DARK TRANQUILLITY are one of the founders of the Gothenburg sound, alongside AT THE GATES and IN FLAMES. Unlike many of their contemporaries, they did not break up during their prime or go off in a musical direction that would rile and/or alienate much of their original fanbase; they stuck with it and grew as artists, changing their sound slowly over time while still remaining faithful to their roots. Recently completing the Metal For The Masses North American tour in support of their new album "Fiction", DARK TRANQUILLITY has left behind a trail of pleased audiences in their wake.

Tell us a little bit about the new album, "Fiction".

"Oh, well, what can I say? It's not enough that we felt we wanted to be open minded this time around; we wanted to kind of leave the songs to themselves and really kind of focus on what makes a song a certain way and not just squeeze in thousands of different things into each individual song and kind of fuck them up. We wanted them to really stick out from each other and we wanted to create really individual songs. There's some stuff on there that's really fast, really intense, really aggressive and some really mellow stuff, as well. It was great to write like that because it gave us more freedom, you know and there's really a great creative process throughout the whole writing and recording."

Which of your previous albums would you compare "Fiction" to and what kind of new elements have been brought in?

"I guess you could pretty much compare it to all of them. It has elements, actually, that we started on our first album and it has some really kind of more, I guess Gothy feels to it, perhaps similar to what we did on 'Projector'; we have some really fast, technical stuff that is perhaps more similar to 'The Mind's I' and then this kind of longer song, female vocals, stuff like that, that is perhaps more similar to something we did on 'The Gallery', so it has all these different elements, a lot of electronics, as well and I think... I think the sound has really changed, as well - we recorded it in a different studio this time around with a different engineer and stuff like that, so that really helped."

Tell us a little bit about the bonus DVD that's going to be coming with the special edition of the album.

"Well, it is actually... there's this... I haven't even seen it yet. There's some rehearsal stuff on there, there's a video for 'Focus Shift', there's... I honestly don't know. We're going to get it, probably, day after tomorrow when we get to L.A."

Tell us a little bit about why you chose "Focus Shift" as the first video?

"It was actually one of those things where we asked the record company to choose because we didn't know what track to do. It's better for them - they know what is more commercial or whatever. We trust them. And it's a pretty good choice. I don't know if it's really indicative of the whole album, but it is certainly indicative of a certain aspect of the album."

How did it come about for Niklas (Sundin - guitar) to do artwork for the band?

"Well, he's always done it pretty much. Ever since our first demos and... like the first couple albums, we had someone else do, but still, Niklas and I were really... had a huge part in it. So he perfected his skills and stuff like that before we recorded 'Projector', so it's just natural. It's great."

What do you think about concert promoters constantly misspelling the band's name with only one L?

"I've given up being irritated by that. (laughs) I don't care anymore - do whatever you want."

Tell us a little bit about the ideas you have behind your music videos; specifically "Lost To Apathy" and "Monochromatic Stains".

"Oh! 'Lost To Apathy' - it was more like a visual thing; we wanted the video to kind of look like the artwork of the cover, so Niklas took all those things that he did for the cover and put them in a CGI environment and stuff like that and it turned out really well, I think. I think it's just a really cool looking video."

Why did you choose to use such a wide screen on that?

"I don't know. (laughs) Actually, it was Roger, the director, he saw this trailer for Battlefield II, the computer game, and he thought it looked so cool because it was so wide and it was like things going on, so that's why he wanted to do it like that. It's a bit too wide for my taste, actually; I love like the perfect really cinema-scope wide, but this is even wider. Kind of looks like crap on small television sets."

What about the ideas behind "Monochromatic Stains"? I've really noticed a lot of turn of the century, Georges Méliès type stuff, ala "A Trip To The Moon".

Oh yeah. Actually, the guy who did that video for us, I met him in Greece years before that and we started talking about old German expressionist movies and Tim Burton, stuff like that, like imagery, and then years later, he started studying in England and he had some kind of project and he figured, 'hey, let's do a video for DARK TRANQUILLITY as my final exam'. So we just gave him the song and he came up with the video. So he did it himself - we didn't have any part of it. It looks fantastic! It's really cool, I mean because of that video, he got a gig working for Tim Burton on 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' and 'The Corpse Bride', so it's kind of a dream come true for him."

Nice! That's probably my favorite video I've ever seen, just because the visuals are so awesome.

"Oh yeah, love that. Hopefully he can do something for us again."

What are your thoughts on a lot of fans finding the "Projector" album to be too artsy, like they thought it was too much of a departure from the previous albums?

"I totally get that. Sometimes when one of your favorite bands takes a different direction, you know, you either love it or you get disappointed. I totally get that, but I totally understand that a band needs to evolve and do things differently because we really didn't want to just get stuck, you know, doing the same thing over and over again. We needed to show to ourselves that we can do a different album. Some people love it, some people don't. That's cool."

How is Michael (Nicklasson, bass) doing with his diabetes?

"He's still learning about it, you know. It's totally new; he was diagnosed a week before we went on the tour, so it's been tough. It's hard when you have to change your ways, you know; you cannot drink like crazy and eat junk food all the time, you have to be really careful. But he's learning and it's okay; he manages it."

I'd imagine changing his diet would be really difficult, especially on a tour.

"Oh yeah. It's really tough, but he copes and it's cool. He's going to learn more about it."

What is your favorite European festival to play?

"Either Evolution in Italy or Gods of Metal in Milan, I would say, because they're huge, like beautiful surroundings, great bands, great people; everything's really great about them. And Graspop is pretty damn good, too."

Have there ever been any that were just major disappointments for the band?

"Well, the first time we played Evolution, it was actually kind of crappy 'cause we couldn't make it. Going from one festival to the next, like Evolution, then we had to go to Finland the next day and we couldn't get flights to match it, so instead of playing as the second headliner in Evolution, we played first at twelve 'o clock in the morning, just because we had to go to Finland immediately to catch that festival. And it was so crappy; we had been looking forward to this festival - it was the first year they had arranged it, down by Garda Lake, which is a beautiful part of northern Italy - and we had to play in broad daylight, people were still parking their cars and stuff like that and only a half full arena and stuff like that. It was crap. Other than that, mostly it was fantastic."

Tell us about your first time in Portland seeing RUSH.

"Oooh, man! It was good! It was the first time I was in America at all. We arrived in Seattle and I just figured 'fuck it, I'm going to go to Portland to see RUSH', you know, and I just bought a plane ticket, jumped on an airplane, got into a cab and then arrived at the venue, found like a black market salesman or whatever, bought a ticket - fourth row, right in front of Geddy (Lee) - I arrived right as they were in the middle of the first song, so it was just perfect. And it was fantastic - still one of the most memorable shows I've ever seen. Then I had to catch a ride with the guys from IN FLAMES down to San Francisco, actually, but I missed 'em, 'cause I couldn't figure out how to use my phone. So I missed that and had to fly down to San Francisco and it was torture and hell and I didn't sleep for like 40 or 50 hours or something like that. So it was kind of tough, but it was worth it."

Was that your first time seeing RUSH?

"Oh yes. I've seen them once since and I already have tickets for the show in Sweden, but I'll probably miss it; I'll probably be on tour." [FIN]