A year can not go by, without a new release from you, how come? How do you keep up the artistic spirit,
when releasing an album every year, together with lots of live shows etc?
Well, the artistic spirit is not a constant thing and sometimes it seems inspiration takes a long holiday. Usually it’s getting started after having recorded an album that’s the most difficult thing for us since we’re always comparing the new stuff to the old, and the new has to sound at least just as good in our ears. And also the fact that after having spent three weeks of listening to your own music twelve hours a day you are just fed up with it. Personally I usually get sick of death metal and can’t even listen to an album that even remotely sounds like it. After “Traces Of The Past” I’ve sought refuge in Paradise Lost (the later albums) and it works because slowly the will and desire to make music returns until it’s fun to play again. Inspiration has always returned just in time for us to be able to finish the albums and for “Traces Of The Past” we somehow managed to have twelve new songs finished. As for live shows we haven’t really been that active besides the touring but of course a tour is damaging for the song writing process since we spend a month in intense rehearing of the live set before the tour, and then the actual tour last a month or so. And then there’s the getting yourself back to normal after getting home. All that beer, headbanging and carrying heavy equipment really tears you down and it usually takes a while to get back to you ordinary self after that.

I think your discography is pretty fascinating, not many bands have released three so powerful, crushing and different sounding albums, within 3 to 4 years, how has The Forsaken managed that?

I don’t know. As I said inspiration comes and goes. Some months you’re just full of great ideas it seems and certain months everything just sounds like crap and you seriously start questioning your ability to make music. Maybe it’s a question of what mood you’re in. I wish I knew what spawns these inspirational outbursts because some months I can come up with more stuff then I did the first half year, but I never have been able to figure that one out.

A very negative thing about releasing albums this fast, besides the fear of not being finished in time, is the fact that there are always a few uncertain songs. Songs that you’re not quite sure of if they really are that good. You always get surprised when recording because some songs always grow in the studio and some songs don’t sound as good as they did in the rehearsal room. I think it takes at least a few months or so to “digest” a song you know, to really get the feel of it and make an objective judgement on it. Personally I love all of our songs and of course we don’t ever make a song that we feel is bad. But on the other hand there’s always a handful of songs on each album that seems to rise above the rest and to create and album with only these killer songs are not an easy thing. But with a little more time for the next album we hope we can pull it off, it’s just about raising the standard one more notch.

How do you feel about your new album?

I am totally satisfied with it. Before the studio however I was not at all satisfied with it. This has to do with the things I mentioned earlier about having to “digest” the songs. I do think most of the stuff sounded a thousand times better then it did in the rehearsal room.

What do you expect from it, will it do better than the 2 previous?

You can expect every single bit of aggression and brutality from the previous albums, but with more variation between the songs. Some songs are more melodic then what we did on “Arts Of Desolation”, but then again I think some songs are more bone crushing then any of the songs on that album. All in all the album covers a much bigger piece of the metal spectrum then any of the previous ones, and this is what we tried to do as far as the arrangements go. We have no control over what kind of music comes out of us, we can just try and shape it the best we can and for this album we tried not to always go with the obvious solutions.

The title is “Traces Of The Past” and the album is the heaviest and most old school sounding you have done, have you dug out all the old Swedish death metal classics or how did you end up with the sound on the new album?

The sound itself is not our doing, it’s Tommy (Tägtgren) that deserves full credit for it. I don’t really know why it ended up sounding the way it did. Of course we give him hints and opinions but in the end he does all the hard work.

As for the music, I really didn’t listen to music that much during the most productive period so I don’t know.

How did you get inspired to write death metal old fashioned style, after releasing two pretty modern sounding albums?

I wouldn’t say it’s that old fashioned. I suppose a lot of the more brutal songs are more old school like ‘God Of Demise’ and ‘Glitches Will Tell’. On the other hand we have heard so many different opinions on whether this album sounds more melodic, more technical or more brutal then the last one. Actually, we’ve had one review that told us the exact opposite, that the traces of death metal was completely gone on this album. So I don’t know, we’ve never really pushed our music in one direction or another, but on the other hand we’ve always been inspired by older bands as well as contemporary acts.

