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July 24, 2008 |
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Johnny Hedlund
September 10, 2004
By Tony Antunovich
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Long-running Swedish death metal Vikings UNLEASHED have just released their seventh studio album, "Sworn Allegiance". Last Friday, September 10, 2004, I had the chance to speak with lead vocalist/bassist Johnny Hedlund over the telephone directly from Sweden. During our conversation, we discussed a number of things including the band's new album, the strength of the European metal scene, the band's appearance at this year's Wacken Open Air festival, and the good old days of metal, just to name a few. I can tell you that Johnny is true to his metal, his band, and his fans and can honestly say that he is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. I look forward to having some good Swedish brew with him one of these days.
I really appreciate you taking time to speak with me today. It's great to talk to you!
Oh, likewise. Definitely! I just got a mail from Century Media about the (album) review. I hadn't seen it before. It was very cool, very cool!
Oh, you liked the review of the album?
Most definitely, yeah! It's cool because it's really written as if you were actually in the record (laughs), and every song has got its description, which is really cool. I don't get to see that so often, really. Most people, they do write good things, but they don't write about every song as if it was a tale or so, which is cool.
I'm really glad that you like it. How do you like the website?
It's cool. It seems very professional and its easy to surf around in it, and I also got to read the GRAVE review and everything. You've got all the cool colors as well. I mean, some of the websites that I've been seeing - there is so much commercial in it that you don't really find your way in it. But here it's really easy and I like that a lot. We've been working on our website pretty much in that same direction, that it doesn't contain all too much commercial material.
It looks really good. I like your website.
We're still working on it though. It's not really completed yet, but we're trying to kind of improve every year. But we'll see. I mean, it's definitely going to get better all the time for sure.
Do you do that yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you?
Actually, our tour manager is basically our webmaster, so he does all that for us. We talk constantly and whenever there is something to put up there, then I would just mail him or he would call me up and say "Hey Johnny – you want to put this up?". So, it's kind of like an every day thing - that website.
I know. I spend probably about four hours a day on our site, and it's a lot of work. But we don't do it for money, Johnny. We do it because we love metal.
That's really, really cool!
Most of us have been listening to metal since we were 8-9-10 years old. I started listening to it in 1980. Long time ago (laughs).
Yeah, I think I got my first metal record in.... when was it? 1981 I think.
Which album was that?
Well I think.... at the time me and a friend, we were kind of buying every other album. I bought like the MOTÖRHEAD, AC/DC kind of records and he bought like the IRON MAIDEN and MANOWAR kind of records. Then we got into ACCEPT and all that. So we kind of switched with each other. I just remember we got to buy two records every other week and then we swapped with each other, so that was a pretty amazing time.
Johnny, can you tell me what's happening in the UNLEASHED camp these days?
Yeah, we're actually right now working on the European tour. There are I think two or even three promoters involved. So right now, I have no idea what the dates are going to be like, 'cause it's been just really, really crazy. I mean, I thought this was going to be set and done for like two or three weeks ago at least – maybe even a month ago. But they're still working on it and I don't even think Gunter (of World Entertainment) has decided yet which promoter to go with. I think he's still working on that. So that's all I can give you. I think like in the end of November we will be out on the tour for sure and he is also thinking about maybe we should do something in North America in maybe May or June next year or something like that. I'm not sure though. But that's what he asked me and I said "Yeah, fine! I mean, if you can book something that's decent - yeah! Definitely!".
It would be great to see you come over to North America.
Oh we'd love to. I'm not going to do another one of those "hell" tours we did before, 'cause I mean we could play for 6 or 7 weeks. But instead of doing that, I want to be over like two times instead and do shorter ones - like two or three weeks and come back - then go back a half year after and do another couple of weeks.... because we played so many places before in the early '90s. We played basically anywhere that they would pay just a little bit of money - we would go. The problem with that is that you just play too many shows and you don't stay hungry for such a long time.
