Interview by Jason Williams
Swedish melodic death metal pioneers At The Gates returned to the forefront of the genre with the release of their fifth full-length album ‘At War With Reality’ in 2014 via Century Media Records. Their first LP in 19 years, it has put the band firmly on the global metal map, as they’ve garnered heaps of praise and critical acclaim for the album itself and have toured worldwide in support of it. The touring cycle included a North American headline run for the annual Decibel Magazine tour, and just prior to announcing a limited US run for February 2016, At The Gates visited the States for a one-off gig at Knotfest in San Bernardino, California on October 24th 2015. Our man Jason Williams caught up with vocalist Tomas Lindberg for an interview. Enjoy the conversation below:
How are you doing this afternoon?
Doing great! Just recovering from jetlag (laughs).
So, how are you liking Knotfest? This is one of the first American metal festivals that I can remember, with a really great, quality line up for both days. Most of Europe gets that every single week, and we don’t get those lineups often. As someone from Europe looking at America, do you feel about it?
This is killer, the lineup is brilliant. And you have scenery here, with the big nice park and everything. All of everything you need really, for a metal festival. And when I saw the bill, it’s kind of really … how can I say this? It’s a mix of all the European festivals. I saw Judas Priest, Slipknot and all of these other bands so many times in European festival circuits this summer, with almost the same lineups. It’s killer!
I’d say with this Knotfest festival format, there’s two sides of looking at it. A lot of bands have a one-off show, so fans are able to see bands that they don’t get to quite often. This is also a festival with many bands that are currently touring and playing ‘festival length’ sets. Fans who want those bands as headlining acts are only able to see them for half of the time. Can you see both sides of the argument? And how do you feel, as also a fan of the music, coming to a festival like this?
Well, I’m one of those guys who watches a band for 40 minutes, then I need to do something else (laughs). That’s my attention span for a live thing, actually, like 45 minutes. So, I think festival sets are killer that way. Because, you get all the hits, bang, in and out. Of course, if you’re waiting for a band to come around, and they just play shorter, I don’t know, I can see that argument too. But that’s how it is in Europe, too. All of the bigger bands play for longer.
Your album ‘At War With Reality’, 19 years after ‘Slaughter of the Soul’, was released last October, and I would say compared to ‘Slaughter …’, this is a darker, more twisted record, with not only a lot of the hooks, but very depressing riffing, inverted chords, passages, and even the singing, with lots of slowed-down material. Would you say this is a combination of the 19 years being away, and coming back together?
It’s a very honest album, and it’s really from the heart. I’ve said it before, that I think it still holds true with playing the really old material from the first two records live. With how we are now, I say this lineup, it is the same lineup, but it’s about who we are as musicians now, and hopefully better ones too. Playing those old songs now, this is how they feel. The new record is representative of how it feels to play the old songs live. It’s written in the same kind of atmosphere, because we really wanted to feed off of that, the feeling that we had when we played those songs live.
I consider At The Gates to be part of the ‘Big 3’ for Swedish melodic death metal, with In Flames and Dark Tranquility, and I’ve had the chance to ask DT about it. With In Flames going in the musical direction they’ve gone to and all the success they’ve earned for how they paved their way, and DT kind of slightly changing their sound here and there, but sticking to what works for them, I would say At the Gates is still in that reunion mode to where people are still asking, “Is this the last tour? Is this the last album?” It’s sort of the niche in the moment because as you mentioned, there was supposed to be a final reunion tour, you come back, you end it, then it happens again. So many are wondering if this is it, and how do you feel about this? And if the band has noticed this themselves, what can you expect in the future? Reunion tours, studio albums possibly?
Well, for us, what we noticed when we came back is that we really wanted to be true to ourselves, and not stress anything. Not making any decisions beforehand, you know? Because that’s what made us break up the band in the ’90s, really. We really want to be in the moment and not force anything. We have 100 per cent democracy with the band members, so we take it day by day. And that’s the honest answer, actually. So we don’t know. I mean, I know right now, what’s the last date that we’re booked now, I know that (laughs). But I don’t know if anything else gets booked after that. We’ll say Yes and No to whatever comes up. And the new record … we don’t know either, we’ll take that when we get there. When we feel that touring for this records gets kind of stale, or if it ever does, I don’t even know that. That’s when we take a break, regroup and see, do we have another album in us? Or do we take a short break? We don’t know.
So for the moment, is this your last scheduled performance?
This one? No, we have other announced performances, and other festivals announced for Europe next summer. I don’t know yet (laughs). But we’ll see what happens. I’m very happy where we are and that’s how we want to keep it. Thinking too much about the future, that’s what stresses some of the band members out, to plan too long ahead. We want to keep a natural flow with it, and the freedom is what keeps us motivated almost, you know? Because then we know that we do it because we want to do it, and not because we have to. That’s why most of us still have our day jobs. So that we don’t live off of this, and we don’t have to do gigs because we have to pay the rent, we do it because we want to play these gigs.