It is easy to hear influences from some of the classic Swedish death metal hordes on the new album, but which of the “old” bands do you yourself enjoy banging to?

I guess the bands from that era that influences me the most are Hypocrisy, Entombed and Dismember. Simply because that’s what I listened to when first starting to explore the world of death metal. I still think that “Osculum Obscenum” (by Hypocrisy, Skintrade) is one of the most brutal albums ever. Not because they necessarily play more extreme music then the bands of today, but that album has a certain feeling to it that most of the brutal bands today fail to achieve. Also the sub tile obscure melodies that appear here and there help give the album that little extra. Dismember is not a band that I enjoy today, I think all of their later efforts have been rather bleak. On the other hand their debut and follow up is nothing short of great. Entombed is another band I don’t really understand nowadays. I think they released the ultimate death n’ roll album with “Wolverine Blues” and they haven’t surpassed that to this date. Their first two albums were also killer.

Which Swedish album do you find the most classic death metal album?

For some reason I’ll say Entombed “Left Hand Path”. Not because it’s the best album from that time but that’s simply the album that pops up in my head when I think of the phrase “classic death metal”.

It seems like you have been to hell to pick up the crushing and heavy guitarsound and even deeper to get the killer vokills from Sjöholm, how will you explain the crushing heavyness of the guitars and the hellish vokills from Sjöholm?

The guitar sound didn’t sound like that in the studio. It sounded great and heavy but it was first when we listened to it in an ordinary stereo that the really devastating sound appeared. Things always sound different in the studio since the speakers in there are of a higher quality then most stereos.

As for the vocals, Anders didn’t rehearse any of the songs with us before entering the studio so I guess it was very spontaneous. Also the fact that he was completely alone in the studio while doing the vocals helped out a lot. He didn’t feel any pressure and could experiment all he wanted. In the end I think maybe this became a bit too much since he strained his voice the very first night when recording vocals for six straight hours and couldn’t sing for almost a week after that.

You have once again been at The Abyss, together with Tommy Tägtgren. And again he has made a perfect sound for you, what do you like about his work and why do you keep returning to him?

Well, you said it yourself, we get a great sound every time. But more importantly, we like it up there and we always have a damn good time recording the albums. Actually I haven’t heard that much of his other work except when using it as reference material in the studio.

We keep using him time after time because recording and album is a very sensitive process. There’s a lot of pressure on you to perform your best and if you don’t feel comfortable with the studio or the engineer the result won’t end up as good as it could have been. Sure, there are loads of great studios out there but as the saying goes: If it isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it.

You have also chosen to do a cover version of one of the best Metallica tracks of all time ‘Blackened’, a crushing and great sounding version indeed, but why did you choose exactly that tracks and what does Metallica mean to you?

We choose this track because as you said, it is a great song. But it is also a song that we can change into something that sounds very similar to the kind of music we play, it doesn’t feel out of place when compared to the rest of the material on the album. I think it’s amazing the way the old Metallica songs still can be made to sound modern without changing that much. They have a lot of great songs but ‘Blackened’ is definitely one of their darker sounding songs. They were truly years ahead of their time, a pity they are now reduced to a band trying to keep up with it’s time...

Everyone has a band that brought on their musical awakening. Metallica was the band that got me interested in listening to (metal) music and in playing and creating, so Metallica was, and still is though subconsciously a very big influence for me.

The track ‘First Weapon Of Choice’ are ending in a real Metallica manner a great lead to ‘Blackened’, is it meant that way, or what is up with the melodic ending of the track?