That's my experience - and death metal is really, really a live kind of music. You've got to be hungry to be up on stage, that's for sure. I've seen enough bands who just stay on the road because it's a job and you try to just get rolling somehow. I want to be quality, and so I think we're definitely going to keep touring, but we're going to pick out places and really see too that it gets a quality show instead of a lot of quantity.
Well, it would be great to see you here in Canada as well.
Oh absolutely! That would be great. I don't think we have been.... what is it?.... since '93 or '94 even. A lot of years passed by.
To Canada?
Yeah.... and America as well. It's been at least ten years.
Has it been that long?
Yeah, I think. The years just pass by and it kind of feels like it was yesterday. But when I start to think about it, we've been playing Europe all the time. We've been to Mexico and stuff like that, but I don't think we made a full U.S. tour until '94 or something like that.... with Canada. I think we played Mexico in '96 or so. So we haven't even been overseas for a long time. That's for sure.
Your new album, "Sworn Allegiance", has just been released and like I said, it's killer! How did the recording process go, Johnny?
I think this time around it's been really, really a good experience for the band because it's the first time in our history really that we recorded it in our own studio. Fredrik (Folkare) is a producer these days. He works with a number of other Swedish bands that are not really known at all, but he's been working a lot with production over the past like two or three years, and he also has his own studio. That's been the major change I think as opposed to the first six records. It's such a huge difference. I mean, you can plan things time-wise and you can try things 'til you drop dead basically. You don't have to be stressed like we did before. We even recorded a number of records in the EMI studio, which is a very expensive studio. Good, yeah.... but very expensive.
I think now we spent two months, but if we wanted to have an extra month, that would be no problem because it's Fredrik's studio. So that's a huge difference, really. Also, Fredrik has gotten to be a good producer. I mean, he really knows how to handle a studio, as opposed to the first albums we released when basically I was the producer. But I was really not a producer (laughs).... in that sense. We did what we could and we did everything we felt was best at the time. But I think that's the biggest change, definitely!
How long did it take to create the album?
Well basically, as soon as got out of the studio from "Hell's Unleashed", we started working on the next one. But that's normally how we do it. We don’t have a period of 5 or 6 months where we try a lot of stuff. It kind of works 24 hours. We do make new songs all the time. At the end of.... say a period of one and a half years - normally it's about time to call the record label up, or the manager, and say "Well, let's start working on a new deal for a record.". And by that time we have normally like 30 or 35-40 song ideas that are really strong and that we feel that could be put on a new record. So, we pick the 14-15 best ones. That's normally how we work. I guess one and a half-two years is what it took.
There are 14 songs on this album and they're really good. I wanted to talk about a couple of the songs. One - "Destruction (Of The Race Of Men)" is inspired from "The Lord Of The Rings". Are you a die-hard fan of the movies or did you just decide to write a song about that topic?
I'm even more than a die-hard fan. Ever since I was young, we played the role-playing games. I'm not really a book fan though. Believe it or not, I haven't even read the books. But we started playing the role-playing games in like the mid-'80s or something like that?
Like Dragon's Lair?
Yeah. We play all those. I mean, we play the Aftermath, Dungeons And Dragons, Combat 2000.... a number of games. It was ridiculous. When we were that young - when you didn't have all that responsibility (laughs), you had to go to work and stuff like that - we could be playing for 24 hours. We got home, slept and ate, and then we got back to the game again. So it was ridiculous. But it was really good. We really enjoyed it, and we still do. We don't play Middle Earth these days, but we play Aftermath, which is a war game. But this song is basically influenced by what happened on the film - the battle of Helm's Deep. The first song we did about this was "The Dark One", which was on the first album actually. So that's the first song we ever did - a Tolkien song - the first UNLEASHED song ever.
This is actually Fredrik's idea. He said "Johnny, you've just got to make another song.".... because obviously when we were watching those moves again, it's like - everybody just loves them and (laughs) you get touched by it somehow. So we said "Well, we've got to do something again. We just have to!". I mean it's 50 years ago, "but we've got to" (laughs). So it was cool. I was actually about to make two songs, but I'm going to save that for the next record.
That will be interesting to see.
