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July 20, 2008 |
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Kral
February 17, 2005
By Tony Antunovich
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Denmark's newest sensations, MERCENARY, are taking the metal world by storm. Their stunning new album, "11 Dreams", was released in Europe back in August 2004, and now here in North America on February 8, 2005. It turned the worldwide metal media upside down and will surely have the same paralyzing effect on the masses all across Canada and the United States. The music itself will take you on a journey through the vast regions of your mind and pull you under with its deep, dark, yet intricate landscapes. To give you more insight into the world of MERCENARY and "11 Dreams", we called upon mighty mastermind Kral (founder/bass player/vocals) to share his thoughts with us. Through the course of our conversation, we talked extensively about the new album, working with producer Jacob Hansen, the band's upcoming appearance at this year's Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, and much, much more.
First off, I'd like to thank you for taking time to speak with me today.
Oh no problem. I read your review and I was totally blown away by it. It's very well written and it made the grade, you know. We've had a lot of good reviews lately and damn, this one was in the top 3, man!
That's great! I appreciate that.
Yeah. Thank you!
Our fellow Canadian metal magazine, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, gave "11 Dreams" a very good review as well.
Yeah - Martin Popoff - I have talked with him also. He's a very important man. I was told by Century Media that he is the mastermind in Canada or something, and he's written a lot of books and stuff like that.
Yeah, he has. He's really done a lot of work for metal in Canada, that's for sure - both he and Tim Henderson.
So you like the album (laughs)....
I think the album is phenomenal!
Thank you. I could read that because you said it's like "flawless".
It really is. I had no choice but to give it a 10/10 because I could not find one flaw on the entire album.
Alright! I really appreciate it! I always really appreciate it when people can relate to the music and are open-minded to it. Here in Europe, we've gotten some very good reviews as well, but the thing is, some people just don't get it, you know.
The brand new album was released in North America on February 8th, and I believe it was released in Europe back in August.
Yeah. It was the 23rd of August. It's been really growing in Europe for the last 6 months since it's been out. At first, no one was talking about MERCENARY and then suddenly as the months go by, everybody seems to be talking about MERCENARY somehow. So we just hope that it will be the same for the U.S. release because it's really fresh now there in the U.S.; it's been out a week or so. So we really hope it will fall into place over there as well.
Well, the response has been very overwhelming throughout the metal media and the fans are receiving it very well too.
Yeah. That's important too (laughs).
It scored 10/10 in quite a few magazines. How does it feel?
It feels amazing. It feels so overwhelming to us. When we were in the studio doing this album we were like, "We really love this stuff and just hope that people can relate to it as well" - because really put a lot of work into it and spent hours and hours in the studio. We were in there for 45 days, but we also focused on the album outside of the studio. So it was not like we were there for 45 days and then went home with a new album. We were there for over like 14 days and then a week later. In between the recordings, we also spent a lot of time just figuring out what to do because we have a lot of vocal arrangements and stuff that just had to be perfect. So after this really hard time, we had the chance to put together the best album we've ever done. It's amazing to see the reaction from the press and the reaction from the audience.... from the fans.
We just celebrated a couple of weeks ago. We went out bowling and drinking and eating and just celebrating this new feeling, you know. It's amazing! We're really happy about it.
Did you ever expect that the album would do this well this soon?
Some of us did (laughs). When we had mixed the album I was like, "Damn, this is great!" (laughs) I really expected this to do well but you know, you can't put your expectations too high because you will always be disappointed about it. So I was still trying not to expect too much. The first review came in from Denmark - 6/6. Then I said, "Well, maybe this could be good." (laughs) But I know that most of the bands were like, "Yeah. It's a great album, but I don't think that everybody will get it because there are so many different styles on there." - and that seems to confuse some people. So, of course, we had the expectations down just a bit. But when I was in the bus, doing the vocals or when we mixed the album or when we had the album mastered, I somehow knew that it was a pretty special album.
I knew that this was different, and something I myself hadn't ever heard. I was just proud of creating this great album. So, I always believed that this would be very good and kid of a breakthrough for us, also because Century Media is the perfect label for us, I think.
