All Interviews
Clawfinger
Zak Tell in action
Posted on Jan 7, 2006
by Anders
Who doesn't remember the smash hits from the midnineties 'Nigger' and 'Do What I Say' from swedish band Clawfinger, a highly effective hybrid of hardhitting metal and thrash. I lost interest in the band after their album from 1995 "Use Your Brain", I found their following album a tad boring, and was at the time exploring other sides of the metal world and eventually forgot all about them. In the end of last year, the band returned to my speakers, with their new album "Hate Yourself With Style", which are released by Nuclear Blast. A furious and very direct album, with a Zak Tell in the shape if his live, delivering spiteful and thoughtful lyrics, straight in the face of the listener, a very good album to be honest! I hooked up with Zak Tell who answered all my curious questions with a very good result.
We are writing year 2005 and Clawfinger is still going strong ahead, what keeps driving you?
The hope of writing the perfect song, the perfect album and the fact that we deserve more attention and appreciation than we have at the moment! We have opinions and concerns and it feels necessary to speak out about them! We have something we wish to say and that's more than most bands can claim to have these days! Most of all we're simply still having fun as fuck writing and recording songs and playing them live for people who pay to see us, what a treat!!
Will you please start off by introducing yourself and tell what you would like to accomplish with Clawfinger?
Well there will only be me introducing myself as I'm doing the interview, the name's Zak and I'm the vocalist and lyric-writer! All we wish to accomplish is world domination in every possible way, we want everyone to know who we are, buy our albums and worship the ground we walk on! Furthermore we wish to create worldwide peace and understanding that goes beyond race and religion! If that seems too optimistic and utopian well then hell, we'll settle on questioning the way we as humans are destroying each other, create a little more awareness, gold sales and a bit of economical security!
I was quite surprised when I heard the new album "Hate Yourself With Style", I kinda lost interest in Clawfinger after "Use Your Brain", but have to say the new album has its claws deep in me, the old spitefulness and direct approach are back, what has happened?
Well a few years of backstabbers, non believers and a guitarist leaving the band all helped us focus more, work harder and believe more that what we have is unique and worth fighting for! The more things have worked to our disadvantage the more stubborn it has made us! Now we're back to the same raw brutal honesty we had in the very beginning but with a slice of bitterness included into the mix! :D
The new album is very aggressive, the guitar riffs are very direct and hard hitting and the compositions very catching, what have inspired the music on it?
Thrash metal, old school metal and a lust to prove to everyone that we are not ready to be counted out yet! Like I said the more problems we have been through the more it has created a lust to fight back instead of giving in and that has also created more aggression! Jocke (Skog) producing Construcdead and Face Down while we we're recording our album surely helped create a slightly rawer edge than in the past!
Are there specific events/happenings that have inspired any of the music?
There are a lot of things, personal and in our surroundings that have inspired the majority of the material on "Hate Yourself With Style"! Musically it's harder to pinpoint direct influences but I mentioned a few above and the lyrics pretty much speak for themselves so unless you have specific questions then I'll give you no further answer!
A good wake up call as always to society, is the quite saying lyrics, where do you find inspiration for your lyrics?
Well as long as women are being raped and men are getting away with it without being charged or convicted, as long as people are being abused, beaten and even killed because they choose to love someone of the same sex and as long as people are treated differently based on skin colour, religion or sexual preferences then there is plenty of negative inspiration to be found! On a personal level there are always demons that need to be addressed and confronted!
How do you work when you write them, do you have to be in a certain mood, in a certain place etc…?
There is no one way of going about it and it's not as if everything comes from negative energy or frustration even if it helps a lot. First of all you need inspiration, a first idea that grabs you and triggers you to move on with it, from there anything can happen and songs can move in any direction!
Do you think you can make a difference with your lyrics?
I'm naïve enough to believe that yes I can, I grew up being inspired by bands like Crass, Dead kennedys, Public Enemy, Sex Pistols, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious 5 with Melle Mel, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and a lot of other bands that did change the way I saw things and in a lot of ways formed me! Still it takes more than a lyric or a song to create direct changes but they can most surely be inspiring and a big help along the path to finding your identity and your opinions!
You are certainly starting a debate with your lyrics, but in the forums that the debate is going on, will that help?
Well if I thought it was a useless forum for the debates I apparently start then I wouldn't waste my time with it, yes I do believe it's a good place to spread opinions and topics that are sometimes very far off from the metal world and all its clichés! If it will help or not I don't know but I obviously hope so and if even once person thinks twice or has second thoughts thanx to something I've said then it’s worth it!
