Overall it was a very good experience, and the crowd was good. We never got to meet the Slayer guys, but we got to meet a chance to meet the Anthrax guys. Unfortunately Slayer were working, and we didn’t want to bother them that much. Overall, it was a very good experience, a dream come true.
Apart from the past couple of years, The Duskfall wasn’t touring a lot. What was preventing you from doing more shows, and do you personally like or dislike playing live?
We love playing live, that’s the first thing – when we started the band, we wanted to play live. Unfortunately we have had so many line-up changes and other stuff that prevented us from playing. We love playing live, that’s mainly why we started this whole band.
You are now signed to Nuclear Blast Records. How did you get the deal? Did your drummer Oskar Karlsson’s involvement in another Nuclear Blast band, Helltrain, help you in this matter in any way?
That I don’t know. What I do know is that Nuclear Blast were aware that we didn’t sign a new deal with our previous label Black Lotus Records, and they’ve been following us since the start. So they thought now we had done the groundwork, and they can take us under their wing. That’s mainly the story. We’re very happy. (laughs)
I cannot but ask you what do you now think about your time with Black Lotus Records. Do you think they have done a good job for you?
Yeah, as I said, they did great groundwork for the whole building of the band, they promoted us good. We are very happy with Black Lotus, but time came for a change, and I think we made a great choice with Nuclear Blast. I can’t really complain.
Apart from the new album, Nuclear Blast will also re-release your first two albums, “Frailty” (2002) and “Source” (2003). How much will the re-releases be different from the original versions? Will there be any bonus tracks?
There will be five bonus tracks, both albums counted. The first albums had three bonus tracks and the second album two in Japan, and the bonuses on the re-release are coming from the Japanese versions. They are demo songs and one new song, which we only had as a bonus. But it’s a good package, and if you don’t have those albums, it’s fucking great to buy them.
Let’s now pass on to the new album. First of all, why did you call it “A Lifetime Supply Of Guilt”? This is a very intriguing title…
Yeah, I guess many people will interpret it wrong. But the story is that I believe that people make a lot of mistakes during their lifetime, and even though they clear the table and speak about what they have done, they will have the guilt inside and will carry it through their lifetime. Some people just can’t handle all the guilt, and they basically blow their brains out. Anyway, that’s the story here in Finland. But it’s only the title for the album, it’s not a theme for al
l the songs, it’s not a suicide album, and we do not support suicide in any way. It’s just the title that I felt would suit the mood of the record. But the lyrics are different stories and my opinions about various things, such as religious brainwash, greed and mankind’s stupidity in general.Where do you get the inspiration for such aggressive lyrics?
(laughs) I just wake up in the morning, open the drapes and watch out. I look through my window and see all the stress and the entire mankind pulling itself down into the gutter. All I need is to look out my window.
In your opinion, what effect do your lyrics have on the people? Do you think they pay enough attention to the lyrical side of The Duskfall?
I think in The Duskfall and in death metal in general the lyrics are important, but the vocals have more of a rhythmic type of job to do. They need to carry different rhythms to get the song flowing. It’s very important that the lyrics are good, but it’s not THAT important. Anyway, it’s shouting we’re talking about. Even though I have done this for 15 years, I still think that it’s shouting that I do. I respect singers, but this is not singing (laughs), this is more of a rhythm part. If people read the lyrics, I hope they get a positive input. Even though there are negative words inside, but the songs are very positive. They are not intended to drag you down, they’re about people who drag themselves down.
In the song “Striving To Have Nothing” from the album “Source”, do you mean somebody in particular, or is it a general statement about the whole human race?
Yeah, it’s about the whole mankind. People have so many expectations and so many rules that they stress themselves out, just because they have to prove others that they have something and have achieved all this shit. My answer to this is: strive to have nothing. It’s a sarcastic way, it’s not like you should do it.
You once again recorded the new album with Daniel Bergstrand in his Dug-Out Studios. Were there any differences in the recording process? I remember that when you worked on “Source”, you were very short of time and had to do everything under pressure…
This time it was very easy. We had one week more, a total of 4.5 weeks. And we were so prepared, all the songs were completely ready, so we just went into the studio, and we didn’t even have to search for the sound so much. We just basically plugged it in and spiced our songs up, putting some more melodies behind the structures, and that was basically it. It sounds very boring, but it was so much fun – not having any stress and knowing that you have one week more if things tend to fuck up. It was a very nice experience.
