After long years of asking for live CD of Sabaton by fans, Swedish war machine decided to release it. We succeeded to take a deeper look on how actually looks like tour of Sabaton, we find out why they were making show for nearly empty hall when it was sold out and we uncover how were born some really unique shows that are typical for Sabaton. It all was uncovered to us by bass player of Sabaton – Pär Sundström and thanks to next few lines you can learn more about it as well …

Hello, how are you?

Fine … I have had one of the longest vacation in my life I think (Laugh). For three days I´ve had been on Northlands so there was no communication, no working on internet, so … yeah. That was great.

Great … so you are fresh … let´s do the interview. You finally decided to release live album with DVD but material for DVD was recorded 3 years ago on Rockstad Fallun ´08. Why did you decided to release it just now?

Actually, DVD material we have lying for three years and when we shot that show 3 years ago, we decided – OK, this would be a DVD. But in that time, we don’t have the means of producing the DVD and we´ve had our previous record label. So what we did was that we recorded the show, but we didn´t know what to do with it afterwards. So what we did was just let it lying around and doing nothing with it. Now, we say – OK, this is a cool show and it was something special … because it was the first year of our festival which is now going stronger and next years are gonna be three days … this was first year with only one day … and with only few bands, now we have three days with many bands and it is growing and growing and … it´s not as show that Sabaton do today but it still have spirit that is typical for us.

The Battle of Baltic Sea contains material recorded on Sabatonkryssen 2010. How satisfied were you with this sailing gig?

Well, that was a perfect success! The idea was born out of that we were planning the routing of the tour and we know that we have to travel somehow from Sweden to Finland and it could be, of course, over the sea and there is like – “Hm, we have to cross the sea and we need a ship and we can just rent a space on ship and travel”, but we decided to make some fun of it and we hired whole fucking ship. Then we invite fans and friends and do this to become a metal boat. After all of this, we feel like this show was very special and something we also want to share.

This live CD comes with material recorded on different shows over Europe. Who was choosing what song would be recorded where? Who was choosing location?

Well, we recorded almost every show of that tour. We do not choose before. We recorded entire show basically without having plan if we´re gonna release it or not. When it all is over, we got so much material recorded that a friend of us spent one whole week just to mix these gigs, just to set volume to right. Then we started to choose the songs and it wasn’t easy thing because we wanted to make show that songs on CD2 won´t be same as on CD1 and after we played us CD1, we tried to make CD2, we choose the songs but we don’t know where they were recorded. All, because on tour we got more than 30 songs that we played but some songs we played only once or twice and they were kind difficult to find. We were trying to retrieve the setlists from that nights to find that specific song.

The Battle of Baltic Sea contains video for Coat of Arms but I really can´t find out when it was recorded, released or whatever. Has it world premiere on this DVD?

Oh, yeah, yeah. It would be that. It has not been shown before but … we had some ideas for it because it was the first video we produced, even before Screaming Eagles and Uprising. Coat of Arms had to be first to produced but we never found a good way to release it, so … we had some plan with release of it but we didn’t do it, so now it would be the first time for fans to see it. 

Can you tell us more about recordings and ideas of this video? 

The video is based on cartoon movie where drawings show story behind the song about the battle between Greece and Italy and starts out with declaration of war between those countries and Greeks say “No, we won´t accept your occupation until the end” and then the video is cartoon showing this war and some scenes of band playing. 

Let´s talk about tour a bit … how looks your ideal concert?

Ooh … how my ideal concert would be … I got wish that one day I should produce the show that has everything I want and it would be big show with lot of  actors, lots of lights, lots of pyrotechnics and … yeah … that´s it … something like that. 

Were you ever thinking about playing concerts on battlefields about which you are singing in your songs?

We´ve actually had that opportunity once. It´s … well … we played in Warsaw and Berlin but it´s not same as playing on actual battlefield. But we played on the battlefield in Wizna, Poland. The song about this place is 40-1 and we are able to play on actual battlefield in about 70 days to battle to the hour and that was very magical night. 10,000 people came to see us play on the actual battlefield…

How looks your normal day when you are on tour?

Normal day when I am on tour? Well, it´s kind a difficult to say because there is nothing like something normal when we are on tour. There is one tour for example in Europe and we´re headline band and we almost have idea what´s gonna happened every day and it´s not to be that difficult. I mean there is usually lot trouble with big production. We´re going there quite early and mostly we have hangover in the morning. We are just walking around doing interviews and it´s sound checking and working on the sound and rehearsing and that´s it. I don’t think that what we do every day is kind a different. If we are lucky to times we can go visit something – maybe memorials or something like that … if we are lucky. But normally, we cannot leave the venue because we have to wait for sound checks and stuff like that. 

