In Flames Interview!

In Flames Interview, June 26th 2003

After scouring the entire venue for the tour manager, we finally gave up and started hunting down the band. We ended up dragging Daniel off to their tourbus for a pretty awesome interview, by Rob (with me occasionally butting in) and had a little guest appearance by Jesper too!

Rob: First off, I would like to say, all those who gave Reroute to Remain the whole "it's nu-metal garbage" attitude, I feel they're being completely close-minded towards the album. Yes it is a bit catchier than the previous releases like Whoracle and The Jester Race but I find there's aspects of every single album on that album. For example, that's not the first time we heard Anders on clean vocals. We heard Jester Script transfigured in the Whoracle album and changed the synths??? So that's just my little introductory thing. :)

Okay first question I have, I wanna know what happened to the first singer? I heard many rumours that you and Dark Tranquillity switched singers, cos I know Anders used to be in Dark Tranquillity... but I don't know what happened to the other guy.

Daniel: Uh, In Flames didn't have any... really closet members except for Jesper and another guy...
Yeah, Glen
Yeah Glen... and people came and... they left, so I mean In Flames didn't really have an original singer
until Anders came, so...
What happened to the first guy, did he go to Dark Tranquillity?
No, everyone before that has been session, so... they were never a member of the band.

In Flames has been one of my favourite bands for years now, and each piece of work that you bring out is a masterpiece in my eyes. I know you guys are currently writing a new album... what direction is that album in and what's the influence on it?

It follows the red line that you can see since Lunar Strain... I mean we try to, we always develop after each and every album. And we never say that, before the album recording, that this time we're gonna sound like this or that. I mean, we go into the rehearsing room and write songs, it sounds like they do... I mean, we don't have any specific influences or anything. We just write the music, write songs that we enjoy to play.

I was also amazed to see the guitar harmonies I heard on Watch Them Feed when I picked up the Trigger E.P. Is there gonna be more of that? ...Cos I feel that's one thing that Reroute to Remain and Clayman were lacking - the guitar harmonies. And they just flowed so nicely with In Flames.

We'll see what happens... we try to experiment as much as possible, because if you repeat yourself it gets boring. Yeah, you have to do new stuff all the time,so... it's really hard to say how it's going to sound. But... we're a melodic band, we'll always be a melodic band. I mean, like Reroute to Remain, it's all about the melody, it's transferred from the guitar to the vocals or a little bit more programming... but it's still very melodic, and it still will be melodic.

In Flames albums have always have odd names to me, like some I don't understand. I just wanna get a basic, short little rundown of what each album means... starting off with Lunar Strain.

[Laughs] Kinda hard for me to tell because I joined the band before Colony. And the titles, Anders writes all the lyrics. The Jester Race... it's kind of a concept where people create the machine and the machine revolts...

I've heard many on bootlegs that Anders was like... he wrote the song one day because he felt like a piece of clay. So I'm guessing that was the same thing. ...so I just wanted to know from the artist what it means. So that pretty much explains it. What about Reroute to Remain? I guess that's just you trying to find yourself and a more metaphorical meaning for trying to find who you really are.

Yeah you have to try out new paths to get back to your roots sometimes... you cannot stagnate to develop more or less.

Concerning your T-shirts, what brought on the change from the album covers to the design you have now... cos there's the Match one you have now, which really... I don't wanna guess...
Tina: [Link]In Flames
Yeah the [Link]In Flames, what exactly is that??

[Jesper mumbling in Swedish in the background] <---ooooh his special guest appearance!!! hehee

[Link]In Flames shirt? It was actually a shirt we made just for that specific festival that we did, because we replace Linkin Park one week before... on very short notice. So we just thought it was a fun thing, so we... it's not a merchandise T-shirt.

Oooh okay, I thought it was like you guys trying to mock nu-metal or something...

I mean, we just made five T-shirts for us... we won't sell them or anything

So you guys have been on a few world tours and in your opinion, what country brings out the best crowds? The North American crowds, the homegrown crowds, or those countries that barely get shows, example Korea. Like, I know you guys went to Korea for basically one of the first times, right?

Yeah, we went to Korea last fall.. or winter, after the long North American tour. ...and I'll say Korea was *really* good, beyond my expectations. But I think Canada is one of the best also...

Is that why you guys played System earlier?

Yeah, it was a treat for our Canadian fans. And I mean, North America itself, the States, it's all so different, the East Coast is so different from the West Coast. It's like Europe, all countries are different. I mean Sweden is really good also. I mean, it's really hard to say... but Canada is definitely one of our favourites.

That's good to hear! Some of our listeners have expressed the opinion that your best songwriting is behind you... would you disagree?
Umm yeah...
Pretty much yeah then, the answer you're expecting... think you can elaborate on that? Like... why do you say that, that you feel your best work is still yet to come?
Yeah of course, you have to think... otherwise we should have stopped this band a long time ago.
That would be no good!
No, I mean we still develop as musicians and songwriters and when you think you've reached your peak, it's time to quit, I would say.
Like Carcass and so on..
I wouldn't decree on that but...