Yeah, we'll see what it's going to be, but it's definitely going to be from the Tolkien world. That's for sure.
So, it's basically about the Orcs obliterating mankind from Middle Earth, right?
Yeah. Definitely! Actually, it doesn't end that way but when the Uruk-hai and the Orcs are marching towards Helm's Deep, in the film, that right there is just a feeling of that this is the end of mankind, and that's what the song is all about.
That's exactly what I was thinking. When I first listened to the song, I actually didn't pick up on it, but when I started to really listen to the song more and more, I thought "You know, this sounds a lot like "The Two Towers" - when they were marching".
Yeah. That's what it is. Exactly! It's cool that you say that because that's the feeling that I wanted to try and express somehow. From that point where Saruman was basically standing on his tower and saying that this is the end of the world of men or something like that - from then on, and to the battle - that's what the song is all about.
I mentioned that in my review as well - when you say "It's victory is at hand".
Actually we swapped one word in there. We even had an argument within the band and actually, it was Anders who called me up and said "Johnny, can you actually say the exact same thing? I mean, is that legal?" (laughs). And I'm like "Well, the entire world is going to do things. They're going to do music, make books, movies and pictures about this film, so I don't think we're going to get sued or anything." (laughs). So we changed one word. I think there is one word in those sentences that Saruman was saying. We swapped the word and then I sing the exact same thing apart from that. It's pretty funny, but I had a really great time making that song. We've been trying to aim for that, more and more - to really make sure that the lyrics are really from something special, like you actually have experienced somehow.
It doesn't matter - the topic, but still that it's something we have done. If you're a musician and you make lyrics all the time by extreme fantasy and stuff that just comes out of your head, then it's really tough to write that down and really get something out of it. I mean, to make a number of lyrics year after year and try and just make things up, it's pretty much impossible, the way I see it. But then, life is so vast. So you could just take something from something you've experienced and make a good song out of it and normally then there is no lack of inspiration.
A couple of other songs that really stood out for me were "Only The Dead" and "The Longships Are Coming". I think they're really great. "The Longships Are Coming" hits on one of the band's favorite topics - ancient Viking mythology. Can you tell me more about that?
Oh yeah. What it is with "The Longships Are Coming" is basically a historical song. It's a very, very short story though. But it's about the first Viking attack at Lindisfarne, which is now Great Britain though - I think in the year 793. So it's basically just a number of facts that I have taken from history books and I made a song out of that. So, that's really all there is to that song. I guess for what we've done in the past, we've made a number of songs that have some kind of Norse mythology or Viking kind of lyrics, but they have not always been very historical in a sense of facts that you could actually read in books and being very exact by the year and stuff like that. So that's a new thing, I guess, on this record. It was really, really exciting to make.
What about "Only The Dead"?
Oh that's our kind of humorous song. It's just another one of these songs that.... well, I couldn't possibly say I experienced it (laughs), or I would have to say that and try and have the entire world thinking that I'm nuts or so. But really, me and a friend of mine sat down for an entire night and just spoke about crazy things - he was questioning me in some of my lyrics because he normally goes through them and sees if I spelled things wrong. Obviously since I'm a Swedish guy, my mother tongue is Swedish, and his English is basically like somebody who lived in the U.S., or Canada, or Great Britain for his entire life. So I just pass my lyrics on to him and he was going "Well, Johnny, you could do this a lot better. I think this could be a lot worse.".... and I'm like "What are you saying? You want me to do even worse lyrics?". And he's like "Yeah! I mean, what is this? This could be found anywhere.". And I'm like "What are you saying here?".
So, he was actually pushing me to make "Only The Dead" even worse. I mean, it wasn't as terrible in the beginning. He said "Well, you've got to take this further.". So as we went along that night, it ended up being this necrophile who would not want to have sex for anything. I mean, he would just not do it! Normally, if you think about it, you probably have a number of records in your collection with love songs that will end up with this guy making love to a woman. It's a pretty natural thing though. I mean, any kind of record from the heavy metal era would end up like that - like WHITESNAKE records - even ACCEPT records and whatever. Even MOTÖRHEAD records (laughs). They would have songs that there is some kind of penetration going on (laughs).