To many people The Duskfall seems a very conservative band. You record in the same studio all the time, you used the same graphic designer for all the albums, and you never had really big changes in style. How do you personally approach the development of the band – do you set the goal of surpassing your previous work every time, or do you just write good songs and let everything else go naturally?
Of course, if we didn’t think that the new album is the best we have ever done, we would quit. It’s no good to release an album just for the sake of releasing an album. We always think that this is the best album we’ve ever done with every record. We are in many bands, but every time we do an album – it doesn’t matter in which band – it has to be better than all the rest. We make songs, but every time we make a song we think this is the best song we’ve ever made. Of course, we want to top our previous achievements, yeah.
What does change a lot is your line-up. What happened to your previous guitarist Joachim Lindback and how did you get Antti Lindholm in the band?
Joachim wanted to concentrate on his family. He has kids, a wife and a job, so he got a little stress because he thought this would take a lot more time than it really takes. He maybe also thought that it would make more money that it really makes, because we make zero. That’s basically the story behind Joachim. Antti is my old friend from Finland, I also live in the north of Finland, and we’ve been together in another band. I don’t even know why I never thought about Antti when the guitar players left, because Antti is one of my favorite guitar players, but now I was thinking: “Who would be the closest person and coolest person and best guitar player I know?” And Antti was the one. He was so close that I didn’t see him. (everybody laughs)
By the way, what is the reason for so many line-up changes over the band’s career?
(sighs) I can’t really say. Maybe people have changed their musical views and stuff like that, that’s mainly it. Maybe we put too much pressure on them, and they knew that this is not gonna make any money, so why have that stress? Everything we do, we do it 110 percent, we don’t want a job done half-assed. We want everybody to work hard even though they haven’t been in the band since the very beginning, because I haven’t even been in the band since the very beginning myself. Anyway, I’ve always pushed myself 110 percent. That’s maybe why people get pushed out of the band – they feel they are too stressed or something. But now it feels like we’re having so much fun, we click when we get into a rehearsal room, it’s so much fun to do this now.
It took The Duskfall quite a lot of time and efforts to reach this far, I mean, to get a major record deal and to support Slayer. In your opinion, could you have done anything different to get famous faster or to make the line-up more stable? In other words, do you regret anything in the career of The Duskfall?
Maybe some of the solos on the first album. (laughs) But that’s only my opinion. No, I think we’ve done everything, we’ve always been behind our music 100 percent, so I don’t think we could have done anything more commercial or anything like that so we would had more fans. Maybe we should have promoted the band more, but we were on a smaller label, and that was the point why we didn’t do many interviews. We could have done more live shows as well, but with the line-up situation it wasn’t possible.
In his previous ban
d Gates Of Ishtar Mikael Sandorf was the singer himself, but when he formed The Duskfall, he switched over to the guitar. Does he try to tell you what to sing and how to sing? No, not at all. He also sang on the first two demos of The Duskfall, but I never sound like him. He’s given me free hands to do whatever I want and write whatever lyrics I want. Everybody in the band has free hands. If it sucks, the fellow musicians will tell you that it sucks, we have a democracy in the band, and if it sucks, it’s not in. It’s just voted out if it’s bad. But so far no one has made such a bad song that it’s been voted out. Almost all our songs are recorded.
And have you considered recording a duo – you and Mikael singing together?
We’re gonna start rehearsing soon, and Antti and Mikael will do backing vocals. That’s mainly it that’s gonna happen, because Mikael hasn’t been singing for such a long time, and he doesn’t want to destroy his voice. But in the future we’ll maybe do it, that’s a good idea. I never even thought about it. (laughs)
When and how did you first meet Mikael? How did you end up joining The Duskfall, especially given that you already had another band, Deathbound?