I couldn't agree with you more, Kral. The album, like I said, is simply an extraordinary effort. I'm still amazed at how well you guys did. It totally surpasses anything you've done in the past.
Yeah (laughs). Well, I also think "Everblack" is a pretty good album. For me, it's still a 9/10 album. It's still a very good album. I still love some of the songs on it. But with "11 Dreams", the production is bigger; the songwriting is better; the vocals are better - all of the stuff overall. We just put a lot of work into it and I really poured my heart out and my soul as well - everything into this album. It has to do something or I really don't know what to do (laughs).
Well, it certainly shows in the music. It's so versatile. There are so many different styles there.
It's a good mixture.
It's a very good mixture and it's also a very good example of an album that has the power to bring more fans to metal. You know what I mean?
Yeah. We have played it for somebody who normally listens to pop and rock and they were just like, "Whoa! This is cool! This is great. I could listen to this." (laughs) So, I think we are kind of building a bridge between the gap of rock 'n roll and metal somehow and opening doors to new hands. Like you said, "Bring some new people into metal", because this is so versatile and there's something for almost everybody on this album. If you're into pop, you could probably listen to "Music Non Stop" because it's a very pop/rock tune, and if you're into black metal, maybe "World Hate Center" will hit you somehow. There's something for everybody and I think it could kind of take metal to the next level.
I think there are a lot of albums out there that are cool and great and all that, but they lack versatility or something else - the same kind of focus/style/sound all the way through. We have just tried not to be limited by one genre and not have any boundaries when we jam. We just go for it! If someday we are in the rehearsal room and having a bad day, we'll make something really aggressive and angry and the next day maybe we'll just be happy-go-lucky people and then we'll make something like "11 Dreams", you know (laughs). So it's really very moody stuff and has no limits. I think it's exciting to show that we can go from "Times Without Changes", which has some piano/acoustic stuff with only Mikkel (Sandager) singing all the way through to some aggressive stuff like "World Hate Center" and "Supremacy v2.0" and stuff like that. I think that's what people really freak out over.
When I listen to the music, the songs just flow so perfectly. Your style is somewhat similar to bands like DARK TRANQUILLITY, RAUNCHY, and even IN FLAMES, but it's also very unique. How did you develop your sound?
I think it's just a natural development. In 2000, when we got Mikkel and Morten, the two Sandager brothers, in the band, I think the stuff just started to kind of take off because I was always been looking for a second singer because I can't sing clean vocals that well. I know there are a lot of bands out there that do these aggressive verses and then in the chorus, just try to sing very beautifully, but still.... no. I wouldn't do that. I would have rather found a guy who could sing that stuff like no one else, you know. So, when we got Mikkel on the vocals, I think things just developed from there and of course the natural progression. We didn't sit down and write down notes and stuff like that, trying to figure out what to do. We just jammed and then when a riff came up that was aggressive or something, I would think, "Hey, maybe I should sing on that one." And then you get this big melodic chorus and then, "Hey! Mikkel should do that one."
I know that Jacob Hansen, who did the sound for us, is really a big influence for us also. He has developed our sound throughout the last nine years. We've been working with him since '96, so he's kind of a seventh member of the band. He plays an important role and is an important part in the sound of MERCENARY. He's really good at giving advice to you and is a very talented musician himself.
Could you describe the recording process and how it all went?
First of all, we spent three months in the rehearsal room just jamming and then we had like nine or ten songs. You know, just the basic stuff. Then we went to Lundgaard Studio in Denmark, which is a very, very expensive and highly-equipped studio. We spent 11 days just recording drums, rhythm guitars and bass. Then we basically went home for a couple of months and just listened to it over and over to see if there was something we could improve on. I also hadn't had any lyrics or anything, so we had to write all the lyrics based upon the music. We then went to Jacob Hansen's studio to do all the keyboards, solos, and some of the vocals. I think we went for 14 days and just did all of this. For me, it's very difficult to just write lyrics for 11 songs in just a couple of months. I can't do that.