And he said "You've got to do this so terrible that it's going to end up with nobody getting anything - because we've said from the beginning that we don't want to make "love" songs. We're a death metal band - it's not going to be any sex in it, that's for sure. That's not going to happen. (laughs) - if it's not very, very bizarre. So, the song kind of ended up with this guy being such a necrophile that he would just pick people, and you know.... have them if they're dead. So he says "No! This girl is not getting anything!", in this song. But it was a laugh. We had a really good time (laughs).
I know every time I listen to it I laugh. I think it's funny. The lyrics are hilarious.
Oh that's good to hear (laughs). Some people are definitely going to say "Johnny, come on! I mean you're 36 years old. You can't do that!". I mean, I've heard that before. Even on "Hell's Unleashed" we made a song which was just as bizarre and some people said "Well, that's just hilarious! That's amazing", and some would say "Well, UNLEASHED is just getting out of hand. This can't be. It's no fun." (laughs). But I mean, like you said, if you have a sense of humor, if you can laugh at it, then it's for you (laughs).
I was just going to say if people look at it from that stand point, then they really shouldn't get offended. I mean, it doesn't offend me. I think it's funny. It's actually one of my favorite songs on the album.
That's cool to hear. Yeah, it's a song for those who like that kind of humor. I mean, everybody is not going to do that, but we don’t play for everybody. We don't play for the entire world. We know for a fact that everybody's not going to like the band anyway. That's not how it is. There is no band in this world that has so many fans that everybody loves them. Not even METALLICA has that, even though they have a lot of fans obviously. But that's just how it is. You can't please everybody and we don’t aim to either, so.
Well that's good. You're obviously doing it for yourselves because you love the music and you're the ones that are creating the music, and obviously you have a legion of fans. So there is no worry there. There are always going to be people listening to UNLEASHED.
Yeah, that's right. Some people are not going to like the irony kind of lyrics and some of them are. I play for those who like this kind of irony and that's a fact - and we always did. It's just that the songs tend to become a little bit more ironical. That's a fact though. I mean, ever since we started, they tend to become a little bit more ironical - these kind of lyrics. But on the other hand, we have so many different topics. I would get bored if I made "Only The Dead"x14, you know (laughs).
A lot of death metal vocals sound pretty generic and almost the same, but your voice is very distinct, at least to me. How do you keep singing like that and how do you take care of your voice?
I guess that's something that I should think about (laughs).... really, because I don't. I don’t really think about it. I guess that's what death metal vocalists need to learn from the heavy metal vocalists I guess (laughs). There are some really good vocalists in the heavy metal scene who probably have all the right knowledge when it comes to that. But I don't know of a vocalist in the death metal scene who has even spoken about things like taking care of your voice, which is probably something one should do. But it doesn't affect me in a sense that I get hurt. I mean, it doesn't hurt me. So, I never thought about it really.
The metal scene is definitely much bigger in Europe than in North America (unfortunately). Why do you think that is?
I really don't know. I think when it comes down to.... I mean, Germany is the motor. Germany is like mid-Europe motor - that's the engine of music I think, when it comes to metal. But also Sweden and a few other countries are kind of like small engines to the bigger engines, if you know what I mean? I think that it's kind of an institution, really. I would describe it even as a family. It may sound a little strange, but everybody knows each other, somehow. I think since it's growing, and growing, and growing all the time.... I mean, at a point in the '90s, there could have been a turning point, but it never came. It stopped for a while and the metal scene just kind of had a status quo position for a while, for a couple of years, and then it sprang up again - and now heavy metal and death metal, as a matter of fact, is growing bigger than ever and it's been like this for years.
