Ostara's first album is released in this symbolic year 2000. Is that the key behind the choice of band name? Ostara/Eostre/Easter being the dawn, eggs hatching, new beginnings, Springtime...

We did want a release towards the end of '99 or the beginning of 2000, a kind of Year Zero and consummation of the last century. The season or festival of Ostara falls on the Spring Equinox and our album was released on the 1st of March, another portentous, if somewhat inauspicious, date! Easter is still the least corrupted religious festival, partly because the pagan element is still very strong on the most basic level: eggs, rabbits, Springtime. However kitsch, the decorations, the original meaning seems to stay intact, as if there was an innate sense of its significance on an intuitive level. I also think that the Christian aspect is taken more seriously because the themes of death and resurrection are more physically apparent in the world than the Christmas celebration of the 'saviour's' birth. For us, it certainly is a new beginning since the demise and transformation of Strength Through Joy into Ostara.

Earlier in the year you were banned from playing a concert in Nurnberg, due to being "Nazis", although I understand you played your set anyway - on the staircase! This is particularly ironic given that you have some Jewish blood. What comments can you make about this incident, and about similar attempts to stop Blood Axis, NON, Death In June from playing live?

That was the konzert in Kassel on July the 14th, which got cancelled at the last minute. I still do not have the full explanation. In Nuremberg we were forbidden to play with Sol Invictus and Hekate because the names Ostara and Strength Through Joy were considered too provocative. The fact that I am ethnically Jewish made no difference, except for the fact that I was seen as a kind of Satanist and described in a Bavarian newspaper as a 'madman' among other defamatory statements that could be prosecuted legally. Of course, no serious attempt was made to look into the content of our work, and a ridiculous misinterpretation was made of our use of a text by Albrecht Haushofer, the dissident son of Karl Haushofer and a July 1944 conspirator. Instead of seeing this as a homage to Stauffenberg, these guardians of public safety saw the piece as evidence of a pro-Nazi perspective simply because Karl Haushofer was a Nazi, as opposed to his son who was quoted. This is a case of the lunatics running the asylum and the future looks bleak for concerts in Germany. We are not the only ones being censored. Death in June, Forsetti, Dies Natalis and others have had problems. But when your attackers use false and virulent language to justify their errors, you know that they are clutching at straws and using them as rods of iron. Sooner or later, someone will realise that a mistake is being made but I am not holding my breath. The art will go on regardless.

But even if you were a band with Nazi sympathies, you should still have been allowed to play, right? Do you think Germany's continuing denial of its past can only have dire consequences?

I don't believe in banning a group under any circumstances but I do believe in the self-responsibility of the artist who must face the consequences of legitimate, as opposed to hysterical, criticism. In Germany there is a double standard since right-wing political groups are free to hold rallies under police surveillance (which =protection) but musicians who have no political agenda are prohibited from performing publicly. I don't think that Germany is denying its past. It is precisely the obsession with the past that results in these kind of extreme reactions in the first place. There is admittedly an element of negation here that wants to forget and banish that period of history to the infernal part of the collective memory. But Mephistopheles will keep bringing those demons back to the surface whether in the forms of art, academic research or politics. It is very difficult for a nation so traumatised by the last war to deal with the legacy of that past in a selective way. This is why there are certain themes that will always be forbidden territory. But it is important for both Germans and all nations that a more discerning approach be taken towards those who are engaged in the process of illumination, be they artists, academics or just seekers after truth. This may open a lion's den but that is better than a mental prison.

Some musicians in recent decades have used National Socialist or Fascist imagery to present what is essentially an apolitical, anarchic stance. One could mention, for instance, Laibach, Joy Division, Death In June, Der Blutharsch. Do you have any thoughts on this, and do you think you could be said to have partaken in this phenomenon with Strength Through Joy?

This could be a consequence of the fact that Fascism / National Socialism was a political movement with a spiritual essence, patriotic nationalism suffused with the ideology of the New Man and the transcendence of the self in the essence of the folk. Hitler believed that the state was only a means to achieve a higher end, a vehicle for conquest and palingenesis, the embodiment of the national-racial soul. Mussolini even saw Fascism as a kind of new religion. The Romanian Legionari and the Japanese Kamikaze were also radical expressions of a spiritual ethos. These are the elements that have to be considered in the light of their historical manifestation, dissolution and memorial legacy. The fact that Fascism pursued a sacred ideal that culminated in the inferno of the modern battlefield and the hell of the concentration camps was not a negation of its 'holy' mission but its ultimate consummation in the face of defeat. It is this infernal legacy that I think inspires the artistic reckoning of groups like Laibach, Death in June, Blood Axis and Strength Through Joy. Laibach have concentrated on the philosophical and aesthetic aspects while Death in June has delved more deeply into the night and fog, that mingling of beauty and horror, heroism and treachery, power and catastrophe that still haunts the landscape of modernity. The power of the forbidden is also a consideration here, as is the whole question of evil, themes that cannot be ignored by any serious form of art. Ironically, this is an endeavour that isolates the individual from the collective body politic, a strange inversion of the Fascist ethos that seeks to recapture memories of the folk soul in a state of exile, the inner realm of the self as a receptacle for what has been dissolved or banished from the world. Unable and unwilling to influence the world politically, the artist pursues a spiritual path that must, however, trace the tainted image of glory in the ruins.