Wouldn't the lyrics or writings be more suitable in a newspaper or the like, and then serve as a spark there?
Maybe but that has nothing to do with music so it seems like kind of a lifeless and uninspiring way of spreading the "word"! I like the idea of combining music with messages and making them work together, that is the incredible thing with it all when you get it all to fit perfectly! All the same thanx for the idea, maybe I'll convert to writing for magazines and papers when Clawfinger are too old to tour and create anymore! :D
Are any of the lyrics directed towards yourself?
A lot of the time yes although for some strange reason people never seem to realize how personal a lot of the stuff actually is! If it's not about me then it's most surely about something I have seen, have thoughts and concerns about or experience in my near surroundings!
Are you up to picking out your 5 favourite tracks from the new album and give us a good insight in the lyrics and them and why you touched exactly those topics?
Not really no as I like the idea of the lyrics speaking for themselves but I'll have a go without promising you any great results!
'The Faggot In You' deals with homophobia, I'm so fucking sick of the attitude where you judge a person based on their sexual preferences and I'm sick of the macho attitude that surrounds us and turns men into idiots! It's a strength to show feelings, it's good for you to cry and there are a lot of men who are in desperate need of showing their emotions more!
‘Right To Rape’ deals with The increasing amount of women that are raped and one case in particular triggered me to finally write the lyric! About half a year ago 3 Swedish hockey players on the national team went out after training for a few beers and ended up bringing a girl back to the hotel room with them, where they took turns at fucking her, it became headline news and they were expelled from the team but were freed from any rape charges! The song isn’t specifically about them though but rather about how unfair the justice system is that lets men off so easily and how male dominated our society is! If the laws had been written by women I’m sure things would have been very different!
'Breakout' is about finding the child inside you, not trying to act grown up but instead face what you are and the feelings you have within you without filtering them through the rational thinking central! Nothing is more dangerous than pretending to be something you are not in order to make yourself seem important or mature!
'Without A Case' is a bitter comment on the people who have backstabbed us in the past and tried to take what wasn't theirs to take in the first place, unfortunately there are plenty of these kind of people in the music industry and they know who they are!
'The Best And The Worst' is about the constant struggle that it is to have a long lasting relationship and make it work! It takes a lot of courage and effort to make it through the bad times and I have a lot of friends who have bailed out as soon as routine and slentrian of the "two-year-together-crisis" kicks in!!
What does it give to you personally to write the lyrics as you do?
An outlet for my opinions and a chance to make people think twice about things before they make their final judgments! Also it's great feeling to just be a part of the gang that is the band, get a story or idea together, finished and onto print, it's a great mission accomplished!
Have you ever heard from any people which life you have changed or at least touched due to your lyrics?
Yes I have and it's truly inspirational to hear it but I don't spend my time trying to appeal to people or touch them, it just happens because I write about things that I feel! I don't try to be smart about things either, the way I write lyrics is simply the way it is because of who I am and the music I have grown up loving and the people I have been inspired by throughout the years!
When looking back in time, Clawfinger was one of the first bands making a full album of aggressive metal mixed with rap, though the wave didn't really explode until a while later, if we look besides Rage Against The Machine, with the American wave of nu-rap-metal bands, do you feel somehow overlooked in this context?
Well I feel overlooked because I think we deserve more attention but I don't feel overlooked in that scene because I never felt that we belonged to it, I still don't understand it! Our music doesn't fit into that format, we're not as easy to categorize and we approach the music making in a much more European way whereas most of the Americans are based around funky blues-rock riffs, hip hop beats and lyrics that either don't seem to be saying much at all or brag and boast about material wealth and crap like that! We've sold a lot of albums through the years and we're still going as opposed to most of the other early 90's band so I can't complain, of course I want to be more successful but so does every other band!
Do you think you will return with a vengeance now, when you are on a "real" metal label targeting metal fans and not the mainstream?
Well I would imagine the chances are fairly slim as the competition is murderous and we don't have the commercial sensibility to sell ourselves as cool guys on the block or as mysterious rockstars, I think a lot of people want attitude in the wrong places as opposed to real thoughts about real issues and human beings who are really trying to say something that means something! Time will tell whether or not there is still room for us here, I believe so but I'm not sure we're in sync with the business side of the rock/pop world!
How has the new album so far been received?
Well as always it's been everything from butchering to praises, all depending on each individuals personal taste! I have no problem with either as long as people are articulate about why they do or don't like it, most music journalists in all honesty don't care about most of the stuff they write about unless it happens to be a personal favourite! I guess we'll have to wait a while longer and see how time and the fans treat it!
What do you expect from it?