I don't really see if it's possible to explain it as opposed to the North American scene. I just know that in Europe there's nothing in a long-term future that would say it's going to go the other way, which is really, really cool. I get amazed by that all the time when we go out to play a festival or whatever - just talking to other people in other European countries. I mean, everybody knows each other somehow. It's pretty amazing actually, and we've done that for many years. I think it's the same, though, in many of the places in North America as well, I guess - obviously. I think it's really growing strong in Europe and I'm really thankful for that, because obviously when we were 15 years old there were always a lot people who said that "This shit is not going to happen.", you know. "In five years you're going to listen to Madonna, and whatever." (laughs).
(Laughs)
....And I said "Well, no. I'm still going to like VENOM." - and they would go "Nahhh! That's not going to happen!". They would laugh and just go away. Well, 25 years passed and I still get into the VENOM records. But it's cool. I really like it. It's good that it's getting stronger all the time and it's not dying out, which is the most important thing, I think.
I totally agree with you and I'm really happy that it's not dying out either. I'm really thankful that the scene is growing even more in Europe and I'd really like to see the scene grow in North America - Canada as well, because I don't think it's as popular here as it should be. That's one of the reasons why I decided to build the website - so that we can promote the music and bands from all over the world - not just from North America, but everywhere because metal to me is a worldwide thing.
Absolutely, yeah!
I totally agree with what you said, Johnny, about it being a family. It is a family. I mean, so many people think that metalheads are these evil people and they have no feelings. It's totally false.
Yeah, absolutely! You're definitely right! I mean, it's pretty amazing. Even before I went to a tour with UNLEASHED, even before our first U.S. tour in '91, I had already been to the U.S. to meet up with friends - only because we were into metal, which was like one or two years before. So, people meet and they hang out and it doesn't have to be band members all the time. I mean friends here in Europe, they travel everywhere. UNLEASHED, for example, doesn't play a whole lot in Sweden, but it doesn't matter. I mean, I meet my Swedish friends down in Germany, or in Poland or wherever, you know, because they travel to meet each other. So that's really nice.
You just played at Wacken in Germany this past August. How was that experience for you?
Oh it was fantastic! Wacken is always just a blast. I mean, you meet all those people you've been talking to and sending mail to for years and then all of a sudden, you're at Wacken again and meet each other. These kind of festivals.... it's always better to make a headlining tour and you get to do the sound checks and everything as a band member, but if you like to party and meet your friends, then this kind of festival like Wacken is the place to go for sure. It was just great. It was very hot though, when we played. I think we had like 36-38 degrees celsius, which is very, very hot - 'cause we were drenched in sweat even before we got up on stage. But that was just one of those European summers. It doesn't happen a whole lot, but it was really cool. We also played Party San festival a week after, which is in eastern Germany. It was just a smaller festival, but again it's got the very "family" feeling to it. So it was really a lot of fun. Definitely!
I've never been to Wacken or Party San, but I really am going to make a point of it to go next year. I really would like to go.
Yeah! It's a good experience, definitely! The only drawback is that as a vocalist in a band, you get to speak to people on average 30 seconds, and then there's somebody new that you know. Then comes fourth and then you shake hands and you start talking about the old days. Then the next 30 seconds there's another one coming along (laughs). So, it's just pretty amazing. You get to talk to people for like 30 seconds (laughs), and then after a number of hours it all starts all over again. So, it's a little special to be at Wacken for sure. But still, it's really cool.
I wanted to go to this year's festival, but I just couldn't make it over there. But like I said, next year that's definitely a goal of mine. I don't know if UNLEASHED is going to be playing, but hopefully!
I have no idea really. We've gotten offers from Full Force as of right now, but nothing from Wacken. I think Wacken normally try and book not two years in a row, but I'm not sure. That's what I've heard though, so we'll see. We weren't supposed to play this year. It was DEICIDE and they cancelled, so they called our agency and said "Does UNLEASHED want to play? If so, you've got to make a decision here. You've got three hours." I was actually at the beach with a beer in my hand (laughs), and Nick called me up and said "Johnny, you want to play Wacken?".... "No! We're not playing Wacken dude! I'm on vacation. I'm sitting here with my beer in my hand. I'm going to jump in the fucken ocean! (laughs) Call back later!". And he goes "No you're not! You're calling up your band members. You've got to play Wacken!".... and I'm like "Yeah, but when is Wacken? It's soon!".... "Yeah - two weeks!".... and I'm like "Come on!" (laughs).