I really have to have time to perfect the words and stuff for the music. So, we did some of the vocals, then went home again and listened to it - just making sure there was nothing on there that anybody could put a finger on. We went there again and again just perfecting the album, and then in the end, we spent like nine days mixing it. I think this recording process was around 12 months - 45 days in the studio, but 12 months in all - just making sure that nothing was out of tune or anything, you know (laughs). It was a very hard process, but also very fun. We always have fun in the studio. Jacob Hansen is just a silly, funny guy. It's amazing (laughs). I also think you can hear that in the music somehow. It's not that dark. It's also very optimistic - kind of very happy (laughs). I think Jacob Hansen has really done his best here, but I think the main reason is also because we went for that big non-metal studio in the beginning.
It's a studio for really big rock bands in Denmark. Usually to use this studio it's around $1000 dollars per day. So it's kind of expensive, but it's a very nice studio - so relaxing - and we had our own cook who was making dinner for us all the time, our own sleeping place with a bathroom. It was just a luxury. So we were like rock stars in the studio. The sound is also very good because of the drums being recorded in a very cool 400 square meter room. We also spent a lot of money buying new equipment for this album to make sure we had the best amplifiers, guitars, and everything. We're perfectionists in what we do.
It sounds like the entire project was an expensive one.
Yeah, it was. Absolutely. I don't know what it added up to be in total, but it was maybe $40,000 dollars.
That's a lot.
It was pretty risky because we went down to the bank and said, "We don't have a record deal, but we really do believe we have good songs for a cool album and we think we may be signed to something bigger this time." And the bank just said, "Well, here's the money and if you believe in what you say, then we believe it too. So go for it!"
That's awesome.
Yeah, it was cool. I think has paid off in the end.
I know a lot of bands unfortunately don't really make a lot of money from playing metal music. Obviously big bands like IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST don't need to have second jobs, but I think most metal bands do have jobs. You're a salesman are you not?
I was a salesman for 9 years and I quit my job just a year ago. I want to focus on the metal, and I get some kind of welfare from the Danish state. It's perfect for me because now I can focus totally on the music and also be with my family more. So it's a perfect mix for me. I was really good at my job. I was the best salesman in one of the biggest music shops here in Denmark. I sold a lot of guitars and basses. They told me that if I ever want to come back, I just have to say when. So I always have that opportunity to come back to the store if everything else fails. But I don't think it will.
I want to ask you about the album cover for "11 Dreams". Can you describe the meaning behind it?
Well, Niklas Sundin (DARK TRANQUILLITY), who did the cover, also did IN FLAMES, ARCH ENEMY and DARK TRANQUILLITY. He had some ideas. He had the frame (on the album cover) and then in another picture, he had the two faces/masks. Then we looked at both pictures and said, "Hey! Why don't you take the two masks from that picture and put them into the frame?" It's kind of surreal. I think it's just a coincidence, but it really fits the music because somebody told me that the two faces could represent Mikkel and I - the two voices. All the lyrics are based upon dreams, and dreams are surreal as well. I don't think it has only one message or can be interpreted in only one way. It's really open for discussion. For me, I think the two masks represent the two voices of the album because I think that's a very important part of MERCENARY - the two voices.... the two vocals - beauty and the beast. They just fit together perfectly in the end.
You can really interpret this in the way you want to as long as it doesn't interfere with the music, and I don't think it does that. It's just really deep. A mirror could also be very deep. It depends on what is on the other side. The whole album is surreal and I think we went for that "surreal" look.
Let's talk about your voice. It's one of the most powerful in modern metal. How did you learn how to scream like that?
(Laughs) Well, I learned it all by myself. You are born with one voice and you can develop that voice all throughout your entire life. I started shouting/growling/screaming back in '93. In the beginning I sounded kind of ridiculous (laughs). I was trying to growl like David Vincent of MORBID ANGEL. He was my first influence. I was trying to do that, but it didn't sound that good. But after two years of doing the same deep growling, I suddenly thought, "Hey man! Now I'm beginning to sound pretty evil." But as the years went by, I was listening to other stuff more and more - when SEPULTURA came out with "Arise". At that time, Max Cavalera's voice was really a big influence on me. So I wanted to be able to shout like him. It was my number on dream. Then in '94, I started to shout instead of just growling only. That took two years and then that voice had been developed as well.
