rozhovor_2016-09-24_Sabaton_en - HELLMAGAZINE
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ROZHOVORY
Many of you can remember band playing on Masters of Rock festival at 12, as one of first foreign acts. Area in front of stage was nearly empty and nobody knows these guys. It was 10 years ago. Few years ago, they were playing at same festival as headliner and now they are becoming one of the most perspective bands. We are talking about warriors from far North – Swedish Sabaton which is experiencing little changes lately, releasing new album and starting long lasting tour around the globe again. And we had option to speak with brain of the band and its bass player – Pär Sundström who happily answered all our questions.
The Last Stand is the name of your new album. Can you describe it with few words?
To describe the Last Stand, I think I can say i tis natural follower to Heroes album. The topics talk about a lot of things that actually could be on Heroes album because lot of the last stands we sing about ... well, they are quite a heroes. The big difference is that we no longer focus on World War II or World War I because the first thing that came on our mind when we spoke about last stand is Battle of Thermopylae which we sing about in song Sparta and the last stand of samurais which became song Shiroyama. With this we were already unbound to do anything because we were already over 2 and a half thousand years back in history and we were also in Asia so we could do whatever we wanted … and this was in a lot of ways liberating when it comes to the songwriting because there are suddenly no limits. This is also why some things spread out a little bit and we are trying new things when it comes to the lyrics and music. We are doing a lot of things that are typical Sabaton but there are some things that stands out of our usual stuff we did before. I think that Sabaton fans are definitely gonna feel that this album is Sabaton but also a little bit fresh.
How you liked to record song “Blood of Bannockburn”? It is a little special because it is pretty happy and there is also usage of backpipes, you know …
Initially it hasn’t had backpipes, it had Hammond organ as the lead instrument but after I written lyrics for it looked like it would actually be possible to fit in backpipes on this one. It is very complicated instrument to use because you can´t really replay anything with backpipes, it is a little bit limited. But worked out with this one to use backpipes in few parts of the song and I think it is very interesting instrument because there is very few instruments in the world when you could listen to one instrument and you instantly know where in the world you are. Backpipes are Scotland and it is pretty much the only place they are from and where they are famous so instantly when you hear the start of the song, you know the song is about Scotland which is quite unique and perfectly fits the song.
How was it to switch from your traditional guns, tanks and cannons to swords, spears and shields?
It bring us some variation because there are only few weapons in the World War II and so we are little bit repeating ourselves here and there. It was kind of liberating to write these songs and there is also the title track of the album “The Last Stand” which is about the Rome and it has something in common with religion for obvious reasons and we had therefore new vocabulary for that song and obviously there were no tanks back in Sparta, that is also new vocabulary. So, yeah, it was very nice and liberating that we were unbound when it comes to vocabulary on this album.
When you are speaking about unusual instruments for Sabaton … you were playing with orchestra a year ago on Rock in Vienna festival. How you liked it and how you enjoyed this whole experience?
It was a long time since we started thinking about playing with the orchestra because we felt that our music fits orchestra very well because we use a lot of orchestral arrangements on the album so for us, it was natural step to play with the orchestra. Some bands have it more complicated because they are much more about rock´n´roll but for us it is quite a natural step and it was really exciting to do it for the first time and now we know how to do it even better if we would do it in the future. Now we don’t have any plans for it but I am sure there would again be time when we would do it. Right now we are doing songs in more heavy metal way. For next, I don’t know, one and a half year we don´t know. Then we will see what comes.
When it comes to new album and songs on the new album, there is one thing than made really strong impact on me and it was “Diary of Unknown Soldier”. Can you tell us a little more about this short piece?
The song is intro for the song “The Lost Battalion” and in this song, we are not using drum kits, we are using sample drums with sounds of war, actually. We changed drumkit to something different, for example instead of kick drum, we are using machine gun which is sampled and this “Diary of Unknown Soldier” is intro where we are introducing one sound after another to make listener understand it a little bit more, so he could understand a little better what he can hear when he listen to “The Lost Battalion”. It is nothing we found, I wrote it for listener to understand “The Lost Battaion” more.
At the end of the album, there are few surprise songs – cover versions, where you have Stan Ridgeways and Judas Priest songs on classic album and Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister on limiteds. How do you enjoyed playing those songs and when it comes to Iron Maiden cover, was there some response from the band since you were touring with them this summer?
We haven’t heard back anything from Iron Maiden on this but it was good to do such a thing since we all love Iron Maiden and it is good to do few cover now and then. We done it on most albums so far because it is liberating in a way because we would not be judged for those songs, but for our own songs. It is nice to tribute some bands and sometimes it sounds pretty good. But of course a lot of people would say that original sounds much better but we are OK with that. It is still great to get such feedback anyway. It is liberating because there is no need to make those songs better than original, we just do them Sabaton way.
There was big change in past few weeks in Sabaton camp – Thobbe left the band and you introduced a new band member playing guitars and doing backing vocals – Tommy Johansson. How did he fit the band?
It is exciting to have him. At first, it was really sad that Thobbe decided to leave but he wants to do his own style, write his own songs and not to tour as lot. But we surely stayed friends and we want to help him out if possible. For his replacement, it was pretty quick choice because when we step back few years ago when four members of the band quitted, the first one we actually asked was Tommy because we know him since like 2005. He was great musician and big fan of Sabaton. He was first one we called at the time but at that time, he couldn’t do it because he had so much work with his own music. It didn’t worked out at that time but few years later when Thobbe decided to left Sabaton the first one I called was Tommy and said immediately “Yeah, sure, I´d love to do it !” and he is here and it worked out really good. It feels pretty natural to have him in the band because he knows the songs, he pays them a lot of tribute and it sounds great with him.
Your tour plans are again containing Slovakia, which is great! You lined up with well-known German legend Accept. Are you thinking of two Stalingrads played on one stage?
(Laugh) Well, if we would be playing Stalingrad and they would be playing Stalingrad, it would be pretty funny. When we were thinking about this we asked Accept if they want to do it and they said Yes which is pretty great because over the years we made a lot of fans that don’t know about Accept and Accept have a lot of fans not knowing about us. I think it is great because in the end it would be the fans that would have enjoy this the most because they would be able to enjoy the show of several great bands in one evening.
You were asked to do a soundtrack for the game few years ago – it was for Hearts of Iron IV. What about you and gaming and your relation to video games?
Well, I like games. I was a big fan of computer games when I was younger but these days I sadly have not much time even if I love games. I know there are a lot of people who like Sabaton and they are listening to our music when they are playing video games so once we did this show in Sweden and there came guys from Paradox which is company that created all those Hearts of Iron games and we started to talk after the show and we realized they are our big fans and they are listening to our music while programming games. They were like “What if we would enter your songs as a soundtrack to our game?” We thought it was good idea and we get a lot of pretty good feedback from gamers as well.
There would be again same question as always – what about the songs about Slovakia?
(Nervous laugh) Well, maybe one day. For this album, we could not fit it. But maybe in the future!
Added: Samuel Sámel
Added: 24.09.2016