IN FLAMES : Theory of evil-ution

Meeting with Anders, enthusiastic despise being tired and a bit ill, great singer of a great band. Flame on !

-A : It almost surprised many people than it’s a surprise to us, ‘cause we are with it the whole time, you, as a listener, you’re not in the small steps in between from ‘Clayman’ to this new one : we’ve grown with this songs, it’s our songs and it’s not as big as it surprises us, we thought we did a great album, but some people say that it’s so new, so different. Why ? I can’t hear it ! But some parts could look like a change to you, there’s a little more clean vocals, the whole production is a little bit more powerful, more clean, but it’s though for me to say !

-It’s your first lp with Daniel Bergstrand, replacing Fredrik Nordstrom : why this choice ? A new blood ? What do he bring to In Flames ?

-A : I would say it, yes, bring some new gasoline into the machine. We recorded all our albums in Götenborg, so we just wanted to get away from Götenborg, get away from those distractions of fans coming up at the studios, at the bars, just to concentrate on the actual album. Daniel is a great producer, we tried to get him for ‘Clayman’, but it didn’t work out ; now, it work out fine and we’re really pleased to have him and the to the result !

-What have been the general inspiration for this LP ? Is it a central theme ?

A : Well it’s all in my brain : I cannot give it away of the whole thing, and ‘fourteen songs of conscious insanity’ mean I’m aware of my insanities, as long as I can control it, see, it’s fine. What I think is we are all persons that can be insane at some point, but as long as we know about it, and can control it, that’s fine. I just tried to describe my own insanity, my own feelings, my own thoughts, so about the lyrics it’s all in my head, but musicwise, it’s very diverse, we’re very open minded, we listen to all kinds of music, I think you can hear that when you listen to the album, but it’s still In Flames, we don’t want to go away to far from the In Flames’ roots, even if we don’t want to repeat ourselves, make another ‘Colony’ and whatever.

-After so many changes of members in the past and the lp ‘Colony’ in 99, is In Flames a stable band today ?

A : Everybody says it, after every album we make ! But I don’t really know, I hope so because it feels like a stable line up and it feels great, we have a good time : we toured so much together now since Peter Joined in 97 and Daniel had his first gig when we played dynamo in 98 ; we’ve been touring so much and we work as a family but you never know what happens down the road, somebody change their mind, sort of lose interesting or get a family...

-Tomorrow will say !

-A : Yes !

-Can we consider the double live lp ‘Tokyo showdown as a sort of state of affairs in the band’s career ?

A : Yes, we draw the line there, this is what we’ve done so far and now let’s move on to the next level or the next step or something. It’s a selection, not a greatest hits album, I wouldn’t say, ‘cause there are some songs missing, that we did record for this album but for some reason, the recording start in the middle of the song sometimes, so...But ‘Artefact’ should be here as well as two or three other tracks but it didn’t work out. It’s like kind of a greatest hits. A state of affairs, as you told me.

-Anyway, when we listen to it and your studio lp’s, we can see that In Flames is great band on stage : you already tested ‘Reroute to remains’ in Germany, England and Holland recently : how did it work ?

A : We feel that is was great, but I think it’ll work better next tour so to speak, because that people will know more those songs, they sing along more to the old tracks of course, so they’ll be used to it. But I would say it works great live : we played some songs on the Slayer tour, like six songs of this album on this tour, and it’s get better and better for sure. (At this time, Anders see the limited edition of ‘Reroute to remains’, which he find great and don’t have for himself. Unfortunately...)

-You toured last year with Slipknot, but with Slayer and Soulfly : how was it and do you loot at their work, except Slipknot, when you consider In Flames is in perpetual evolution and that those bands refuse to do something else that they always did and made them famous ?