Mikael helped Deathbound on a gig, he played drums for us. It was in the south of Finland, we were there with Thyrane, a great black metal band, we drove there and had a one-off gig, and that’s where we really got to know each other. But I had already known Mikael, because he lives so close to the place where I lived before. I love Gates Of Ishtar, I love their album “A Bloodred Path”, so I was a fan. I knew that he played the drums, and we had some trouble with the Deathbound drummer, he didn’t want to play the gig, so we just ask Mikael, “Hey, can you play the drums on this gig?” And he was like, “Yeah, motherfucker!” We got a little drunk and got to know each other, that’s the story. (laughs)
As far as I understand, the music of Deathbound (brutal death/grindcore – ed.) does not have much in common with The Duskfall. Which band is more challenging for you as a singer?
Mmm, I think The Duskfall is more challenging in the studio, but live Deathbound is, because it’s more intense, it’s even more intense. I pull them both, as I said, I do everything 110 percent. I want to make them as different as it can be done with this kind of voice, I know my limits. I do want to sound different. But they’re both fucking great live.
You are involved in yet another band called Monster Spank. Can you tell me a few words about it? What kind of music are you playing there?
It’s a real death’n’roll band, like an Entombed clone, if I can say so. We haven’t really done anything serious with it, only five EPs and stuff like that which we released ourselves and sold to our friends. We also played a few gigs, because it’s so much fun to do. But it’s nothing serious, and we don’t stress at all with it. It’s been five years ago when we did something with it, it’s not an active band at the moment, but we will continue. Antti also plays guitar in that band. As I said, it’s a real death and rock mixture, like a clone of Entombed, who are one of my favorite bands, by the way.
I’ve noticed one peculiarity: none of The Duskfall albums is longer than 40 minutes. Is it something you do intentionally to make a record more intense, or is there another reason?
I think this is the right duration. If we had had two more songs on the albums, it would have been too much. On the “Lifetime…” album, the music is more varied, but on the two previous albums the songs are so close to each other that it would have been too much of the same thing. Another reason is that maybe we have had too little time to make more songs. But the main reason is that it would have been too much music. (laughs) People can press the “play” button again.
Honestly I wish more bands would think like you do…
(laughs) Yeah, I’ve heard very good albums that contain too many songs. (cracks)
In your opinion, what are the factors that influence Duskfall albums? I mean, do the producer, other artists, weather, books or movies have any influence on how the record will turn out like, or does everything comes out of the band members?
Maybe the last thing you said. It flows out of us, from the fingers into the guitar strings. That’s basically how Mikael and Antti make the songs, and that’s also true for Oskar, he also plays the guitar. When they make songs, they just let it flow. Of course, they listen to a lot of music, a lot of different kinds of music, but mainly it’s metal. Music inspires us. Of course, reading books is inspiring as well, but that’s not for the music, that’s only for the lyrics.
You have been on stage for 15 years. In your opinion, has the Swedish and Finnish metal scenes changed for the better or for the worse since the early 1990s?
I think the Finnish scene has grown pretty much in a positive direction. I’ve been living in Finland, and that’s maybe why I see it like that, because I see it more. But in Sweden it’s gone downwards a bit, especially if you think about the live situation. Everybody plays in a band (laughs), and when you play live, some people say, “Hey, I can’t mosh to this band, because I play in a band myself!” (everybody laughs) It’s so stupid to think like that, but people do it. It’s the same here in Finland, but not as much. In general, in the whole Scandinavian and even the whole European scene, everything has become more professional. It’s positive, very positive.
You got me a bit confused – where are you originally from? From Sweden or from Finland?
I was born in Finland, but raised in Sweden, and now I’ve been back in Finland for eight years. I don’t know what I am! (everybody laughs) I’m a Scandinavian, that’s it!
Well, the time has come for the last question. What are the future plans for The Duskfall? Will you embark on a tour or maybe shoot a video some time soon?
Right now we only wait for the album to come out, we want to see what the reactions will be, that’s the immediate plans. But we’re going to Helsinki in the end of this month to make a video. We haven’t really decided yet, for which song it will be. Maybe it will be for “Shoot It In” or “The Shallow End”, but we’re not sure yet. We have three one-off gigs coming, maybe next month. I will not say any dates, because I’ll fuck it up, but you’ll see it on our homepage. People will know when we come to their town.
Special thanks to Kathy Schutte (Nuclear Blast) for arranging this interview
Roman Patrashov
August 2, 2005
17 àâã 2005
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