HEILUNG’s Airport Stories: How Viking Swords And Antlers Nearly Got The Band In Trouble

Few bands have captivated the current metal scene as distinctively and profoundly as Heilung, even when probably most metalheads will raise an eyebrow if we categorize the band anywhere near the term. The European neo-folk group consists of core members Kai Uwe Faust, Christopher Juul, and Maria Franz, supported on stage by their renowned Warrior Choir, and such ensemble of carefully selected vocalists and instrumentalists contributes to the band’s commanding live presence, creating an audio-visual experience likely unmatched in modern music – what they call “a ritual” – which is certainly a powerful and atmospheric experience that taps into the more primal nature of our human senses.

Heilung’s deep commitment to their craft, rooted in the music, aesthetics, and mythologies of medieval Northern Europe, has led to some challenging and amusing situations. Transporting animal bones, furs, and weapons globally has caused several tense and comical incidents, as Kai Uwe Faust and Maria Franz recounted to Metal Hammer.

What happened to Heilung at an airport?

One memorable incident involved Faust at a Russian airport, where one of the band’s intimidating props nearly got him into serious trouble. “That was scary,” Faust recalls. “So we’re coming to Russia, and we’re on the way back home…and of course it was slightly chaotic. I don’t speak Russian, and we lost our translator because there were several entrances, and it was me with a case that was not mine. I think it was Chris‘ case.”

“So I’m standing there, it’s Heilung gear, I hand in a couple of cases, and then I suddenly see that security guy, getting super big eyes. He takes my suitcase aside, looks around asking – I know what he wants, he wanted to know who owns this suitcase!

“So I go up there, and he opens it up, and of course in there is a sword. Hahaha! Like a full-scale, real Viking sword. And he looks at me and he’s speaking Russian, and I’m like, ‘I don’t speak Russian, and I can’t even say in Russian that I do not speak Russian.’ And it ended up that he fucking loses it, you know? He’s pointing at the sword and he just yells, ‘Document! Document!’ ‘This is, like, theatre props, man! We’re not intending any harm, it’s all fine!’ ‘DOCUMENT! DOCUMENT!’ Luckily, at that point, there was the translator, he was going around and then he realized, ‘OK, Kai is in trouble.'”

Maria Franz faced a similar situation when attempting to transport her iconic antlers through Thailand, leading to a bureaucratic ordeal that took considerable time to resolve: “The antlers were a huge incident in Bangkok when we played there last year because it turns out that you can bring antlers into Thailand, but you cannot export them again”

“We had no idea about this rule, so they were stuck at the airport in Bangkok. I think they were held there for two months because all they wanted was a stamp on the paper saying, ‘This equipment belongs to Heilung, and they were coming in and are meant to be taken out again’, but no authority wanted to mess with this document on our behalf because they saw it as a, somehow, a legally vulnerable situation because we had not followed the rules and regulations.”

“But in the end the Danish Music Society, bless them, a small organization in Denmark, living their lives, happily supporting musicians in their country, and they’re not a huge authority, but they’re like, ‘Yeah, sure, we’ll put a stamp on this one for you guys.’ And that was all they needed and they released our stuff. But yeah, going in and out of Australia and New Zealand, we have to make special applications for anything that is part of an animal or nature, anything of wood, skin, furs, bones, or any Earth materials. I mean, have you seen our show? Everything we own is made from bone and furs and skin and wood! So yeah, it’s challenging,” she added.

Franz also shared an amusing anecdote about transporting the band’s spears through London: “Gong through customs in, I think Heathrow, I had all the spears in a sewer tube, which is the only sensible way of transporting spears apparently. So I’m walking with this tube on my shoulder and through the ‘beep’ machine, and it’s full of spears, and of course, you have to then explain to customs that, yes, this is sharp spears, they are weapons, but they are indeed theatre props. In Europe, they’re normally more easy to talk to!”