I hope for the best but I'm expecting the worst, it's the only way to keep your feet on the ground and be prepared for what's yet to come! It's a personal victory and I'm surely proud as fuck but that doesn't guarantee anything!
Are going on the road to tour in support of "Hate Yourself With Style"?
Yes, the tour starts on the 11th of January, you can find all the confirmed dates on our homepage http://www.clawfinger.net so be sure to surf on in their and look through all the goodies!
When we are dwelling with the album title, how did you come up with it and what do you want to tell with it?
It's about lying to yourself and pretending that you are happy even when you are doing things only to impress other people and make friends. If you are only trying to live up to other peoples expectations in order to make yourself seem successful and happy then you will end up being a very miserable person with no sense of direction and without a personality! Pretending to be something or someone you are not for the sake of fitting in is to me the same thing as hating yourself with style!
How did you get the idea for the album cover artwork and what are your thoughts behind it?
Jocke found the photography artist Fredrik Ödman by pure coincidence, we liked what we saw so we asked him if he was interested and then sent him a mp3 of the title track and gave him free hands, I think his interpretation of my lyric and our music is right on point in a very uncomfortable way so I'm very pleased with it!
As you are a man with many opinions, what are your opinions of filesharing, illegal downloads etc…?
Well it's a part of the technical evolution so what I think about it isn't really that interesting as it will happen with or without my approval! All the same I think the record companies are fucking idiots for working against it instead of going with it and they have lost a lot of territory and a lot of chances because of it! It's an amazing way for smaller bands to spread their music all over the world without going via the big companies, it's also a great promotional tool! Last but not least for me personally it's a superb way to check out new music before I spend my money buying it, the stuff that is really good I want to have it on CD because I like the format and I like to support the artist! If I only like the odd song or two on an album then I will just keep the mp3s I like on my computer and never buy the album!
How do you look upon the future of Clawfinger, are the more albums in the works and what can we the fans look forward to?
There's always a new album in the works, so far it's all in our heads though but we have no plans of giving up yet, as long as I love making music and have fun with the other guys and as long as I have enough money to pay the rent and make some porridge then I'll keep doing this!
Do you care to share your 5 all time favourite albums with Nocturnal Horde's readers?
It's cruel to not give me more than 5 albums to chose from, that's an impossible question to answer but I will give you 5 big influences although I have many more albums I love!
Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters
Mr Bungle - Mr Bungle
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Frank Zappa - Overnite Sensation, Apostrophé, Roxy and Elsewhere
Public Enemy - It takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Thanks a ton for answering my questions, been waiting for this since I heard you the first time 10 years ago, if you have anything to add, feel free to add it now!
Why did you wait for 10 years man, we've been here all the time! Anyway take care and have a great 2006!
The hope of writing the perfect song, the perfect album and the fact that we deserve more attention and appreciation than we have at the moment! We have opinions and concerns and it feels necessary to speak out about them! We have something we wish to say and that's more than most bands can claim to have these days! Most of all we're simply still having fun as fuck writing and recording songs and playing them live for people who pay to see us, what a treat!!
Will you please start off by introducing yourself and tell what you would like to accomplish with Clawfinger?
Well there will only be me introducing myself as I'm doing the interview, the name's Zak and I'm the vocalist and lyric-writer! All we wish to accomplish is world domination in every possible way, we want everyone to know who we are, buy our albums and worship the ground we walk on! Furthermore we wish to create worldwide peace and understanding that goes beyond race and religion! If that seems too optimistic and utopian well then hell, we'll settle on questioning the way we as humans are destroying each other, create a little more awareness, gold sales and a bit of economical security!
I was quite surprised when I heard the new album "Hate Yourself With Style", I kinda lost interest in Clawfinger after "Use Your Brain", but have to say the new album has its claws deep in me, the old spitefulness and direct approach are back, what has happened?
Well a few years of backstabbers, non believers and a guitarist leaving the band all helped us focus more, work harder and believe more that what we have is unique and worth fighting for! The more things have worked to our disadvantage the more stubborn it has made us! Now we're back to the same raw brutal honesty we had in the very beginning but with a slice of bitterness included into the mix! :D
The new album is very aggressive, the guitar riffs are very direct and hard hitting and the compositions very catching, what have inspired the music on it?
Thrash metal, old school metal and a lust to prove to everyone that we are not ready to be counted out yet! Like I said the more problems we have been through the more it has created a lust to fight back instead of giving in and that has also created more aggression! Jocke (Skog) producing Construcdead and Face Down while we we're recording our album surely helped create a slightly rawer edge than in the past!
