Your sophomore album titled Library of Death was arranged in a basement in the grey parts of Gothenburg while the lyrics were written on the high and mighty Mountains of Norway. Do you think your music would sound different if the setting was in a sunny place and you were sipping on a Piña colada?
Ha ha!!! I hear the song” Escape (Piña colada song)” by Rupert Holmes in my head now!!!
“Calypso Ringill”!! Doomy Samba, ha ha. New genre?
Yes, I do believe that the environment has a lot to say about both the songwriting and sound of the band. If it is gloomy outside you will end up writing music in that kind of feeling.
When I write lyrics, I must get inspiration somewhere, and the nature gives me a lot of that. I also get inspired bya good book or a film as well.
Your sound is now darker, rawer and heavier than before. Is there a dark personal back story that comes with that? Yes, we are snoopy and we want to know everything!
No, we are a bunch of happy guys, but we just love dark music and horror movies too, so it feels right to play this kind of music.
To me music really must touch a nerve inside of me. Dark, Sad, aggressive or party driven music makes my mood go bananas.
How typically Scandinavian are you? Any interesting habits?
We are like every normal Scandinavian and eat little children and worship the gods of Valhalla!! Ha ha ????
We are not bound to borders mentally or in everyday life either, but we do celebrate “Midsommar” and eat herring and drink extremely much aquavit and beer that day as every swede does.
What is the most unprofessional thing you’ve seen someone do in the music industry?
The worst things we´ve seen and experienced over the years must be all broken promises and lies!!! The music business is full of assholes and big talkers.
But I have a story where a singer in a band before he hit the stage realised he wouldn´t make it to the toilet so he took a piss at the end of the bar in front of the audience….
What’s the best way for a musician to spend their money?
Well today the music industry doesn´t really invest in bands that much so I would say Invest in new recordings, projects, merch, instruments and amps.
If you could ask advice from any musical figure, who would it be? What would you ask them?
How to reach out to more people via social media. We are so bad at this.
Let’s talk artwork. The artwork for Library of Death has been created by Henrik Jacobson / Art of Henk and is inspired by the lyrics from the album. Did you give the artist total creative freedom? How involved were you in the creative process?
Hank is an amazing artist so we asked him to come up with a couple of ideas so we could go from there. He had about 5 good ones, but we all decided to go for this painting. We have had small ideas like the Raven with a tear at the backside, also the well in the centre of the frontside, they are from some of the lyrics. We like to plant things on the artwork that says something about most of the lyrics.
How important are strong band mate ties to you?
To work good together you have to have be friend’s and have a family feeling in the band. There is off course important that someone pushes the band forward but everybody has to be on the same train.
Library of Death features an impressive list of guest musicians such as Opera singer Glenn Kjellberg, Per Wiberg from Kamchatka and formerly Opeth and Candlemass, Matti Norlin from the band Lugnet and Philip Lindgren of ex Hypnos. Did they all have a say in the making of the album or they just followed your lead?
Some parts was written in advance but some we left open for the artist to have artistic freedom, like Per Wibergs Church Organ solo on “Reverend of many faces” and a mix like Matti Norlin on the intro and outro on both “Well of Desire” and “Ravens Tear”, the basics was there but he really developed it to another levell.
Last question to get to know you better: Your house is on fire, but everyone is safely out, and all wallets/cash are saved. If you could make one last dash to get something, what would it be?
The Vinyls!!!!!!!!! But hey!! That would need to get back and forth many times, there is a lot of them.
Find the band here:
Until we meet again,
