One band I really hold high is In Mourning. And since they are releasing their new album today I thought it would be nice to get some more information about them. So that’s why I got this mail-interview with the band.
Here it is:
Hello In Mourning! To whom am I speaking?
Howdy! This is the bass player of the orchestra, Pierre Stam.
Could you introduce yourself and the band? Who you are, and how know each other?
I’ve played the bass with In Mourning since the start in 1999 and Tobias Netzell has also been with the band from the start. Me and Tobias went to school together where we became friends and grew our biggest intresst, music. We spend hours listening to records, headbanging and drawing pentagrams, haha. It was a very exciting time with lots of music to discover. This was also the time before internet so you had to a constant search for music, we did cassette tapes of each other’s albums and lent albums from friends and so. That’s how you learned about new bands, otherwise you had to go to the nearest records store, 100 km with bus from Borlänge where you could listen to albums and if you had the money also buy them. I remember that we took the bus to Stockholm just to be able to go to the store Sound Pollution and find new metal albums.
I had started to play the guitar a couple of years earlier and me and Tobias decided to start a band, this was around 1997 or so.
Then we tried a lot of different members and band names until the end of 1999 when Tobias older brother Christian Netzell started to play the drums with us and we changed name to In Mourning. Then we released five demos during a couple of years with different band members except for me, Tobias and Christian that were together all the time. It was a period where we searched for our sound and the right members. When we got Björn Pettersson and Tim Nedergård on guitar it felt completely right and we knew that we had potential, so now we were on the move!
We were able to land a record deal and recorded our debut, “Shrouded Devine” in 2008, and after that it just rolled on with two more albums. Then Christian decided to leave the band. And the combination of finding a good replacement and the fact that all members in the band got children, made the time between the album “Weight Of Oceans” and “Afterglow” became pretty long. But since Daniel Liljekvist decided to join the band, things are starting to move on again.
My first contact with you was at Falun Rockstad, don’t know if it was the first or second edition of the festival. But I remember how me and my girlfriend immediately fell for your music! We’re big fans of Opeth, and the first thing we said was that you sounded a bit like early Opeth! What do you thing about that comparison?
I think it was the second edition of the festival. I don’t think that we sound that much alike Opeth, even if there are many others who made that comparison, but there surely are stuff that speak to Opeth-fans in our music. We’re definitely a band in the same genre, and we might have similar thinking in some of the structures of the music, combining hard and progressive and stuff, so I understand that we are being compared. Opeth is a really great band so there are worse band to be compared with!
How would you describe your music?
It’s always difficult to do that, it’s always hard to know how it really sounds when you’re so deep within your music as one is with the songs in a band. I guess it’s melodic death metal with a progressive touch.
Your new album “Afterglow” is about to be released! How does it feel?
It feels really good, we’ve worked hard with this album on and off for almost four years, so it’s a big relief that it’s finished and ready to be released. And also, we are very happy with outcome of the album so we’re looking forward to others being able to listen to it of course!
How was it recording it? It seems that when you finally got started, it all ran smoothly?
Since we had some issues with the drummer situation, it took a while to get started. We had rehearsed the most with another drummer, but it didn’t really work the way we wanted, it didn’t sound as good as we wanted. But when Daniel joined we picked up the pace, although we had to re-arrange some songs and so, but when it feels right it’s so much easier. The recording went smoothly, except mix and master that was a bit on and off before we were satisfied. Much because the whole band was involved in that process, five different opinions from five stubborn fuckers! Which doesn’t make things easier, hahaha! But in the end it got really good I think.
(Here’s my review of the album: https://crannk.com/review-mourning-afterglow-maybe-best-album-year/)
You switched drummer close to the recording. Did that effect the music/recording in any way?
That’s right, or well Daniel joined when we did a tour in Poland so he had to rehearse a couple of old songs first. Right after that it was time to start rehearse for the new album, so it was pretty much right in the recording of the new album. I can’t tell you enough of good things about Daniel, he’s an amazing drummer and he has definitely moved In Morning forward musically speaking. He’s also very good at arrangement and has a lot of creative ideas which I hope we can use even more when it’s time for the next album.
Right from the start I think you’re a band that has released rather complexed albums, but it feels like you have taken even further steps on the new album?
Well that might be true, depending on how you define complex. We’re not really a rather technical advanced band if you think of the way we build our songs, but variation might be in the complex thinking and on the new album it might be more so than before.
How satisfied are you with the new album? Is there anything you would like to change?
In all we are very satisfied, then I think that everybody has something they would like to change or do different. But one has to compromise and when there are the five of you that sometimes think different it is a question of getting it together.