The "Secret Homeland" album has a very buoyant and "accessible" sound - I could even imagine Kate Bush singing on a couple of tracks, like "Nostalgia for the Future" (that's a compliment by the way!). Did you consciously go for this more radiant sound?

I happen to love the work of Kate Bush, so this is certainly a compliment. If only we could have the honour of a guest appearance by Lady Babushka!! We did pursue a different approach to our music since abandoning Strength Through Joy even though some of the elements that you find in Ostara were implicit in some of our earlier work. In some respects we just progressed and started to define the sound more clearly. The second STJ CD was called 'Salute to Light' and a few listeners have identified this luminous quality in 'Secret Homeland'. I like the idea of a Luciferian spirit that embraces the solar or heroic archetypes as well as the darker, infernal forces without which they would have limited meaning. It is through this ambivalent, almost Manichean reckoning with truth that the light of transcendence may be glimpsed.

I've noticed that the two tracks Timothy Jenn sings on ("Waves of White Horses" and "Beauty To Burn") have a darker feel than the rest of the album. Just as my band, Alpha Centauri, has it's shadow-side, Venrigor, is Timothy likewise the shadow-side of Ostara?

I am not sure what Tim will think of being described as the shadow-side, but he does bring a different mood to the music that is partly related to the deeper intonations of his voice. I like the way the gentler strains of 'Midsummer Sunday', for example, subside into the harsher currents of 'Waves of White Horses', the image of the ebbing tide suddenly overwhelmed by the crushing momentum of Poseidon's 'stampede from beyond.' The next album will feature more of Tim's vocals and I am looking forward to pursuing a more balanced feel to the music on the next release.

On "Ways to Strength and Beauty" you sing of "the breeding of nobility..." What constitutes nobility in your eyes?

'Nobility' has both a social and an individual meaning. Historically, every civilisation preserved some form of nobility, a caste or a class that stands above the rest, providing leadership and direction to the structure of society. Of course, 'the nobility' has often been associated with landed privilege, social oppression and venality - depending on which side of the portcullis you stand. But taken as a whole, the idea of nobility is very positive and not simply the result of one class dominating another. Hierarchy is a natural development through which a community can prosper, allowing for those with extraordinary qualities to creatively utilise their abilities. Aristocrats have been great patrons of art and learning, as well as occupying key political and social positions. Ever since the French and American Revolutions, an endemic hostility to the nobility as a class has fostered a revisionist belief in the natural aristocracy of 'free' individuals but, ultimately, any egalitarian movement, while liberating certain classes from submission to a landed caste, also destroys the principle of aristocracy which in essence represents something exclusive. The consequence is a 'financial aristocracy' based on money to which anyone has access, although going to the right school may help you along the way. The residue of the feudal order that we see in the royal families and depleted nobility of older societies is little more than a shadow of a world that has rejected the principle of aristocracy and consigned it to the dustbin of history in practice, if not in theory. Moribund as many of these families may be, the ideal that they once represented is very important and, without feudalism and its corresponding hierarchical structure, most civilisations are inconceivable. The true value of nobility, however, is determined by the individual's embodiment of a higher ideal where the strength of the personality personifies the collective paradigm of a higher type, a semblance of the heroic nature from which all aristocracy ultimately derives. It was the heroes who were blessed (and often cursed) by the gods and their legacy is the memorial standard or chivalric model created for their descendants to follow. In modern times, where there is no longer an actual social structure that embraces these values, the principle of the noble self remains as the calling, not to the collective mass as a whole, but to the individual's memorial reanimation of the spirit of nobility, an existentially exclusive ideal that he or she may cultivate on the path towards self-transcendence. The labours of Heracles are an archetypal paradigm of the Arcadian origins of the heroic ideal, just as the grail cycles are a medieval version of a similar quest for the perennial source of the divine.

You seem to make a couple of references to space travel on the album. Do you think it is man's destiny?

Yes, ultimately humankind must explore and perhaps settle the realm beyond the planet but it is interesting that scientists are now saying that there is as much to be gleaned from the earth's ocean as there is to be gathered from the celestial sphere. The depths are as significant as the heights and, taken symbolically, the inner journey is a more critical endeavour than the outer. Science, like all knowledge, is an extension of an anthropocentric vision and, as Gurdjieff once said, knowledge of the universe is nothing without a knowledge/gnosis of Man. Egypt, and other early civilisations, felt their destiny to be bound up with the stars. The modern world is less concerned with stellar symbolism (beyond base astrology) but the technological capacity to physically enter space is proof enough that our Faustian roots are destined to reach the Hespirides above. What remains is to descend once again into the orphic spheres of the kingdom below.

