Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

HAMMERFALL stand for powerful, majestic and melodic heavy metal. Memorable choruses, straight and heavy riffs, thundering drums, pounding bass power and outstanding vocals will without any doubt become the metal hymns for eternity. These seasoned musicians have become one of the leading and most successful metal acts of our time. Their unstoppable creations reigned in a time when none cared about classical Heavy Metal, and without a doubt they have and will always deserve credit for keeping the heavy metal genre alive. Hammerfall are: Joacim Cans – Lead and backing vocals * Oscar Dronjak – Rhythm, lead guitars and backing vocals * Pontus Norgren – Rhythm, lead guitars and backing vocals * Fredrik Larsson – Bass and backing vocals  * Anders Johansson – Drums.

Some days ago I had a chat with Oscar Dronjak, this is what we talked about…

Hi Oscar, I’m Tarja, welcome to Metal Shock! How’re you today?

Very good actually, and how are you?

Me too, pretty well thanks, no complaints 🙂 … Well, let’s start to talk about the past… in 1993 you formed Hammerfall together with Jesper Stròmblad (ex-In Flames)… HammerFall was a side project for several years. Tell me … was it hard to get into a Swedish metal world?

Well, first of all, I formed Hammerfall by myself, and after apprx. six months I asked Jesper to join the band. So the direction, the band’s name and all we supposed to be and play, was already before that. The idea was clear, Hammerfall was a reaction to every grunge bands that was out there at those times and when everybody thought that it was the only way you should play rock … I hated grunge music, and I still do… so this was our counter to a crowd move, basically. And like you said, it was very difficult to make it as a metal band in those days, it was almost impossible to play heavy metal in the way we’re doing it. Well, I wouldn’t say it was a side-project, but surely it wasn’t our main priority, because first of all it was hard to make it, and then we were playing in other bands, as well.

In early 1997, you signed with Nuclear Blast, how it changed HammerFall’s life?

Well, already the fact that the album was out, changed everybody’s lifes, we didn’t expect anything like this to happen, even when we had signed with Nuclear Blast, actually. But we all knew what we’re doing, you know, this was not just a fluke going into the studio recording ‘Glory to the Brave’. We were aware, what we’re trying to do. But we were not aware that they’ll be so many other people who’re interested in it. So it definitively changed us! And talking about Nuclear Blast, the bands like HammerFall and Dimmu Borgir have basically built up NB from the day One. And I think,
from the first bands, we’re only ones that is still there.

Let’s talk about the year 1998… already before the release of Legacy of Kings you played with bands like Alice Cooper, Rammstein, Deep Purple, Dream Theater, Saxon and Stratovarius, then in october  you had your first world tour, but right after the swedish concerts, one after one, all the band members got ill… what happened?

Well, this was at the beginning of ’99, and actually only Joacim got ill for a couple of days, and we had to postbone a few shows which we made then right at the end of the tour. Yeah, I think we all got ill a bit, but we could play anyhow, only Joacim, as a singer, he was unable to sing for a while. So, it wasn’t a bad situation after all.

Would you like to tell me about the band’s mascot, the knight Hector…

From the beginning we wanted to have a guy who’s a synonym for Hammerfall, in the way that when you see the warrior, it could be recognized as Hammerfall-thing, and we got that for our very first album, ‘Glory to the Brave’ in 1999. We pushed it really hard and we had Hector on every subsequent releases, on stages and so on… Hector was a creation of Andreas Marshall, the guy who made our first cover arts. We told him what we wanted, and what figure we wanted, then the rest was his creation.

At the end of 2002, after couple of releases in between, you toured worldwide for “Hearts on Fire”, and played with many great bands, like Dio, Iron Maiden, Slayer and so on…  but then again, happened a lot… your manager disappeared with the money, then you had a bad accident with your motorbyke, which forced you to end up the tour and suspend the band for a while… tell me, what thoughts struggled in your mind after that bad accident?

Yeah, the manager escaped with all the band’s money, however we managed to go on with the tour… untill when I had that very terrible accident with the motorcicle, I mean I should have been more injured than I was, but the fact is that I came out of it with only a broken arm, basically, to me it was incredible. That made me feel a little bit like I had a guardian angel, you know, I could have been killed in that accident, really… it took me a while riflecting on that, and to get back playing again. I was too worried not to start playing too soon, but the things worked out in the very best way, and I’m very happy about that. Today the arm’s still aching a bit, but I was really lucky I must say.

By the way, from which bands come your influences?

…from Judas Priest, Accept, Pretty Maids, but also from a lot of other bands that have given direct influences to HammerFall, like Slayer and Mercyful Fate… let’s say they’re not the obvious bands, but they’re certainly there.

At what age you found metal?

It was about at 11, I think. I don’t know exactly how it started, but I just discovered, while listening to metal, that this was something I want and what I like the most.

Ok, let’s leave now the past behind… your new album, Infected, will be released on May 20… how it saw the daylight? tell me first about its songwriting process and about the album topics…

Every song is different, this is not a concept album. We started the song writing at the beginning of 2010, when I wrote the first 2 songs, then we left for a tour we stopped, you know, I cannot write anything while we’re touring, so I continued right after we came back. And that took us the whole summer. The most of the lyric ideas Joacim has taken from the books and films, and stuff like that.

