Metal Kaoz

Metal Kaoz recently conducted an interview with vocalist Joakim Bróden of Swedish metallers SABATON. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Kaoz: Have you ever faced harsh criticism for your lyrics? I mean do people understand that you are just narrating stories and talking about people dying in battle regardless of their beliefs?

Joakim Bróden: In the beginning we were facing a lot of criticism. Especially, due to some artwork we had in albums and t-shirts; maybe the German-style helmets and stuff like that. But most of the time, let’s say 8 of 10 people get it instantly, person number 9 gets the whole idea if you explain to him the concept of writing about military history and then there is last person who will know understand you no matter what you’d say or do; you are fucked anyway.

Metal Kaoz: SABATON are going to be back in the U.S. with EVERGREY. ACCEPT and EVERGREY are musically different bands and so is the audience they attract; has this any effect on your setlist?

Joakim Bróden: We won’t change the setlist that much after all we are not big at all around here. But we also know that our fans tend to be very loyal so we don’t want to come back and play exactly the same songs. Maybe we will use some of the more progressive songs we have, but other than that, of course, we are going to play “Primo Victoria” and stuff like that. We would be crazy to make radical changes.

Metal Kaoz: You have also announced a Swedish live date supporting IRON MAIDEN; so there you are going to have a really big stage and a bigger audience; have you planned something special for that show?

Joakim Bróden: We wanted to bring pyros and everything, but we are not allowed and I don’t think it is matter of IRON MAIDEN but it is the production company’s decision. But still, it is going to be great since this is our country (even though it is not our hometown) and 64,000 tickets have been already sold. This is going to be the biggest audience SABATON have played for. When you are playing in small stage, you do not understand what a guy like Bruce Dickinson does and how great frontman he is. Because, when you are on big stages, it might take half of the song to get from one side to other and then you are just panting… (laughs)

Metal Kaoz: You have been on the road for quite some time; so, are there any thoughts about the next album? Do you write music while on tour?

Joakim Bróden: Well, at least I try to write while on tour but I am afraid there is not much coming out of me. There are some ideas but I cannot really work on them since I need to have many vocal harmonies and stuff like that and it is not that easy to do with just one guitar. But I think two or maybe three songs are almost complete in terms of music and vocal melodies. But not the lyrics; it is going to be a surprise so I cannot really tell you everything. (laughs) It will still be about war but not what people are expecting from us. Most people are going to be surprised when they see the war we are singing about.

Metal Kaoz: Is there a chance to get bored writing lyrics about military history?

Joakim Bróden: No, I don’t think so. Although this kind of happened in “Coat Of Arms” where the lyrics were only about WWII and that felt a little bit limiting. I liked it also but I found that my interest was getting elsewhere and this is where we are heading right now with the next album. When it comes to reading books, I have all the time in the world when we are on tour and especially in America where there is a lot of traveling between cities and states. I mean, nine hours in a bus, what can you do?

Read the entire interview from Metal Kaoz. Source: Blabbermouth.net

Metal Kaoz recently conducted an interview with drummer Fredrik Andersson of Swedish death metallers AMON AMARTH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Kaoz: How do you think AMON AMARTH is musically restricted?

Fredrik: Yeah, there is a certain plan of how AMON AMARTH should sound and what to do and what not. We generally try to follow this plan but this time we tried different things in the new album and it felt less limited in the songwriting process.

Metal Kaoz: Who has set this plan for AMON AMARTH?

Fredrik: It is something that was decided from the beginning of the band, actually, so it was the original lineup’s idea.

Metal Kaoz: Have you ever felt restricted in your drum work by having to follow this plan?

Fredrik: Keep in mind that I found this plan and that I am the new guy even though I have been in the band for almost 13 years. (laughs) When I got in the band, the guys told exactly how I was to play. Even though they liked the style of Martin Lopez [previous drummer] they thought that it did not match the band’s sound and they wanted straightforward drumming. So, they wanted from me to play hard and no fiddling about it. Obviously, this is kind of limited for a drummer and sometimes it feels like you are just the beat for the guitars to follow and not really expressing your musicality. And this is the hardest struggle for me especially during the last years that I feel I need to do more. But, on the other hand, this is the way to do it in AMON AMARTH.

Metal Kaoz: You have added some cover songs in the special editions of the album and I am sure you are getting a lot of questions about them. The most obvious is about the SYSTEM OF A DOWN cover. Why did you decide to do that? Was it just a marketing move to draw attention?

Fredrik: No, it had nothing to do with that since we did not think it would attract that attention. The cover songs were meant to be just on the special editions (fan package and digital versions). We did not think that the fans would be so angry… (laughs)

Metal Kaoz: Angry? Do you get this type of feedback?

Fredrik: Yeah, we are getting a lot of anger for some fans. In fact I’ve heard people would stop listening to AMON AMARTH because of that cover song. Of course, I am not gonna judge anyone on this but the reason we did that was because people were calling us narrow-minded and that we are doing only one thing. So, we did this song to challenge ourselves and shock everyone by doing something that was not expected from AMON AMARTH.

Metal Kaoz: Did you have any other songs in mind to choose from?

Fredrik: Not really. The ACCEPT selection was kind of easy since everyone is familiar to that. The first thought was to do “God Of Thunder” by KISS since the title was close to AMON AMARTH‘s songtitles but while listening to the original we did not feel it was that funny to cover so we went with “War Machine”. When we were in Japan for the Loud Park festival we went in a karaoke bar and we were singing the SYSTEM OF A DOWN song (laughs). So, when we returned we thought it would be a good idea to try that. But, we were totally shocked by the reaction we got with “Aerials”. After all, we have been accused for being single minded and then the moment we did something different there were people reacting like that. You cannot please all the fans whatever you do; there will always be some who will not like what you do.

Read the entire interview from Metal Kaoz. Source: Blabbermouth.net