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| Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility |
It seems almost so trivial right now that it's hard to imagine how new the Swedish Melodic Death Metal scene is. While the Death Metal scene is say, edging on its 30's. Meanwhile the Thrash and Heavy are hitting their 40's, the first albums of the wildly popular and wildly emulated Goteborg scene are only turning 20 now. In 20 years, these albums have had an impact which is almost unrivaled in other scenes. Bands like Dark Tranquility, At The Gates and In Flames began a revolution which sparked hundreds upon hundreds of bands worldwide who could come close, but never quite capture their spirit. Well, 20 or so years after Skydancer, I caught up with one of the most important figures of the Goteborg scene, leader and singer of Dark Tranquility, a true character of the international Metal scene, Mikael Stanne. Results ensue
B- Hallo Mikael! How are you?
M- I'm good , i'm good, i'm in Melbourne Australia right, heading to Adelaide. We're at the airport, it's very early morning here (I guess he means in the camp, as it's 2 pm over there...) and we had a fantastic show in Melbourne. Was super cool.
B- So, Dark Tranquillity is such a hard working band and something is always happening...I don't know where to start! How do you feel about your latest EP A Memory Construct?
M- I feel really strongly about it, it is a cool thing to do, something special for the second part of the tour. So we figured, we wanted to give something special to the fans who waited to see us, and it's only on vinyl, it's really cool. Totally a collectors item, and totally for the die hard fans and the collectors out there. It just seemed like something fun and special to do, and something I look forward to when I go to shows. To find something unique, something you can't get anywhere else. I actually met some guys last night who bought it on Ebay.
B- It seems almost parallel to Zero Distance, why do you feel the necessity to release it separately rather than with the whole package?
M- For sure, but it's just good to have something in between albums. Something that in itself promotes the tours. That's definitely what we did with Zero Distance, one year touring, then we released that song and continued for another. Maybe it's not something we plan on doing in advance, but it does the trick. If we have some extra songs, left over but good from the recording, that don't fit the album, then we think ah we should do something with it. So yeah, first it kind of makes sense, and it is a cool thing to do.
B- On a side note, how do you maintain such a grand amount of energy and enthusiasm 20 years into the band?
M- I donno, I think every night something gets you going. Something about the audience gets you inspired and you pull energy from it. The energy the crowd brings effects us, we're on tour, we play every night, pretty exhausting to be on the tour bus and not sleep enough. So we're traveling every day, but you spend 23 hours doing noting, waiting around, standing in line, and those 1-2 hours onstage, that's all the matters. Till that I have to make sure that we can provide the best experience for the audience that paid to see us. But I do tend to have a ton of fun on stage and I also think Melbourne last night was one of the highlights of this tour, without a doubt. Sometimes I feel the need to be a part of the crowd and just jump in (laughs.) Because it's fun, and I love, for my favorite bands, I always got front row, and feel the energy of being in the crowd. I love that feeling so. I choose to come and join them.
B- How do you feel the band life has effected your personal life?
M- It's tough but i'm used to it of course. Touring life is crazy, but at home it's sane and great. But I like it like that, my whole life together is nice, calm, and fantastic the way it is. I try to separate work and family, I mean I work from home occasionally for paperwork and stuff but try to just hang out with my family when i'm home. It's a big difference but I like the fact it keeps me balanced. You get pampered and get treated like a kid on tour sometimes, to make everything work. But at home you get to meet reality and be an adult again, do everything yourself. It's a good balance, sometimes we're all away from home for longer than we'd like. But at the same time that means that we can be home more once we finally arrive. Sometimes I hate it, being away, but at the same time I know that in 2 weeks from now i'll be home for 2 months and it'll be awesome.
B- Well! We touched on a big note, Construct, it's been out for a while now, how do you feel about it?
M- I'm really, really, really happy with it. We struggled with it for a long long time , and it took a long time for us to get into the right way and just do it. But once we finished it we were really happy with the outcome. We had a blast finishing it actually, and we play a lot of these new songs on this tour. The crowd also seems to only want more, and what better review can we possibly get?
B- You said in an interview for Terrorizer that unlike We Are The Void, that the ideas when you started writing for Construct just flowed through naturally. Why do you feel that happened? How did that effect the album?