That’s interesting, because a lot of bands want to get to that point, where they can live off their music. It’s a beautiful and passionate aspect of being in a band, and at the same time other bands are able to have that, and have their special jobs that allow them to tour, and to have assured income no matter what, to have that security. And speaking of security, I say in the past 2-3 years, the extreme side of metal in America has really come back from before, with the hardcore/deathcore scene slightly dwindling down. From your American tour in March, have you noticed a change in the audience, the promoters, the venues, for the death metal scene, and it all coming back again?
Definitely. There’s a combination of that happening in the positive sense with the scene again. And there’s still the economical crisis, having a leash on everything, it’s a little back and forth. Sometimes you get to the not-so-strong markets on the US tour, where more people could have come out if they had more money. Because, the economy is fucked, isn’t it? (laughs). But the metal scene is stronger in general, and you see a lot more kids around.
For all the experience and years you have as a performing artist, if you had the ability and power to change the scene, whether in America or anywhere else, to help improve the scene and make it better, what would you do? Is there something that people are missing? Are the venues not promoting properly? Are the bands impacting themselves negatively by only promoting on Facebook? Are the fans just not aware of what’s going on? What do you feel could help extreme metal even more so?
It’s a very hard question to answer, very tough … I mean, I guess if you look at the countries that have a really strong metal scene, like Germany or Finland, or something, I think it comes, with the German organization part (laughs), you can’t fuck with that. If you go to Wacken, everything’s figured out, you know? It’s the same with Finland. They’re very precise, very meticulous with what they do. I don’t know, but all of the strong places where metal is doing good and is healthy with a lot of people coming out, it also has to do with the economy as well, and I keep coming back to that. Then you have the more, even poorer countries that have a passionate metal scene, like Chile and Argentina, or places like this, but they don’t have the money to go to the shows. There are a lot of bands, and more people, more stuff happening now. But, that kind of “desperate” passion that you can still see in those countries, it used to be everywhere. And it made us stick together more. I don’t know, maybe I miss that sometimes and maybe that could help. Some people still think of this as a fashion, something you put on on the weekend, your metal clothes. These countries as they used to be before, Sweden and everywhere else, death metal was a lifestyle, it was something that you choose to be. I don’t know if that was an answer to your question (laughs).
It was a proper perspective, on different countries and how they can operate. You said that the band broke up right after ‘Slaughter of the Soul’ in an unfortunate, negative way. Now that the band is back, and that the new album is a large reflection of your older material, can you say that this is the best the entire band has ever felt, spiritually, mentally and even physically? Do you also feel that this is the exact point everyone wanted to be in continuing after ‘Slaughter of the Soul’?
Yes, this is the album that should have come out immediately after ‘Slaughter of the Soul’. And I think if we could write and perform this album in ’98 or whatever, we would have done it. This is a perfect album for us. It can’t get any better for us, actually. It’s how we wanted it to sound. And I think this is how we would have wanted to go to, too. But, we were very young. And there was so many things happening in our personal lives, and also in the underground metal scene, because nu-metal was happening, and it was a very confusing time. It was hard to really focus on trying to be really true to yourselves, and that’s why we kind of fell apart. Nowadays, we are more relaxed, and we are in a very fortunate situation, of course. We can pick and choose a little bit playing shows. So it is easier.
And my last question, the band lives in a wonderful country that has a lot of wonderful beers and drinks to choose from. Can you recommend anything in particular? Any really great selections of beers, comparable to say Goose Island, Hefeweisen, really amazing Non-Bud Light beers?
There’s a lot of beers and micro-breweries in our country, but they’re probably very hard to find here. We have like three or four only in my little town outside of Gothenburg. I don’t think you can get them here, but there’s so many microbreweries going on. We have one called Electric Nurse, from my village, which is really, really good. A small beer craft company. There’s ton of them. The biggest one in Scandinavia, like the biggest trend to say, the one that people are trying to follow, is Macluer. They do stuff together with Three Floyds, sometimes. It’s a really good bar, and a craft beer place.
Any last words you’d like to say to the fans all around the world and those attending Knotfest?
Thanks for checking us out as usual, it’s great that At the Gates fans are the most fantastic fans in the world, we really look forward to playing tonight.
At The Gates links: website | facebook | twitter
At The Gates US tour dates with Decapitated, The Haunted & Harms Way:
02/09/2016 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution Live
02/10/2016 – Orlando, FL @ House of Blues *
02/11/2016 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
02/13/2016 – Dallas, TX @ Gas Monkey
02/14/2016 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
02/16/2015 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theatre
02/17/2015 – Phoenix, AZ @ Marquee Theatre
02/18/2016 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
02/19/2016 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
02/20/2016 – Pomona, CA @ The Glasshouse
02/21/2016 – San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
* At The Gates and Harms Way only
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