So now I could grunt with deep growls and shout as well. Then I wanted to scream. You know.... the high pitched (makes screaming sound). I'd been listening to a lot of Chuck Schuldiner (R.I.P.) at that time, so I wanted to scream. The latest voice I'm starting to develop is my clean voice, so I can accompany Mikkel with some of the clean vocals. It's more of a deep tone but still clean. So now I have four different voices that I can choose from whenever we are on stage or for the next album as well.
For me, Mikkel is also one of the best singers in metal. He really sounds like a cross between Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson, but still very original - not a rip-off vocalist. When I shout and Mikkel sings, we dub each other. It sounds like a completely different voice. We can mix our voices in many different ways. That's really what took all the time in the studio with "11 Dreams". It was really about figuring out how Mikkel should sing on this, should I sing along with him or not and what voice I should use. We have all these possibilities, so that's what takes all the time (laughs).
It's going to be really interesting to hear your live show.
Oh yeah! We can reproduce the stuff live as well because Mike (Park) the drummer and Morten (Sandager) the keyboardist also sing along with us. So, we have four people singing on stage. Mikkel and I just do what we do and Mike and Morten add in all the harmonies. They are really good singers as well and I think for the next album, they have to do some vocal recordings too.
You guys are going to be performing at this year's Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. How does it feel to be a part of such a huge and prestigious metal festival?
When we first got the offer, we were jumping all over the place. We have dreamed of playing at Wacken for the last seven years or something. It was one of our goals. It's amazing! We're going to do our best to just kick their asses down there. It's going to be great just playing in front of so many people. I also think that there's a lot of hype for MERCENARY going on, so there will be a lot of people around the stage. So, we're just very thrilled about it. We also just got the Dynamo festival.
Excellent!
Yeah. That was another one we've been dreaming about playing for many years. So playing the two of them is just amazing! It's a really good pat on the shoulder to hear, "We want you out here live. The album is good, but we want to see if you can perform live." Nobody really believes that we can. We just played last Saturday and people were coming out and saying, "Hey! I love the album, but you're even better live! How the fuck do you do that?" (laughs)
That must be a great feeling to hear that.
Yeah, it is. It is really important that you can pull it off live. Everybody can make a good studio album. If you have the money and the time, you can kind of come up with a good album, but to perform it live is the test. "Firesoul" has all these elements in the song and the first time we played it in the rehearsal room, we were like, "Damn! This is going to be hard!" So we just really rehearsed that song intensely and a couple of weeks later, it now sounds better than on the album. You just have to rehearse and rehearse and it will stick to you sometime.
Getting back to Wacken for a moment here, this year's roster is huge! We've got names like ACCEPT, NIGHTWISH, BLOODBATH, METAL CHURCH, OBITUARY, EDGUY.... I mean, the list goes on. How does it feel to be aligned with these bands?
It's a dream come true after all these years. I founded the band back in '91, so it's not like it started just yesterday. This is really an old dream of mine coming true, and playing at Wacken, I'm not just going to play and then head back home. I'm going to check out all the other bands because there are a lot of bands that are going to be at the festival that I have never seen live before and now I get the opportunity without paying for it. That for me is just perfect. I know ANTHRAX is going to play Dynamo as well - with the old lineup of Joey Belladonna and Frank Bello. It's a big, big dream come true for me because I had given up on ever seeing ANTHRAX with Joey Belladonna again. So, it's amazing for me because in the '80s, I was really into ANTHRAX. It's going to be a major experience just to watch those guys after we play. I guess they are on the stage four hours after us.
MERCENARY recently won Album of the ear, Vocal Performance of the Year (Mikkel), and Guitarist of the Year (Martin Buus) at the Danish metal awards. Can you describe the feeling you had when you won three out of four nominations?