Will there be a tour in Sweden for the new album? How is otherwise with gigs (in Europe/the world) this year?
I doubt that, a couple of festivals I think, but that’s probably it. We might have some gigs going in Europe later. It’s all about to make it work for us in the band with work and families and so, so we have to choose the gigs that are possible. The way our situation is today, we can’t be a heavily touring band, that’s nothing either of us would choose right now.
What are your influences?
Wow! That’s a lot, all from really heavy hard metal to pop and rock. We have very different taste in music in the band, even if we share a lot of the same influences as well. The list would be too long to write down here, but I also think that this contribute a lot to how we sound and what we do. We sort of have a broad spectrum of what goes into the music.
How does your fanbase look like in Sweden? I know that I was the first among my friends to like you, but in fact ALL of those that I played your music to, think that you are great!
It has always been slow in Sweden, we mostly get response outside Sweden.
Sweden is always considered as one of the best countries in the world when it comes to hardrock and metal. Swedish bands are a constant influence but our bands are relative small. Shouldn’t we have more bands headlining big festivals?
I think that it might depend on the fact that Swedish metal aren’t that mainstream, so it might appeal to a smaller audience. But that is often something that influences other musicians and bands. And also, it seems that Nordic metal is kind of exotic, especially in north America but also Asia and the Middle East.
How come that Sweden that produces so many metal bands have so lousy audience? It’s only a handful of band that gets an audience and can do tours in Sweden (like Hammerfall, Sabaton, In flames), the rest has to go abroad. How’s your situation, are you able to a tour in Sweden and be sure that you have an audience in like my hometown, Eskilstuna?
Well, now, it’s hard to get some gigs in Sweden. We always have more people on our shows in Europe than in Sweden, which is kind of confusing. I don’t really know why that is.
Speaking of touring, we run an “international” blog, in the way that we are three persons, I’m from Sweden, one’s from Canada and one of us is from Australia. Have you ever had the chance to play in Canada and Australia? If not, what are the possibilities that you might go there? Is that something you’re aiming to do?
We haven’t played outside Europe yet, we’ve had some offers, but nothing that has worked out yet. It’s kind of a difficult project to do shows far away when we only do a few shows in a row. And there is a lot of logistics and financial that has to work, but if the right offer comes our way and we can make it work with everything else it would be amazing to those kind of gigs as well. So we welcome every offer in that way!
It got kind of silent after the last album “The Weight of Oceans”, was it something that happened or were you just out playing shows?
As I said earlier, we all got kids during that period. And we switched drummer and record company so there was a lot of stuff where we couldn’t work on the album as we had wished and it also had some influences on the number of gigs that we did and had planned.
I recently did an interview with Chips from Sator, and he said that there isn’t any rock-bands in Sweden today that only have their music for a living. Is it the same for you, can you be musicians full time, and if not, what do you do earn money?
Well, that might not be totally correct, think the guys in The Hives are working extra in a coffee-shop, but it is harder today for bands to earn a living on just their music. We all have full-time jobs so the music is just something we do on our spare time, and we do it because it’s something we love to do, not to be rich and famous.
Your hometown is Vansbro, maybe not the largest of towns in Sweden… But what do you think about the metal-scene in the area?
There is some really good bands, maybe not in Vansbro, but absolutely in our county, which always have had a good growth in music. Not always in metal, but a damn good music scene I think.
When you’re not creating magical metal, what do you do in your spare time?
I have two kids so there is a lot of family-time, but I write some music and I also play in two other orchestras, Windom End and Palefeather. Both band is really different from what we do in In Mourning, I guess it’s more about progressive rock. I also fish a lot, as much as possible, an interest I also share with Tobias, so sometimes we’re off chasing that big one hahaha!
What kind of music do you listen to in your car for the moment?
Right now it’s a lot of Mastodon and City Boy. Just bought the new album by Hawkwind so I give that some listening- time as well, but not in my car, because it’s vinyl so that stays in my living-room.
And to finish it all off, do you have any message to your fans?
Hope we see you on a gig sometime soon and hope you like the new album. Stay true, take care and the whole god damn, cheers and all of that! Cheers and thank you so much!
And that’s all folks! Once again, thank you so much for taking the time, and hopefully I’ll see you out there in the future!
CHEERS!
\m/ Peps
You can find the Spotify-link to the album below the video!
In case you missed it, here is my review of the album: https://crannk.com/review-mourning-afterglow-maybe-best-album-year/
Here’s the link to deezer: http://www.deezer.com/album/12924846