What are the main differences from your last studio album, No Sacrifice, No Victory, that came out in 2009?

This album has a different production, it’s much more mature, both concerning the production and the “feeling” on everthing and on how we’ve connected everything in the songs. Well, if “No Sacrifice, No Victory was our “ram-it-down”, Infect is our painkiller, that’s how I see the difference.

You spent a lot of time in the studio, in Göteborg and Nashville, working for the first time with the producer James Michael. How was it to work with him?

It was an amazing experience! He’s really really fantastic, what becomes to the productions and giving to bands what they want. We did a lot of stuff, and the foundation we laid down in Gothenburg by ourselves, we played the drums, guitars and the bass. So James was working mainly with Joacim as a vocal coach. And then of course he mixed the album, which is very important part of the album.

The original album cover was suppose to be grey with a black Biological hazard. But then you had to changed it… there’s now a hand but for the first time it’s without “Hector”… why these changes?

Well, the one to where to refer is just a slip cover, so it’s not the finished cover for the album. The real cover of the album of the booklet, is more an artistic cover, which goes hand in hand with all the rest of the layout and the artworks for the album. Everything what comes to cover artwork, video and photos, have been done by the same guy, Patric Ullaeus, a swedish guy who’s been working with many many metal bands. He’s very talented and he’s an artist who created a sort of a concept for everything for this album. So, he made all the visual work for Infected. Before, in our earlier albums, we just thought that the cover was important, but this time we’ve wanted to do a more complete package.

And what about Hector? will he still follow you?

Yes, of course, he’s always going to be there, in a way or the other. He’s also gonna be in the booklet, it’s just that the way this album turned out, in terms of music, I don’t think a cartoon cover as we’ve used before, would fit, actually it would fit very badly. So, that’s why we decided to change it, you know, to make it more suitable for the music.

What are you expectations about this album?

I’ve been in the band for more than 15 years, but this feels like a debut album to me, I’ve so much faith in it, it’s like a concept of our music, you know, everything is so raw and energetic,  just like normally a debut album is… and this is how I feel about this album.

At the beginning of april you released the first single “One More Time” from Infected… what has been the reaction of your audience, fans and critics?

Well, It’s been a little bit mixed, but that’s to be expected, considering “One More Time” and the artwork, and people may thing: “oh, Hammerfall has changed”… ok, we have changed a little bit, you know, but what we’ve done, we’ve refined the sound of Hammerfall. We’ve not changed anything completely, haven’t done any huge turns of 80%, but we’ve simply used the experience that we have, and the will to expand and to develop, basically, and just added some other elements of metal music … This is still Hammerfall Heavy metal, because that’s what we are, and we’re never gonna change that! I think, when people hear the word: “change”, they immediatelly think: “oh there’s no way, I cannot like it!”… so for them it doesn’t matter what the sound’s like, really ahah…

At the end of this month you’ll start to tour, from your official web page I can see you’ll be present in many European festivals, but can you give me already some details about your tour for Infect?

The actual tour for this album is not gonna take place untill late this year, in october-november maybe, because the album comes out so late, May 20, so there’s no time to make a full tour before the festival-season starts, which is very important for us. After the summer festivals, we’re gonna go to U.S. for a couple of weeks, and then as said, at the end of this year we’re gonna do a full European tour.

Well, for personal interests, do you think the tour will include also Finland and Italy?

Obviously yet we don’t have any dates that I could give you, but of course, the plan is to return to Finland. Two years ago we made a festival with Mötley Crüe, and that was very interesting and exiting. And we’ve been playing in Finland quite a bit, but it was a long time ago, so we’d wanna return there soon. And what comes to Italy, we’ve played there, in Milan, on every tour we’ve made, so for sure we’re gonna come back also there! We just have to await to know the tour dates, soon. Will keep you informed 🙂

Talking about your past nearly 20 years, 18 to be precise … which have been the best acts and memories, so far, which have changed the Hammerfall-carreer the most?

Well, just the fact that I’ve been able to live my dream and focus myself on doing something like Hammerfall, for such a long time, this is for what I’m the most happy with, when it comes the time to sort of “sum it up” at the end. But you know, we never expected anything what has come out of this, and because of that, everything that we achive, is just a bonus. So yes, I’m living my dream, and it’s still fun as it was 15 years ago. I cannot ask anything more than that from life.

And what about the future, I guess this year you’ll be on the road, but what next? do you have already other plans for the next year?

Well, we’re gonna be touring the most of 2012, as well. So I really don’t have any future plans yet, not for the band, anyway. We haven’t been on the road playing shows for a long time, for 6 months actually, so I’m really looking forward to gig, going on stage, doing more shows, more festivals, and the tour at the end of the year, that’s gonna be the best I think.

Well, now the word is yours Oscar… what would you like to say to your fans and our readers?

I invite you to come to see us in our shows, you know, to see us on a festival is one thing, where we have to enlarge ourselves to a larger and wider audience, but the real show for the band you can see always on tours. So if you’re at least interested in Hammerfall, you should see us playing on a show, so don’t miss it! The festivals are always fun, but the tour is the real deal!

Oscar, I thank you very much for this interview, and hope to see you on the road as soon as possible, och ha det så bra!

🙂 Thanks Tarja, ha det bra själv! See you on the road! \m/

Interview by Tarja Virmakari

“One More Time” – Hammerfall (2011)