Interviews : In Flames

In Flames really needs no introduction. If you haven't heard of them and you're on this site, you need to crawl out of your hole and go listen to them. They are one of the founders of melodic death metal, and after 11 years, they're still one of the best at it. I got the chance to sit down and talk to lead singer Anders Friden about the new album, touring, and hockey.

Alright, you have a new album coming out. Contrast new CD to the older ones?

Oh, wow, the old ones? I mean, obviously every new album of In Flames is a reaction to the previous one, that's just natural. So, at least for us, we try not to repeat ourselves, and our thought is that it's important that people can hear that it is in Flames. But we don't want to put out the same album again and again and again. I mean, it's a challenge for us to come out with new stuff, and it's also good to have different stuff when playing live. I mean this one is a bit more aggressive, it's much more up-tempo than Soundtrack to your escape, like more of the guitars are in the front than the last one, for instance. That's just my opinion, a lot of people will take their own definitions...

Describe your musical progression from Jester-Race era In Flames to now. What influenced the progression?

I think our music developed more, in whatever direction, I have no clue, really, when we started touring, when we came out and some of the songs from that era just didn't work out live, you know, we were young ,we were in studios for, not the first time, but we got to have all this equipment that we could put layers and layers of guitars, and we had only two guitar players, so we couldn't reproduce that live.

Like Moonshield?

No, Moonshield is actually one of the songs that we are able to pull off live. And we play like Graveland, and some of the other stuff we've tried but it doesn't work because you have to change the songs so much. So we learned a lot from that, I mean obviously we've become better songwriters, and like I mentioned before, we don't want to repeat ourselves. We don't want to do Jester Race part 2 or 3, so all the albums that we've made are like a small photograph of who we were back then, and we've never really looked back. I'm proud of everything we've done, except for Tokyo Showdown, which sucks...

But apart from that, we just try to top every album, but obviously that's just our point of view, and people might have different tastes, and that's all fine. It's hard to talk about what happened from album to album right now, but it's hard to give a commentary from album to album, we write the songs with the same writing process.

What do you think of the metal scene today?

It's healthy, it's cool, I'm happy to see that there are lots of bands that can actually play and do something great with their instruments. And all the bands we know, they're great, so...

How is touring the states as opposed to Europe?

The same, the same, but different. You know people over here tend to be a bit more crazy, with big mosh pits and everything, I think in Europe people tend to be a bit more open-minded, like here, "metal is metal" and here there isn't as much crossing from genre to genre. We treat the fans the same, it doesn't really matter where we play, and we have a very good fan base, and we've got strong families all over the world.

If you weren't in a band, what would you be doing?

I have no clue. Music has been my life for a long, long time. I don't know.

No other talents to speak of?

Well, I got a bunch of talents, I mean, I don't know. If this would end today, I would probably take a break for five years, in the meantime figure out what the fuck I want to do with my life.

How exciting was it to play in front of 56,000 people in your hometown last summer?

Oh that was awesome man, I mean it's the biggest venue that we have in Sweden, and to open up for Iron Maiden as direct support, and all the people that were inside actually went crazy. It was amazing. That was a big dream come true, you know, I''ve been to a bunch of soccer games there, when I was younger, and it always seemed so big, and so untouchable by our genre, but we got the chance, and we really took it very well.

Now, on this tour, you've departed from your typical Swedish tour mates. Who set up the tour and what do you think of it?

It's great, I mean we've toured with so many Swedish bands before, and done a bunch of tours with Swedish bands in Europe before we came here, but we don't really pick every single band that we have, we get a bunch of suggestions from managements and agents and so on, "These guys will be good for you," and "These guys really want to tour with you guys," and we can always say yes and no. It's cool, we've had Devildriver opening up for us in Europe, so we know them, and they're great guys, and Trivium, and we loved to meet them, and they're cool guys, and Zao, they're really cool guys, so it's a good mix. We want to tour with all kinds of bands, and guys from different genres and different directions as well, that's a great way to get out to a whole different audience than just the ones that are "converted" already.

So the audience comes out to see In Flames, and they're with a band that doesn't sound like In Flames, and it's different if they'd come out to see Trivium, or they'd come out to see Devil Driver, so it's like "Oh! Hey! These guys are good!"

Oh yeah, it's important for us to put on a great show, because for people to come here and I don't know what they have to pay for tickets, but I mean it's money, and it's a great deal if we can give them a show from the first to the last band. They might not be into it at first but hopefully they go away, and they give us a second look...

Every new melodic death band (Scar Symmetry, Sonic Syndicate) gets compared to you guys. How does it feel to be one of the bands that defined a genre?

I don't know man, it doesn't make me feel better about myself, so...