M- I think we just, we focused on songs and melodies. It wasn't as much of a collaborative effort as We Are The Void was. We sat in the rehearsal room for a year and bounced ideas on and off, it came to the point of just being super frustrating, a lot of good things came from it. But 3 days out of 5 we did nothing. This time we though “screw it, we'll just go into the studio directly” and bounce ideas off each other there. So 3 of us started writing, splinters of songs, and we started building from there, all the sudden we had great songs and I started writing the lyrics, so we had finally new material! We've never done that before, and it made me want to write in a different way as well. As I wanted it to be very honest, very true, as the music called for it in a way. So, it's just the way of writing, and it inspired me to write lyrically differently. But the process itself for writing lyrics didn't really change, I either stay up late at night or until the morning with coffee and anxiety.
B- How is it different from previous Dark Tranquility albums?
M- The way we wrote it, made it change a lot. It wasn't just about the cool riffs or different leads. It was about the song, the power of chord progression and emotion.
What are some of the themes of the album? What would you say the lyrics and general idea are?
Basically, trust issues and skepticism i'd say. It's about personal relationships, how that effects you, about the people you trust and don't, and how you fail each other in many ways. Looking at it from a more “scientific” standpoint and less of an emotional one. It's kind of dissecting relationships, or friendships, or romance, in a cold, “scientific” viewpoint. That basically talks of issues, some of the stuff I was going through at the time, and it helped me get through the hardships I had. It's more focused, it's more honest, and because we chose * to mix it, it sounds better than everything we've ever done. You know sound is half the name of the game, as it will determine what people can hear of your work and how. I really like listening to it from a good stereo system really loud.
B- What's the idea behind the name “Construct”?
M- Construct is a construction you make up in your mind and that becomes reality. A bigger way of looking at it is also related to religion. Which is one of the things that frustrate me the most,when it comes to....everything. That people would rather believe than know, and I guess that's a part of the lyrics too. How when there are things we don't understand we like to substitute truth and substitute reality. Because we choose to believe in something imaginary, which is something you can make up in your mind, that is a construct.
B- Also, Construct has shown a major comeback in the way of the clean vocals, why do you think that they came in so strongly on here?
M- It just made sense, the songs called for it. The songs are more melodic, and focused onmelody, and it made me want to try some stuff. Because we wrote in the studio we got to experiment a lot and try out different things, so we we're like lets try more clean material. We saw how it worked, and usually , when we're in the cutting room, we're like “fuck it, it doesn't work” but with the new writing way, we had to be confident and more spontaneous. Experimental in a way. I really enjoyed it, loved it.
B- I also know Niklas (Sundin,guitars) all the artwork, how did that come about?
M- He was pretty damn hesitant at first as he was super busy with the writing of the album, and I start looking for other artists. I found a few I was drawn to colaborate with, but I didn't have a title yet. So I didn't really know what to tell the artists. Once I did, I told Niklas “what do you think about Construct?” and he was like “I love it.” Then the next morning he sent over the album cover. He was just up all night, painting it, completing it. I was really happy , as I always want Niklas to do the cover but he feels sometimes that he doesn't have the time or hes busy doing other stuff. We use it as a backdrop in our live show as well and everything.
B- In addition, for the 20 years anniversary of Skydancer, lets go a bit back. How would you describe the early days of DT? Those times were probably very different from what the band is like now?
M- Oh wow, we were just kids you know. 19 when we wrote Skydancer. We had all these grand ideas, we were like “holy shit, we gotta record an album, lets make the most out of it.” We wanted everything, you know, we wanted orchestra, keyboards, female vocals, and we wanted it to sound epic and majestic. We had all these grand ideas that now seem pretentious looking back. Recording it was kind of a reality check, and for me, it was an experience. We found early on, “oh yeah , it doesn't work” and not everything sounds great in the studio, it depends on how you play! So we took our time, practiced a lot. Hours, days, weeks to record album. We don't have much to show for it (laughs) but it was a ton of fun and I remember it fondly. I just remember being frustrated not being able to put in all the stuff we wanted.
B- Are there any plans of including more Skydancer materials in the set-list now?
M- Yeah, we used to do one Skydancer song with a guest vocalist, which we haven't done since. Which is really sad, we tried some songs out to see if it works, but it didn't work out. When we did preform A Bolt of Blazing Gold, it was with Mariangela Demurtas of Tristania, who joined us every night onstage for that song. But she probably won't do it again.
B- First and foremost, one of the few factual questions in this interview, how did you come in contact with the band?