A : I guess, if they changed something to what they do, people would be really pissed, I would say ; they are of those few bands that could make, I don’t wanna say the same album over and over again, because they don’t, but they have a limit to their style. We don’t want to be that kind of band doing the same album : we want to evolve, to reach out more people, just because we have to be satisfied ourselves when we writes the music, we want to explore and experiment, get out to new territories. But for us, we have no problems to tour with Slayer, it was a great experience and we were surprised, because we’ve heard all those stories about bands getting booed of stage and fans crying : ‘Slayer ! Slayer ! Slayer !’ all the time, but we had no problems. Beside, this kind of things help us a lot to reach out new audience, bigger audience, specially in the States. I’ve grown up with Slayer...but there’s one band, amongst hundreds.

-Do you think that what is called the ‘Goteborg scene’ for about ten years now in improving, spreading regularly with In Flames and your friends from Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Hypocrisy and others ?

A : I don’t really know, because I’m living it all the time ! Of course, this ‘Goteborg scene’ is something that was invented by the journalists, really, who are all the time putting tags or labels on some things. As we get new fans and they hear about this, all this ‘Goteborg affair’ , that helps them maybe to explore other bands, which is great : I guess the scene is still evolving, even if for us it’s not as exciting as it were, ‘cause we’ve grown up and when I played there, with Dark Tranquility, when we started out, about 89, all worked, there was all those gigs around Goteborg and we had other friends who were in other bands and we were sharing demos and people came down from Stockholm and up from south of Sweden or down from North : it was a big vivid scene. Now, I’m not in Goteborg that much and when I’m home, I wanna be in my bed, if you see what I mean, so I don’t really followed the scene that much. Of course, I’ve heard some bands here and there.

-You have bought is own studio, called ‘Flat planet’ : will In Flames record in it ? Would you enjoy to produce bands yourself ?

A : I would love to produce bands myself : I have already, but I ‘d never record In Flames for a serious album, OI don’t think so, because it’s too much emotional : I wanna be in the band and then work on the tapes, be in-between the band, because I’ll have to take producer’s decisions, it’s better if I leave that to somebody else !

-It is what happen to Pete Tagtgren : he recently gave up the studio as a producer, keeping it just to record his own bands, as he had no time as a producer to concentrate on his own records.

-A : I pretty well can understand it !

-What were your own musical influences ? What do you listen today ?

A : The greatest Lp I bought lately was the ‘Queens of the stone age’, but I listen to so much music ; same on my favorites bands, like Tool Depeche Mode, the old Alice in Chains, acoustic, Queensryche, I listen to many things, Massive Attack, Portishead, such bands as well, all kinds in a way or another.

-Are you a big internet user ?

A : I enjoy it, but I don’t sit that long in front of a computer ; when I’m home, I prefer spend my time with my girlfriend, because anyway if not she’d complains that I’m home but not with her ! But I go sometimes.

-Is the website of the band an important tool ?

A : I have mixed feelings about that : it’s important for us to reach out the fans, but now we have this forum where people discuss our music, and it seems that all they do is like complaining all the time, do this and that, we are what we are because we do this or that, play this or that, in that kind of non constructive way I would say. But it’s a very important tool for information on tours and records : I think it’s necessary this days.

-There’s no many videos for the band...

A : We can’t afford it, it’s simple...

- You gonna tour south America in the near future...

A : We are supposed to go to South America straight after this tour, but Rush are playing in South America, they’ve never been there, and so the promoters told us that they was no use for us to go there, because people can afford only one ticket and, as we are supposed to play several gigs, not many people would come. So they moved everything to march or something like that. But we’re going to Korea and Japan in december. So we’ll have a month till there to go home and rest, go a bit into studio and be normal persons !

-Would your next lp be influenced by all those travels around the world or are you very close to your own identity and inspiration ?

A : It’s mixed : of course, we wanna keep our roots and everything, but I get influenced by all those different countries, especially when it comes to lyrics, people that I meet, that I talk to, things that matter.

-How do you see the future for In Flames ? Burning ?

A : We take several steps : I don’t try to look that far, but as we get touring plans, I have to look at several months at least. I hope we can continue to make albums that can inspire others, and be satisfied ourselves : we want to make interesting albums, we like to be on the road, meet people and play live. The day we’ll make an album that is not as good as the previous album, then there’s not need to continue.

(Interview made in Paris by JP Coillard, October 14th, 2002)