HYPOCRISY : BRUTAL TRUTH |
| Once upon a time, there was a mythic Swedish trio, whose records were on the air for a good deal of years, as well as the external productions of his charismatic leader, the great Peter Tagtgren, singer as weel as guitarist but also legendary producer for many reknown metallic bands from the North, officiating furthermore amongst ‘Pain’, his other project whose third record would be in gestation. Touring at last, released since the closing of the Abyss studios, with their old buddies of Immortal, Hypocrisy came then for the first time in Paris to present their new baby, ‘Catch 22’ at the Locomotive packed with a crow full of attempt and far from being disappointed. Some hours before this blastening show, meeting with Lars Szöke, enthusiastic drummer. |
| -You have a new album, ‘Catch 22’, and I guess it’s a funny title, because Hypocrisy and yourself have never seemed so free today ! - To be honest, I’m not sure about the title things and stuff like that, I’m not involved in the lyrics and titles and stuff, so that’s Peter’s idea about what he thinks of his life. -What are for you the main differences with the previous last Lp of Hypocrisy ? - we’re very proud of this CD because we’ve working very hard on it, being in a studio for two months, and two weeks for the guitar sound and one week for the drums, so we’got the perfect cd that we liked. To compare it to ‘Into the Abyss’, which I still like, that was more a spontaneous album. The biggest difference is that we are more satisfied with the result, and maybe one or two songs are more experimental, but you still have the Hypocrisy’s sound and the Hypocrisy’s style but there’s still something new in the band. -Where did the inspiration for this album came ? Still very found of the UFO’s yourself? - Not that much, but Pete still is, and stuff like that, he’s very into alien stuff. I’m more interested in playing good music. We compose music together and Peter writes all the lyrics. But I guess that’s not that much aliens in those lyrics, more personal stuff of real life. -Some months ago, you took the decision to close the Abyss studios, after the Lp ‘Into the Abyss’ curiously : why and is it irrevocable ? - I don’t think is irrevocable, but Pete was fed up, he don’t want be there 24 hours a day, he want to be easier with studio work and concentrate more on his own stuff, ‘Hypocrisy’ and ‘Pain’ . He will surely work with his favorite bands, but I don’t think it’s gonna be as it was before ! -Abbath from Immortal, told me that Peter was fed up to see stickers on many albums saying ‘Produced par Peter Tagtgren’... -Yes, he was fed up by that, everybody looking for an extra credit by his name, that’s just rudeness. -After ‘Final chapter’, the LP ‘Hypocrisy’ can it be considered as a rebirth and the boxed set ’10 years of chaos and confusion’ as a state of affairs for the band ? -Well, after ‘Final chapter’, we had to pull a hold at the band, because Peter was very fed up to do everything in the band, the lyrics, the majority of the music and the promo job ; he was all the time in the studio, and when we get home, Mike and I, after doing our thing, Peter was still in the studio. Nowadays, we work as a team, we put everything into the band, so we can say it’s a rebirth. After ‘Final chapter’, it’s more our band, as before, it was more Peter’s band ! -Finally, Hypocrisy have overcome two of his major handicaps : Masse, the singer and the bad studios, so it’s clearly two periods in the life of Hypocrisy ? - We are really good friends with Masse, now, but he did’nt work out with him on a personal level at the time... -His the formula trio the best for the band ? - Yes, because we know each other as well as possible, and there’s no point to look after another guitarist. We have a fourth member only when we play live, a guitarist who’s a friend of us, but when it goes to recording, why searching another member when you don’t have to ? When we are so well together really ? We do it ourselves, we have keyboards on the DAT and on stage too, so when you hear it on the record, you hear it live... -Do the term ‘Melodic death metal’ seems to fit to hypocrisy at your sense ? - I don’t know, but it’s all about metal : my influences were all timers like Venom, and new timers like Immortal and electronic music like Depêche Mode, Sisters of Mercy, the others are into different stuff, so there’s a nice blend of music we have here ! n -What were your big influences when you started ? - To me, it was Venom, because they proved that you don’t have to be good at instruments to play, and a lot of punk rock too, like Exploited. Peter shares this with me, along with the metal scene with Destruction, Kreator. But Kiss was his favorite band as a kid ! -Peter never produced American bands : why ? - It just happen like that : the only American band I’ve seen in Abyss studio was with Tommy, Pete’s brother, who was recording a band called Electric Hellfire Club. It was talks about recording Malevolent Creation, who are good friends with Peter, but it wasn’t done because we are busy now ! -What do you listen today ? - Electronic music, as I said, black metal, and in general anything that has metal in his title ! -Will you one day record a third « Abyss record » ? - I don’t thing we’re gonna do one more, because I don’t think we could do better than that and we are very happy with it. But, never say never ! Touring is a full time job now : we’re in Europe, and then we go to USA. We have seven gigs in France, and that’s good : we never played there except a short tour with Cannibal Corpse ! -And the ‘War’ project ? - Yes, I was doing the drums on the second ‘War’ album ; and I don’t think it’s gonna happen again. I liked those simple songs, and when they called me, I came. -Did you ever consider or simply wish to be produced by someone else ? - There’s more like we know that it can’t be any better than the way it is now : we’re at home at Abyss, we’re having fun, drinking beers, hang out, so... -Are the bands websites important tool for you ? - Well, yes, but personally, I don’t have Internet at home, but I’m sure that a good thing for people to find out more things about bands they like. -Ten years after the beginning, how do you judge your journey, as a musician and producer : are you satisfied ? - It has always been ascendant all the way, and it’s growing up, because we have so much fun together ! -What are your next projects ? Wishes for the future ? - We finish this tour, go home a few days and then go to America for a three weeks tour ; after, we would like to go to place we’ve never been, like Japan, Australia. And still do good music ! Many people told me that our DVD was great and that is was a nice thing to do, so we’ll try next time to put more home videos in it. -Something to say for the French fans ? - Yes : I’m very glad to be here, and...cheers ! Interview made backstage at the Loco (Paris) on April 14th 2002 by Jean Paul Coillard.
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