One Rode to Asa Bay

"One Rode to Asa Bay" is a song by Bathory about the Christianization of Scandinavia and appears on the 1990 album Hammerheart.

Cover versions of the song have been recorded by Opera IX and Mystic Circle.

Quorthon dedicated the song to C. Dean Andersson, who had earlier sent some of his books to Quorthon. The village's name in the song, Asa Bay, comes from pseudonym Asa Drake which Andersson used in some of his books.^[1]

Music video

The music video was filmed in a suburb of Stockholm to complement the story idea of the song. The video contains scenes of the band performing and a back story of settlers bringing a new religion to the land. The singer / guitar player for Bathory, Quorthon, paid $5,000 out of his own pocket to film the music video. Quorthon explained, "I have never seen it and I didn't get to see any of the 60 hours of film we had worked on for several weeks." He elaborated, "the guy who was responsible for the whole filming just went on holiday once the last shot was made and he was unheard from and impossible to reach." After several months later "he eventually did send us something", but it was 18 minutes of the 60 hours that were filmed. Meanwhile, it was assumed "the rest of the material is probably erased" and the final product was to remain the edited video that did not represent Quorthon's song idea. Ultimately, it became the first and last video Bathory would make. Even so, the video received play of MTV's Headbangers Ball, which got Quorthon interviewed on MTV and introduced the band to American audiences. The video had only been available as a bootleg until 2006, when Black Mark Records released a tribute to Quorthon which contains a DVD with Quorthon footage and the video itself.

References