Well, I made a number of phone calls and two and a half hours later, we were all set and done and we said "Well, okay! Let's go!" (laughs). I mean, you don't want to say no to a good festival like that, but it was really in a hurry. I mean, two weeks is really short to prepare and promote and stuff like that. But it was worth it.
I just have a couple more questions for you. What is in the future for UNLEASHED? Are there things that the band wants to achieve that you haven’t achieved yet?
Well, I think there's a number of things we haven't achieved, but I try not to think too much about what to achieve the next year and the next six month period or whatever. When we started up in the early '90s - actually we started in '89, but we made the first tour in '91 - we really set up very tight goals like a new album every year, and "You've got to do a European tour, then after that comes the U.S. tour", and you know, it gets kind of stressful. I mean, there's really no hurry. So we just sat down a few years ago and had a very important meeting and said "Let's do what's really, really nice to do. Let's plan things as they come. Let's talk about the album when we feel like making a new record and let's go on tour when we feel that we're so hungry that we've just got to let it out. Let's not just plan things to the extreme all the time." - 'cause that's what we did in the past, which in a way, now, has led to that everybody is just so hungry we can't be at home.
I mean, "We want to go out and play as of right now!", which is good. If you just don't put the lid on all the time and have everybody being so tied up and stressed that it's ridiculous. But most bands in the business really try to make it a business and work, and something that you would have to make a lot of money from, and if that's the demand then you've got to be on tour all the time. You've got to do things and plan things and you have a last date for the record when you go into the studio, and so on. We don't want to have it that way anymore. So, I think our next plan is just basically the European tour in November and next year we hope to be visiting North America somehow. We don't know how and when, but we hope for maybe April/May, and that's basically our plan.
After that we would probably be concentrating on the next record. But we're working 24 hours with new songs anyway. I mean, if I get a good idea at 2 o'clock in the night, I'm up! I go out and grab my guitar. That's how it is! But it can also be a number of weeks where I don't do anything as far as new songs are concerned. So that's basically what we're doing right now. We're just taking one thing.... the European tour first and then we'll see.
It sounds like things are really shaping up for the band this year.
Yeah - and its fun. We're really hungry and eager to go. In the early '90s, we could just do it because we knew we had to, and there is a huge difference. Maybe it doesn't make a whole lot of sense because obviously if you're a musician, you want to be on tour all the time, but to me, it doesn't really work that way. It's not a job, you know. It's something that I've been living with and for, for such a long period of time. I don't want to have it that way. I don't want to have the pressure of having a deadline all the time. So we're just going to take it a little bit more easy and do things as they come and really see too that we have a really good time, because that's what it's all about anyway.
Absolutely! Johnny, do you have anything you would like to say to the readers of METALEATER.COM?
Oh definitely! First of all, I want to thank you, Tony, for taking your time and doing this interview. Like I said before, when I read the review, I was just like "Oh man! Did he make the songs or did I make them?" (laughs). It was really cool reading that because not everybody writes a review like that, which is great. Definitely let everybody know that if there is a good offer, UNLEASHED would love to come to Canada and North America and play. That's for sure! And yeah, definitely - it was really good talking to you.
It was excellent talking with you as well and I really appreciate your time. I know you're busy and I know that you've probably got a lot of interviews and promotion. I want to tell you again that I really think you're new album is going to do well for you.
Thank you.
The songs are excellent, the musicianship is top-notch and I think that it's definitely going to be a real hit. Hopefully it sells a lot and brings a new fan-base to the band. I wish you and the band the best of luck with the new album and the upcoming tour and hope to see you here in North America!
Absolutely! Thank you so much!
Okay, Johnny. Take care and thank you very much.
Thank you! I'll talk to you next time, or on tour of course.
For sure!
Alright, cool! Take good care. [FIN]
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