Are there specific events/happenings that have inspired any of the music?
There are a lot of things, personal and in our surroundings that have inspired the majority of the material on "Hate Yourself With Style"! Musically it's harder to pinpoint direct influences but I mentioned a few above and the lyrics pretty much speak for themselves so unless you have specific questions then I'll give you no further answer!
A good wake up call as always to society, is the quite saying lyrics, where do you find inspiration for your lyrics?
Well as long as women are being raped and men are getting away with it without being charged or convicted, as long as people are being abused, beaten and even killed because they choose to love someone of the same sex and as long as people are treated differently based on skin colour, religion or sexual preferences then there is plenty of negative inspiration to be found! On a personal level there are always demons that need to be addressed and confronted!
How do you work when you write them, do you have to be in a certain mood, in a certain place etc…?
There is no one way of going about it and it's not as if everything comes from negative energy or frustration even if it helps a lot. First of all you need inspiration, a first idea that grabs you and triggers you to move on with it, from there anything can happen and songs can move in any direction!
Do you think you can make a difference with your lyrics?
I'm naïve enough to believe that yes I can, I grew up being inspired by bands like Crass, Dead kennedys, Public Enemy, Sex Pistols, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious 5 with Melle Mel, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and a lot of other bands that did change the way I saw things and in a lot of ways formed me! Still it takes more than a lyric or a song to create direct changes but they can most surely be inspiring and a big help along the path to finding your identity and your opinions!
You are certainly starting a debate with your lyrics, but in the forums that the debate is going on, will that help?
Well if I thought it was a useless forum for the debates I apparently start then I wouldn't waste my time with it, yes I do believe it's a good place to spread opinions and topics that are sometimes very far off from the metal world and all its clichés! If it will help or not I don't know but I obviously hope so and if even once person thinks twice or has second thoughts thanx to something I've said then it’s worth it!
Wouldn't the lyrics or writings be more suitable in a newspaper or the like, and then serve as a spark there?
Maybe but that has nothing to do with music so it seems like kind of a lifeless and uninspiring way of spreading the "word"! I like the idea of combining music with messages and making them work together, that is the incredible thing with it all when you get it all to fit perfectly! All the same thanx for the idea, maybe I'll convert to writing for magazines and papers when Clawfinger are too old to tour and create anymore! :D
Are any of the lyrics directed towards yourself?
A lot of the time yes although for some strange reason people never seem to realize how personal a lot of the stuff actually is! If it's not about me then it's most surely about something I have seen, have thoughts and concerns about or experience in my near surroundings!
Are you up to picking out your 5 favourite tracks from the new album and give us a good insight in the lyrics and them and why you touched exactly those topics?
Not really no as I like the idea of the lyrics speaking for themselves but I'll have a go without promising you any great results!
'The Faggot In You' deals with homophobia, I'm so fucking sick of the attitude where you judge a person based on their sexual preferences and I'm sick of the macho attitude that surrounds us and turns men into idiots! It's a strength to show feelings, it's good for you to cry and there are a lot of men who are in desperate need of showing their emotions more!
‘Right To Rape’ deals with The increasing amount of women that are raped and one case in particular triggered me to finally write the lyric! About half a year ago 3 Swedish hockey players on the national team went out after training for a few beers and ended up bringing a girl back to the hotel room with them, where they took turns at fucking her, it became headline news and they were expelled from the team but were freed from any rape charges! The song isn’t specifically about them though but rather about how unfair the justice system is that lets men off so easily and how male dominated our society is! If the laws had been written by women I’m sure things would have been very different!
'Breakout' is about finding the child inside you, not trying to act grown up but instead face what you are and the feelings you have within you without filtering them through the rational thinking central! Nothing is more dangerous than pretending to be something you are not in order to make yourself seem important or mature!
'Without A Case' is a bitter comment on the people who have backstabbed us in the past and tried to take what wasn't theirs to take in the first place, unfortunately there are plenty of these kind of people in the music industry and they know who they are!
'The Best And The Worst' is about the constant struggle that it is to have a long lasting relationship and make it work! It takes a lot of courage and effort to make it through the bad times and I have a lot of friends who have bailed out as soon as routine and slentrian of the "two-year-together-crisis" kicks in!!
What does it give to you personally to write the lyrics as you do?
An outlet for my opinions and a chance to make people think twice about things before they make their final judgments! Also it's great feeling to just be a part of the gang that is the band, get a story or idea together, finished and onto print, it's a great mission accomplished!
Have you ever heard from any people which life you have changed or at least touched due to your lyrics?