That was the day we popped open a bottle of champagne and went to the city just bowling, drinking and eating. So that kind of explains it. We were so, so happy. I didn't expect us to win three our of four – and the fourth one, we came in as second runner-up. Again, it was a big pat on the shoulder. It was the fans and the audience everywhere who had voted for us. We really thought that MNEMIC, RAUNCHY, HATESPHERE, ILL DISPOSED or some of the other bands would take more awards than we did, but in the end, no, they didn't. It was kind of a big victory. Also, after we won, the Danish press have been calling me constantly.
Danish newspapers that normally do not write about metal all of a sudden find us interesting. For me, that's weird because I've been trying to get their attention for the last 13 years. And now all of a sudden, they call me up and ask me, "Hey! How is it going? Anything new? Anything coming up? I hear you are getting good reviews in the States right now and blah blah blah." Just last night, a recorder called me up and was asking me about all the reviews in the States. So, I guess it has gotten a lot of positive response since winning those awards. Also, the label is very thrilled about it because it's a good sales point.
Well, I have to say that we're really glad to feature MERCENARY on METALEATER.
I think METALEATER is really one of the best I've seen. I really like it. Immediately, I was thinking to myself, "Oh - I have to take this very seriously." When I get an interview with a big magazine - a printed one - I have to really just focus on the interview because maybe it will be printed in 40,000 or 100,000 copies. I think printed magazines have always been a bit of a higher priority for everybody because now there are like 1000 different webzines, and when a webzine looks mediocre, I just think to myself "I'm going to do this interview but I'm not going to put that much effort into it unless the guy is really good." But when I looked at METALEATER, I was like, "Damn! This looks really good and I have to take that very seriously." And also, of course, the review you wrote on the album.... you had my attention immediately!
Thank you for that. We take metal very seriously and we take the bands very seriously. When I see a band dishing out the goods, it makes me want to help them that much more.
I really appreciate it. We have always been really nice and down-to-earth guys. Whenever we go and play live and have another band with us - like we played 16 shows with EVERGREY, and they are just great. I read an interview with Henrik Danhage (guitars) and he said that "MERCENARY are the nicest, most polite people we've ever worked with." - and that was a really great feeling for me to read that. We're really just easy-going people - none of this big ego stuff and shit like that (laughs). So we really appreciate everything you guys are doing and appreciate everything that our label is doing. We're really optimistic about the future because I think that the metal world needs more bands like MERCENARY. I also read in the review from David Gehlke of Blistering.com, and he said that this is the best album that he has heard in 5 years. When you go to our website, we have the 10 latest U.S. reviews and I think seven of them are 10/10, including METALEATER's.
It's just amazing to watch that happen. I don't think we have really grasped it yet. We are still walking around pretending that everything is normal (laughs). It just seems that everybody in the States loves it and it's amazing! I'm so excited to see what happens. If it does really well in the States, we will come out and play. We will come to the States and give all the best we have and play our asses off over there. If it does not sell any copies in the States, we cannot come there. It's a big dream for us to come to the States.
I'm pretty sure we'll see that happen.
I hope so.
You've created such a phenomenal album and I don't think that the U.S. or Canadian fans are going to be any different from the European fans. I really don't foresee that.
I would love for that to happen. I'm just crossing my fingers hoping for some mail to come from Century Media one day telling us that they have a tour for 3 weeks in the States. It would be just perfect for us. We're just walking around with butterflies in our stomachs. It's like playing the lottery.
I think you guys are going to be the next big thing out of Denmark.
I really hope so.
I'll bet you in 5 years we'll be talking again, and I'll say to you, "Do you remember when I said that?" - and you'll reply, "Yeah, I remember that."
(Laughs)
If you guys can capitalize on what you've done with "11 Dreams" and take it to a higher level for the next album, it's only going to increase because people want to hear music like this.
That's also what I thought when we did the album. I thought, "I have never heard anything like this." This is really just a mix between everything that I love in metal. I love the aggression, the melody, the structure of the songs.... and this is the album I myself have always wanted to buy. So, it was kind of like that.
Your writing ability is very good, and the fact that English is not one of your first languages makes it even better. Your English is excellent.
