myself more time on Essensual I would have done better vocals and mixed it all better. I am not that happy with the mix on Essensual and I wish I could do it over again, maybe one day I will. But yes, I am pretty happy with the ‘Laguz within the lake’ album and with the new ‘Dead Waters’ album, as I used quite a lot of time recording and mixing until I was satisfied and I also was in a strong and creative mind set. It’s quite strange, my music is often about melancholic or dark themes, but I always need to be in a happy state of mind to create it.  

PW: Obviously poetry is very important to you, in fact your songs strike as essentially poems put to music. I believe that you have a book of poetry in the works, tell us a bit about that and how do you differentiate between which of your writing end up in a song form and which end up perhaps used in a book?

AH: Yes, I have a book in process with poems, which also will be put on a CD, as mentioned earlier. I think when I write poems/stories I can write them more freely. When I write lyrics they have to fit a melody and a certain rhythm you know. So I think it is more difficult to write lyrics than writing loose poetry and essays. 

PW: The word can be used as a very powerful weapon, ‘Living Trash’ is a very good example of this as it deals with the exploitation of animals. It should send a chill down the spine of anyone reading it and make them think. Obviously animal rights are something that you care very passionately?

AH: Many people thought the song ‘Living Trash’ was about white trash people, haha. But yes, I do care for the needs of animals. I am not all fanatic about animal rights or disapprove of farming altogether, I just feel that animals are by no means products to be exploited and tormented. They are living beings that deserve respect and a good life. What the animal industry does to animals is ghastly and it is by no means acceptable for a so-called civilised society. I also disapprove of the fact how many people are too stupid to understand the true nature of animals and think they are toys. A dog that doesn’t get walked and that eats human shit food has a shitty unhappy life, simple as that.

PW: On that theme I was reading about ‘Leadforce’ on your site. Can you tell us a bit about that, is it actually law that dogs have to be kept on a lead at all times in Norway!

Yes, they try to make it a law, which is wicked. And most Norwegians have their dog on a lead all the time anyway, because they have no natural relationship to dogs. I have no idea why. It’s like they only got dogs into their country a few decades ago and have no idea how to deal with them. Norwegians are a very imprisoned and frightened lot. The state controls everything. They also think alcohol is dangerous, yet they go and drink themselves senseless in the weekends. It’s crazy. But anyway, dogs are dogs, also in Norway, and they have the right to run freely.   

PW: Also what is this ‘Don’t Kill The Animals’ song you have listed as upcoming work? Ha actually it kind of speaks for itself really but tell us a bit more?

AH: It’s a cover of an old 80’s song with great lyrics, that I remade with US artists Jarboe and Travis from Cattle Decapitation. The remake is quite a ‘club dance’ like version of the original song. It will be available on Plasticheads Itunes on the 17. August. So check it out and dance folks!

PW: The photo session for Essensual looked a lot of fun, of course art is yet another string in your bow. Tell us a bit about how you work in this medium and where does your inspiration come from here?

AH: The inspiration comes usually from inner visions, but I also have been inspired by other artists, such as filmmaker David Lynch, Tim Burton, or other photographers. I often use art to underline my music or writings, often with my own art, but also often with pictures from other artists. I think art is often a way to connect to other souls and the more dark and deep and thus real and personal, the better. I would love to get more into video and films, like writing film music, film scripts and also play in films, that latter one is my newest challenge, hehe. 

I also have been painting a bit, like abstract figures, forms and colours… I love doing it, but had to put that on hold, as I want to focus on the other art forms first, like photos and film, as they are easily combined with my music and writings. 

I also love to do more comics or graphic novels, I have done one so far. For this however, I need artists to draw my visions, as ‘real’ drawing or painting is something I simply cannot do.

PW: As far as Dead Waters is concerned Candlelight have, as mentioned, set up the Amber Autumn subsidiary to release it on. Certainly you are unique to their roster, do you know if other releases are planned for the sub-label?

AH: No idea. I’m not sure about their plans for this label really.

PW: I wondered if you had any vocal training and who else you admire. As I mentioned you are very much unique but as one does it’s impossible not to mention slight similarities as far as alternative artists are concerned and you did once cover a Lene Lovich song. I also cannot help keep thinking of Red or should that be Native American Indians with your sound, does that make any sense?

AH: No I didn’t have much proper vocal training (as you can hear I guess, hehe). I had a little and I also had training in ‘primal’ singing, which I like to use a lot, I guess this is what you refer to as Indian in sound. I do feel influenced by American Indian singing, I love hearing it, and I do think a lot of my songs have this tribal/primal chanting influence.