But really it's cool to be mentioned as an influence, as long as there won't be a backlash in there, like "Oh, I head this band, In Flames, they get mentioned everywhere, blah blah blah," but if it works, people take notice, and if I end my career in 50 years...well, not 50 years, more like 20 years, if I look in an old heavy metal book or something, and there's a band called In Flames that came from Gothenburg, it puts the city and the country on the map, and if we've had an impact, that would make me really proud. I mean it is cool, it's an honor, but I don't feel like I'm basing the world on that. I think it's more of a drag for the bands themselves, the ones that always get mentioned, I would hate to be compared to someone all the time, it's like something that gets in the way, but this style that we do, it's very popular now.

Now on your last record, you switched from Nuclear Blast to Ferret records, what's up?

We were looking for labels that could get our album out in the stores, we've been touring our asses off and should find our album out there. I mean if it's in stores the day you're playing, and they're like "Wow. This is great!" and they want to pick up the album and they can't find it, then forget about it. There are so many albums released every week, we felt that we had to do something about it. Nuclear blast has always been our home carrier, but recently we decided it was time to do something about it. You know, we were fishing around, and Ferret says the right words and I believe them and they're an up-and coming independent label that gives us the freedom to do whatever the fuck we want. And they do the dealing, the distributions, and the promotions of the album. I feel that this has been good for us.

I'd like to get your opinion of a few bands...

Dark Tranquility:

Buddies, from Gothenburg, I've been in the band from the first day until 1994 and that goes on, but yeah. They do what they do.

At the Gates:

We talk about it a lot. We always regret that they don't exist anymore, and they're also one of the pioneers the music that we do, and they're hometown people, really cool guys. But as far as who came out of there, they sounded better than anything else. Great albums...

Scar Symmetry:

I haven't really heard them. I haven't heard anything about it.

Passenger:

I hate those guys.

No, no. It's another band that I am in, and I don't have time really to do anything because of In Flames, they're obviously my priority. Recording an album takes so much time, but we have another album in the works, but it's something that hopefully I'll have a chance to finish it this year, but it doesn't really matter, we were just buddies that accidentally ended up getting signed to a label and it wasn't really supposed to be that way, but they treat us good, and it's a cool label in Century Media, nice bunch of people and we just made it and they released it.

Is there any pressure to top yourselves or live up to a certain standard when you write a new album?

Well when you're done with an album, you feel like "How the fuck are we gonna do the next one?" But that's because you're so...

...burned out?

Yeah, yeah. I mean you record an album and you're completely blank, but then you tour and you start getting hints at the album from that stuff. But we've never really felt that we have any pressure from anybody outside, I mean that we have taken into consideration that we care about, like our record label, but I mean, don't take me the wrong way and it's great to have fans that expect good CDs, but we can't write for them in the first place. And as soon as you start to write an album, it starts to get easier.

What do you think the bands would be like today if you stayed with Dark Tranquillity and Mikael Stanne left for In Flames?

Well they'd be better, obviously. No, its hard to say that Dark Tranquillity would be a better band, I guess, but no, seriously, I don't know man. I mean Mikael Stanne was just a session member in the first place, so it's hard to say.

Over the years, Gothenburg has given the world many talented performers. You guys, Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates, Arch Enemy, the list goes on and on. The latest one, this year, is the goalie of the New York Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist.

Yeah, he rules. He's really, really good. We're really missing him back home.

Were you disappointed when he left Frölunda?

No, no we knew it would happen. I mean I guess you can be disappointed or whatever, but I'm happy for him, and he's proved that he's a great goalie, he's the biggest thing in Gothenburg. I hope that it works out for him in the Olympics as well, that would really be his big break. Even though he got a really big break in New York as well, but maybe this time is for showing the world what a great goalie he is. He might be the greatest that we've ever had in Sweden, so I hope he does well.

See, that's what I'm hoping. The city of New York loves him; he's second in the league in save percentage, second in the league in goals-against average.

Yeah, for a rookie that's amazing. I mean, I think he gave the people a new place to follow back home, they didn't really know about the NHL or whatever, and so I think it's really cool, and it's good for New York, I mean they definitely need to be getting back there, because the last few years didn't work out that well I guess..

Well man, thanks for the interview!

Yup, yup. No problem.

Well there you go. Anders hates the guys in Passenger, Dark Tranquillity would be better with him still in the band, and Henrik Lundqvist is the shit. One out of three of those comments is serious.

Seriously though, Anders and the guys in In Flames are really cool down-to-earth guys, and they put on one hell of a live show. If you're a fan of the new style, grab the new album, "Come Clarity" today. If you're a fan of the older stuff, you still need to see this band live. They rule.