Yeah, that did sound pretty good huh? None of this was planned however... The outro for ‘First Weapon Of Choice’ was much shorter originally but we recorded about a minute of drums for the fade-out because we had problems with too short endings before. And one dark night when I was utterly bored with playing videogames and watching porn-movies I ended up playing around (with my guitar of course! what did you think?) in the studio and experimented and recorded a bit and in the end it sounded pretty cool so we kept it that way. Also, we never intended for the Metallica cover to end up on the original album. But it turned out so well we didn’t want it to just be some obscure bonus-track. Besides, we felt it would be nice for the European metal heads to hear it because it’s always the Japanese that get all of the cool covers on their albums.

I haven’t seen the cover art for the album yet, will you explain it for us?

Hmmmm... It is very hard to describe an image with words but I’ll give you my personal interpretation.

The main character of the cover is a tormented humanoid figure trying to cradle himself in his own arms, perhaps trying to banish the cold from his shivering limbs. His body is covered with mechanical “improvements” that only seems to torture him further judging from his face that’s frozen in a cry of agony. He’s standing next to a twisted tree, also covered in various cables and tubes, suggesting that we don’t only desecrate our own bodies, but the nature that spawned us as well. The sky in the background is colorful, quite beautiful but completely barren, seemingly containing none of the needed ingredients for carbon-based life. Almost like the atmosphere of some distant uninhabitable planet.

On the first 2 albums did you use artwork from Mike Bohatch, but have now changed to Niklas Sundin, a larger budget or...?

No, we didn’t get a larger budget, we simply felt it was time for a change. We didn’t want to become a band that always uses the same artist. Every artist has his/her own style and there is a clear connection between the first and second album artwork-wise and for the third album we wanted to have another artists view. And though we are satisfied with Mike Bohatch’s work on our previous albums, we felt it was time for a change and we choose Niklas for several reasons. Of course he’s a good artist and we liked the stuff he had done in the past, and also it’s easier to exchange ideas when you speak the same language. We had more control over this cover since Niklas constantly gave us updates and the ability to come with opinions and tell him what was good and what we wanted to change. I think Niklas did a great job and the cover reflects the lyrics just perfectly.

I haven’t seen the lyrics yet, but if I compare the song titles from the three albums, the red thread between the 2 first are there. But it seems like “Traces Of The Past” is touching some new themes and ideas, will explain a bit about the lyrics on the new album?

I guess there is a different angle to some of the lyrics for this one since Anders got the liberty of writing all of them. On the previous releases Nicke and Anders wrote 50/50. Since they have slightly different approaches and views on things you can definitely say that this album has a slightly different touch but without loosing the red thread. The whole concept behind the title and album is that history constantly repeats itself, that the world is somehow caught in a downward spiral where all the hate is just growing into a crescendo that will ultimately lead to the death of our world. It’s not a “heal the world” kind of album. The lyrics don’t suggest that we can help save ourselves if we try, the lyrics say there’s no hope for anyone and it’s too late, all the wrong decisions have already been made for us.

Of course this is just my interpretation of it, maybe Anders intended something completely different.

You are going on a European tour when we reach the spring, any dates planned yet, will you visit Denmark or even better Aalborg?

There is a tour in the make as we speak but it’s not 100% yet so I’m not at liberty to say that much about it. Unfortunately there are no Danish dates though we will play in Malmö and Helsingborg if all goes well so I would advice all Danish metal heads to get their asses across öresundsbron for some serious drinking and metalling.

Which albums are you listening much to at the time?

Lately I’ve been more into power-metal then death metal. I really love the latest Blind Guardian album “A Night At The Opera” because of the sophisticated song writing and arrangements. A very pompous and brilliant album.

Thanks a ton for answering another interview from my hand, 3 that makes it, a nice tradition, haha... Feel free to end this interview in real Swedish death metal fashion!!!

Thanks a ton for wanting this interview. Perhaps we’ll be able to celebrate our 10th annivercary sometime huh?

Every Danish metal head in the mood for skånsk jävla ondska should check out the new album and come behold as we spread the hate!

Metal on!

[This interview was first published on the now defunct scandinavianmetal.info webzine]