I did attempt to sing higher and ‘soprano like’ several times, but it just doesn’t fit me and my persona. I’m generally a dark voice person I think.

PW: Speaking of covers you abstained on this particular album, was there a temptation and why did you decide against it?

AH: Well, I had enough songs, hehe. No seriously, well since I already was working on the independent release with the ‘Animal’ song, I didn’t feel the need to do another cover.

I might be tempted to do another cover on the next album, I would love to do ‘Mouth to mouth by ‘The Glove’. We’ll see. 

PW: How was the recording process for Dead Waters and where was it recorded? How did Texas snake beer come into the equation and effect things?

AH: Oh, yeah, just a few sips of the beer and I was singing country songs… no. But well, it was really hot and I had company from Texas and for some reason I started to think about the deserts, rattle snakes etc and I think some of the atmosphere slithered into my mind. I think there is something quite intense, yet threatening about the deserted hot red landscape. I was walking a desert once and suddenly turned around to see nothing but sand and I didn’t bring enough water, got really thirsty and I started to panic. It’s quite an unknown feeling for us who live in ‘fertile’ green countries to suddenly panic because we simply run out of water…  

But anyway, things were happy and productive in the studio. For some reason I often find myself using Indian/Asian sound influences. I do like a lot of the spirituality and art that comes from there.

PW: There is an almost ritualistic feeling to some of the new material and the ‘Digital Sleep’ delivery was something I described as akin to spell-casting. I noted a real shamanistic feel to the new songs, again would you agree and was this perhaps the mood you intended to convey?

AH: Yes, like I said, I do have a foot in the supernatural world when I create, so it reflects my music. But I also like to deliberately create sounds that appear trancy and might alter the listener’s mind. There is already so much music out there that stupefies people, so I think it’s quite ok to make music that heightens the listener’s perception, hehe. I just think it’s important that people understand that magical awareness is something surrounding us, it is not something that was once in the past. Because this is something that irritates me sometimes when people say ‘oh your music is so magical, it’s about the medieval times yes?’ No it’s not. It’s about my everyday life experiences.

PW: What have reviews been like so far? I know you have had criticism levelled at your writing be it musical or literary, how do you cope with it and do you find lack of understanding frustrating?

AH: Well, all known artists get some verbal abuse unfortunately, but when one makes non-conventional music or music that does not follow any particular genre style, one gets it even more as one stands pretty much alone and vulnerable to criticism and verbal abuse of ignorant followers of the pack. You stand out and get individual attention, which then can be very positive or negative. If I wanted to play safe, I could have played conventional or non-threatening music.  

So yeah, it seems people either love or respect me or hate me, fear me etc. It obviously affects an artist when he/she gets negative energies thrown at them by negative people. Most artists get shit and even threats, especially when they have an opinion, and it is thus important to remain strong and protect ones own energy. I personally do some daily chanting to raise my ‘positive vibrations’, so that I can rise above it.  Oh, and I don’t read my own reviews, and I advise all other artists to not read them. Reading your own reviews can destroy your day, unless you are a really thick-skinned person, which most artists, being emotional beings, are not.  

PW: I see you are planning live shows, with speeches about your work included. Are you hoping these will be further afield than Norway?

AH: I don’t really do much in Norway, most of my projects are widely international, and thus my shows and talks will be at conventions all over the place. I would love to be featured at Comiccom. 

PW: Thanks for taking time to answer all these questions, turned out longer than I expected. Before I leave you, I read that you have a column in a magazine in Norway called ‘Seriously – The Things That Irritate Nebelhexë’ can you let us know anything that you find particularly irritating right now (and I hope that the answer is not going to be stupid interview questions).

AH: Ohh, it’s always a lot of things, hehe. Well, right now I’m quite irritated about a quite serious subject actually. Spending time in London just now, I again witnessed how many young slobby ‘mothers’ there were around that were absolutely incapable of taking care of the many poor children they have. I’m horrified that the authorities do not do anything about this. Where is education? The story of baby Peter affected me deeply and made me very angry. I was discussing with friends last night about how such a ghastly thing could have happened and why no one took action. The downside of democracy, right? Arg!

So yeah, this is what irritates me right now…    

PW: Anything further you would like to add?

AH: No I think we covered it all I guess, hehe, unless you want to hear about my lovely endless beach holiday I had this summer, but maybe not that relevant…  J

But yes, keep updated about my next book ‘Walking with the Night’… 

Interview Pete Woods