You were born in South Africa. Do you remember anything of your time there?

I lived there until I was 13 and it is like an unreal recollection of a world that has vanished. I have not been to the 'new' South Africa so it is difficult to know how to relate past experience to the present reality. My family decided to leave in 1983 when the situation was at its most bleak and there was no positive sign of change. Some of my childhood memories are still quite vivid but my connection to the place has long since dissipated. Having been entirely insulated from the political aspirations of the black majority, I had no direct experience of the events that would change the nation forever. It was only when I arrived in the UK (ironically during the race riots of 1984) that I began to see things a bit more clearly but this was the beginning of an outsider's perspective.

You also spent nearly a decade in Australia before returning to England a couple of years ago. How would you compare these two societies?

It would seem that I have two homes, one in the New World and one in the Old. England is a part of the ancestral European homeland with which I have a close affinity. Australia has the allure of a totally different landscape in which Europeans created themselves anew. The historical nexus between Britain and Australia is interesting and the recent rejection of a Republican option, though based on certain political technicalities, is a symptom of a nation that is not yet certain of its true identity and has actually subconsciously embraced its own uncertainty. This has less to do with any feelings of loyalty to the British crown than a recognition of the fact that Australia lies somewhere in-between the confident republicanism of America and a former colony that is, in reality, a gigantic continent most of which cannot be cultivated by traditional European methods of settlement. This is partly the reason why Australian nationalism has something artificial about it and this will be accentuated as the nation defines itself more in terms of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society in which individualism and pragmatism proscribes the cultivation of political idealism. It can be said that England has a similar destiny: a recent study on national identity has argued that 'Britishness' is an inadequate way of describing the regional character of the country and that 'Britain' is a realm created and ruled by Southern England which itself consists of many people who do not consider themselves to be English. Even the idea of being 'European' is complicated by ambivalent attitudes towards the EU, a scepticism that is also evident in other European states. The global framework of economics and culture, however, places strict limits on the exclusive value of regional identity. This is why living in Europe and a country like England demands a constant revaluation of the elements that really do make it unique, the ancient thread of Occidental civilisation that has always been in flux but without which the European soul ceases to exist.

Do you think the concept of federalism has any tenability, as an alternative to both multiculturalism and "one nation" style nationalism?

Some federations work better than others. I think Germany, Australia and the USA will always be better off with a federal system in which regional differences or interests are held in a state of balance. In the complicated case of Yugoslavia, the original framework of Tito's federation was designed to limit the power of any single republic, but this aggravated the position of the Serbs who had dominated the kingdom of Yugoslavia. It will be interesting to see what happens with what remains of Yugoslavia since the departure of Milosevic, given that regionalism there could not be permanently moulded into national unity. Federalism is not a universal panacea for national organisation. It has to reflect the historical evolution of a country. But, all too often, the imposition of borders is quite arbitrary and serves only to accentuate existing problems. Where regionalism or ethnic difference is strong, a decentralisation of power may be appropriate, but it can also create a vacuum at the centre and power without a centre is meaningless. The Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic society with a unique centre that radiated outwards and forged a unity of power that lasted until the centre itself collapsed into what became the Europe of nations. But before modern nationalism emerged, there was still an ethos of a Pan-European Church and its secular arm, the Holy Roman Empire, a spiritual imperium that presided over a host of kingdoms but never ruled them directly (except where the emperor or Pope himself was effectively also the king). With the resurgence of both Pan-Europeanism and regionalism, the cultural residue of the first 'federal' empire with its limited but universal aspirations has become something of an issue in the European Community. Tony Blair has spoken of Europe as a 'super-power but not a super-state', a claim which suggests economic and political unity within a federation of sovereign states. This is a contradictory vision but it does reflect the fact that there is a tendency to balance unity with difference, the absolute and the relative and this is very significant in an age in which globalisation is regarded as both an historical inevitability and a contemporary threat. Federalism can facilitate the self-assertion of regions but also the influence of international corporations, a great mirror of diversity and the grey miasma of corporate uniformity. Ultimately, the solution lies in the nature of the problem. The inspiration for Utopia is and always will be the dystopian reality of the world.

Well, before this becomes the fabled "endless interview" of legend, I'll conclude by asking you to talk about your current activities and future plans.

We are releasing a new EP and picture disc with new material in December, which should coincide with a concert featuring Ostara, Sorrow and Sol Invictus. Next year we will perform in Venlo (Netherlands) and in Croatia (with Death in June, Der Blutharsch, Lady Morphia, Oraison among others). Portugal and Italy are also possibilities. The next album will be an ongoing affair with no firm release date in mind. We have been suitably occupied for the past few months and I expect things will get busier. No rest for the wicked!