M- It was Niklas and I sitting in our living rooms. We rented guitars and talked to friends from our same street, like “hey man, you wanna be in a band? You can play drums, you can play bass,s you can sing.” We formed the band out of boredom, at the time we just sat around and tried to figure out how to play music based on our favorite albums. Just try to sound as cool as them, we pretty much grew up together. Niklas and I are for example friends since we were 6 years old.
B- Why did you transition from guitars to vocals?
M- Oh I don't know. I wanted to be a singer I guess, I didn't feel comfortable playing guitar. Every rehearsal I was singing when Anders wasn't around, and it was just what I wanted to do. So when, after we recorded Skydancer, I told Anders that I wanted to be the singer, and he said fine, but he can't play the guitar parts. So he took over my old position in In Flames and I did the opposite. It just fit me better, as DT was my main band, and I just love screaming, I love making noise, expressing myself in a way. Of course it had its ups and downs, sometimes you feel really shitty about what you do, and sometimes you feel really great about what you do. But now, 25 years later I can see I made the right choice.
B- How do you feel you've developed as a musician/artist since the early days of Dark Tranquility?
M- I mean in the beginning it was all about trying to sound as good as my favorite vocalists. Like Mille Petrozza, David Vincent and stuff like that, now a days I am looking for emotions rather than a pure sound. I want to convey the lyrics in a way, I want people to really get what the song is about and how I feel about that. It's something you learn along the way, it's a different form of expression than just screaming your lungs out. But this is how it becomes nuanced and interesting. That's the biggest challenge,but it's the one I enjoy the most.
B- And perhaps most importantly, how do you feel the Metal scene around you has changed since those days? How do you feel the Swedish Metal scene has changed since the days DT ATG and IF were neighbors
M- There's a lot more bands now, of course when we started it was super tiny. A couple of bands popped up in the early 90's, but it was still like a “secret society” type thing. There were a couple of bands in Stockholm and a couple of bands in Gothenburg, and the number was increasing. But now, it's a fantastic music scene. I meet people all the time who show me there stuff and I listen to new bands, I still go to shows pretty much every week. It's really exciting, especially now as people have stopped comparing themselves to us, or At The Gates, or for the matter, Entombed. A lot of bands find their own identity, and the weekly shows have helped bands get nicer venues to preform in.
B- How do you feel about the explosion in popularity of Melodic Death Metal or Gothenburg Death Metal since the early days?
M- I remember being frustrated around 96' or 97' , that all the sudden we were lumped together as one sound, or one style of music. Because we were definitely trying to sound original, but now I just don't care. As long as people appreciate what we do, and what our friends do, I don't mind. It even became like a seal of quality, the “Gothenburg sound.” Ofcourse I remember when we did Skydancer, and people didn't get what we did at all. We were too melodic to be Death Metal and too angry to be Power Metal or whatever, nobody really understood. We thought “you'll get it eventually.” We just kept doing what we were doing, and sure enough, people got it. Powerful, emotional, and inventive music. We never had to compromise outside of the band. We're still doing it, and it's a great accomplishment.
B- Speaking of which, ATG working on a new album, any comments about that?
M- Really really excited, I spoke to Anders yesterday a little bit, and he's just been writing and writing and writing. It'ss really cool, I know it's an enormous amount of pressure on them, but i'm glad they've finally decided to do it. There's been talk for years and years, and years but they've always been like ahhhhh we don't know, we'll see, but now it's finally here. I'm super excited, and i've heard a few demos, couldn't be happier.
B- So Israel for the second time in what, two years! How do you feel?
M- I feel really good, we had such a fantastic time last time. We've been talking to Yishai, the promoter, who's a really cool guy, and he told us “we want you guys to come back.” So we said fuck yeah we'll come! So, really really nice.
B- Any special plans for your trip here?
M- Not that I know of, unfortunately. We're only gonna be there for the day as afterwards we're headed straight to Greece. Last time we went sight seeing and to Jerusalem, but this time it's get in, play, scream, get drunk, and leave!
B- What's after? What's in Dark Tranquility's nearby future after the excursion here?
M- We do two more shows, and then we get a month off. Which is nice, as we've been touring pretty constantly since November. Then we have a week in Russia in May I think, then we take the summer off. Only festivals. For the fall there'll be some more touring, probably one more in Europe and one more in the USA.
B- And last but not least, a word to the crowd?
M- We're just super happy to get the chance to come back. We'll have a cool night, a cool show, and we're looking forward to it.