I remember when I saw you guys about three years ago in 2000, I never saw anyone with a Slipknot shirt and now... because I know you guys did the tour with Slipknot, it's like all over the place! I'm like "what's going on here with the fanbase??" I mean, it's not a bad thing! ... but I've noticed you guys have developed an extreme crowd coming in...So... would you rather the popularity you had with Whoracle and Jester Race days, or... in the older days, with you it would be Colony... or the popularity of more and more kids coming out who are not really a fan of the old stuff, just the newer catchier stuff?

The reason we write music is because we want to play live and of course play in front of as much people as possible... I want to play arenas if I can. I want... as many people as possible to listen to our music, of course.

Do you think going into the mainstream would ruin the Gothenburg style? Say like, with the break-in of the Hives, as I mentioned earlier... do you think that would ruin the Gothenburg style?

I don't really know what the Gothenburg style really is... I mean it's media that created this concept...
The label?
Yeah... people always have to label everything... and I mean... we play metal music and that's the main thing. I don't really care what people call our music... there's so many different styles, like black metal, whatever...
Thrash, death, speed, grind.. all that
Yeah yeah, and I mean, it destroys the Gothenburg sound, I don't know! ..and to be honest, I don't really care.

When you and Dark Tranquillity came out, I considered you guys the fathers of the Gothenburg style. You've got a lot of other Gothenburg bands break in to the style...

Well, we might have inspired a lot of people to play music, and that's very flattering...

Speaking of inspirations, I know Metallica's a big influence on most bands, and probably with you guys...
Yeah yeah, of course!
...and I know you guys are opening for them in Spain in July... what are you feelings towards
that, opening for a band that has inspired millions and millions of bands?
We actually just arrived from Spain, three days ago...
Oh really?! and how was that?
Ah it was amazing!
How did it feel to open for one of the greatest metal bands of all time?
It was uh... it was a strange feeling, I would say...
Well, did it feel proper? Did you feel out of place?
Tina: Were you kinda nervous?
I was really nervous! During the day, I was like... I didn't really think about it... but now after
a while, I'm like "Damn! It was a really cool thing!"
Like "Damn! I just opened for Metallica!" like "what's going on here?"
[Laughs] Yeah! It was like 35,000 people in a big arena, it was amazing!

Okay, I have one last question here... the inevitable, you've probably been asked this millions of times... What do you think about the whole Napster file-sharing? Now I'm gonna be honest, I have just about every album, which I have proof here [Rob starts pulling out his album sleeves] I still have my files on my computer, cos I can just throw them in a playlist and play them... What do you think about file-sharing with Napster and all that?

I think it's alright... I use it myself to pick up new music. But I'm the kinda guy that I want to have the whole album, with lyrics and the booklet and everything. And I think, I mean, it might hurt Britney Spears and like, really big artists like that... but I think the metal audience are so.... really fanatic. So they still want to have the whole product. I mean, it's hard to tell how it's going to be in the future, but I don't think it hurts us so much... not yet!

I was happy to pay the money I paid for this! Like... Jester Race, I paid $35 for. Lunar Strain, $56
Too much!
Yeah well, metal's imported here, so it's expected. $29 for Colony
Too much!
Then Whoracle... about $25 again... Clayman was the only one I got cheap and that was like $20.
Oh yeah?!
Yeah, what about bootlegs? Like.. I found millions of bootlegs, which I have on my computer again.
Tina: like the Gothenburg '99...
Yeah, Gothenburg '99! Apparently I heard that was gonna be a live album for you guys...
Yeah that was just... on the Colony tour, it was broadcasted live on national radio. But it was not supposed to be an album or nothing... I don't think it hurts the record sales or something...
I know Metallica, they're very anal about their whole album-sharing but they still love the whole bootleg thing.
I mean, bootlegs... there's a lot of bootlegs going on in South America and Eastern Europe but it's... you cannot stop it so...
I just wanna make sure of that, cos I've got like three video bootlegs of you guys...
Yeah, I've got some Nirvana bootlegs myself!
Really? I'll just have to find some of those! Alright then, that wraps up our interview with Daniel from In Flames, thank you good sir!

So like the Matrix movie, basically?
Yeah, kinda... [laughs]
Just written beforehand! Okay, what about Whoracle? Do you know anything about that one?
I actually don't [laughs] ...it's wordplay, like Whore and Oracle, put together. I don't know the meaning, cos I wasn't in the band at the time.
What about the albums that you were in the band for? Colony, Clayman, Reroute to Remain...
Well... that's pretty easy. Imagine that you were made of clay and you're shaped by everything from the outside. All information and everything...

In the recent rise in popularity of Swedish rawkin' bands like the Hives and Hellacoptors, do you think there would be a springboard for the Gothenburg style to break into the mainstream? Now that Sweden's been more adapted to North American culture?
I dunno, it's hard to say but... I imagine that this kind of music, this kinda metal that we play are kinda new to the North American audience. They're more used to this nu-metal thing...
Yeah I'm not a fan of Linkin Park!
Already today, I've been seeing a lot of kids out there with Slipknot T-shirts...
Yeah I know, it's the only aggressive music they've ever heard... and you can't really blame them for listening to it. But I think we have something fresh, something new to come up with... I think we might reach a couple of new fans over here.