That part is very important for me when an American guy or girl says that the lyrics are phenomenal. I feel so happy because I'm from Denmark (laughs). I'm not a native American, you know, but I really try to do my best. Also, when Mikkel and I sing, we have no accents. That's also important. We have always been inspired by American metal. In the old days, we were listening to METALLICA, SLAYER, MEGADETH, ANTHRAX.... all these big American "titans", as I would call them. All those guys inspired us in the beginning. It was when I heard METALLICA and MEGADETH.... stuff like that is what made me want to play metal and start my own band. So, it's amazing, today, that maybe we have kind of exceeded those bands. Maybe we have pioneered the genre a little bit. It's just weird for me because if I put on "11 Dreams" and then afterwards, METALLICA's "St. Anger", I'm just like, "Damn! What did they do?" (laughs)
(Laughs)
I really don't like the sound of that album. I don't know if it's just me, but I really hate the snare drum. You're a drummer yourself, so you must too!?
No, I don't like the snare drum sound at all. You cannot compare albums like "Ride The Lightning", "Master Of Puppets", or even "The Black Album" for that matter, with "St. Anger". It's like night and day.
Yeah. In the old days - "Ride The Lightning", "Master Of Puppets", "...And Justice For All" - I just love those albums. When we did the first album, "First Breath", back in '98, I felt it was our "Kill 'Em All". Then we did "Everblack" and it was our "Ride The Lightning", and I think "11 Dreams" is our "Master Of Puppets".
I think it would be safe to say that it's your "Master Of Puppets"/"...And Justice For All"/"The Black Album" all combined. You guys really have gone beyond even your own capabilities.
So we should have gotten 11/10!? (laughs) For the next album, we will be just as perfectionistic in everything we do and we won't let the fans of "11 Dreams" down. We'll just take "11 Dreams" and take it to another level - not becoming "commercial" or changing our style completely or anything like that, but really staying true to what we believe in. I think we believe in something called "11 Dreams", and all of us inside the band believe that this is the metal we want to play - very epic, versatile, without any boundaries. That's what we want to do in the future.
We already kind of have three new songs on the way, so it's exciting. I think maybe in a year or year and a half - I don't know. It's very difficult to say because a MERCENARY album has to take the time it needs because we don't want to make an album that's not as good as "11 Dreams".
Kral, do you have anything you'd like to say to the readers of METALEATER?
Of course! There's tons of stuff I'd like to say. If the readers haven't gotten "11 Dreams" yet, they have to go out and get it. When they listen to it for the first time, they just have to be open-minded to it, and if they let this album into their system and listen to it at least five times, I'm pretty confident that they will not be disappointed. I don't know anybody that has been disappointed after five listens. It's a really different metal album and has been perfected in every way. Every kind of genre is on here. There are also two bonus tracks on the U.S. version. It has a 3-D version of "11 Dreams" and this is really a world premier. It has never been done that way before because it's all 60-tracks on the recording that has been rendered into 3-D, so when you put headphones on, you're really in for a ride, and that's amazing!
There are some people that have said to me that the best track on the album is the 3-D track because it just makes people dizzy (laughs). All the European guys haven't got it and they are all wanting the 3-D version, so you guys over there are really lucky that you have the bonus track. It has never been done by a metal band before - having all 60 tracks on a song being rendered to 3-D. That's cool, and it makes the album even more valuable. So if you go out and buy this album for like $13 dollars, I think it will be the best $13 dollars you have ever spent. Also, keep on supporting the metal community and support METALEATER.COM because it's one of the best and most beautiful metal sites on the Internet!
I appreciate that. Thank you.
No problem man, because I mean it!
We appreciate your support, Kral!
We will just work our asses off to get to North America to play because there is really nothing else we would rather do than just go out and play our asses off for the North American people. We played in Atlanta one and a half years ago and I think that the audience there was totally different from what we are used to in Europe because they were so open-minded to it and our metal. We received the response we've never had before. We were treated like big rock stars and that's totally new for us.
Well Kral, I'd like to thank you very much for speaking with METALEATER today and on behalf of everyone here, I wish you and the band the best of luck with "11 Dreams" and your live show. You guys are a very talented band and I think you are going to go places. That is unquestionable.
Thanks, man! We really appreciate it. [FIN]
» Official MERCENARY Website
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