During the World War Tour, you have to find alternates for a few times. How was it to make shows with different people?

That was strange experience because … for example with the drumming – I had not played with many drummers in my life. For the first time I played my instrument with drummer, it was with Daniel and for a short while he was not in the band. It was probably in ´98 or ´97 … even before Joakim join the band. And that was last time I played with someone else than Daniel. Now, it was difficult thing … for three times we have to change drummer, you know for a very short amount of time but we made it. We also had to change Rikard on guitars in one tour. We were very thankful to Frederic from Dragonforce to be able to do tour with us. He is a cool guy, he worked with us and there is a chemistry. We feel that if there has to be replacement, it only would be temporary when somebody come to Sabaton. We are same members as we are on beginning and that is very important thing for us in the band. 

You visited many countries for the first time during World War Tour. What country inspires you the most? 

I think that there are some countries that were really cool to play in where we hadn’t played headline before and it was good to see that it actually works. One of the places where I was the most happiest to play was probably in United Kingdom, because everybody said to us “the UK is dead for your kind of metal, it´s a waste of time, nobody would care for you” but it was big success. UK was for me very positive experience to go to on this tour. 

Had you visited some by war well known places during the tour?

Let me think … it was a long tour so … but we had been to memorials in Germany and in Eastern Europe as well – in Poland and sometimes we were able to do that but usually we don’t have so much time to go on that. 

Now a bit more strange questions… what was the weirdest concert you´ve ever played?

Hmm … a long time ago we did this one. It was actually very funny at the same time. It was a concert in France. We played a show and I think there were only 2 or 3 people who bought a ticket to it. We realized that there is only a few there we gave them back money, we gave them all the T-shirts and CDs they wanted and we gave them free drinks at bar and we locked the door and said “This place is sold out” – not cancelled but sold out so nobody else would come out during the evening and then we chat with organisers of concert and those people and we played the longest setlist on whole tour for those people. I think that was a kind of weird – to play for empty hall and we don’t let people inside because we decided that we want to give those people something really special. 

Who was the craziest fan you´ve ever met?

Oh, there are many but it depends on how you think crazy. I think it´s really crazy when they come and want to marry us or something like that – that should be the one way and I say when also people name their children with our names and they don’t even live in Sweden. It´s kind odd to give them such strange names. I think that is sort of crazy. 

Can you remember the worst alcohol you drank on tour? 

Yes, I know that. It was the German schnaps called Essacher Luft (?) and we drink it all the time (Laugh). It´s a really really really strong one.

What was the craziest thing you get as gift on tour?

(Laugh) It could be my guy´s girlfriend, probably. (Laugh … really long one)

You are planning to record a new album in a beginning of next year. Have you already had some material or can you disclose anything about this album already? 

We had done some part for it but there is nothing like concept. There are some musical ideas and there are still some writings when we have time on tour. But we have a great feeling about next album because we have lots of ideas for the songs and I am sure it´s gonna be good and it´s planned to be released next spring.

Lot of people are doing music about love, life, politics or whatever but you as one are singing about one of the darkest eras of Europe and whole world in history. What are you trying to say with songs you play? 

We´re telling a history as it was to be on fact as possible. We´re not really having any political songs about it. Of course it would be nice to say to world – “not to fight each other anymore, because war is kind of bad for everyone” but unfortunately, it´s a human nature to fight each other and make war. We cannot be people who would preach and somebody who would tell people what to do or not to do. We are just singing what has been done. 

If we talk about the songs I found out, that you don’t talk about most recent conflicts or conflicts where we cannot correctly say who is good and who is bad. Why?

You´ve already said the answer. We can´t say who won. Those are politically loaded conflicts and there is still rage, you know, we don’t want to be involved in that. All because we don’t know to say what would happen and how all would involve. It´s better to write about historical facts, because those are kind a non-negotiable. They are facts and OK, they happened. They were shit but they still happened. That is much better than to write about what happens now and it´s shit. We don’t want to do that because it will make us political.

You´ll finish European part of tour in Poland and Slovakia. Can we expect some special shows or something special on those concerts? (Interview was done before announcement of concert in Belgium at 18th Dec.)

Yeah, I mean … the end of the tour, the final part of the tour is actually divided into two parts. The one that is together with Grave Digger and Powerwolf and Skullfist which is The Power of Metal Tour. This one would be our smaller shows and it will be in bigger halls but it would be smaller shows from Sabaton sight because there will be more bands and little bit shorter gigs. But the shows in Poland and Slovakia are full for Sabaton shows. The show in Slovakia that we will do would have featured fully Sabaton show.