Yes I have and it's truly inspirational to hear it but I don't spend my time trying to appeal to people or touch them, it just happens because I write about things that I feel! I don't try to be smart about things either, the way I write lyrics is simply the way it is because of who I am and the music I have grown up loving and the people I have been inspired by throughout the years!
When looking back in time, Clawfinger was one of the first bands making a full album of aggressive metal mixed with rap, though the wave didn't really explode until a while later, if we look besides Rage Against The Machine, with the American wave of nu-rap-metal bands, do you feel somehow overlooked in this context?
Well I feel overlooked because I think we deserve more attention but I don't feel overlooked in that scene because I never felt that we belonged to it, I still don't understand it! Our music doesn't fit into that format, we're not as easy to categorize and we approach the music making in a much more European way whereas most of the Americans are based around funky blues-rock riffs, hip hop beats and lyrics that either don't seem to be saying much at all or brag and boast about material wealth and crap like that! We've sold a lot of albums through the years and we're still going as opposed to most of the other early 90's band so I can't complain, of course I want to be more successful but so does every other band!
Do you think you will return with a vengeance now, when you are on a "real" metal label targeting metal fans and not the mainstream?
Well I would imagine the chances are fairly slim as the competition is murderous and we don't have the commercial sensibility to sell ourselves as cool guys on the block or as mysterious rockstars, I think a lot of people want attitude in the wrong places as opposed to real thoughts about real issues and human beings who are really trying to say something that means something! Time will tell whether or not there is still room for us here, I believe so but I'm not sure we're in sync with the business side of the rock/pop world!
How has the new album so far been received?
Well as always it's been everything from butchering to praises, all depending on each individuals personal taste! I have no problem with either as long as people are articulate about why they do or don't like it, most music journalists in all honesty don't care about most of the stuff they write about unless it happens to be a personal favourite! I guess we'll have to wait a while longer and see how time and the fans treat it!
What do you expect from it?
I hope for the best but I'm expecting the worst, it's the only way to keep your feet on the ground and be prepared for what's yet to come! It's a personal victory and I'm surely proud as fuck but that doesn't guarantee anything!
Are going on the road to tour in support of "Hate Yourself With Style"?
Yes, the tour starts on the 11th of January, you can find all the confirmed dates on our homepage http://www.clawfinger.net so be sure to surf on in their and look through all the goodies!
When we are dwelling with the album title, how did you come up with it and what do you want to tell with it?
It's about lying to yourself and pretending that you are happy even when you are doing things only to impress other people and make friends. If you are only trying to live up to other peoples expectations in order to make yourself seem successful and happy then you will end up being a very miserable person with no sense of direction and without a personality! Pretending to be something or someone you are not for the sake of fitting in is to me the same thing as hating yourself with style!
How did you get the idea for the album cover artwork and what are your thoughts behind it?
Jocke found the photography artist Fredrik Ödman by pure coincidence, we liked what we saw so we asked him if he was interested and then sent him a mp3 of the title track and gave him free hands, I think his interpretation of my lyric and our music is right on point in a very uncomfortable way so I'm very pleased with it!
As you are a man with many opinions, what are your opinions of filesharing, illegal downloads etc…?
Well it's a part of the technical evolution so what I think about it isn't really that interesting as it will happen with or without my approval! All the same I think the record companies are fucking idiots for working against it instead of going with it and they have lost a lot of territory and a lot of chances because of it! It's an amazing way for smaller bands to spread their music all over the world without going via the big companies, it's also a great promotional tool! Last but not least for me personally it's a superb way to check out new music before I spend my money buying it, the stuff that is really good I want to have it on CD because I like the format and I like to support the artist! If I only like the odd song or two on an album then I will just keep the mp3s I like on my computer and never buy the album!
How do you look upon the future of Clawfinger, are the more albums in the works and what can we the fans look forward to?
There's always a new album in the works, so far it's all in our heads though but we have no plans of giving up yet, as long as I love making music and have fun with the other guys and as long as I have enough money to pay the rent and make some porridge then I'll keep doing this!
Do you care to share your 5 all time favourite albums with Nocturnal Horde's readers?
It's cruel to not give me more than 5 albums to chose from, that's an impossible question to answer but I will give you 5 big influences although I have many more albums I love!
Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters
Mr Bungle - Mr Bungle
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Frank Zappa - Overnite Sensation, Apostrophé, Roxy and Elsewhere
Public Enemy - It takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Thanks a ton for answering my questions, been waiting for this since I heard you the first time 10 years ago, if you have anything to add, feel free to add it now!
Why did you wait for 10 years man, we've been here all the time! Anyway take care and have a great 2006!
Clawfinger website
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